Mahamudra - Season 2
Sept - Dec 2025
Sept - Dec 2025
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
Playlist in YouTube: Mahamudra YouTube playlist
Season 1 Notes: Jan-July 2025 Mahamudra
The notes below were taken by a student; please let us know of any errors you notice. Text in blue font is AI generated and has not been cleaned yet.
Links to Audios of Meditations:
Class 24 (25:08) - Class 24
Class 25 (17:45) - Class 25 - Meditation 1
Class 25 (17:12) - Class 25 - Meditation 2
Class 26 (22:53) - Class 26 - Meditation
Class 27 (26:28) - Class 27 - Meditation
Class 28 (27:14) - Class 28 - Meditation
Class 29 (22:34) - Class 29 - Meditation
Class 30 (50:43) - Class 30 - Meditation
Class 36 (24:21) - Class 36 - Meditation
For the recording, welcome back. We are Mahamudra practice group. This is September 2nd, 2025.
I'm very happy to be back into our routine. It feels like a long time. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do.
Meditation:
Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And there they are with you just by way of your thinking of them.
They are 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 them 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.
Deep down we know this is what we are meant to become. Studying emptiness and karma, we glimpse how it's possible. And so we turn our minds back to our holy being.
We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. 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 perfect 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 a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.
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 reach 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 in this class and the rest, may we reach 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.
[7:16]
I thought we could read the root text together to get back on the same page.
So I'll just go according to who's on my screen. And if you prefer not to read or not available, just say you pass, that will be fine.
And so I'm going to start.
Okay. There's our root text, Victory Road to the Great Seal by the first Panchen Lama Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen. I bow down to Mahamudra.
My holy Lama,
In you is the entire store of wisdom
Grom a billion enlightened beings.
Yet you masquerade in the dance
Of donning the saffron robes.
To you, the one who grants to me
The three kindnesses
With deep respect, do I press my head
To the lotus beneath your feet.
Lama Sumati
Mahamudra is the essential drop within the hearts
of every victor - past, present or future.
It is the core of the meaning in the great ocean
Of teachings - open or secret.
And so in the footsteps of every
Mighty yogi who has Gone to Bliss,
I will now set forth a light to
Make this practice of Mahamudra
crystal clear.
Maddy, please. Thank you.
Mahamudra reaches everywhere.
It is the nature of everything.
There are no words to describe
The invisible diamond realm of mind.
I place my head with great respect
at the holy feet of my matless Lama,
Lord among yogis, master of all
who lays the teachings bare.
Following the footsteps of that highest yogi
Dharma Vajra and his spiritual son
Who distilled from that great ocean
Of Gelug advices, both open and secret,
Asingle drop of the essence -
The perfect summary.
I grant to you this book of guidance
On the practice of Mahamudra.
Divide this teaching into three:
The prelude, the main event
And the conclusion,
Here now is the first of the three:
Should I continue? Let's go to Janet.
Since refuge is the entrance to
The teachings of the Buddha
And the wish, the central pillar
Holding up the Greater Way,
Just mouthing words is not enough -
Fervently take refuge
And bring the wish into your heart.
Thank you. Tong.
Whether or not you can see
The reality of your mind
Depends on how well you have
Gathered goodness and
Cleared away the dirt.
So purify your broken vows
With a 100 syllables,
complete exactly a 100,000 mantras.
Then do the hundred postrations
As many cycles as you can.
Thank you. Mike.
Now beg for help from the root Lama,
The one inseparable in nature from
Every Buddha of the past, present or future.
Go to them again and again
From the bottom of your heart.
Smati.
Although there are myriad schools of thought
On the subject of Mahamudra,
They can all be grouped into
The open and secret ways.
Nati.
This is the Mahamudra of
Sarah and the exalted Nagarjuna.
This is the Mahamudra of
Naropa and Maitreya, Maitripa.
Thank you. Roshna.
It is the deepest core within
The unsurpassed class of the secret word,
Illumined in the collected works,
´Attainina` and ´The essenc`.
Amrita.
Then there is the former one
Of the great medium and brief,
Which teaches us directly
How to meditate on emptiness.
And Janet. [And as an aside, Luisa also said she could read]
As that highest realized being,
Nagarjuna has stated,
“There is no other path to freedom
Any different than this”.
Luisa. [Thank you, Janet. Thank you, Lama[
In keeping with this, with his true intent
In the words of the Lamas of my lineage,
Now at last the time has come
To give the instructions of Mahamudra,
The way to meet your mind face to face.
The spontaneous capsule,
Gauma.
The practice of the Give
Balancing a bitter taste,
Instruction in four Syllables,
Putting our torment to Rest,
cutting off the object,
The great completion;
A book of notes on middle way view ….
Samanti.
It has been emburdened
With so many different names,
But anybody's skilled in both
The text and arts of reasoning,
Or any yoga who has had,
The actual experience
Can delve into their true meaning
And see that they all come down to
The same basic idea.
Mike.
There are two methods we can use
To undertake this practice -
Using the view to reach meditation
And using meditation to reach the view.
Here we will be following
The letter of the two.
And Luisa.
Atop a seat conducive
For reaching meditation,
Fix yourself in the seven pointed
Posture of the body.
Nati.
Clear away with the nine-fold
Cycle of the breath,
Learn to call the mental fluff
Grom the crystalline awareness.
Roshna.
Then with a heart of pure virtue
Take refuge and bring up the Wish.
As we did before,
Meditate on the profound path -
The yoga of the Lama
And after you have begged Them
Earnestly a hundred times,
Watch the Lama dissolve into you.
Vika.
Don't let any conceptions
Drag you into hopes or fears
Within the state of wavering appearance.
Go and test the waters
Of deeper meditation,
Where there is no movement whatsoever.
And Janet.
Just like falling into sleep
Or losing consciousness,
Don't try to stop
The thoughts which come to mind.
And Tom.
Set yourself off at a distance
Of undistracted awareness.
Use a century of the mind
To catch it running here or there.
Samati
Then hone in on your focus
To gaze nakedly upon
Its true nature - crystal and aware.
Whatever mental picture
Happens to arise,
Meet it face to face
For whatever it is.
Mike.
Or be like a blademaster,
Chopping off the head
Of any conceptual thought
That dares to show its face.
And Luisa.
Then at the end of battle,
When you are staying, still,
Let go, without
Relinquishing awareness.
Lock it down, then
Let it loose
This is where
to lift your mind.
And Becca.
So they say, and furthermore,
If you release
This mind of yours,
All tangle up in knots.
Have no doubt that
You will be released.
Ashna.
Loosen up
Just as it states,
Without getting distracted.
Nadi.
And when you look into the face
Of any thought that come your way
They simply vanish by themselves -
Fading into emptiness;
Nice, Janet.
Then even as you stay there, still
Investigate the mind.
You will see its emptiness unveiled,
Luminous and clear.
This is known as “mixing
The moving with the still”.
And Tom.
So, don't stop an image
If it happens to arise.
Recognize it as movement
Stay in its true nature
It's similar to the metaphor
Of a bird held captive on a boat
Who tries to fly away.
Samati
It´s just like the raven
Who flies from a boat -.
Once it circles around
In every direction,
He'll come back to
Land on it again.
And Mike.
If you continue in this way…
You'll see the face of meditation,
crystalline and bright
Unobscured by anything at all.
And since it has no solid form,
It is like the sky,
Inherently empty.
And anything that crosses it
Is likewise crystal clear.
Lisa.
“If you release
This mind of yours
All tangled up in knots,
Have no doubt that you will be released”.
“Lock it down, then
Let it loose -
This is where
To leave your mind”
These days, almost every master
Meditating in this snow capped peaks
Is singing with a single voice - .
“When you see directly
This ultimate nature of your mind,
It is of course by utilizing,
Meditative vision
But it cannot be defined -
You cannot point and say “It´s this.”
The guidance precede into our hands
By the Able Buddhas is to
Hold the mind loose
Without grasping onto
anything that comes to mind.”
And Rachna shna.
What they say is true of course,
But Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen
will tell you how it is.
This technique is an extraordinary
Way to trick beginners
Into reaching mental stillness.
And it is also the way to
Encounter the deceptive state
Of your mind face-to-face.
And Nati,
But how to meet the unlimited nature
Of your mind face-to-face?
Now I will explain to you
The way to go about it
By setting forth the whispered words
Of my own root Lama.
And Janet.
The One who holds the wisdom
Of enlightened Buddhas.
The one who lures us through the guise
Of holding saffron robes.
The one who washes clean away
The darkness of my mind.
And Tom.
And I agree that one is free
From all elaboration
In either the cycle or beyond -
Free from any extreme
Or existent or like -
Within the deep space of
A perfect suchness meditation.
And Sumati
And once you've emerged from it,
If you stop to look around,
You'll find a world in name alone
Siimply a projection.
And Mike.
The independent workings of things
Arise infallibly
They seem to rise up on their own
Just like a dream or a mirage
A moon inside a lake,
Or a magical display.
And Risa.
The play of this appearing world
In no way negates emptiness.
And emptiness is not a
Reputation of appearances.
Vekal.
When emptiness and interdependence
Become one and the same,
that's pure and perfect.
Paths call forth into being.
And Rachna
It is that wise old recluse
Known as Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen
Who has spoken this advice to you.
And by the virtue I have done,
May every single wandering soul
Quickly rise to victory
By traveling this path,
This one and only door to peace.
May all beings be happy.
[23:38]
Yay.
How did your break time go? In terms of your meditation practice. We left off where we were just starting to go looking for the Me, according to my notes. How'd you do? Anybody care to share?
[Student: I could share].
Thanks, Janet.
[Student: It was on bad days, subtle dullness and dullness. And on good days, it was doing my ACI homework and the meditation. But no matter what day, I always did the Vajrasattva 100 syllable mantra.
Because if it's true that I gossip, right, then I'm always going to get wrong. I'm telling people wrong information. People are telling wrong information to me.
This is probably a big problem with emptiness meditation. Is that you get taught the wrong thing or you misunderstand it, but it's coming from my seeds because I gossip. I don't know what else to do other than do the Vajrasattva.
Because that middle section is purification of speech. He has a whole third of it just for purification of speech.]
Yeah, good.
Good, good. Good for you. We don't have our foundation strong.No amount of Mahamudra meditation is going to take us anywhere. So very wise to go back and build your foundation in that concentrated way. Keep up the good work.
Anybody else care to share? You all did a daily practice though, right?
Mostly daily practice, right? Okay, mostly. That's okay.
[Student: I'm going to leave your class to start again.
I'll say that as we were doing it previously, I felt like I was getting closer and closer and closer. And just at the end, I'm like, something's coming and I was so excited for something to be coming. And then during the break, I was doing meditations and I felt like... I don't know if you've done Escape the Room, but it's almost like before it led me into the room.
And then I kept getting clues, but I never found the thing. And I'm just like... I feel like I'm just getting clues and I'm not there. And I'm relieved for classes to start.
So I can just finally get there, I hope. Uh-uh.]
Yeah, I hope so too.
[Student: Well, it's odd because I practice with other people and in my experience, you never really find the thing. You just keep going. It's very strange. You keep looking and you never really find it, but then you keep looking]
Yeah, he's trying to describe this space where you're okay with the never finding it. Because in that, you found it.It's very slippery because of the way our minds insist that there has to be something there, right? That's why perceiving an absence, it's so hard to even comprehend intellectually what it is we're trying to do. So we'll keep at it. Good.
So let's repeat the last meditation we did before we were away. And then I'll review the talking material about it after the meditation and see how far we get. Theoretically, this is the last class of our second course in Mahamudra.
We have like 10 of Lama Christie's classes to go. One course and then about four classes in a second course. And it takes me usually two classes to get through one of her material.
So we still have quite a way to go in our learning and practice. But the meditation's not really going to throw anything new at us. We're going to learn different ways to investigate. But with this meditation, where we finally sunk in deep enough that we've got the little minnow mind looking for the Me, that's where the rest of the practice goes is getting more and more familiar with that.
And then how to be in that state in order to recognize the absence. So it starts intellectually, of course. And then hopefully you come out of an experience and go, oh, you don't even say that was it.
Meditation (29:16)
So let's sit together. Get your body positioned. Your bottom firm on the seat on the cushion, up on those sits bones.
Start from above, set your alignment and relax everything down. You know how. Then come inside, tap into that rising energy.
Your lower tummy pulls in a little bit. Your sternum rises. Your crown rises.
And you bring your attention around to your breath.
We learned the ninefold breath, didn't we? Hollow body, let's do it. So nine breaths.
Well, hollow body, then nine breaths.
Now recall that precious holy being there with you. Ask them to bless you with some help to learn something new from this session and see or feel them sending their blessing into you. And trusting their help, their guidance.
Bring your attention to the sensations. We call breath at your nostrils.
Zoom in your focus.
Adjust the brightness.
Turn on the intensity.
Push your concentration on those sensations at the nostril to a sharp, clear edge.
This sharp, crystal clear point feels like it's at the front and upper. Hold that same sharp concentration and allow it to relax back, releasing into the observer mode, yet still sharp, clear, alert.
Eager. Keenly aware of anything that arises.
Allowing arisings to pass without following them into their story.
Catch the story.
Let it go.
Find the observer.
Feelings, images, ideas, they pop up. You let them pass, giving them less and less identification. Reaching that realm of mind, simply watching ripenings pass and fade like clouds passing in a sky.
Be fascinated with the process happening.
Every arising and passing is the realm of mind, no true nature to any of them.
Now staying in the state of passive observer, turn a small part of your thinker on and have it find the watcher, the Me who is being the watcher.
Recognize first how we hold to that Me as my real Me.
Underneath this finding a real Me is also wanting to believe in this real Me.
Can you find that? Say the mental words.
This watcher is Me. It must be real. Then turn on the passive observer onto your me.
It's slippery. The Me is a simple arising and passing like any other object of awareness. A picture, a word. Reach beyond the image behind it.
Find your image of Me. Find what's not there.
We'll stay two more minutes.
Nice. Now let's come back up through the levels. Let your me arise and stay.
Let your awareness of those inner shiftings arise and pass. Let your awareness become aware of your outer reality. Sound, sensations, the image of your room.
Recall that you made all of this effort in order to become a being who can help another ultimately and dedicate to that goal. And then when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch, and let's take a break.
End of Meditation [55:40]
[Student: Lama, can I ask you a question?]
Yes, please.
[Student: I have the feeling with the Mahamudra always, I don't know if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And especially I struggle with letting go, like that first stage when I am just supposed to let the thoughts come and go. Because I don't know what you mean with that exactly. For example, it just came the thought, I have to make the appointment for my daughter's dentist.
And then let go will be, okay, check. Let it go, like kind of, yeah, I am now aware that I have to make the appointment and let it go. Or if I start to think of something I have to do at work.
So let it go will be just to recognize, yes, I have to kind of say it. Yeah, it's something I have to do for work and stop going into the what is it exactly and who I'm going to call. Is that what you mean? ]
So that's the starting level of letting it go.
And ordinarily, we wouldn't do that. We'd go into the whole story about it. So it's an achievement to be able to go, okay, check.
I'll do it later. Forget it.
As we're practicing, for the purposes of this meditation, we recognize, we'll get to the point where we'll go.
The thought is coming, I need to make my daughter's dentist appointment. And it'll only get to the, I need to make daughter's and we'll go, nope, not now. And then we get to where I need, is starting to come up.
And we can go not interested, not interested, not interested. But not interested isn't the right word. We're keenly interested that this isn't a ripening and meaningless otherwise. But it comes in steps, comes in steps.
And Mahamudra practice isn't for everybody because it's not a practice where I can give you, here's the words you say, and here's the result you will get. It's a practice where we get clues. And then we have to explore and come to our own experience that goes, oh, I think this is what he means.
[Student: Yeah, like, okay, I get that part.
And then when you say, then we have to go more like in the back and then at some point you said, then we switch and see who is the Me. And like, I cannot separate this little part of something in my mind that is now looking at something else. I still feel it's Me.]
Right.
[Like he's the same person with the same mind who is trying to let go of the thoughts. I don't know, I cannot.]
Yeah, that is the me. The thing with the watcher is that that's designed to help us be able to get to this point where we're no longer flying off following all these elaborations that we make. And then once we get down into that level of disinterest in following all those elaborations, we're actually gonna elaborate the Me and we're gonna investigate it.
So it does become an intellectual, analytical exercise for a while. So the watcher is the Me.
[Student: But the watcher is the one that is also telling dentist appointment not to check. It's the same part of the mind.]
All of those are elaborations that are just like the thought, I have to make the dentist appointment for my daughter. As they come up, the ripening and nothing but. And the Me, we're trying to reach a clearer experience of the Me that that all seems to be happening too. So that we can come to see that that Me is not there. Independent of this ripening happening.
[Student: And it's also, it's only an aspect of the me. I mean, an instant. ]
An instant.
[Student: Meaning I am not that, I am not that, only that]
Exactly. Exactly. Okay.[1:01…14]
[Student I only caught half of that, but I'll mention something that pops into my head, if it's helpful, is when I dream, I don't know, like the being that I experienced, that I am in my dreams has no resemblance to the being that I have when I'm awake. And so it helps me to sort of think about this Me isn't at all that real thing that has all these experiences. It's whatever's being projected at the moment because the dream Me is just such a completely different being. And so I've been playing with that]
Yeah. Nice. Good.
[Student: And I had asked Lama Sarani about this and she already answered, but since April, I've been applying for jobs. And I thought, because I was applying, I get a job. So I gave notice. But that was just the mind spinning the story. And of course I got all these rejections.
And then I thought, well, then it's an emptiness meditation that, you know, emptiness of the interviewer and Me and the process of interview. But Lama Sarani said, no, not for this exercise. Just stop the story.
Don't even go there. This exercise is simple. I apply because I'm taking initiative. It doesn't mean that it'll lead to anything. And then I don't dream about what that job will be and giving notice. I just let it go. And it's been, in some ways, it's been really good because I have someone taking care of me. So I don't need the job for money or survival. I can use this as a practice, but not everyone's in that position.]
Right. Nice. Nice.
We are training ourselves to be able to shift from this state of many, many elaborations and identifications to a state where we're aware of it all happening to a state where we're beneath or before it all happening in order to more and more directly experience that experience, the reality of seed ripenings and nothing but. To try to use vocabulary that we're. I think we understand so far. So I love the word elaborations because, you know, we can have this object [shows a pen] and maybe we only get enough elaboration, shiny and blue, you know, and so you wouldn't really even know what this thing is. You don't have a story yet. And as you get more elaboration, right? The story is getting more elaborated and now it's like a full on pen. And in my own story, like I know where this, where I picked up this pen and I know whether it smears the ink or not, right? I have a whole long story about this pen that you don't even have.
You have a different one. So when we're talking elaboration, we really mean big elaboration, me, my life, my world, every feeling, every nuance, every thought, every, every, every. It's all this elaborated story.
And then as we become more and more aware of that, we look at it or can experience it at more and more subtle levels.
We're not trying to stop it or shut it off because in fact, that's impossible. We're learning to be more and more aware of the elaborations on more and more subtle levels so that we can catch them before they go into the whole big story.
They're doing that to me and I don't like it. And so I should do that to them in order to get what I want. That's all elaboration.
If we're aware of the first nuance of the ripening of that story and we go just a ripening, what happens to all the rest of the ripening? Like it fizzles. Now, the ability to do that is a karmic ripening too, right? So it's not like, oh, we're gonna learn how to do something self-existently and then we can fix the whole world. No, this is all about the stages we go through to be able to get to the place where our experiencer, or our subject side, can in fact stay - put as what's revealed, what ripens out of it is its own absence, its own lack of self nature.[1:07:04]
If we could just hear about it and put it on the screen and go into it directly, we'd all just do it. There's something in there. That keeps us from being able to go, `oh, I have no nature of my own, great.´
When we get to that point, it will be easy to slide into our direct perception of emptiness and probably not ever come out of it, right? Syndrome, that's where we're trying to go. [showing pen] But as long as we have this belief in things as having their own natures because pens are pens and dogs are dogs, and they can't really be the same thing, ultimately, as long as we have that tenacious grasp to things having their own natures, then we have the tenacious grasp to Me having my own nature. And as long as I have this tenacious grasp to Me having my own nature: I have a nature that is * I'm stuck with.
It's a belief in something. When we go looking for the thing we believe in, what are we going to find?
Yeah, when we leave our Me on the table and all the Me's and all the others, all the observers go away, what's there? Hey, you know, the answer for the pen, what's there? Same for your Me. Can we relate with a Me that's like - it seems almost impossible.
This practice is coaxing us to be able to be in a state of single pointed concentration on the object of our choice. Shamata. So that when the object of our choice is this self-existent Me to come to see that it is impossible.
We can hold that with self-existent constant. We're sorry, with single point in concentration. We use everything else to train in our single pointed concentration.
Because to try to train our single pointed concentration on our no self nature, we won't be able to do it. So we train, train, train, train, train. And then we go, okay, now this microscope mind, let's look at this.
And of course, our personality Me goes, `no, I can't do it` . But we can do it and we'll learn how. So, we start admitting, we've got all this elaboration, like sitting in meditation, aware of all the elaboration, even at the level of the breath, really tight focus on those sensations we call breath.
Come on, that's a whole story, isn't it? That's hugely elaborating. Even though we go, `no, no, it's like this one sensation right here. Wait, no, now it's over here. Wait, now, wait, now, which one is it?` Right, that's what mind does with this single pointed focus on the breath. It's like, well, how do you do that? It's all this story that's going on.
And then we're turning it. Turning the microscope story off.
Like now the microscope doesn't work. It's more like a audio tape, right? Punch pause. And then it automatically starts up again. Punch pause again. But punch pause with wisdom.
So that we understand that those are all this constant movement of the mind and what it motivates.
Right, we're technically watching karma. We're calling it watching our mind. But come on, really. - Karma is our mind. Our mind is karma.
We had a friend once that, like in the middle of course 18 or something like that, she goes, `oh my gosh, I am nothing but a rolling ball of karma`. And that's like a really keen realization to shift our identity from Me and my world - you know, they're all doing that to me - to just a rolling ball of karma. [1:11.55]
And what would we do with that? Just launch us downhill and let us roll? Or do we roll the ball of karma around and do cool stuff for people? Which is all just rolling ball of karma to you. So anyway, we're learning this process of we call it pulling ourselves in.
It means becoming more and more aware of the elaborations at more and more subtle levels. And as we are aware of whatever is appearing to our mind as an elaboration, that means we understand that it's merely this ripening impulse, ripening imprint karma, a karmic seed ripening. And once it's ripened, the instant it ripens, if we pay attention to it and we ripen another one similar and it adds to the story.
If our awareness is like, ` okay, ripening, nothing but` it will pass by without the story going on because it's not making the story. Our following them is what's making the story. So we're training ourselves to be more and more keenly aware at more and more subtle levels and being aware of them as these ripenings and nothing but that.
We can do that with anything that arises, including the pause between any arising, which is also something we become aware of. So it is also an arising. Then we're at the point where we can say: Okay, now what about this watcher doing all of this? It has to be a really strong state of mind to have gotten to the point where we are at the awareness of seeds ripening and nothing but, even if it's still conceptual.
Then when we have that watcher state clear and the mind focus so clear, that's when we can do the minnow of our mind looking at the watcher. What it means is that we've been the subject side aware of all these object things coming up. And now we're taking our subject side and we're making it the object of awareness.
So we still have to have a subject side that's looking at what used to be our subject side that's now our object side. Are you following me with that? Our watcher becomes what we are watching. And the very fact that we can do that with what we call our Me. That we can take a part of me and look at the other part of me. Iif that right there tells us that our me side doesn't have its own solid independent identity? If the subject side could only be subject side, no matter what, we could make a case for - yeah, yeah, I have a self-existent subject side.
But if I can take my subject side and look at it as an object - Oh man, my subject side depends upon my object side, right? Looking at it. And that's a ripening. To be able to be aware of our own self is a karmic seed ripening or identifying your mental affliction, that went by too fast.
Identifying your mental afflictions as objects for meditation. But the task is just being aware and nothing more. Don't even identify.
Yeah, so Natty's asking, is your watcher someone? In the same way that the bird singing in the tree that's not there anymore is someone.
It's a ripening as someone, but is it someone? - Not from its own side. Yeah, yeah, good. Who's asking? Yeah, right.
[Student: You're saying the watcher is the me. No, what do you mean? I'm trying to understand when you're describing it. What exactly do you mean? Like the watcher is a process of awareness or a watcher is part of Me that is watching.]
The watcher is your subject side of the experience at any given moment. So subject [showing to herself], object [showing a pen], interaction between. So the subject side is the experiencer.
Does that help?
[Student: So at first when you said in the meditation, Me that is seeing the thoughts, this wasn't the watcher, but it was me. It's like a person, someone, right? And then you move to observer, to the watcher. And I'm asking, do you mean like, again, me moving to another state or are you describing a process of just observing?]
We are using a process of observing and we're shifting the observing from being whatever pops up to observing the one who's watching for the pop-up. So it's like, here's the popping up and here's the me observing the popping up and not following it. And then we want to look for ´who is it that can observe the observer doing the observing´
Does that help?
[Student: Okay, one more question. So it's not who is doing, because I heard you saying who is doing the process.
Yeah, yeah. Who we think is doing, yeah.
[Student: Who's doing it?]
Yeah, who's doing it?
[Student:Isn't it karma who's doing it? So it's not someone who's doing it. It's a process.]
You're right. Ultimately, you're right.
There is no who's doing it. It's simply happening. And if you can get to that awareness, you're very, very close to the awareness of the no-self nature of the Me.
In our experience, even in meditation, our belief in a Me that's either doing it or that it's happening to - is what we're trying to find. The experience of it. And you're right. The conclusion is going to be, no, it's all just karma ripening.
[Studen: Until you're pure. Right.]
Then it's all merit ripening. But come on, what's the difference? It's still the process and nothing but.
All right.
[Student: It's very interesting to me because I watched the future lives because I didn't finish the ACI homework. And you were talking about black and white seeds. Our merit is black and white because we're in this desire realm. But as soon as we can get to the form realm, our merit will become white seeds. And so how do we get there? How do we purify enough that we're not in desire? And I kind of look at desire survival, but I don't know if that's really how I should be looking at it. But yeah, once you purify, you get the white seeds. For now, while we're in this desire realm, it's black and white.]
Yeah, discouraging.
And Vajrasattva said, when I become a Buddha, I'm going to help people purify. So do your Vajrasattvas. I'm talking to myself as well. [1:21:23]
Okay. So when we learn about this idea of no self nature, Dakme, we learn it by way of examples of outer things. Because it's pretty easy to show ourselves the mistake that we're making, believing that an object's identity and function is in it.
And so therefore, believing that everybody experiences it in the same or at least a similar way as I do, which of course leads to arguments and friendships. Because those who agree that this is a pen, a good pen, a useful pen, or my pen, so they'll leave it alone, are my friends. And those who disagree, - no, no, it's my pen I'm going to take it from you - are my enemies. And we fight. Why did I go there? We can intellectually understand that this object, if it can be perceived by two different beings in two different ways, then, oh my gosh, its identity and function can't be coming from it the way it seems.
The observer has to bring something to the party. Now, what and how much varies according to our level of understanding? Highest school says all of it. And that's what Mahamudra is drawing upon.
Everything that is ripening in that experience, during our meditation experience, it's all ripenings and nothing but. But we don't want to just jump there intellectually. We want to walk into the experience of it with our Mahamudra.
So when we learn about emptiness of things, we learn about things, emptiness of things. And then they talk about, well, there's also the idea that emptiness of persons, like emptiness of persons and the parts of a person. And we tend to think at that point, oh, yeah, yeah, the emptiness of Mike, the emptiness of the person yelling boss, right? The emptiness of somebody else is person, a conscious being.
And to learn about their emptiness and their dependent origination, it means whatever they're experiencing is their seeds ripening, right? And we like, okay, I get it. They could change themselves if they worked hard. But we still hesitate to go, wait, that emptiness of person.
Here's a person. And all that I said about learning about the emptiness of the other person applies to this person. And oh my gosh, right? It's harder to understand the emptiness of Me because there's a part of Me, the misunderstanding part of Me that doesn't want to understand my own true nature.
[Student: So you're saying we don't just project on the people, like the interviewer, the doctors, and the boss, the husband, but we're projecting on ourselves too.]
We are projecting ourselves. Well, wait, who's doing that? Right. Well, wait, who's doing that? Right. Do you see how slippery it is? And we run into those two cliffs. You know, they say, right? The one cliff, ´everything must exist the way it appears to exist. And if that's not true, then they must not exist at all.`
And we learn in ACI that you don't fall off the cliff of they don't exist at all unless we get a really inaccurate teaching on emptiness. But I find my own mind falling off that cliff of ´if I don't exist in the way I think, I don't exist at all`. It happens really automatically because my belief in my real Me, my me that's doing all the projecting is so strong that when I even get close to showing myself that that Me is impossible, there's a part of Me that goes, `wow, well, then there's nothing there at all``
Okay. And emptiness is an absence. It's an absence of something we believe in so strongly, but it's an absence of something that's actually non-existent.
Wait a minute. How can you have an absence of something that doesn't exist in the first place? It's going to get slippery.
Yes, Tom.
[Student: I was wondering why, if this is our true nature, why is our mind escaping it? Why do we have this resistance from seeing it? If this should be a very natural, true-born self, why? ]
Right, because every seed we've ever planted has been planted with the belief ´ that I'm a Me that's independent of everything that's going on around me and everything that happens to me is from them at Me. And so every seed that's ever been planted has been colored with that, which is what makes us be in this automatic protect me mode. It's always been mistaken.
And our minds go, yeah, well, there had to have been a first moment of the mistake. Where did that come from? And right, we hit that. No, there was never a first moment of the mistake. It's always been. So, you know, it's like, it isn't a, it wasn't like we were first pure and then we fell into the mistake. So there would have had to have been a reason for why we fell out of purity.
This tradition says, no, like you've never been pure. It's always been selfish, self - object - interaction between as three separate things. And only when we start to recognize: No, that's impossible and be consistent with how we experience things. Then we start to recognize: Oh, there's something wrong with this picture. The picture that believes that Me is separate from everything else. So, you know, we don't believe that our Me is separate from everything else.
We understand that we're all interconnected with everything. We rely on worldly causes for everything. But what we don't, what doesn't become so automatic is that our Me is part of every projection.
The subject side is inside every seed. And every seed that ripens has our subject side. And we mistakenly think that that subject side is separate because it's always there. But technically it's different with every ripening.
So isn't our subject side really ripening 65 different subject sides per instant. And yet it's always subject. It's not like I am Bob and then Mary and then Joe and then dog and then in 65 - because it's self, self, self, self, self.
But the self is never the same two instances in a row. And when we identify with that self, well, can you get a glimpse of the miraculous nature of what you could be? But we tenaciously hold on to the no, no, the Me that's independent of all of that. And as our wisdom's growing, it's even the me that's independent of the projections happening.
When we first do the this thing [showing with hand coming form me], the pen must be coming from me, right? The me is behind. So the me is doing the projecting. And Geshe-la lets that go for a really, really long time. And finally, you know, he'll say, well, actually, right, it's from back here that our Me has to be part of every projection.
And that's what Lobsang Gyaltsen is trying to help us get to a direct experience of. Right, I can say it intellectually, we can get glimpses of it. But we try to get down in there and experience that.
And we hit up against either the, * well, then I don't exist at all factor or * the no, no, that's impossible factor. The two cliffs. I have to exist in the way that I appear. Even when we understand it's all ripening. No, it has to be the Me doing the ripening. Some Me that is the project door.
And then when we go, no, that's impossible. We flop over into the world and there's no Me at all. Which is incorrect.
Right, you're empty nature. You only we only have an empty nature because we have an appearing nature.
[1:32:20]
So Lobsang Gyaltsen, he gives us this three step analysis. That is just one method of investigating for a no-self. Whether you're investigating a physical object or a feeling or a thought, anything.
The first thing we do is we ask ourselves, does this thing really exist? [showing a pen] You know, and our first answer is, yeah, here it is. It's the pen. No, is it happening? Yes, I'm having a valid experience. Here's the object.
Then we ask, well, how is it appearing to me? And by that, he means first, how does it seem like it appears? Okay, seems like it has its identity in it. But when I think about it, I realized that if it did have its identity in it, then everybody would have to see it, know it, experience it the same way as I do. And I know that that's just not true. So it can't be actually existing in the way it appears to exist to me.
Third is, and what is it that I am grasping to? Right? I'm grasping to an object being what I expect it to be and working like I expect it to work. When I pick up the pen and use it to write and it writes, my grasping to the pen as a writing instrument confirms that view that its nature to write is in it. When I pick up the pen expecting it to write and it doesn't write my grasping to the pen as a functioning writing instrument, my belief fails me, but my reaction is: This stupid pen and I get irritated with it. So both ways, my misbelief about the pen that leads to my grasping to what it should do for me, fool me into continuing to blame the pen for my experience.
And then I justify my reaction. My pen, don't you take my pen or this lousy pen. I can't trust it. Throw it away.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen wants us to find our grasping to the thing's identity, our grasping to our self-identity and go looking for the thing we are grasping to.
The reason being it's our grasping to our self-identity. That's the problem. It's not the self-identity. That's the problem. Why isn't it the self-identity that's the problem? Because that self doesn't exist at all. It can't be a problem. It's the grasping to it. That's the problem.
And it's so weird. It's like, well, how can I grasp to anything that doesn't exist? It's like, I don't know how we do it, but we do it. It's a belief in the self-existent Me.
That's so strong. It makes us love and hate and cry and laugh and right. It makes us be. So to just find the not self-existent Me isn't so helpful if we haven't identified the grasping to it. So he's going to take us. Lama Christie's meditations are going to take us through exploring, finding our grasping to ourselves.
In another text, Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen says, the way you find the Me that I'm grasping to is when you're in a situation where someone says to you,
`Roshanna, how dare you steal my purse?´ And Roshanna goes: `Me? I wouldn't steal your purse. How dare you accuse me?´ - That's me and grasping to me. He says that's the best place to find those two factors.
Me and grasping to me is when somebody accuses you of something you didn't do. So hopefully nobody's ever going to do that to you, but maybe play with it in your own skillful meditation just to see if you can find that feeling that comes up and be able then to recognize that feeling that comes up even when we're looking for the watcher who's watching the other arisings. The Me and the grasping to the Me.
It took me a long, long, long time of exploring and trying and failing and being upset with myself before it was like, oh, I think that's what she meant. And it really isn't something I can convey in words any better than Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen blame factor. When you get a sense of that, maybe it will help.
So in our process of going down through the levels with the Mahamudra practice, we're reaching a point where we are being the watcher and we're at the level of subtlety of just the movement, the flow of mind. You remember that part? Where the elaborations are so subtle that we're enjoying that flow of awaring happening.
And it's comfortable, it's pleasurable, and we risk wanting to stay there. We are in the appearing nature of mind. It's a great place to be.
But it is not the mind's true nature. It's the mind's appearing nature. And we can spend years there.
And what the seeds from that will ripen as is a form or formless realm rebirth. Right? Not something that will take us to our ultimate goal. When we are keenly aware of the appearing nature of our mind, that's when we have the tool that we can look for the subject side of that appearing nature of the mind and look for its nature underneath the appearance.
So we're so well trained. An appearing thing, it's what's its true nature. We call it its emptiness, right? It's no-self nature.
Because for it to appear in the way that it does, it has to be the observer's ripening seeds. And if the object had its own nature, the observer's ripening seeds would confuse the matter, right? Here's the pen, but my observer ripening seeds makes it horse. It's like, how can you put horse on? It just wouldn't work.
But the ripening reveals the object's no-self-nature. The ripening reveals an object's emptiness. We've done it with things. We've done it with feelings. We've done it with other people. Now we want to find the Me and do it with the Me.
It should be really obvious. If any appearance has to be empty, find an appearance and step into its emptiness. Why is it so hard? Yeah, it shouldn't be hard at all. It really shouldn't. All right. [1:41:46]
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen had said .. We're differentiating between Gangsak Dakme and Chukyi Dakme. That's just what we were talking about.
Dakme means no-self. But to translate it as no-self is so easily misunderstood because to say I have no self would mean like I don't exist or something. So Dakme, we are so well-trained. We understand it has no self-existent nature. It has no nature of its own. And then even when we say self-existent, we need to understand those words because someone may think self-existent would mean to exist like independent of needing food or water or having been born or like nobody's self-existent. Come on.
And so when we use the word self-existent at this level, which is highest school, we are understanding that there's nothing that exists independent of the seed ripening projection of the experiencer of that object. That's what self-existent means, right? Technically, a self-existent thing is something that exists independent of any other factor.
Highest school says the any other factor we're really talking about is the projection of the observer, right? The projection that includes the observer, right?
Yes, Janet.
[Student: Chukyii Dakme came up in Gibson's Mixed Nuts on Monday and Geshe Michael said, I don't know why they have to have a separate selflessness for phenomena than self. But I think he does know why. Because the person is hard, especially if it's you. Because then you think if you don't exist or you're empty, which is a misunderstanding, you do exist enough. You are empty. You exist enough. But he doesn't want to go there and teach emptiness to someone who doesn't understand it. And that's why he said that. He said, I don't know why they separate that. And I'm like, yes, you do. You do so know why.]
Yeah, skillful means, right?
[1:44:55]
And we can see why they separate it. They're all separate in our experience. And so we've got the experience of outer objects. Outer objects that are animate and outer objects that are not animate. And our relationship to them are all different. So we would want to explore what's meant by emptiness and dependent origination for all of them.
What's useful in the end is finding the emptiness and dependent origination of our own self. And as Janet points out, it's just too hard to find that one because we don't really want to, because the part of us that doesn't want to come to know it, is the part of us that is mistaken. Who wants to admit they've been mistaken since forever? Like the angel devil debate, right? That devil, he is not going to give in and say, oh yeah, you're right.
Because the instant he does, poof, he's gone. Well, we have the mistaken identity, but it's real enough, the mistake, that we can deal with it. It's real enough.
[Student: It's true that the real enough is still not real, but it's real enough. It's real enough to hurt. I think so, or hurt other people too, yeah.]
Exactly, exactly. We defend it so tenaciously, this thing that technically doesn't even exist. We're holding to a belief, and that's where he's trying to get us.
There's a difference between the Me and the grasping to the Me. It's the grasping to the Me, this belief that is the problem. So he brings up, of course, our word Gakja, that thing that emptiness is empty of.
I still don't know what that means. The Gakja, a self-existent thing, the Gakja, the thing we believe exists independent of our projections. So again, when we're trying to find this thing called Me, which the closest we get is when we find that passive watcher watching.
That's a great window or doorway to find our Gakja Me. The one we think exists. That in fact doesn't. Our two-headed purple elephant in the kitchen right now. Me.
[Student: Sorry, Lama, what was the difference? I missed this Gangsak gi dakme and Chukyi dakme]
Yeah, Gangsak gi Dakme means the emptiness of the parts of a person, technically, which means the emptiness of other. And Chukyi dakme... Chukyi dakme is the emptiness of all the other factors and Gangsak gi dakme is the emptiness of the subjects. Lack of self-nature to person, Gangsak, and lack of self-nature to things, Chukyi dakme. But then they blur the line and say Chukyi dakme also refers to the lack of self-nature to the parts of the person, which when we first hear that, we think: Oh me, that means their arms, their legs, their personality.
But as we understand better and better, we come to see that every experience we have is actually a part of our person. So Gangsak gi dakme is the emptiness of the person and Chukyi dakme, emptiness of the parts of the person. [1:40:09]
[Student: Which are the emptiness is different?]
No, no. All 100% lacking their own identity. 100% appearing forced by karma's ripening. And what are the Gakjas at whatever level we're looking at blaming the other or the part or the Me for having an identity independent of whatever seed ripening projection is happening at the moment? Is that even possible for there to be a thing outside of a seed ripening moment? Like, are we understanding karma and emptiness well enough to recognize that every instant of awareness is seed ripening happening? So to even talk about something outside of that is ridiculous, pointless, impossible. Like we're trying to get there.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen gives us three versions of how we experience our Me.
First is we hold that our me exists in truth, meaning my Me is Me in me from me unique to me, meaning independent of karmic seeds ripening. I'm the me and I experience my results of stuff, but I actually exist independent of that stuff. Which right there is like, how can you be independent of it if you experience it?
Second level Me is we can relate to our Me as the Me that lacks any true existence. The Me that lacks any true existence is actually the Me that is projections happening. Second way we can relate to me.
This is the one we're trying to grow.
And then third is what's called the simple nominal Me - simple, nominal, valid Me perception. He says most of the time we are in this third level of me awareness: simple, nominal, valid Me.
And that's fine. That one, it itself is not what spurs us on to do selfish behaviors. The simple valid Me is that our current experience is that we're not messed up enough in our head to be perceiving our own reality wrongly.
So we are valid Me. That valid Me then wants something it can't get, wants something it gets, but then that leaves me wanting for more. Or get stuff it doesn't want and gets upset. That's the Me that exists in truth that doesn't deserve that or does deserve that, right? All these expectations of the way the world works that are mistaken.
When we're in the mode of all that grasping, doing, trying to make things happen, we are in the mode of the me that exists in truth, in me, from me. Everybody should treat me the same way. Like I'm the queen.
The second one, the Me that lacks any true existence, that only comes from highly trained emptiness, study years and working diligently on trying to rest in our no self-existent Me state. All right, which is going to have an appearing Me and its emptiness. Appearing me and emptiness. When those two no longer alternate - remember three principle paths - we had it in our root text, right? When an appearing thing reveals its emptiness, and when you think of emptiness, you have to have an appearing thing that's empty.
When those two no longer alternate:. We've got, we've got the, we've, we're understanding better. Like I like the term profound dependence.
It means both together, appearing and empty. There's no emptiness without an appearance. There's no appearance that isn't empty of its own nature.
Is it getting more clear? I hope. Yes, Luisa.
[Student: It just came to my mind, this question. So before we say, okay, the emptiness of the flower is the same as the emptiness of the pen, meaning emptiness doesn't have any, let's say, tendency or flavor for the appearing part to be. Like out of the same emptiness, I can't create anything. Anything.
Do you know what I mean? Like, do I have to have a special emptiness for pen and a special emptiness for flowers for it to be pen or to be flower. Or is emptiness universal that I can create out of, I mean, that it will be any appearance.]
So there's a, there's a word, there's a language difficulty, not in terms of English versus some other language, but in terms of what we mean by the same emptiness. Sometimes the word same means one and the same, which would mean there's an emptiness here. And then out of it comes a pen and out of it comes a horse and out of it comes you. And that's not correct. But every emptiness of an appearance is identical to the emptiness of some other appearance.
Identical in the sense that every appearance is 100% not coming from it. So in that way, there is an emptiness unique to this pen and technically an emptiness unique to this pen because there's an instant difference between this pen and this pen. So, yet, this pen and this cup [showing pen and cup], they have their own emptinesses and those emptinesses are 100% identical, but not one in the same.
[Student: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I knew I, yeah, that would be the one emptiness that like a blank space or what I project is not what I meant. What I mean is that what you said, you have the cup and you have the pen, but the emptiness of the cup and the emptiness of the pen is identical, meaning there is no special flavor of that emptiness or the cup. Thank you. Okay, good.]
The words are so tricky. We know what we mean, but we don't know if the other person hears it in the same way.
That's why I'm so picky and I know it comes off across as criticism and it's not meant that way.
[Student: So about the emptinesses, it's supposed to be like in the middle way, in the lower school, they think that there is some substance or something, but in the middle way, there is nothing. But now you're saying there is this special emptiness for cup and the special emptiness for mug or for pen.
So it's, you're not saying that it's just the same. So it means if it's a special thing for emptiness for the pen cannot be emptiness for the cup, right? Then there is some, not substance, there is something underneath that is there. But in the middle way, we say there is nothing].
There's no thing. Correct.
[Student: No, but that was my question. That was my question. There is no special emptiness for the pen and a special emptiness for the cup. What the Lamas said is that the emptiness of the cup and this emptiness of the pen are identical in the sense that they both are 100% lacking self-nature, whatever object is the appearance part.
[Other Student: But there is an object that is supposed to be appearing. So you still have some condition there.[
[Student: No, that was my question. For the object to appear, you need an emptiness, but that emptiness is identical regardless if it's a pen or a cup. Meaning there is no special emptiness for the cup or a special emptiness for the pen.]
[1:59:44]
[Student But there is a difference between emptiness for the cup and emptiness for the pen.]
[Other Student: They see it for the appearance. I mean, the appearance is what makes them different, not the emptiness of them.[
[Student No, no, no. It was different on one place. It was a pen.bOn one place, there was a cup and there was emptiness of the pen and emptiness for the cup. And what I'm not understanding is because in the middle way, there is not supposed to be anything that is..]
It's not correct that the middle way says there's not anything because that implies there's non-existence and out of non-existence comes something and that's impossible.
[Student: No, there is nothing there that seeds are covering]
[Other Student: You mean the raw data? You mean the raw data is what you're trying to say?]
[Student: There is nothing there that seeds, our mental pictures are covering over.[
There's nothing there first.
[Student: There's nothing there first that our mental seeds are covering for.]
Because whatever seemed to be there first was also mental seeds ripening.
[Student: And then I'm confused because in this case, there should be no difference between an emptiness for a cup and emptiness for a pen. But there seems to be like there is something that is emptiness for a cup and emptiness for a pen. And over the emptiness for a pen, our seeds can ripen and cover it. ]
Yeah, yeah. So, try to think of it this way.
[Lama Sumati: You said there's an emptiness of the cup and a different emptiness for the pen and I don't think you meant that. ]
That when there's a pen, the pen is empty and when there's a cup, the cup is empty. And those two emptinesses are identical.
But it's not that there's one big emptiness that the pen comes out of and the cup comes out of.
Until there's a cup, there's no emptiness of the cup. Until there is pen, there's no emptiness of the pen.
It's not that the emptiness is there first and then the pen shows up. The instant.
[ Lama Sumati: I'm not disagreeing. What I'm saying is I heard you say there was an emptiness of a pen and an emptiness of a cup and they were different. And I don't think that's true]
[Student: think she said that the two pens, when she put one pen on one side and one pen on the other side, she says these two are technically different.]
These two pens. Because here's this pen and here's that pen. So this pen has its emptiness and this pen has its emptiness.
I agree. They're not different emptinesses. Emptinesses of any object are all identical.
But you can't say they're the same. And you wouldn't say there's a special emptiness for this or that because that would imply they're different.
[Student: And that if you say that they're different, then there is something that it's only our picture for the pen can cover. And then I don't understand why in the middle way they say there is not such thing that determines that there is a base for something.]
Because there's not a thing there. It's not a sequential happening for any appearance is instantly 100 percent empty of self nature.
It's not a this and then that. It's simultaneous. Simultaneous arising - when a seed ripens, every aspect of the ripening is 100 percent lacking self nature.
So it can be what ripens.
[Student: I think it's a semantic language thing,]
I think we want to work it out.
[Student: Nothing but wait. She already said she already established that the two emptinesses are identical. So she just said that she's not saying that they are different. They are identical.
Did you get that part? No, because you didn't]
[Other Student: . It doesn't help. No, it doesn't help this way, because what Lama Sarahni is saying that if there is a pen, it will it will have the emptiness for a pen. So if there is condition already. ]
Not emptiness for a pen. This pen is 100 percent empty. of its own nature. Of being anything but the projection of the observer.
[Student: There is no emptiness for pen, emptiness for flower, emptiness for cup that are special. That was my question. And she clarified. No. It´'s a wrong wrong understanding.]
[Other Student But from the from the explanation I got that there are special things]
[Student:. So I guess I don't know if this is helpful. Maybe I'll just throw in my two cents. I have a pen because I'm seeing a pen. Therefore, the emptiness it has is an emptiness of a pen. If I had a cup because I'm seeing a cup, the emptiness it has is the emptiness of a cup. It's not that there is a cup and that cup has emptiness of cup and that's conditional.
It's because I'm seeing a cup. It has no self nature inherent in it. So the emptiness it has is of a cup.
I don't know if that makes it any better.]
[Other Student: I know. I know. Let me try this. Let me try this. If you have, look, you have the pen, right? And it's empty. But this pen, the emptiness means that this pen can become a cup, an ice cream, a golden bar. That means that emptiness cannot be associated to pen. Because if it would be, then it could not be cup or gold or chocolate bar.
Meaning that emptiness is, let's say, universal. Can be anything. You know what I mean? There is no special emptiness for pen, a special emptiness for cup. Because if that would be true, then this pen could not become something else. It will be also attached to be pen because it has emptiness of pen.].
But technically, the way I hear you explaining that says that the pen is going to become horse someday. And that's not correct. And it also implied what I heard was that the emptiness could become the pen or it could become the flower.
And that's not right either. When there's a flower, that flower is 100% empty. Yeah.
[Student: But if I have the karma for this to become a flower, it will become a flower. And then that emptiness]
No, you would be suddenly holding a flower. But this thing never became a flower because there's no such thing as this thing. Your seed shifted and now you have flower. You can't say this became a flower.
[Student: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I meant that. But yeah. Yeah.[
You're onto something, Nati. Keep it up.
[Student: I think it's just language. Okay. Isn't it that you're asking basically about the nuances of emptiness? That's why you're trying to understand if there is different nuances of emptiness to different items like the pen and the…
[Other student: No. Okay. The story of Maitreya, right? He's seeing a dog. Then he's... Not Maitreya. Who saw the dog? Asanga. The story of Asanga. So he's seeing a dog and then he's seeing Maitreya and other people are seeing a dog. And so the dog becomes Maitreya. Is there an emptiness of Maitreya? Is there an emptiness of the dog? It's the same. It's the same emptiness.
Or is this emptiness of the dog there and emptiness of Maitreya there?]
Right. Right. Yes.
Emptiness of the dog, emptiness of Maitreya, emptiness of Asanga, emptiness of whose experience it from which direction, all of those.
[Student: And this is just a way of explaining it. The way of phrasing the things].
Yeah. But it's critical to get the phrasing right for your own mind. And then the way you know whether it's right for your own mind is you keep chewing on it with others to see that we can get it accurate.
[Student: Yes. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for your time.]
Yes. It's very good. If it were easy, we would all get it.
[Student: All right. Well, this is basically... You were on the call Monday. This is Gibson's book, A Minus B Equals C. That formula. So emptiness is not the lack of... It's not the inherent state of emptiness. Geshe Michael says in that book, emptiness is something minus the mental afflictions is the inherent nature.
So you have the thing that you take away and then that makes the inherent nature. So he says that book doesn't look at it that way. It's inherent nature.
It looks at it as the pen from Japan minus the projection equals the inherent emptiness of the subject-object relationship. So he sees it as subtraction, that book, which I can't remember what the book is and who the author was, but I will rewatch the video and then get all that so that I can share it with you because that book says it's not. It's not the inherent emptiness as a thing. It's A minus B equals C. It's a formula. ]
It will help us get there. All right.
Final
Remember that person we wanted to be able to help. Believe it or not, we've done stuff today that we will use sooner or later to help them stop their distress forever. And that's fabulous.
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 being. See how happy they are with you.
Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart. 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 wisdom, filled with loving kindness.
And may it be so. Okay. Thank you so much.
Gakja
Ngu sum du tokpa
Dakme ngu sum du tokpa
Anatman
Dakdzin hlenkye
Ngar dzin hlenkye
Ngar dzinpa jikta
*************
Introduction
All right welcome back, we are Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen's Mahamudra class on September 9th, 2025.
Technically, we are now studying Bok Jinpa course 16—we are on class one.
For those who are also studying Bok Jinpa [course 1] on class eight, you skipped grades!
Someday we'll come back to it, and hopefully by then you can help me teach it because I'll be a really old lady by then and I'll need help :)
So let's gather our minds here as we usually do…
The full opening contemplation and prayers can be found in the transcript of Class One under “Gather Our Minds.”
…“May all beings reach their total awakening for the benefit of every single other.”
*************
Next let's settle in.
Lama Christie took us through the first part of Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen 's meditation—the part which is the skill for developing, reaching stillness, reaching shamatha, reaching that place where we are brightly, keenly fascinated with the moment-by-moment appearing nature of our mind.
And so we'll go through the steps and reach that [place] and then stay in that [place] for a little while, during which time I will just say, “check” now and then, and you know when I say “check,” you check:
On object, or off object? Fix it.
If on object—dullness or agitation? Fix it.
If nothing needs fixing—don't fix it.
Reward yourself all the way along, and then slip back in.
I apologize for the interruption when I say check, somebody's got to do it.
So let's settle in.
Lama Christie says, “let your body fall still,” but you know the steps to do (what works for you).
***45 seconds***
Bring your focus of attention to your breath at the tip of your nose.
Very much at the front of your body spatially.
***15 seconds***
Tuning in your focus.
Turning up the brightness.
Turning on the fascination.
To get that “crystal clear point of focus” state of mind.
***1 minute 30 seconds***
And maintaining that crystal clear focus, drop back and down. Opening up to any sounds around you.
Noticing first what they are.
Noticing the story—dropping it.
Noticing the more subtle story—dropping it.
***15 seconds***
Sinking more deeply into experience-ing.
Fascinated with what's next to come.
***30 seconds***
And shifting from outer signs to inner sounds, or inner sensations, and go through the same sequence.
First it's identity.
Recognize the story—let it go.
More and more subtle levels.
***15 seconds***
Until once again you are in that bright, clear, focused awareness of the arise-ings and pass-ings.
Passively, and keenly experiencing.
***1 minute 30 seconds***
Now add the recognition that all of these experience-ings are mental images rising and passing inside your mind.
Your fascinated, keen, sharp focus is on this constant shape-shifting of your own mind.
Observing.
***30 seconds***
If you find you've followed a story, just drop it.
Slide back into observer mode.
***15 seconds***
Maybe the arisings get fewer and fewer space between them.
Focus just as brightly on the pause between arisings, experiencing it, too, as an arising awareness.
***30 seconds***
You are experiencing the appearing nature of your own mind.
Let's sit for five more minutes.
***2 minutes 30 seconds***
Check.
***2 minutes 30 seconds***
Check.
***15 seconds***
Now from wherever you are, bring yourself back up in levels of awareness.
Be aware of letting the story start to happen again.
Aware of your inner body sounds, or feeling.
Aware of the outline of the body in your room.
Aware of the outer sounds having identities.
Aware of your room around you.
Dedicate those seeds planted to becoming one who can help that other, in that deep and ultimate way.
Then come all the way out when you're ready.
Take a stretch.
*************
Please recall that reaching stillness does not mean reaching the place where everything goes blank.
That is not the goal.
That's not stillness.
Stillness is reaching that place where we are effortlessly focused on whatever our object of focus is, no matter what that object of focus is doing.
Our focus is on it, and our focus is free of dullness (gross or subtle), free of agitation (gross or subtle), and free of any effort to be free of those.
So the stillness is the stillness of effort to be focused, clear, and intent, and then with that quality of mind—it doesn't matter what's going by—we are still.
And it's difficult because when we think, “oh no, everything has to come still,” we're not ever going to get there. So just to remind ourselves…
But then, says Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, the stillness on the awareness of the appearing nature of our own mind is not actually going to help us in any way reach our goal.
And that's not true, it is going to help us in lots of ways—but it alone will not automatically shift us into the direct perception of the no-self nature. We need to do something to light that image up, and that's the vipashyana. It's the analysis. It's reaching the insight.
There's something we have to do to reach that, and our efforts to reach that outside of stillness meditation help us to reach it (plant seeds for reaching it), but to reach the goal of insight (meaning the direct perception of emptiness), we must be in that deep level of stillness meditation, and when we understand that we can be in stillness meditation level and apply analysis to come to a conclusion and still be in stillness…
Do you see what's so misunderstood?
It's like, “how can I be in stillness and then start thinking?”
No, no…It's okay as long as we're still in stillness with the thinking and not distracted and dull. So that's why it's all a practice. If we could just push the radio station and have it play for us, we'd just do that.
And we're actually building the system such that we can do that, right? We have our own radio station in there: ordinary Sarani radio station is what's playing most of the time.
But [then we can] push the button on tonglen, push the button on bodhichitta, push the button etc.
We have them.
We're growing those.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, we're reading his own commentary to the root text, and he's pointing out to us that every single goal of every Buddhist teaching that's ever been given is to experience ultimate reality directly, and when we hear that, we know it means to do it for the first time, and then to do it again, and again, and again, and again—and some of us understand that eventually it means to do it until we can experience it and appearing reality simultaneously (which requires an omniscient mind to do that).
So when the teachers say “see emptiness directly,” they use a term, ngu sum du tokpa.
ngu sum du tokpa means a direct perception, or a direct experience.
Where is it? [looking for where the text is on the screen]
Wait, let me put it separately. [adds a line to the sheet under gakja and types the phrase ngu sum du tokpa]
So conventionally, we would say a direct experience of something (versus a not direct experience) would be like my analogy of learning to ride a bicycle.
The not-direct experience is watching all the videos, reading all the instructions, even imagining that you're riding the bike—that's all “indirect experience,” if you will.
And then once you get on the bike and ride it, you are having a direct experience of riding the bike—and then you get off of it, and you're no longer having direct experience. Now, when you remember it, you're having a memory of a direct experience, whereas before, your memory of riding the bike would have been a memory of watching a video about riding bike.
You see the difference?
There's direct—and then there's not direct.
And then when we take that more deeply, they say there's direct experience and there's conceptualized experience.
Conceptualized experience means [that] you're thinking about the experience, or you're imagining the experience—in our concept—we're having a concept about the experience, versus the direct experience of riding the bike.
But then when we take that deeper, we see that even as we are riding the bicycle, we're having what we're calling a “direct experience of riding the bicycle,” but if we were to analyze it more carefully, we would come to see that, in fact, we are still conceptualizing our physical sensations into, “look ma, I'm riding a bicycle.” Right?
That direct experience is also conceptual.
But do you see, the more subtle level of conceptual here? Taking information and coming up with the conclusion: these sensations are riding bicycle sensations.
So even the direct experience (worldly wise) is a conceptualized experience, but on this more subtle level it's more direct than just imagining you're riding a bike.
But it's not actually a direct experience—a direct experience is to experience something in the way it actually exists.
So that's when we're sliding into the philosophy of dependent origination and emptiness, and how it seems like those are two sides of a coin (it [actually] seems like they are two different things that come together, but in fact they are one coin with two sides).
To experience the head of the coin, you know there has to be a tail side.
To experience the tail side, you know there has to be a head side.
You can't see them at the same time, but they have to be because I'm experiencing a coin—and coins have heads and tails.
It seems like a circular argument, but it's necessary.
And it is necessary.
So ngu sum du tokpa is simply the words that mean “have a direct experience,” they don't have the word for emptiness, although sometimes they use tokpa for emptiness.
Realization—it means to realize, to make real. Something that wasn't real before now becomes real.
So ordinarily, when the teachings are saying, “we want to see emptiness directly,” they use this term ngu sum du tokpa. But Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen , he says, “actually, all of the Buddha's teachings are about reaching dakme ngu sum du tokpa—he direct realization, the direct experience of dakme.
And we've been studying dakme.
Dak means self.
Me means negation of.
So dakme means “no self.”
Sometimes they call it selflessness, which we've learned to attribute to a lower school. So here it sounds like Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is saying, “the goal of every Buddhist teaching is to help us reach the direct perception of selflessness, and it's like, wait a minute, right? That's not right.
We should be saying “the direct perception of emptiness.” And he's saying, “I'm not saying everybody's wrong.” He's saying, “one could have a direct perception of the no self nature of the pen (theoretically) and come out of it (like [for example] it gets interrupted, maybe), and you come out of it and you would go, “oh, and every existing object is like the pen. Now that I know its true nature,” and not ever apply it to one's own self.
And then it wouldn't have the same impact on us as when our direct experience, when our tonglam experience, is such that we perceive directly the no self nature of all existing things including our me, colored (or experienced) by a mind that's been colored by your bodhicitta, your wish to reach total enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings—so that when you come out of that, the conveyor belt you are on is your conveyor belt to Buddhahood, instead of some lesser ultimate.
So he's making the point that as we are aspiring to our direct perception of emptiness, as being cultivated by the Mahamudra practice, when we take it to the next level—beyond simply stillness on the awareness of appearing nature of our mind—what we want to be cultivating is this direct realization of our no self nature.
And that's where it gets slippery.
We always have to go back and make sure that we're understanding what we mean by “no self.” In Sanskrit, it's anatman. And I don't relate to the Sanskrit word so much, but atman apparently is this soul, or self, or this continuation of the being that identifies me as “me,” and then anatman means, not that // none of that // there's no such thing as that—and then my mind automatically goes, “What?! That can't be, because I know I me! That's the only thing I really know (is that I'm me), so how can I be dakme // no self, and still be here?”
So it can't be that that's what they're talking about—can it?
[Could it be that] Buddha said, “Really, [all of you people that are] suffering, you don't exist—so quit worrying! It doesn't matter (all your suffering doesn't matter) because you don't really exist. You’re dakme! It's all fabricated, concocted, conceptualized stuff! Stop conceptualizing, and you'll just disappear, and so will all this suffering—and Tada!”
And it's like, okay, thank you very much, Buddha, I'm out of here—because that's not inspiring to prove to yourself that [you’re not suffering because you “don’t exist,”] right?
And it's not right. It's incorrect.
Non-Buddhist people who study a little bit of Buddhism and [interpret the words themselves,] they kind of come to the conclusion that Buddhism is really teaching about non-existence.
And that's completely incorrect.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is wanting to help us go through these different ideas about “no self” and what it means, so that we have a correct understanding conceptualization about the ideas, so that when we start exploring—when we start going looking for the “self” that we believe is there—the self we hold to be there, we can act effectively and accurately show ourselves that that's not there. But it's not true that that means that there's no self at all.
We've been through this in our ACI study a lot, a lot, a lot—and it's tempting to go “Yeah, yeah, I understand.
And Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is saying, “maybe we do, and maybe we don't—let's explore it again.”
So, I'm channeling Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen [and] Lama Christie to the best of my ability right now—so let's go through it again.
So dakme ngu sum du tokpa means the direct realization of “no self” directly experiencing our “no self nature.”
In the English, we can say: the nature of… we can say… (how am I trying to say this?) we can say, that our true nature is “no self” and think it means “not really existing,” or we can say, “my true nature is no-self,” right?
As if “no self” is a thing.
And we're actually wanting to work with it in that second one. We're trying to find this “no self” nature, and what we're gonna find is [that] the “no self nature” is an absence (of something that we thought was there), with a presence—that when when we really go looking for that “thing,” we find, “oh my gosh, that's always been this conceptualized thing based on—nothing.”
Okay?
[It’s] based on its availability to be!
So we are going to find a “no self nature,” but that “no self nature” is going to be an absence—that's where it gets even slipperier, because our mind (that’s in its “aware-ing mode” // “experiencing mode,” needs to have a “something appearing” for the “no self” to be something.
But just out of habit, we're going to intellectually learn to recognize that, “oh, so no, my no self nature is my emptiness side, which is a thing.”
And [then] train ourselves to go, “No! It's not a thing! It's an un-thing.”
It's a non-thing.
It's a way to be able to hold an absence, to hold the presence of an absence—it's impossible, and yet we can do it. We can have the direct experience of the “no self nature,” the absence.
But we can't know we're doing it while we're doing it (as we know).
So his point is we really, really, really need to explore our dak and our dakme, and he says, actually, there's two aspects of it that will help us investigate ourselves, and then, of course, many ways to go about it. We are holding to our “me” in two different ways. Not sure I'm getting this right.
So the dak means “self.”
But there's another word for “self” and it's nga, which means “me.” So if you think about it, yourself ;) we relate to “our-selves” differently when we're thinking about “myself,” and when we're thinking about “me.” And the premise that they're making, is that the “me” [that’s] holding to the “me,” has a bigger emotional component in it than the “myself.”
[It’s] like the “myself” is a little bit broader somehow, but the “me” comes up when there's a more personal, emotional attachment happening.
So he says there are two ways that we hold to ourselves, we hold to ourselves in an inherent way (like inborn, innate), our innate holding to ourself—and then there's a yeah, yeah, yeah, getting ahead of myself and that's getting me in trouble… [looks down at notes]
The innate tendency to grasp to “me” is the dang dzin hlenke, and then there's a habitual (or learned) way in which we hold to “me,” (not like mom sat down with us and says, “now you, Sarahni, hold to yourself like this—we didn't learn it like that).
It means we learn by experience.
I have to take care of myself.
Because nobody else really knows what I want.
They think they do, but they don't.
Not ngar dzin hlenke, “how we're holding to our me”.
So it's how we hold to “ourself.”
And how we hold to our “me.”
It's two different ways that our holding to “ourselves” (meaning belief in “ourselves”) affects our behavior choices—that's why he's pointing it out.
So when we are learning to go look for our “myself,” and our “me,” Lobsang Cheuky Gyaltsen says, “we are in fact, looking for a gakja.
We're looking for something that exists in a way that it can't actually exist—so we're looking for something that we believe in, only to find that it doesn't exist in the way that we believe that exists.
But when I add that last piece, where I [say to myself,] “listen, I'm looking for a thing that I think exists, but really doesn't.
And my mind goes, “What?!”
And so instead, [I said,] we're looking for a thing that exists, only to find that it doesn't exist in that way.
And [then my mind says,] “Oh okay, that's more comfortable.”
And yet, truly, it's, it's, it's lowering schools, to add those extra words to help us understand what's meant by the “no self.”
[Get it?]
So, we can catch our mind moving through the different levels of Mahamudra understanding [and] I can catch my mind sliding through those different levels just by how I react to the words I hear myself say.
And so that whole dance is what we'll learn to do, and then apply while we're on our cushion (if you're inspired to do so) which actually helps us do the same thing when we're off the cushion, because this practice helps us grow that watcher state of mind even off cushion—not to the point of disconnect that we get, or subtlety that we get in meditation, of course. But to this ability to watch how one's mind reacts to something you think, or something you're about to do, or something you say—and be able to adjust accordingly before the action comes up.
So in order for us to effectively investigate our dak, our “self,” and our nga, our “me,” we need to go back and remind ourselves of what it means to be a gakja, right? What it means to recognize a gakja—the thing that emptiness is empty of—what in the world does that mean?
Gakja: a thing that exists independent of any other factor.
Do you remember all these definitions of gakja?
Ultimately, a gakja (in the highest school) is a thing that exists independent of being the experiencer's projection of it, forced by ripening seeds, planted by past behavior.
Anything that exists independent of our projections is a gakja.
Is there such a thing?
Can you experience something outside your experience?
No.
If we use “experience” as another word for “projection happening,” it's ridiculous to say [that] I could experience anything outside of my experience.
But do we think things exist outside of our experiences—independent of our projections?
Absolutely!
I think you guys all have some existence independent of the “you” that's sitting in front of “me” in this little flat box.
And you do—but I'm just thinking of it wrongly.
Do you see?
So, gakja, we're looking for the gakja.
Lama Christie used this sweet example to help us remember gakja related to things, because when we first start learning about dakme (the no-self nature, nature of things), we start with the outer things for a lot of reasons. The outer thing is a tangible thing that we can relate to, and that we can very easily use the example [of], “I see it this way, you see it that way, the dog sees it a third way, and so how can the thing's identity, how can it have a dak in it if we all bring something to the party? So then, you know, it can have some kind of self-nature (because a pen is not a cell phone), but part of it relies upon me, so it's dakme.
She used the example of a vending machine with your favorite candy bar, and [it] used to be [that] you [would] use coins in a vending machine—do you remember those days? So you carried coins just in case you happened to come across a vending machine, and you were in the mood for a candy bar. You had to have coins in order to be able to get that candy bar. [So] you put the coins in, you punch the buttons, out comes the candy bar, and you enjoy the candy bar—so as long as you had these coins, and then as long as there was a vending machine that had your favorite candy bar, the coins would give you the candy bar. So, that meant you would always want to have a set of coins with you just in case, right?
And that means that [when] you're walking along the street and some guy says, “Hey, [do you have] some money?”
And you say “No,” because all you've got is the amount of coins that you would need to get your candy bar—you don't have extra, do you see?
And because “the coins are the cause of the candy bar that will be my pleasure,” we don't even perceive that those coins are something extra that we could get, and we for sure don't perceive it as something we would want to give to somebody else for their pleasure so that my future coins could actually work.
We don't apply the wisdom at all.
We are holding that the coins have something “in them” that is the cause for the result of my candy bar.
We are holding the vending machine as [if there was] something “in it” that holds my ability to get the pleasure of the candy bar (as long as it has these two other factors).
We're holding to the money as self-existent, we're holding to the candy bar as a source of my pleasure self-existently—and as a result, that belief makes me behave towards the money, that vending machine, and the candy bar in a way that in fact perpetuates my suffering, and the suffering of the world.
So those are the gakjas.
The gakja of the money that brings me a candy bar.
The gakja of the vending machine that brings me the candy bar.
The gakja of the candy bar that came from the money.
And the gakja of the candy bar that brought me pleasure.
There are gakjas all over the place.
And the gakja of me holding all of that as true is another one.
So then when we're investigating the gakja, we use that two-headed purple elephant in your room right now analogy…
Is there a two-headed purple elephant in your room right now?
Do you have to go looking to check?
No. Why?
Because in our reality there's no such thing as two-headed purple (living) elephants, so you don't really even have to go looking.
How is that helpful for the gakja?
A gakja, a thing that could exist independent of our projection, is as impossible as a two-headed purple elephant—but does that mean we don't have to go looking for it?
No, because we believe that things exist independent of our projections. We believe it so strongly that it would be like when I asked you, “is there a two-headed purple elephant in your room?” You would say, “wait, I can't answer that until I go look in the closet, look in the refrigerator, look under the sofa. I've got to look everywhere before I can tell you that there's no two-headed purple elephant in my room.”
That's what we want to do with gakjas.
Once we truly understand there's no such thing as “a thing that could exist independently of being a ripening of my own karma,” we don't have to look anymore. We'll be living it.
But as long as we blame something else, or somebody else, for something that happens to us, we need to be looking for the gakja, because [that means] we're still holding onto something as having some quality // identity // characteristic “in it” that's coming “at me,” which means as long as I'm experiencing something that way, I still have the innate belief that “things” and “me” have [their own] self-nature—that they have a nature [that’s] independent of: ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening, ripening…
But how do I relate to a “me” that's changing, changing, changing, changing—never the same two moments in a row, but never non-existent?
How do I relate to that “me?”
Which “me” am I right now?
And yet really, when we relate to that “me,” it's like, wow, right? Do one of “Prather’s wow factor’s” [a student, that] every time she says vows, it comes out wows—I'm keeping my wows!
It's like, perfect.
Like that—to finally recognize the impossibility of our gakja nature is so freeing (they say), and I can conceptualize that.
So let's take our break, and then we need to dig into “how do we do it?”
*************
So here's something [that] Lama Christie's pointed out, which (if my memory serves me) is the first time I heard one of my teachers say something I'd been cooking in my own understanding about person and parts.
So when we learn about dakdzin, which means “our holding to the self,” and the innate holding to self (dakdzin hlenke), they say that that holds within it, the innate holding to this “self,” as a person (the innate holding to persons), and then the innate holding to things, as in things have their own selves, their own identities—not meaning they all have consciousness, but identities.
So if dak means identity, we have this innate holding to things as having their own identities—whether those things are another person (a person, a conscious being), or a not-conscious being (a thing).
Then they also say, within this dakdzin hlenke is also the innate holding to the parts of a person, and if you're talking about a person as a conscious being (whether it's a fly or a gnat or a dog or a human), there's “the being,” and then there's “the being's parts,” their head, their nose, their wings.
And then for non-conscious things, there's “the thing,” the pen, and “the pen's parts,” It's ink, it's tip, it's clip…
To me, there was some clue inside there.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, he points out that we have this innate holding to our dak, our “having an identity in me,” my own identity. And then we have this innate holding to our “me,” and he says, the dakdzin hlenke, holding to me with my innate identity includes the “my parts.”
My parts make up “me,” duh. They are unique to me!
But then he says, “but look, they use that same phrase for holding to the parts of things,” like all the different things in our world, we hold to as “selves,” and at first we're thinking, “oh, that's all just different, [a] different category of things,” and Lama Christie was pointing out that maybe all existing things are included in the parts of a person.
If we wrap this term innate belief in a “me,” “a self,” and our “self” includes every experience we've ever had (or technically could have) then that includes the outer things that we experienced with their identities and all their parts—and it is that saying that ultimately, all these things of my outer world are actually a part of my dak?
And once I heard that, it just started me in a different direction. So I'm just sharing that there's a clue in there, especially for two of you in particular. So, Panchen Lama says, “remember that there are three different ways we might hold to our “me.”
He calls it “three ways of thinking, that's me!” And we touched on it last class:
There's a “me” that exists in truth (I didn't write it down) denpar druppa saying, “I do so exist!” like our Nagarjuna investigators—we end each chapter with, “we understand, Nagarjuna, you're saying such and such doesn't exist,” but then our kachik always goes, “but I do so exist! Because blah—and we go into the next chapter.” It's that “I do so exist!” it’s a way we are holding to ourselves as existing in truth. It's what dakdzin means.
Then there's a second way we could hold to ourselves, but I don't know about you, I don't do it very much. It's, “I exist lacking any true existence.” See why I don't do it very often? It's like, what? That's the one we reach when we are deeply investigating our own empty nature.
The third one is the way we relate to ourselves that's not characterized by either of the other two.
That's unfair [to describe it that way].
What they mean is nominal valid perception, “me.” They call it the “nominal valid perception that establishes the existence of the simple “me.”
Which one do you think we're having most of the time? This one.
You wake up in the morning, valid perception, I am awake. “Me.” I am awake. There it is. I just did it.
Is that nominal valid perception real?
That would start a debate.
Is that nominal valid perception happening?
Yes.
Does that establish me as existing?
Yes.
What's the definition of existence?
That which appears to a valid perception.
Yes, Janet?
[Janet: Okay. I was texting Natty about this. In our lineage, this term “real.” Then I asked my ney lama about it, and said, “it's real enough.”]
Right, yea good.
[And I think he meant the nominal is real enough. It's real enough that it exists in name. Lama Sarani exists in name, but she's real enough. My ney lama exists enough. These jobs that I have in my interviews exist enough.]
But enough to what?
[To have a clue? To purify something? To remove... I don't want to say a mental affliction, but to purify a seed, to not project it with the thought that maybe we'll have the karma to see things without those seeds. But at this time, we have the karma to see things with the seeds until we purify it enough, and then I read disturbing things like, in the desire realm, we make black and white seeds—so as we make white seeds, we're making more black seeds so we can never purify them and I don't know what to think about that. Then you said, we'll just keep doing the Vajrasattva 100 syllable mantra.]
Right. Yeah, so that things are real enough to seem to cause us suffering, from which we do things that perpetuate the suffering. They are real enough. They are also real enough to bring us pleasure. They are real enough for us to use on the path to end that discrepancy between how they exist, and how they don't exist, as we are experiencing them.
Meaning we can use them to reach that place where we are no longer making the mistake—nirvana—and even use them to reach that state where we are omniscient beings. They are real enough…
[I told Natty, she was saying, “well, I want to see emptiness directly” I told her, listen, I only at the very best understand it intellectually. This seeing emptiness directly thing is not about talking about it. Maybe you see it for a moment like when your mom dies or you climb a mountain or something, but is the best we can do as humans just to see it intellectually? That's so sad. That's so sad.]
Yeah, we can reach it. We should hold that aspiration to reach it, directly—and maybe recognizing that there are beings, human beings that have experienced it directly is a rejoicable, that if we're frustrated with our progress, add somewhere into your day, “Wow, in my world, I know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, who've seen emptiness directly. Yay!”
Because whose seeds are those coming from? Me, right? I've got something. Close enough.
Okay. Thanks for sharing.
Back to dakdzin hlenke…No… Back to how we're perceiving ourself.
A “me” that exists in truth means, the “me” that's “me” independent of any other factor.
A “me” that's “me” independent of my seeds ripening right now.
A “me” that's “me.” Right? A “me” that's “me.”
We would say self-existent, but every time I say self-existent, I feel like I have to go back and explain it to myself because we don't believe that we're self-existent. We know we depend on all kinds of different things. So just to say, “I think I'm self-existent,” is not true.
But when I'm using the term self-existent to mean “I have something in me that is independent of being results of past ways I've seen myself,” then it's like, yeah, yeah, I do believe that there's a “me” that exists like that—because I don't (yet) have a grasp on what it would be like to relate to my “me” as part of every projection, instead of the experiencer of the projections.
To hold myself as the experiencer of the projections implies to my own mind that there's a “me” independent of them. And my mind would go, “no, no, you're not independent of them, because there's always one going on,” so you depend on it for your experience (on those ripenings).
So you see, I can have a “me” independent of them, and I have to because who else would be witnessing them?
And it's like, “yeah, but doesn't your witness of them change by witnessing them?”
“Yeah, yeah, because I'm there to change.”
Do you see how the argument goes?
Those are all those debates, but my own mind is doing it as I'm trying to figure out to myself, “what do I mean by a self-existent “me?” As I'm sitting in meditation, that's supposed to be a stillness meditation on something else—this is what's going on.
But do you see [how] it weaves its way into this conundrum of identifying the gakja—working so hard to identify what we believe is there, and we find that by looking at our own experiences (our own experiences in the outer world) when somebody does something especially kind, “Oh, for me?” There's “me,” independent of that experience happening, or when somebody does something especially nasty, “how dare you do that to me?” Independent.
We're wanting to look for that thing we believe is so independent, and then investigate: can it really be there like that, and be consistent with what actually happens in the experience?
On first go around, it's like, “yeah, it's totally consistent with experience, but as we use the principles we're learning to dig in, we recognize, “ah, no, it's not actually consistent with what experience happens and how I react.”
I'm getting distracted here…
[Natty: Lama Sarahni, wouldn't it be more helpful if we call it differently, not “me,” this one and “me” after enlightenment? Because there is no even sense of “I,” there is more like “we” in the other state.]
As a Buddha? Buddha said, “somebody stole my begging bowl!” He's got a “me.”
[Because he can identify, and not identify—but maybe he's talking from the perspective of this “everyday me.”]
Right, right, right. We need to be able to identify how we believe we exist, in order to recognize we don't exist in that way, in order to relate to ourselves in a way that can, in fact, help us change our behavior towards others, in order to grow the seeds to be able to experience ourself in the way [that a] fully enlightened being experience themselves.
[What I'm asking is, wouldn't it be helpful to call it differently?]
Call what different?
[“Me” and “me.”]
Not until you have realized what you mean, or don't mean, by “me” and “me.” We need to use the words in order to find the gakja. Once you find the gakja, change your words. That's fine.
[Okay, because it's very confusing which me we are talking about, and I was just thinking that if we call it differently, maybe it will [help to] identify, “well, at this moment, Lama Sarahni is talking about this one, but at the other moment, Lama Sarahni is talking about the other one.” Because it gets very confusing.]
For our practice, we're wanting to identify the “me” that makes us perpetuate our suffering.
[Yeah, and this will be me. But the other one is not exactly me.]
So in these three, the one that we hold to as tenaciously a “me,” independent of projection—what it means by me that exists in truth. In me, from me, “me.”
And then the second one is to hold to the “me” as not self-existent, which, you know, that'd be great.
And then the third one is “simple, valid, “me.” The “me” that's going through the grocery store, the “me” that's driving, the “me” on automatic pilot—valid “me.”
So the “me” that's real and the “valid me,” those are two different experiences of “me,” but they're the same “me” that we're talking about (well, not one in the same), but the point is the “valid me” is not one we need to negate.
Leave that one alone.
The one we're going to go investigating is the “me” that exists in truth, and my point is [that] when we say, “oh, I believe there's a “me” that exists in truth,” My mind even rejects it, “I don't think I believe I exist in truth, because I know I have causes. I know I depend on all kinds of different things, so I don't believe I exist in truth.” That's the one we're looking for, it’s the one that refuses to agree that “I'm making the mistake about “me.”
That's why gakjas are so hard.
We don't actually want to look for them.
We don't actually want to find them,
Because, in a way, it means
Everything about me I've ever held
Hasn't been wrong.
Who wants to admit that?
I don't want to admit I've been wrong in every instance.
[Janet jokingly raises her hand indicating that she wants to admit it.]
Janet wants to admit it—I bow at your feet.
Yes, Roxanna?
[Roxana: So, when I'm the observer, right, and I'm just looking at the “no self me,” that means that is the one where I'm not grasping to anything. That one that doesn't hold to any beliefs, and I don't grasp to anything at all but just a mental flow of movement of the mind that's right there happening—without holding to anything? With the existence of or the absence of any intrinsic existence? Because I'm trying to figure out what you're saying, and when we practice, it's hold to your observer, right? So, my observer has like this mirror that it's trying to identify the projections that are arising. So, those are arisings.]
It is identifying. It's “making” their identities.
Okay, but it's an observer. It's just boom, boom, boom, [ripenings] it’s happening, even if it's blank, it's something happening. It's a movement of the mind. So, “to hold to a no-self” means that I'm not going to follow it, I'm not going to grasp to it, I'm not going to color it with any words, with any feelings, with anything—I'm just going to let it be? Without any…]
Right. So, in this meditation, first we get to the state where the things that we would (on the surface level) be relating to their identities. We get more and more subtle to that, letting them flow free of identities, and then recognize that the identity is just the ripening happening identity—and we're being the watcher of all of that happening.
And then the second half, which we're due to do very shortly (thank you for reminding me) is [where] you take a piece and you look at the watcher—watching that—and you apply the same thing to the watcher, so that we're now becoming somehow experiencing the watcher as part of every one of those ripenings, shifting, shifting, shifting, shifting, and it gives us that doorway into the [realization of] “my watcher doesn't exist in any other way than that absence.”
And then something starts up again.
So, what you're describing doesn't happen until we get to the second half. The seeds planted by appearings, passings, appearings, passings (just being the watcher) helps us be able to do the same thing to the watcher. And then, of course, the question is:
“Well, who's doing that?” Right.
“And who's doing that?” Right.
“And who's doing that?” Right.
And finally, we go, “oh, I get it,” and we're beyond words, and theoretically into the direct perception of the watcher, watching, watcher, watching, watcher, watching, watcher, watching. You know?
May it happen to you tomorrow.
[Okay, thank you dear Lama.]
Again, we use words to grapple with it—and they are all not it.
Not correct.
So, every time I try to rephrase it, yeah, it's for my own benefit—trying to get the phrase that makes my mind go *bing* you know, like a new “aha!” about all of it—but none of it is accurate until we have that direct experience, and then we can go back and say, “oh, this was the most accurate.”
But only for me, right? Not necessarily for anybody else.
So just very quickly, and then I want to do our second meditation… No, I can't do that quickly. Okay, let's do our second meditation.
*************
Okay, settle your body, please.
***45 seconds***
Come to your breath at your nostrils to turn on that sharp, focused, bright mind—fascinated.
***15 seconds***
Your body falls still.
***30 seconds***
When you have that microscope adjusted using the sensations of your breath as the object—let go of that object, and slide back or open up to any awareness arising.
Notice whatever level of engagement with the identity or story that your mind is at—let it go, sink down deeper.
***30 seconds***
Being relaxed enough so that things flow—and focused, concentrated, watcher, at their arising at more and more subtle levels.
Reaching that arising, passing, happening flow—appearing nature of your mind.
***15 seconds***
Being the observer of it all.
***1 minute***
So there you are, observer—observe-ing.
Focused, clear, enjoying…
And take a little corner of your mind, and look at the observe-er.
Look for the observe-er, the meditate-or, the “me.”
We believe that observe-er is our “me.”
The observer is the one who's observing.
What is it you are actually holding onto when you have that thought—that experience?
***45 seconds***
Does that “me,” the observe-er, exist or not?
***45 seconds***
There is a way “me” exists, and there is a way “me” doesn't exist.
***45 seconds***
If it gets confusing, go back to simply observe-er, observe-ing.
Get settled and relaxed in that—and then try again.
Taking another part, and exploring the observer.
Is it independent of the observe-ing?
Do I believe it's independent of the observe-ing, so that it can observe?
***15 seconds***
If that's not true, what would it be like?
***30 seconds***
If it is true that my observer is there before anything to be observed, what would that be like?
***45 seconds***
Find that part of you that resists the conclusion—there can be no observe-er without observe-ing.
That resistance reveals our belief in a “me” that exists independently.
***30 seconds***
What is it we believe in so strongly?
***30 seconds***
Is there any kind of root self that you can call “me?”
***45 seconds***
Let's stay two more minutes.
***2 minutes***
Nice, now make a mental note of that exploration, and then bring yourself back up through the levels.
Being aware of your inner body.
Being aware of the outer world.
Being aware of your body inside the outer world.
And then when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.
I always find when I'm starting to get into that, some part of me just wants to laugh out loud because it's so absurd how difficult this is. It’s so freeing to get a glimpse of where we're going, and I remember the years when it was struggle, struggle, struggle, and [then] I'd hit something and it would go “ahh!” and out I would go.
And now I hit this laughter that kicks me out. I don't physically laugh, but something inside me just starts to [go] “ahh!”
I hope it's a good sign, I'm not sure.
[Roxana: It is a very conceptualized experience, as you mentioned at the beginning of the class. So it's beyond words when you get the aha! of the observer and of who's observing.]
Yeah, it doesn't disappear at all.
[No.]
But then it gets beyond description.
[Right. Right. Right.]
And my mind never stops describing, but it gets so close that it's like, fun. So nice.
So we'll keep at it. Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen just keeps taking us towards it in different directions and has us repeat, repeat, repeat.
So this is basically the meditation—you get to the level of the flow for our stillness, and then you look at what's happening in that flow, particularly directed at the observe-er to find that there's only “the happen-ing.”
So let's do our dedication…
Remember that person we want to be able to help in that deep and ultimate way?
You know, probably in this life, at least, they are never going to be interested in this stuff—and that's fine, we're doing it for them.
We can't make their karma—but we change us, and that changes them.
And so already we've put right into motion, the ripples through which we will help them, and that's a really, really great 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 being.
See how happy they are.
Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart.
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.
And 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 happiness, filled with loving kindness.
And may it be so.
Okay. Thank you so much, my dears, for the opportunity. I always learn stuff
Dakdzin hlenkye = the innate tendency to hold on to a self
Ngar dzin hlenkye = the innate tendency to hold on to a me
Ngar = me
Dak = self
Ngar dzinpa = holding to a me jikta = the destructible view
Den par jupa
Mikyul = the object of perception, an unexamined object
yul=object, mik=eye
Dzin tang kyi yul = the object as our mind holds it to be, how our mind holds to the object
Shenyul = flavor or our emotional attachment to the object, attracted towards or adverse to
Tokpay tak tsam = merely projected
*************
Introduction
All right, welcome back. We are Mahamudra's Practicers. This is September 16th, 2025.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do…
The full opening contemplation and prayers can be found in the transcript of Class One under “Gather Our Minds.”
…“May all beings reach their total awakening for the benefit of every single other.”
*************
All right, so let's settle back in and do our meditation.
Get your body set—you know how.
***1 minute 15 seconds***
Bring your focus of attention to your breath at the tip of the nostrils.
Use it to get the focus, the clarity, the intensity.
***45 seconds***
This is the most important thing you could do for that other person’s suffering-relief right now.
***45 seconds***
Now keep that sharp focus and drop back into “watcher.”
***15 seconds***
Watching the obvious things that are arising.
Letting them pass.
Catching them at more subtle levels of arising.
***30 seconds***
Drop the watcher in more deeply—watching those inner sensations that arise.
***15 seconds***
“Watcher” recognizes [that] these are all mental images arising, and passing…
So that you slip into that realm of mind.
Random mental images arising in this vast, available “landscape of mind.”
***45 seconds***
“Watcher” watching this flow.
Even any space between arisings, is an arising of the flow.
***15 seconds***
Focused, bright, fascinated…
***30 seconds***
Projections rising—passing…
***30 seconds***
Now from this deep, still, fascinating space—take a tiny part of our mind and analyze the “me” that we grasp to so strongly.
Here's one way to do it:
This little corner of mind…
Recognize that when a thought arises, we think we are the thinker of the thought—because the thought has arisen.
Sometimes we seem to be able to make them arise; other times they seem to arise on their own.
***15 seconds***
Recognize those thoughts, too, are projections—simply arising and passing…
Just like a sound.
Just like a sensation.
***15 seconds***
But what is this “me” thinking the thoughts?
What is this me watching these projections?
Who is that “watcher?”
We think there is a “watch-ing” because there is a “watcher.”
We think because there is a “watcher,” there can be “watch-ing.”
So find it again—simply “watcher,” allowing all those projections…
And then that tiny corner of your mind, to look at the “watch-er.”
And when our tiny corner of our mind finds the “watch-er,” recognize that that, too, must be a projection arising and passing—a concept.
***45 seconds***
Do it again—being the watcher.
***15 seconds***
Projections…
Projections, projections…
Then take that little corner and look at the watcher—and recognize…
Projections, projections, projections…
***15 seconds***
So which am I?
The watcher?
The watched?
Or the watching?
***1 minute***
And if my “me” is nothing but projection…
Projections of thinking, of feeling, of watching—what are they being projected onto?
Is there some kind of base “me” that they rest upon?
***15 seconds***
What is this available landscape that the projections appear within?
Can we step into that and just be?
***1 minute 30 seconds***
Let’s stay two more minutes…
***2 minutes***
Now come back to being the watcher—and come up in levels, being aware of your inner body sensations…
And then aware of your outer body sensations…
And then your outer world sensations...
Until you are again “you” in your room, in this class…
Dedicate whatever glimpse you got, to that other person's freedom.
And then when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch.
Yes, Tom? Right.
[Tom: Could you repeat the question that you asked us in the meditation? Like, I was so “in,” and I had like right away an answer—and now I don't remember what you asked even.]
It was: What are the projections being projected onto?
[Tom: My brain went right away. I said my consciousness, and then there was like white light. But it's like as I came up, I was like, I don't know what happened. I'm like, I don't remember anything.]
Okay, that's all right.
[Tom: Um, I also wanted to ask, um, in like, if you have a recommendation on like days when maybe we're not feeling so well, like what to do, like, I've been having a lot of headaches lately. So like, this type of meditation makes it a little worse, because it's like really ear focused, or sorry, but like, you know, monthly period, like, I wasn't able to like get out of bed so much within so much pain.
So I'm trying not to like, skip, but if you have some recommendations.]
Yeah, what you do is—even just laying in bed—turn on the watcher state, and just watch and re-identify everything that comes up as a projection and let it pass.
And just use it to fine tune the ability to “be the watcher,” and don't force yourself into the well, what's watching, etc.
Just use it as purification, practice, and planting seeds to reach stillness—to be in stillness.
Yeah, and I found that was one of the side benefits of Mahamudra meditation is that I could use those migraine times, you know, instead of waste it—because I could just watch it and explore doesn't make it less painful, right? It just makes it useful.
So use it.
And then even if you're doing that practice laying in bed—it qualifies as your Mahamudra for the day!
[Tom: Thank you.]
Okay, so Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen has taught us that the first part of Mahamudra is getting to stillness—that “Shamatha level meditation.”
And fortunately, he says, “don't wait until you actually get there to go to the second part, but really keep consciously trying to move ourselves up through those different levels of meditation—so that we have that tool to be able to do these investigations // analyses from the state of Shamatha.”
But even when we're doing the analyses, not from the state of Shamatha, they're planting seeds for us to gain // to gather our wisdom // to grow our wisdom.
So, the “sinking in as the watcher,” and getting to that place of “the flow,” is his tool for reaching a single pointed concentration—from which the blisses will arise—which brings on the Shamatha level.
And then, the little piece of the mind goes looking and analyzing—that doesn't necessarily kick us out of Shamatha—we're doing the analysis with that same focus, clarity, [and] fixation.
So, then we start this “looking,” and Lama Christie had a lot to say [to help] us figure out how to do the looking.
There are many different ways to go looking for the “me,” and then look at its true nature // look for its true nature—to find (we know the punchline) that its true nature is that it has none—without falling off the cliff of, “oh, well, then there's no me,” which is not the correct conclusion, and without pushing ourselves back to, “well, I can't find it, so it must be the me I thought was there,” and [then] we're [right] back where we started.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen goes through these different explanations for how we experience things, and how we experience ourselves, in the same way [in order] to help us better understand the mistake we're making (cognitively // intellectually) so that when we get down in there with the little analyzer—it has a sequence it can go through (and come to the conclusion that we [come to] when we think it through) but now we're getting that conclusion with this quality of mind that's so much more receptive to the truth of that conclusion that it can be a window of opportunity to glimpse the goal—which is the direct perception of my no-self-nature, and understanding that better.
So we were at the part where he was making the distinction // where he was helping us to recognize the gakcha, and he was making the distinction between dakdzin hlenkye and ngar dzin hlenke.
I'm just going to read you from the transcript of Lama Christie—we did it last week (I didn't read it, but I want to do it again).
The First Panchen Lama talks about the innate tendency to grasp onto to a self, which is the dakdzin hlenkye.
First Panchen Lama says dakdzin hlenkye is synonymous with another phrase ngar dzin hlenke—but nga means self. So ngar dzin hlenke means: the innate tendency to hold onto a “me,” a self.
Whereas the dakdzin hlenkye also means self—but more in the sense…
…Sorry, I quit reading…
Ngar means “me.”
Dak means “self.” It can be a lot of different kinds of self—really it means self exist.
But he says dakdzin hlenkye, the innate tendency to grasp onto a self is equivalent to ngar dzin hlenke, the innate tendency to grasp onto a “me,” and that's a pretty big deal because we were just defining dakdzin hlenkye as having two separate parts—the gangsaki dakdzin and the chukyi dakdzin. The gangsaki dakdzin is the self existence of “person,” and the chukyi dakdzin is the self existence of “parts.”
Basically, he's saying that both of these are a type of grasping onto a “me.”
So there's a big clue in there.
And Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is making, then, the distinction between the innate tendency to grasp to a “self,” to things as having their own selves—whether those things are things, or persons, or me—and he makes the distinction of the tendency to grasp to a “me” as having self existence—that's the innate tendency that we are looking for.
So it gets a little bit slippery.
We want to be reminding ourselves that the self we are looking for—is the self existence self.
When we use those words, we know what we're talking about. But hink of it as [if] you're talking to somebody else:
They don't know whether you're talking about yourself, or their self, or the self of the rabbit, or the self of the car.
In this tradition, we're trying to be really, really specific—and of all of those “selves” that we could be looking for, the one that's going to help us change reality, is our innate tendency to hold to a self-existent “me,” he says.
We can use all those other things to get there—but why not find the “me” and investigate it? And that's what he's going to suggest that we do.
That's what Lama Christie's been teaching us so far.
Okay, we got to that part last class, and I think we ended last class with that question—if we're grasping on to the self existence of things, others, other persons, and our own self, and those self-existent things don't even exist—what the heck are we grasping on to, and how can we ever stop doing it if there's nothing there?
And we, again, already know the punchline that it is true that there's no such thing as a self-existent thing—but it is true that our belief in self-existent things is so strong that we act towards them in ways that perpetuates suffering, because we don't understand what we're doing, or why we're doing it.
So he's making this distinction (helping us make the distinction) between how we hold to objects (he's going to use objects), but he wants us to do the same thing with our “me.”
We hold to things as having their identities “in them.”
We experience them as having their identities “in them.”
We just simply experience information, but by the time we have an identity—that identity includes the “in it, from it” [and] that's what's meant by “how we hold an object.”
And then we have this [completely separate concept of] “how we believe in that object as having its own nature in it”—because it doesn't have its own nature in it—so the only way that we can hold to it as having [it’s own nature in it], is if we believe it.
So really, all we need to get rid of is a belief—which turns out to be harder to get rid of than if the thing were actually a self-existent thing. [If it were actually a self-existent thing] you could just take it and throw it out and get rid of it—but beliefs are harder.
And yet when beliefs go, they go.
A belief is a belief.
It's full on or it's not at all.
Now, there might be ramifications still there—but you either believe in Santa Claus or you don't. You can't have halfway.
So, he's going to make the case for how, in order to stop our belief in things, others, and “me” as having their own natures—we have to find the Gakcha, our nemesis, or friend, the gakcha.
But if the gakcha really refers to a self-existent thing—a thing that has its identity in it, from it—and there's no such thing—then there's no such thing as a gakcha.
Why bother finding it?
Because we believe in those things!
We believe in gakchas.
So First Panchen Lama says, “when you find the Gakcha and you can deny it—that's how you shift everything.”
We need to do it again and again, of course, but he says technically, to find the gakcha about “things,” or to find the gakcha even about “other persons,” persons who are “other,” is not what's going to stop this belief that causes all our suffering.
So there's that word jikta, we've had it before in our ACI training—it does mean our suffering world.
It means the destructible view, right? Ta is a view or the edge, and jig means destructible—and it means that it's a view of our world through [which, or] because of which, our world will be destroyed—meaning literally our world will be destroyed—but also meaning how we have the three sufferings (that everything's either pain, the pain of change, or pervasive suffering because of this changing, changing, changing nature of things that's completely out of our control, and [is] so apparently random).
But Panchen Lama says that technically, this holding to a “me,” ngar dzinpa—that is the destructible view. That's the basis of our moment by moment experiences that change, and leave us wanting for more, and perpetuate suffering.
They [also] call it the destructible view because, when we destroy that wrong view—that whole process ends.
It's not that everything disappears—we know that—it's that the wrong way of reacting towards our experiences changes.
We stop the wrong part.
We still act.
We still do things—but how we do them will burn off negative, and perpetuate goodness, and so in that way, jikta is this destructible view because what we're going to destroy is the mistaken world—not the world.
It does not have to be destroyed in the end.
Ngar dzinpa—the way we do that is by finding how we're holding to our “me.”
Not the “me” of other people.
Not the “me” of other things.
But the “me's” “me” is where we target our analysis so that we can reach the direct perception of that—which is what cuts that innate belief in that “me,” which is what (finally) cuts the perpetuation of samsara.
So he gets really specific:
Spend our time finding the “me” that we hold to have its own identity (in it, from it), the “me” that's other than being projected moment by moment—find the one we think is there, show ourselves over and over and over again that it can't exist in the way it seems (but it can't not exist at all, because here I am) and find that middle way space and hold it.
And then watch what pops back in—because we won't be able to hold it for long—and then do it again, and do it again, and do it again, and do it again.
52:00 minutes
So Ngar dzinpa, when we're looking for a self-existent thing, it should be the “me,” the “me's” self-existence that we want to show ourselves is non-existent. We're not going to show ourselves that it's there, and then remove it. And that's what gets so slippery—how can you show yourself something that doesn't exist?
In another text, Panchen Lama says, “the best way to find your “me” is when somebody accuses you of something you didn't do.”
Me?! I didn't do that! Is his explanation.
Lama Christie says she found the time her “me” shows up the most is when she's in some kind of pain, some kind of suffering—because that “me” is so clear.
“I don't want that.
Why is that happening to me?
What do I have to do?
Am I going to die?
Blah, blah, blah.”
So the kind of situations that we want to push away and not step into deeply are actually places where we can find our “me” more glaringly.
The “me” we believe is the “real me,” the one that's happening to—because that means we're not holding [the understanding that] this is projections happening and nothing but.
Roxanna, your hand went up for an instant.
[Roxana: Oh, thank you, Dear Lama. I'm just trying to make like kind of an analogy in my mind. When you say look, now you have the watcher on. And in my mind, it's like you have a drone that's looking to a certain part. And then there's something else looking to the watcher, and it's like there's a helicopter that's higher than the drone, it has a big wider view. I mean, in space, like in space and in time. I’m just trying to figure out how to put it into different words.]
If that's useful for you, use it. It's okay to try to use these analogies, and then at some point when you get the heart of it—drop the analogy and just zero in on how you get it.
[Roxana: I think I get it, but I'm just trying to remember how it feels and how to get there. So that's like I need to talk it over to myself so I won't forget. Okay, thank you.]
Okay, good.
[Natalia: May I also ask a question? Thank you so much. So when you were describing that beliefs are the basis, and then what we have the conception of me, the false conception of me, does it somehow relate to bad karma? Can I associate, is it correct to associate having created bad karma with those beliefs that I have about myself and in this false me?]
Correct. The false “me” is why we would even make a karma that would be a negative karma, and then the belief in the false “me” itself, of course, is a negative karma.
It's ignorance, right? So it's underneath all the other karmas as well.
Technically, even underneath the white karmas we do, because we're still misunderstanding the “me of me” and the “me of them,” which is why all our seeds [that we plant this way] are dirty good karma. So yeah, it is karma. We're getting there, actually. How [this] “me” relates to karma. It's like coming up very soon.
[Thank you.]
So Panchen Lama made it really clear in his commentary that when we are talking about the not self-existent “me” that we're trying to find, we are not talking about investigating somebody else's “me” to find it's non-self-existence. We're not looking for the gakcha “me” in somebody else.
There must be a tendency to do that or else he wouldn't bring it up.
The destructible view, he says, is the view of a self-existent “me,” not self-existent “anything else.” The one that destroys the mistaken world is destroying the self-existent “me,” the belief in the self-existent “me.” ME, me, me.
He's making that really clear.
Yes, we can understand the not self-existent pen really well, and give pens to everybody—but that actually won't do it. It takes this investigation of the “me.” So he goes on to explain to us these ways that we experience something. He's going to talk about objects, but of course he wants us to apply it to our own “me” when we get to the point that we can find the “me” that we think is there, and then recognize these three ways that we are experiencing it.
So the words are here: mikyul, dzin tang kyi yul, and shenyul.
Mikyul means, yul is the word for object, mik is the word for eye—to look, to see. So you would think it would be “the object that I see,” (and it literally does mean that) but they're using mikyul in this general term of “the object of perception.” So whether we perceive it with our ear, or nose, or tongue, or tactile, or even thought, the object is the mikyul—the object of perception.
It's simply an unexamined object.
And then when we really dig into “what is the unexamined object I actually experienced,” suddenly we're examining, and so we can't really even answer the question—just the raw experience, there it is.
Then there's dzin tang kyi yul, yul is the object. Dzin tang kyi means the object as our mind holds it to be.
I was using that term before, “how our mind holds to something,” and it's a funny way [to describe it], because our mind doesn't literally “hold” anything—but when we have an experience of some-thing, there's the thing (the mikyul) and then there's the way my mind is holding it, “Oh, it's this beautiful big cup.” [holds up a cup] So it's what we make of it, is this dzin tang kyi yul—how our mind holds to the cup.
Yes, Janet?
[Janet: Sorry, I'm just, you know, because I like to use the dictionary… So mikyul is the visual object. It's not the I “I,” it's the eye “eye” object.]
Right, it's the object of perception, and it literally does mean “the object of visual perception,” but they're using it as [a general term for] any object of perception. So you're right, it's technically things we see (which is 99% of our experience, they say) but we're not limiting this discussion to just things that we see, things that we hear, smell, taste, touch, think, feel—it all applies in this “there is the object of experience” mikyul.
The dzin tang is how we are holding to that object—it's like how we are experiencing it.
And then shenyul is this flavor of, Lama Christie said [it’s like] our emotional attachment to what it is we are experiencing. That feels a little bit strong to me. It's like, I don't know, I can see a blade of grass in somebody's long lawn and not have emotional attachment to it, but when we understand about Lord Maitreya's steps of ripening karma:
Up comes an object.
And then we believe in its self-existence.
And then we either like it or dislike it.
So the shenyul is this component of “attracted towards” or “averse to” (technically there's also a neutral, although I'm not sure that actually happens) but it's this reaction that we have to the thing that we are holding to in a certain way.
It implies that we could experience an object of perfect perception, and hold it in a different way, and act towards it in a different way, feel towards it in a different way, than we do when we are on automatic pilot, when we are in hlenke mode, innate mode.
And of the three, apparently the one that's the most difficult to shift is this shenyul, the automatic reaction to what it is we believe the thing is. Somehow it's easier to change what we believe the thing is than it is to change our automatic reaction to it.
All of these are happening so fast and out of our control mostly, that they're all something we want to explore in meditation where we can have this bright, clear, undistracted quality of mind that can watch as an object arises, and deconstruct it (are the words that Lama Christie always uses) and part of that deconstruction would include:
Finding how we believe it has its own identity and qualities in it.
Finding how that's not possible.
Finding how we believe it is (in it, from it).
Finding how that belief is mistaken.
And finally, if that belief is mistaken, then does it change by wanting the thing or wanting to avoid the thing?
When I understand that the qualities I'm attracted to, or rejecting, are not actually in the thing.
If we truly understood that there was nothing pleasurable in that piece of Sea’s candy, and the Sea’s candy is sitting on a plate, would I even care about it being there? Would I even have the, “Oh, Sea’s candy!” feeling if I knew that what I expect the candy would do for me is not in the candy, I would just look at it and I could feel that pleasure of enjoying the candy without even eating it.
Well, then why do I even need to see it? I could just think about Sea’s candy and taste it and get the pleasure of it. That's getting close to being Buddha, right? Experiencing the pleasure of all things all the time—and you don't even need them!
So where are we going with that?
Objects appear to us [and] the way we hold to [objects] happens automatically. It's our karmic seeds ripening, clearly, and then how we hold to it drives the “how we feel about it.” That's the mikyul, dzin tang kyi yul, shenyul “trilogy” of what's going on towards cups, cars, other people, etc., [and] it's happening towards our “me” as well:
There's a “me” that arises mikyul, “me.”
There's a “how I'm holding to myself.” [dzin tang kyi yul]
And there's a “how I feel about that.” [shenyul]
And then when we start to deconstruct our own “me,” somewhere along the line,we hit that shenyul level [of] “how I feel about me,” not meaning, “Oh, I love me // I don't love me // I'm great // I'm not great, but deeper down in “how I feel about whether or not I am “me,” in “me,” independent of projections happening.”
When we get close to finding the “me that's nothing but projection,” our shenyul about “self-existent me” kicks in and it says, “No, I do so exist!” We meet it in Arya Nagarjuna class: “I do so exist!” Just like that.
That's our shenyul that kicks in hard because we're getting close to the fact that what it believes is “me,” (that is the pleasure of being, the need of being) is getting compromised, [but] we [still] misunderstand, so that shenyul triggers a fear [that] “Oh my gosh, I'm going to find that I don't really exist.”
Is that going to be true? That we're going to find I don't really exist? It's slippery. You can't really answer it, right?
No, you're not going to disappear—but the “you” that you hold to as a self-existent “me,” that is going to disappear. Well, how can it disappear if it never existed in the first place? So there's nothing to disappear. So why is it so scary? Because we believe in it so strongly. Because of past believing in it so strongly, we have that attachment to it (the shenyul, the clinging to it) even though there's nothing there to cling to, it's just so absurd, you know, as you're getting deeply in there, it's like “this is nuts what's going on!” But we can't stop it because the seeds are all filled with it.
So even as our seeds ripening for understanding it are growing, we'll hit this conundrum—and as we understand the conundrum better, we're less and less disturbed by it. Soon, when we are getting close to the self-existent me, “Ahh, no such thing!” the shenyul that will kick in is, “Wow, let's have it!” So it's not that we're really trying to deny a shenyul quality of our experience—it's that we're wanting to grow the seeds so that our feeling about reaching the “no self nature me” is like, “Yeah!”
Keen. Excited.
Lama Christie will say later that “you're getting closer when, as you're getting into that indescribable space of, let's call it the aha! of the “no me” that your mind goes, “Wow!” She calls it “lights on fire.” It gets brighter, clearer, more keen.
You think you had it maxed out, but you didn't. If, as we're getting into that space of [a] more vague “me,” if we're finding ourselves getting dulled out, then we don't have it right—so it's kind of a way to judge when we're reaching a conclusion and aha! if we're finding our mind still at the same level of quality as before—keep digging, keep digging—but if you're finding your mind goes, “ahh!” then we know we're on the right track.
My own block is that when my mind [starts to get there] it starts immediately trying to describe it to myself: “Oh, this is what I'm close to!” And then “Oops, just lost it.” And have to start again.
So a clue to how our practice is going is how eager we are to get into that next level. [It’s] like going through a door that you have absolutely no idea what's behind it. It could be good, bad, indifferent, terrifying—and an eagerness to go through it anyway—that quality of mind in the meditation (as you're getting close).
Let’s take our break.
*************
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen quotes Arya Nagarjuna…
Technically, we are into Bok Jinpa Course 16, Class 2 now—that was the meditation that we did, Class 2's meditation.
First Panchen Lama quotes Arya Nagarjuna, and he says, “So long as you grasp onto your heaps, so too, will you grasp to them as “me,” and when you hold to a “me,” you also hold onto your deeds—and from these deeds, come yet another birth.”
This is where Nati's mind's been going. She asked last week a question that was about karma and “me.”
I'll read it again:
Nagarjuna says, “So long as we grasp onto our heaps, so too will we grasp to them as “me.” My heaps, right? Me and my heaps—and when we hold onto a “me,” we also hold onto our deeds, our karma. And from these deeds, come yet another birth.”
It's this clue about how karma is contained within our perception of “ourself” at any given moment—that's highest school's explanation of where karma stays, right?
Karma stays in the simple “me.”
And that didn't mean anything back when we heard it, and I don't know, maybe it still doesn't quite mean anything—but Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is saying it's tremendously important. It's like a big clue.
As we're learning about karma and learning about projections, do you remember when you were first learning? And then it's like wherever we were doing anything, we'd be experiencing something and trying to go, wow, that's just projection. How can that just be a projection? I can touch it and it's solid, it can't just be a projection, right? It has to be somehow real, some real thing that my projection's landing on. And okay, so what's the thing?
We actually probably talked ourselves through the different levels of understanding as we kept trying to chew on it. And I remember Sumati one day saying, “wait, it's like karma ripens and then we see it, but when we're working on it, it's like, no, no, I'm here first. And then “tada!” a cup shows up.
I'm here first, and then here's “me,” “them doing that to me.”
Arya Nagarjuna goes into it. Who's there first? Yeah, the desire or the desirer? The actor or the action? We have multiple chapters where we've been looking for who comes first. And we know logically, there can't be a first—but practically, here I am, stuff happens at “me,” to “me,” because of this misunderstanding.
And the main misunderstanding is that, no, no, there's the “me” with the heaps, but separate from the heaps somehow, impossibly, but we believe it—and then when anything or anybody gets in the way of me and my heaps, “me” is like, “yeah, don't you mess with my heaps,” because of this attachment that we have to not just the heaps, but the “me” that has them.
[That’s] Lobsang Chukyi Gyetsen’s point.
We have these attachments to what we call “outer things,” but really, the attachment is to the “me” that those things belong to, and one of the things that we're attached to, doggone it, is our deeds. The “me” carries the karma, carries the deeds.
And so even as we're saying, no, no, I'm trying to purify all karma. I want to make nothing but good karma, there's a part of us that is so identified as “the one who experiences that,” that when we get close to really letting it go, we think my me is going to disappear if I prove to myself [that] it's nothing but projection, because of the automatic misperception of projection that thinks, “oh, so it's not real.”
So this term projection and how we react to it, I find is so critical because after all these years of working with it, every time I hear myself say “projection,” a part of my mind flips into, “well, it's just like a movie, movies are amazing, but they don't really happen. The movie happens, but not the thing in the movie.”
And my mind thinks projection is the same way.
If we understood (when we understand) projection accurately, and we say, “oh, that's merely a projection,” just a projection, it'll be like, “oh, got it.” Because the “just” a projection doesn't mean it's any less than real. The “just” means it's projection and nothing but.
That's its emptiness.
So when we say “just a projection,” we are actually saying “projection and not anything else,” which is its emptiness. But until that's what we know we mean when we say that, we react in this way that goes, “oh, so nothing exists at all.”
The “me” doesn't exist at all when we say “me” is merely a projection—and Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen wants us to work with that (like recognize it, first of all) being able to reach the subtlety of mind that we can actually experience, finding our “me,” analyzing the “me,” coming to the conclusion [that] “it's merely projection” without falling off that cliff of, “oh, well, then I'm just like an actor in a movie, there's no real me underneath,” but rather coming to the conclusion [of] “oh, that's the real me.”
The words I use is changing, changing, changing, right?
Never the same two moments in a row, but never non-existent.
But I can't hold it.
I can say the words,
And I can know my meaning,
But I can't stay there.
And what I mean by that.
Yes, Tom?
[Tom: So our attachment to me in our heaps arises strongly when we're hurt, when we're in anger, when we want to justify the right, those type of emotion really ripen with a sense of like, of course, this is me, right? But when we talk about love and compassion and wisdom, there isn’t that same type of power and energy arise to it. And I think even if you look at a lot of different therapeutic practices, the moment that a person is like, oh, I'm endless love, there is this like, doubt, it doesn't have this much powerfulness seeds that rise.
So I was wondering, like, why those are stronger for versus like the love, right? Like, we're like, yeah, I'm full of love. But there is like, it's like doubtness in it.]
It’s just because that when we are in that emotion of love and compassion, the “self existent me” is much less strong.
{Tom: But why?]
Well, because your concern for “other” doesn't [totally] override it, [but] your concern for “other” is coming from this different place than your concern for “me,” and a self existent “me” can't be there at the same time that we're concerned about a self existent “them.” We still have it wrong. So let's not take class time for it, but keep cooking it. You've got a clue there.
So the implication of what Arya Nagarjuna is saying is, is that when we can get a hold of how our “me” doesn't exist in the way that we think it does—and how it does exist—then that's gonna do something dramatic to all of our karmic seeds, like all of our deeds.
We identify ourselves, Lama Christie says, based on how we “bounce off” other.
So when we're aware [of this concept of:] an experience arises, and then we experience it, [we’ll understand that] we're always an instant behind the “me” part.
The aware-er // the experience-er seems to be an instant behind the experience.
Experience has to happen, and then we're aware of it.
And when we're aware of that position that we hold ourselves in, we think that “me” is the projector, at first—and that starts the conundrum [of] “Well, if I'm the projector, how can the thing ripen first, and then me be aware of it? I should be aware of it as it's being projected.”
And in meditation, we can be—that's where we're going with that watcher watching—it's still at the level of “they ripen and we don't follow,” but it'll get more and more subtle, that will help us experience the ripening, and then be able to recognize “where's my me in that ripening,” right?
Eventually we're going to see that the “me” is included in every ripening, and there's no “me” other than that, right?
Here comes a ripening, it's got the “me” included.
Here's another one, it's got the “me” included.
And in that way, when we understand this “me” [the ripening // experiencer] as our “real me,” which [means that] there is no “real me,” that's when this whole pattern shifts, that's when we can now use our actions towards those ripenings in wiser ways.
When we are able to stop identifying with our self-existent me, we are identifying with our ripening, ripening, ripening me, then we know that we are also identifying with our planting, planting, planting me, and our practice is to like shift this focus to rather than experiencing “me,” to be the planting “me.”
But then just to hear myself say that, I had this feeling of, “oh, okay, that’s the me that's doing the planting,” it's like, no, no, no, you just fell for it again, honey, right?
And there was the me that's going to be doing the planting, and that won't be true either, right?
It's the planting, planting, planting, planting, as opposed to experiencing, experiencing, experiencing—shift in perspective.
I haven't gotten there yet 24/7, but I have the picture of it in my mind.
So Lama Christie says we actually define ourselves based on our objects of experience. And it's like, “no, I don't!”
But yes, we do.
The experiencer depends on the experience.
Well, the experience depends on the experiencer—that's why our “me” at the moment, is a “me” delivering class me—not a Sarahni, who's delivering class right now.
There's the “this moment, this moment, this moment,” and we can get it intellectually—we want to get it directly in our meditation—and Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is outlining this way to get there. He's going to actually give us various ways to analyze our “me” once we get into that space, and then you find the one that you like, that works for you, and then use it again and again and again, once we finish the whole course (which we are getting close to finishing).
So when we finally stop grasping to that “me,” the “me” that's independently experiencing all these ripenings, when we can let go of that, we let go of the entire story of “me.”
It's interesting, we have all these karmic seeds, we have our, you know, everything that's ever happened to me, has formed me into the me, and I have my family background, and I have their heritage, and I have all that stuff, and it's all part of “me.”
And it's like, yeah, it's part of the me that is the self existent “me” that's had all that has all those karmic seeds, and that self existent me. Where is it? Who is it? What is it?
Let go of that, and all those other identities have nothing to rest on.
And when we think of that, is it a little scary?
Can I really identify as not, you know, a 71 year old Caucasian American woman who has family heritage that's German and British and blah, blah, blah?
Can I let go of all of that and be none of it?
It's scary.
Do I want to let go of it? Absolutely.
In meditation, easier. Until we get really, really down to the deepest, deepest crux—and then that self existent “me” rears its head again, because it thinks it's a thing that's going to disappear when I get to the truth.
And it's so strong, right?
It's the devil in the angel devil teachings.
It's wise, and it's strong, and it's slippery. And it's courageous, and it'll do anything to keep itself going. And so somewhere along the line, it's common to hit a fear of going deeper in our meditations—pulling away the self-existent “me.” And it doesn't mean we've done anything wrong in our meditation. In fact, it's a good sign. And it's fine to back off for a little while if you hit it. But it's also fine, right to take on the warrior stance and drill through it to see what happens.
But don't be surprised if we hit a fear factor there.
Okay, how are we doing? We still have lots of time.
So the jikta, the destructible view, technically, is this view of our “me” as having its nature in it, from it—more accurately would be to say, “this view of ‘me’ that exists, not as a projection,” a “me” that exists that's doing the project-ing. A “me” that exists before the projection happens, as opposed to the subject side aspect of every ripening—that me. That feels too vague for me to relate to when I get out of bed and go brush my teeth. It's more accurate, however, to what our “me” actually is.
So again, we're not making the case for there being “no me.” There is a “me.” It's the only thing we know for sure. Because we directly experience “me” regularly. But the “me” we hold to is the “me” that's independent of projections happening.
At this level of understanding, your neighbor who is not a Dharma practitioner, we wouldn't say [to them] “you're holding to yourself that's not a projection.”
That would not be helpful.
But for us, when we say self-existent, the gakcha, what we mean is something that exists outside of our projected result of some karmic seed planted.
There's no “me” that exists outside of some karmic result happening at the moment—there's no “me” outside of karma.
Well, wait, I just said if I let go of my “me,” I let go of all my karma…
So does “me” disappear? No.
Does all my karma change? I [don’t] know, do we think we can change all of our karma all at one time? Doesn't seem like it, but it should be, right? I mean, that's the premise.
Karma is nothing but projections happening. Yeah, cool.
All right. We get these glimpses of being moment by moment projections happening. Not ever separate. Not ever a “me” [that’s] separate.
It's glimpses of our own potentiality, our own empty nature—always available—not an emptiness that's there waiting for us to experience it, but this moment by moment lack of being a “me” independent of what I'm experiencing in that moment.
That's not so hard to grasp, is it?
There's “me,” there's “me,” there's “me,” there's “me,” there's “me,” there's “me,” there's “me.”
Then it's kind of miraculous that I seem to be the same “me” moment by moment with a consistency.
Do you remember when Geshe Michael was talking about “what's the glue that holds the moments together?” so that we aren't Sarahni, squirrel, Bob, creature, right? Why aren't we that? There's some kind of consistency to the ripening of our seeds.
He called it gratitude makes consistency. I haven't connected that dot yet. Hmm…
So how do we get rid of our destructible view—meaning our belief in our “me” that exists independent of the projections?
Panchen Lama says, “we've got to find the gakcha. We need to go looking for the gakcha.”
The only way to stop holding to the belief in a self-existent “me” is to find it first, and then show ourselves whether it can actually exist in the way that we think and be consistent with actual experience.
Lama Christie reminded us of the vending machine with the chocolate in it and the coin that we hold in our hot little hand and won't share with other people because I might want that chocolate. And then this coin and that vending machine is how I get the pleasure of chocolate.
When we understand that that may be how I get chocolate, but that's not how I get the pleasure that I call from chocolate, or when I understand that, “oh, in fact, the vending machine isn't the cause for the chocolate,” or in fact, I understand the money isn't the cause of the chocolate. When I really understand that, then this stuff called money would be meaningless, and if somebody needed it, “ah, here, have it.”
Right? Because there would be no [attitude of] “I need this for me in case I come across a circumstance where I could get chocolate.”
So in the same way [that] we have the gakcha [of] “money that could get me chocolate,” and so we cling to the money because of this wrong belief—we have this same idea [that] the “me” that exists independent of the projection happening (because it's the projector, it’s the place where the projections’ causes stay) we have all these really good reasons that we have a “me” that's independent of the projection, and we cling to it for dear life.
But it's [the same as] the money. The money doesn't get the chocolate.
So just give it away. If somebody else wants it for something, fine.
What about my “me?”
How do I give my “me” away when somebody else wants it?
How do we uncling to our “me” in the same way that we uncling to material things when we understand their true nature?
What's that going to be like when we uncling to “me?”
What about me?
There'd be no “what about me?”.
There'd just be ripening, ripening, ripening.
I can't do it. I wish I could. I can see [other people agreeing with this statement on the zoom screen].
Yeah, liberating. I agree.
So how do we find the gakcha? It seems like it should be so obvious, and yet we talk about this thing “the gakcha” over and over and over again—the thing emptiness is empty of, the thing that exists independent of any other factor.
How do we find the gakcha so that we can really let it go once and for all?
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen goes to Je Tsongkhapa.
Je Tsongkhapa says we need to understand projections.
When we understand what we mean by projections really well, then we can understand what we mean by the gakcha, because the gakcha is something that exists independent of projections.
When we know that there can't be anything we can experience that's outside our projections, then what could be a gakcha?
No such thing—obviously no such thing.
We get it intellectually and then we go out and there's a flat tire, the car tire's been slashed:
“Who did that to my car tire?”
It's like a little spoof, right? That didn't last long (my understanding of the gakcha).
But we do it again and again.
So we have this term “merely projected,” tokpay tak tsam—I think we come to it in Course 13.
The term means “merely projected.” Merely projected.
Tsam is usually used as “the border,” but here it means “only” or “merely.”
Tokpay is the “projecting happening,” and the tak is the “labeling.”
So this is the phrase that when they [ask] “how do things truly exist in the highest school?”
“Oh, tokpay tak tsam—things exist, merely projected.”
If we expand that, it means “merely projected [as] forced by our karmic seeds ripening that projection.”
So we could say, “oh, things exist merely as karma's ripening,” and again, that term “merely,” my mind hears it and I think, “oh, so not real,” when the term “merely” refers to “projections and nothing but,” and when we can get that into my thick skull, then when I think, “oh, merely projection,” I'm recognizing my experience unique to me and none other than that—my seeds ripening onto an empty object.
When I look at it, (like looking at the “me”) same thing—my “me” [is] merely projected.
I hear my mind [do that thing where it] falls over the edge, “Oh, so my “me” is not real?!” As opposed to the correct conclusion:
“Ohhh, that's the real me.”
Will the real “me” please stand up?
What's there when all the beings
And all the dogs go away?
What “me” is there when you show yourself
[That] you're not “self-existent me?”
What “me” is there when you're
Looking for the one that's not projected?
Not, not there.
Not there.
[But] not, not there.
A little wedge into that belief,
“No, no, there has to be a ‘me’ there—
There has to be a “me” there
That's going to get enlightened.
Come on—if there's no “me,”
[Then] why bother doing all this?
No, [it’s] because there's no “me.”
No “me” at all? No…
No “me” in the way we think!
Why the heck do I think that about me?
Seeds [are] ripening that “me.”
So when I go back and say, “okay, so does your self-existent you exist?” Is there a self-existent me ripening with every one of my seeds?
Yes. But no—because it's impossible—but I believe there's one there—and that one tries to protect itself and get what it wants, and so plants more seeds for the belief in itself as separate from the projection (as opposed to planting more seeds as the self part of the projection, which is really what's happening).
Well, if it's really what's happening, how come it's not stronger than the mistake?
Technically it is!
[It’s like that famous saying in our lineage:]
“That's how we bring samsara to an end—because the truth is stronger than the lie.”
Tokpay tak tsam. How does my “me” really exist?
Tokpay tak tsam. Merely projected.
So we're trying to get to that conclusion as we're going deeper in that analysis, and I would encourage you not to just “put on the conclusion,” you know, we know the punchline, and so we can get down in our meditation and just apply the punchline and sit there—and I wager that it won't help us much—because I watch my own mind, and I really I misunderstand the punchline (instead of knowing the punchline where I need to go and then doing my own analysis to see if I can come to that conclusion on my own).
And that's where it helps to know the punchline, so that we don't go off half-cocked on an analysis thinking we're getting an accurate conclusion—and we're mistaken.
Go for the punchline from your own logic.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen’s classical example of how to recognize we are projecting, he said is to imagine you're walking in a garden and you see a snake, and you jump back, and then you look at it more closely and you see, “Oh, it's just a rope coiled up that I thought was a snake.” And then to analyze that experience of, “no, no, it really was a snake there for an instant,” and catch the snake in it, from it—which is why I jumped back because snakes are dangerous—and then we realize, “Oh no, it's not a snake in it, from it. It was my mind making the snake.”
Really it's just a rope, because we believe our projections need to have something to land upon. Technically they do, right? A projection can't come out and have nothing to land on, and apparently it will go off into forever (they say).
So projections do have something that they're landing on. Projections are like an overlay, right? The chocolate sauce onto the vanilla ice cream (Geshe Michael uses), and then to complete the cycle, we eventually look at, “well, what is the thing that it's landing on?”
What about the data (is the question)?
And then we find the same thing about what the original projection that we were investigating is landing on—we find that also is a projection landing on something more subtle. And then we look at that and we go more subtle, and more subtle, and more subtle—until we don't ever find some-thing that a projection lands on, what we find our mind saying is, “Oh, that's how it works!” And we quit going deeper… “Oh, that's how it works!”
Always a projection covering information into a thing—that's how we identify things—that's how we make definitions. Not by what the book says, but [that] we define things by laying the overlay on more subtle ripenings, which is [an] overlay of more subtle ripenings.
We're revealing to ourselves the process through which existence happens.
We can do it with experiences.
We can do it with outer objects.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is saying:
Do it with our “me.”
The self-existent “me” we think is there
Is nothing but projection onto more subtle information.
Find the place where you go,
“Oh, I get how this works!”
Without having to find a final “me” that's really there.
To think we need to find
A final “me” that's really there,
Is still clinging to that “me”
That exists independent of the projection.
Because it's there before the projection lands on it.
We will stop there. [This] gives you food for thought in your analysis of your “me” when you get down into your aware-er, aware-ing.
So remember that person, that being we wanted to be able to help?
We've gotten some major clues that we will use to help them in that deep and ultimate way—and that's a great, great goodness, so please be happy with yourself.
Think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands.
Recall your own precious holy being.
See how happy they are with you.
Feel your gratitude to them.
Feel reliance upon 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 your heart.
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.
Use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone we love, to share it with every existing being everywhere.
See them all filled with happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with freedom from their self-existent “me.”
Wow!
And may it be so.
Yay
Thanks, everybody. Have a nice week. I'll see you when I see you.
ENG audio: Mahamudra_Class27_30Sept2025.m4a
rang kyi tsennyi kyi drukpa (?druppa)
rangshin kyi drukpa
denpar drukpa
*************
All right, welcome back. We are Mahamudra's Practicers. This is September 30th, 2025.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do…
The full opening contemplation and prayers can be found in the transcript of Class One under “Gather Our Minds.”
…“May all beings reach their total awakening for the benefit of every single other.”
*************
So let's settle in and do our Mahamudra meditation—it'll be about a half an hour, probably.
So do what you do for your body to fall still.
***30 seconds***
And bring that focus of attention to your breath at the nostrils—bringing on the focus, the clarity, the intensity…
***15 seconds***
That crystal clarity of mind on that single point.
***2 minutes 30 seconds***
Now keep that crystal clarity mind, and relax back into the watcher, with it.
And relax into the experience-ing of those outer sounds.
Notice the mind wanting to go “out there” to meet the sound’s maker.
Let it go—meet the experience at the more subtle and subtle level.
***1 minute***
More and more subtle, until you reach the level of “mental images arising and passing.”
***15 seconds***
Crystal clear awareness.
Relaxed experiencer.
***45 seconds***
Allow anything that arises.
Experiencing—mental image.
***15 seconds***
Not going looking for them…
Waiting.
Crystal clear experience-ing.
All simply these shifting pictures, within this crystal clear mind.
***45 seconds***
This pleasurable balance between crystal clear awareness, and deep relaxation of “allowing.”
***30 seconds***
This flowing shape-shifting of mental images—happening.
Deeply within the realm of mind.
***1 minute 45 seconds***
Next, imagine we've each reached that stage called stillness…
And so we can take a part of our mind, and analyze, without losing that crystal clear quality and deep relaxed allowing.
And we take that corner of our mind, that little piece, and we investigate who is this “me” meditating?
Who is this watcher?
What is this watcher?
***15 seconds***
That little piece of mind, let it say, “I am meditating.”
***15 seconds***
Somewhere deep, down in there, is this belief: ”I am the watcher.”
Who is that?
Is it a body sitting in a particular position?
No—that's mental images getting a label.
Information getting labels.
Is it a certain series of thoughts?
No—those are information getting labels, simply mental images.
***15 seconds***
Who is it that's aware of those mental images?
***1 minute***
The moment by moment experience is flashes of these mental images—arising and passing.
Simply projections.
Who's paying attention?
What is making corrections?
***30 seconds***
We have some deep, core belief that we are always “me.”
Always the same “me.”
***15 seconds***
Where is that?
***15 seconds***
What are they made of?
***45 seconds***
If some picture comes to mind—it's just a picture.
If our “me” is a concept—then it's just a concept.
***15 seconds***
What do you think exactly passes on as “you” when this body die?
Or even the next day when we wake up?
Or even into our next moment?
***45 seconds***
This ongoing “me,” simply projection.
But who's projecting?
***15 seconds
What “me” can be there, independent of a projection happening?
***30 seconds***
What projection can happen without a “me?”
***30 seconds***
Let's stay three more minutes.
Explore a bit more—come to a conclusion, and park on that conclusion.
***2 minutes and 45 seconds***
Nice, now before you come all the way out, make a note of how that went, what you learned.
Make a note of the quality of your focus, the quality of your attention—and dedicate your effort to reaching that direct perception of your own true nature for the benefit of that other.
Then become aware of that nebulous self inside a body, and that body inside your room.
Then when you're ready, open your eyes.
Take a stretch.
*************
Those are all really hard questions, aren't they?
You'd think they'd be easy:
“Oh, the “me,” Sarahni, tell us about “you.”
“Oh, I was born in Long Beach, on this day, I had brothers and sisters, etc.”
We would say all that useless information about who our “me” is, and then as we're getting into meditation, yeah, when we're at that deep level (which we can't really get to in class so much, but hopefully you'll take it deeply into some retreat someday), when we're deep enough to experience the answer, it's not going to be so much of words // a word answer (when we're starting to explore our me), it's going to be more an experiential thing.
And my own experience with it is I would be able to tap into what I was trying to get at and the very “me” I was investigating would jump in and go, “No! Can't go there,” or it wouldn't say that [but] it would be the one who was getting that glimpse and then it would be like, “Oh, got to start over,” because then I needed to investigate that “me” that was taking credit for the glimpse.
It's like, wait, wait—
Because that would make the “me” separate from the experience.
And so that's what we're going to be talking about for the next couple of classes is all the ways that Gelugpa explanation helps us understand how we misunderstand our very “me,” and when we learn about how we're misunderstanding ourselves and our worlds, we start with outer objects [holds up a pen] because they're the easiest to intellectually understand, and then we move to outer living objects, outer beings, the angry boss, the yelling husband in the kitchen—because by the time we are feeling we understand it with outer objects, we can apply the same kind of reasoning to other people.
And then when we can do that, we can get the subtlety of going into our reasons for why those people are the way they are, why they act the way they do—because then we're starting the investigation into our own “self,” but we're doing it at arm's length because we're doing [it to] what we see in them.
But then, at some point we need to turn that onto our own state, our own mental afflictions (the deepest one being our own belief that there's a “me” inside here that those others are doing that to). Even if it's just the pen being a pen—it's doing it to me, for me.
So Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen has been helping us:
First, to be able to reach the quality of meditation called stillness, so that we have that platform where we're not struggling to correct dullness and agitation anymore.
[Second,] we have the focus on the object, which was the appearing nature of our mind: this, and then that, and then that, and then that.
And [third] we're going to take the “me” // the watch-er (that's finally seeing the appearing nature of its own mind), and look for the “me” that's doing that—and that's where we shift from just this “watching meditation,” to the active analysis—but without losing the quality of mind, and the focus of attention that we use to get there.
So the series of questions was:
Who's meditating?
What are they made of?
Are they made of body, or are they made of mind?
We left out the third one—the thing that is neither mental nor physical. But does that qualify? Is “me” that in that category? (Maybe that was our conclusion)
Noticing that whatever comes to mind when we say, “what is my “me?” That's a ripening and a passing, just like everything else.
Before we got into this analysis, we had already established every instant of awareness is a ripening and a passing, and how is that going to be any different when we finally say, “Oh, here's the thing that's “my mind?” Oh, right—ripening and passing, same as anything else that's coming up.”
Then she took us all the way to:
What do we think is going to “go on” when we die?
What do we think “goes on” day to day?
What do we think “goes on” moment to moment, right?
[These questions are] all ways to explore.
And again, it's not so much that we're wanting to answer the questions conceptually—we want to pose the question and see what happens to the “me” that we've tried to pin down as “the one who's doing the meditating.”
So it takes some practice to really catch on to whether we're doing it or not, and the idea is to get more and more clearly aware of what the experience is when we think or say that word, “me.”
“Me, the meditator.”
“Me, the watcher.”
“Me.”
Or “I.”
Whichever your word is—even use it in your own language if you need to get it stronger.
Alright, so we had left off... Well, let me go back…
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen has said, “if we can't seem to go directly into the non-existent, self-existent “me” in our Mahamudra meditation, just by triggering it by asking those questions,” he says, “then we need to go at it step by step, and when we go step by step, what we start with is: we go looking for the gakja me—the me that we think exists (that can't actually exist, right?), the thing that emptiness is empty of. And when we find that, “oh my gosh, there's no such thing,” we fixate on that absence of what we thought we were—the absence of what we thought was there, and when we lose that absence, we go back and get it again.”
But to really understand what the “gakja me” is, we need to understand what a “projected me” is. Because [in the] highest school, what it is to be a gakja, is a thing that's not a projection of the experience-er. A thing that's not projected (“merely projected”).
A thing that's not “merely projected” would be existing in and of itself—we would call it “self-existent.”
Even if it relies on all kinds of other factors, if the main factor is not projection, then we don't understand what's going on. So we're not going to go through all those nuances of what it is to be self-existent.
We're jumping to highest school.
We are going to touch on those other lower beliefs, just because we'll see ourselves try to use them as explanations—and they're useful—but they're not the one that will go [and] take us all the way.
So we had left off— didn't we talk about the snake and the rope last class? We've all had that kind of experience where you [look, and go, “Oh!”] there's an item there // an object there, and we react to it. And then we look again, and it's like, “Oh, it wasn't that at all!”
The mouse that runs in front of the car—you slam on the brakes—and it's just a leaf. But in the moment that we saw it as a mouse, it was a mouse. You're not going to just go, “Oh, maybe it's a leaf, drive!” (squish) Right? You're going to act from what that impression is right away.
So the classic one that they use is you're walking in the garden, and “oh my gosh, there's a snake,” you back off, you look at it again, and “oh, silly me, it's just a rope.”
And then, of course, our ordinary experience of that is, “The snake was never there, it was always a rope.” And so they use that example to show us how this idea, called “merely labeled” or “merely applied,” as an explanation for what it means to be “projection,” is that we're laying something onto something else that's already there, and the “what we lay on” is what we experience, and then when we recognize, “oh, what I just laid on isn't accurate” (isn't the real thing), then we say, “Oh, what was underneath was the real thing, and this was my projection of it. I projected snake onto rope.”
And we think the snake wasn't real—the rope is what's real (in “ordinary mind” [terms]).
So my mind concocted the snake out of the information that was rope—so that is lower school (I just said we weren't going to lower school) but we have to start there to understand that “us,” the experience-er, does bring something to the party—and that's what's meant by applying something onto something that's already there.
It's that term tokpay tak tsam—merely labeled.
Let's get our vocabulary [pulled up on the screen] here.
Tokpay tak tsam. We're putting a concept onto something else.
Lost my train of thought…
So how do we do that when we're investigating our “me,” or rather when we investigate the “doing that” onto this thing called “me,” it'll help us understand a little better what we are trying to find in order to determine whether or not that's the real “me.”
He says that there is a “nominal me,” so if you end up doing your investigation and you keep coming to the conclusion, “Well, then there's no ‘me’ at all,” we're not understanding. We need to go out, do it with objects, do it with other people again, until we get it more accurate, and then go back and do it with our own “self.”
Because our conclusion, “Oh, there's no me at all,” is incorrect—not helpful—and also to decide, “Oh, well, then the ‘me’ is so constantly changing that there is no ‘me’ at all. Not completely non-existent, but so inconsistent that it really doesn't matter what I do,” that's also [a] wrong conclusion.
So there is this nominal “me,” and when we say “nominal me,” what we mean is the “me” that exists as a projection—and even after all these years of study and chewing on it, every time I hear myself say, “Me is just nominal, “me” is just a projection.” It feels like, “Ok, well then it's not real.”
But to say, “Oh, “me” is nominal,” [then] truth // wisdom would make me feel, “Oh, that's real! I am real because I'm nominal. I am real because I'm nothing but a projection moment by moment by moment.”
We're trying to get there experientially.
And it's very slippery.
So, if in the snake and the rope experience, we saw the snake, we step back, we looked, and the snake moved, we'd go, “Oh yeah, really snake,” and if we step back and we look again, and now it's a rope, we go, “Oh no, no, it was really a rope,” we say, “The snake was the projection—the rope was real.”
But now when we look at that from our “me” side, Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is saying that your “real me” is your “nominal me” (your “projected me”), and the “me” we hold to so tenaciously is what we lay onto that “real me” // “projected me,” and think it has some kind of unchanging nature, solid nature, in-itself nature, from-itself nature… and we take that to be the more “real me.”
The “real me” is the “projected me.”
The “unreal me” is the “solid one.”
So then if we take it into the snake and the rope—my “projected me” is the rope, and the “me” I believe that's not a projection—that's real in-and-of-itself—is the snake.
It's what I'm laying on to what's really there—the projection.
I'm laying onto the “projected me,” “the real me,” “the belief in a self-existent me,” “an independent me,” independent of all the projections—the one doing the projection.
I'm laying snake on the rope, but the rope is “the projected me.”
Is that coming across?
We would originally say [that] no, my self-existent me is my real me, and I'm trying to get underneath “self-existent” me to find the “projected me,” but technically, says Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, the “real me” is the “projected me,” and what we're laying onto it mistakenly is its self-existence—the self-existent me.
So if we can pin down “this thing that we're laying over the real me,” and remove it, we'll be able to get at that “projected me.”
But the minute I say that, I feel my mind go, “Oh, so there'll be a “projected me” sitting there going, ‘Hello, you found me!’“
No.
Because the “projected me” is going like this, isn't it?
[gestures indicating ripening, ripening, ripening]
It will be just like trying to find that [time we were talking about:]
Bird singing…
No, not bird singing—mental image.
Sound…
Okay, not sound—mental image.
Listening, right?
We've been doing it with outer factors, inner factors, and now we're going to want to do it with our own mind too.
I mean, our own “me” too. But this “overlay me” knows that when we really get there, the overlay disappears.
It doesn't actually get destroyed or anything like that, it won't be like that—but it's just, like, gone.
And it has enough power to say, I'm not giving up my position of being the “me.” It's not going to go lightly, so it gets confusing.
Lama Christie says the whole question is about how can we hold on to something that's not even there? We're holding on to something that we believe so strongly it is there (my “me” independent of experience), and yet, that thing that could be independent of experience is impossible—and yet, it really is not that we're holding on to something that doesn't exist, we are holding on to something that does exist (our projected me, moment by moment projected me), but we're thinking about it in the wrong way.
We were thinking about the rope as a snake when really it was a rope.
We're thinking about our “me” as being independent of experience-ing happening.
We're just thinking about our “me” in the wrong way.
The me that is there is the subject side of every moment of experience.
The me that is there is part of every projection.
The me that I'm holding to is the one that's doing the projecting—the one I think that's outside the projection—something that's existing in its own way.
So there are three ways to investigate how is it that our overlay is mistaken. Putting on the overlay is not wrong—that's how existence happens. Everything is an overlay onto something more subtle.
Is there an original “subtle thing” that gets the original overlay? No.
The process happening [is that] we're always applying qualities onto something that that something doesn't have. We call it “a projection” getting laid onto the information that makes an object be the object we experience, and until we're Arya, every projection we've laid onto every object has included [the conceptual mistake that the] object has its own nature, its own qualities.
Every “me” that I've laid the projections onto information has included a “me” with my own identity, my own qualities, my own existence.
The mistake is in the overlay—and we're trying to find it.
When we project “pen,” we are projecting “self-existent pen.”
Not just “pen.”
“Pen from the factory.”
“Pen that writes.”
That self-existence is not in the pen, we've shown ourselves that a million times, and yet we're still forced to do it.
So Je Tsongkapa has said [that] it's wise to first figure out what's meant by projections so that you can recognize the gakja because the gakja is something that could exist independent of projections. And again, yes I'm projecting all kinds of things, but things still exist that I'm not projecting. [For example,] right now I can see my neighbor's house, my ficus tree, this where I was outside—I'm projecting all that right now.
But I know the Fry’s grocery store is six miles down the road, I know the donut shop is over there—it's all that stuff exists, it's outside of my projection, right?
Wrong!
It's not outside of my projection—nothing can be.
Well then, does the Fry’s grocery store stop being there when I drive away from it? We've spent years investigating that kind of thing in our ACI study:
Does it disappear?
Doesn't it disappear?
What do you think high school actually says?
Yeah—it does.
You can't establish it as being there.
You can establish it having been there, and that you haven't heard that it blew up or anything—so we can assume that it's still there.
When we think about it, the thinking about it is valid—but it isn't in our actual experience until we get there, which leaves us feeling like, “Whoa, that's spooky! So nothing exists except for my little sphere of the world?”
That would almost be nice these days [to say] “Okay, I’ll just stay in my little bubble and everything will be fine.”
That's not true either, is it?
So we're going to explore these different ways that we misunderstand—that we lay [things] on to our projection—that [we] are including in our projection. Because when we recognize, “Wait, I’m including that in my projection and imposing it onto the object,” when we can catch that, we can remove it—and we'll find the “me” as it actually exists.
We'll find that “nominal me.”
[And] again, my mind just goes, “Oh, see, I'm going to find something!”
[But no, because what I] think I mean [when I say] “nominal me” is [still] misunderstood—otherwise the reaction would be, “Will the real me please stand up?”
That [feeling we get] when we go, “Ohhh, [that’s] ‘projected me!’”
Janet, you had something?
[Janet: [Isn’t the same as] ACI 13 [when] they say [that] if you look at that [Fry’s grocery store], it's made up of molecules and parts, but you just don't look at it that way, the way you look at [it is that it’s] the Fry's store—but it's really like a building with a sign and things in it, so it's parts, and then of those parts, it's atoms—but we choose not to look at it that way. We choose to look at it the way of projection.]
Right, and remember that all of ACI 13 is coming to us from lower school, right? From Abhidharma school.
And it teaches us how to think clearly—that's what ACI is about. But you're absolutely right, all these other aspects that we believe establish it’s existence are all included in our projection, according to highest school—which makes them real.
There are really atoms in concrete—because we project it that way.
Do you see how slippery it is?
We say, “Oh [it’s a] projection, okay I can make it up—so concrete doesn't need atoms.”
Yes it does!
Okay. Let's take a break.
[Lama Sumati enters the room]
What do you think your “me” is, what does your “me” do when you think “me” as a projection? Do you get more real or less real?
Lama Sumati: That's where it sort of falls apart for me, like when you're talking about Fry’s. There has to be a Fry’s there. Now, I'm projecting you're being a Fry’s there. Is it there? Because you can't see my projections.
Lama Sarahni: No, I can't see your projections. And even when we're there together, looking at the Fry’s—we're looking at a different Fry’s.
Lama Sumati: If the Oracle says it is true, then it’s true.
Lama Sarahni: You're silly.
We'll be back in class in a minute or two. We don't do 10 minutes, my groups are fast break takers.
[Tom: Lama, can we have like, after the meditation, like just two minutes of just writing down? I was like, this is so potent, and I have things and then I don't want to like, ask the question bother, but I'm like, and then you start speaking, you know, like, I can't write when like, um, but I got my conclusion of was that, uh, I'm whatever projection I choose to be in the moment or imprint in the moment, which can be compassion, anger—but also I'm not, but also I'm not really those emotions that I'm thinking. But it's my limitation of understanding that. But then I've been stuck in that space for a while of those two things.]
Okay. Keep cooking it. The thing is, we really can't choose our projections or we'd all just choose Buddhahood, you know?
[Tom: Yeah. I mean, I mean, to a limited extent, I guess we can, you know, like I can choose to, to speak in a certain way, to present in a certain way. That's what I meant by that. But yeah, it is really out of our reach in a sense. Cause yes, we will all be whatever imaginary thing we want to or not.]
Right, good.
Ok, Roxana has her coffee, we're back.
So, Panchen Lama takes us through these three different ways of exploring how we are mistaking things, to remind us, so that we can use the same exploration for how we are mistaking our “me.”
And there are these three phrases that we learned in ACI 13 that Janet's doing right now with Tim (or recently did): the rang kyi tsennyi kyi drukpa—and I just point out the spelling here—my Mahamudra text gives it as drukpa with a “k.” I remember learning it from Winston McCullough years ago in this way, druppa, which is probably the pronunciation way. I don't know which one it is. Probably both of them are inaccurate because it should be in those funny squiggles of the Tibetan, which I can't do.
So anyway, rang kyi tsennyi kyi drukpa, rangshin kyi drukpa, and denpar drukpa, these three different ways that we believe things exist.
Kyi drukpa means it “to exist.”
Denpar drukpa means “to exist in truth.”
(We'll get back to what these mean in a minute.)
Rangshin kyi drukpa means “to exist through some nature of its own.”
And rang kyi tsennyi kyi drukpa means “to exist by definition.”
Tsenni means “definition,”
(not meaning “look it up in the dictionary and see what the definition is”).
“To exist by definition” means that it somehow defines itself, as in: fire is hot and burning. Hot and burning is fire.
It defines itself. Its qualities define itself.
So there are these three ways to investigate in order to find the gakcha. The gakcha is something that exists in truth; something that exists through some nature of its own; something that exists by definition.
When we are understanding about projections (how we are projecting things mistakenly), these are the things that are included in our projection that's making us misunderstand the thing we are experiencing.
Our mistaken self-existent world is our projections happening, and when we can remove the mistake part of the projection, then [that new] imprint [that goes] in—when it comes [back] out—we will not have these [three beliefs].
So it's not like we're learning how to project our world because we never have before—everything's always been projections—but [it’s been] projections stained with these misunderstandings. The ramification of ignorance is these.
So the denpar drukpa (to exist in truth) is trying to explain that feeling that we have about the object—that the object is still there even if nobody's looking. So, we do that as part of “the pen” explanation:
What if we put the object on the table, and all the people, and all the dogs, and all the flies go away? What's there then?
When we're following the train of thought, we do go, “Ah, you can't really say,” but honestly, like honestly—your deep reaction when we say, “What's there, then?” My mind goes, “There's a pen there,” and nobody can really establish that it's there.
But I have to honestly admit, even after many times of pen/dog explanation—I see this thing and I think it's a pen. And I think [that] if I leave it on my desk and [then] go into the living room and think about my desk—the desk has got this pen on it, because I believe this pen exists in truth.
Even as, intellectually, I know that's incorrect—the gut reaction is, “that's denpar drukpa.”
We understand it about pens. I understand it about Davids, and Mikes, and you guys, and Lamas—they're there. Geshe Michael is in Sedona, or Rimrock—right?
They're there. They exist in truth.
To understand that they don't exist in truth—
Does that mean they don't exist at all?
No, that's silly. They exist by projection.
My projection includes that they exist in truth.
What if my projection didn't include they exist in truth—
That they only exist by way of projection?
Does that make this pen useless?
Does it make it disappear when I'm not seeing it or using it?
No, it actually is like, “Wow, that's how this works!”
As long as I have the projection [of] “this pen,” [then] this pen will be here.
When my seeds for that projection wears out, what happens?
Where'd my pen go?
It'll just be gone.
Now, probably that'll happen over a sequence of seed-shifting events:
I will perceive the pen as running out of ink, and so then it's not useful to me, and so I will throw it away—and that was the series of seeds that led up to: “no projection, silver and blue pen anymore.”
Okay, so denpar drukpa (to exist in truth), that belief that things are there, even if nobody's perceiving it—even if “me” is not perceiving it.
How are we going to do that with our “me?”
We'll get there.
Let's not get there quite yet.
Is the “me” there when we leave the room?
You can't ever leave the room!
Ok, what's the next one? Rangshin kyi drukpa.
Wait, Lama Christie went to rang kyi tsenni kyi drukpa first, so let's go there.
“Exists by definition,” meaning that it somehow distinguishes itself—defines itself.
Pick any object we rely upon.
My bird cups [holds up a mug with a cardinal on it].
I'm going to brag, my sister-in-law sent us this set of four bird cups when we moved to Tucson in 1980—and I've been using them ever since, and they are still intact. (Oh my gosh, I'm challenging myself).
So, here are my favorite bird cups, they're perfect for making tea.
In the morning, I get up, “where's my tea cup?”
It defines itself: it is Sarahni's favorite tea cup—four of them.
I expect it to be there.
I actually believe it's the same cup that my sister-in-law sent us as a gift so many years ago. If it's not the same, if it's different, it would look like the Tartuk cup or the King David cup or all these other cups that we have—or it would not even look like a cup if it were different. It's got to be the same.
It defines itself as cup—tea cup.
Yeah, look, it has all the qualities.
Now, I could say, granted, it doesn't have “my favorite” in it—that comes from me—but I'm not going to say, “this is my favorite pen” because it shows me that it's a tea cup.
Defines itself.
We experience something or
Somebody in the way that we do.
We know we bring something to the party,
But there's the “them,” there's the “it”
That has its own qualities.
Not self-existently, we know that—but come on.
Tea cup versus orchid: they're different things.
They show their qualities to us.
Same for people.
What about our “me?”
We're going to look.
Lama Christy told this story of having been at a teaching by (oh, I knew his name was going to escape me when I went to tell you this story) oh, a great logic Lama in the monastery…
Geshe Thubten Rinchen.
And he's teaching about these three kinds of ways we mistake objects, and he's talking about this particular one about how we mistake things for defining themselves—and he's using the classical water pitcher example of how the water pitcher defines itself—and she said all the while he was explaining that, he had this plastic stick thing with a little hand on it (that’s supposed to be a backscratcher), and he's playing with it.
He's talking about these profound things, and he's got this hand on a long stick that Lama Christie was describing. She recognized it as a backscratcher thing—and he uses it to reach for something on his desk and pull it towards him as he's talking, as he's giving this teaching. Then he uses it to move something from the floor over, and then he uses it to somehow mark a page in his book. He's using this thing in all these different ways—and not scratching his back with it, as he's talking about how it is that the water pitcher defines itself as a water pitcher.
He never even mentioned this thing that he was doing all these things with as he was teaching this.
Do you get it?
He was showing that the object can't define itself as he was explaining how objects define themselves.
She said she could hardly hold herself from laughing, she thought it was so funny. The rest of the group there, they were [concentrating] on his talk, and she was like crazy laughing.
But it really helps pin down this belief that the thing's identity and function is in it that we overlay onto the thing—and if that were true, the only thing you could do with that little plastic hand thing would be scratch your back because that's how it identifies itself.
And then the next absurd conclusion from that is: well, then it couldn't even lay on the desk waiting for you to scratch your back with it, it would be scratching your back all the time—thank you very much.
That would get annoying, however—and it doesn't do that.
So things can't exist by defining themselves, they have to rely on something else to get defined.
How much something else? That's [found in] our different schools.
Ultimately—it all depends on the overlay of the “experience-er,” and then the question is, “Well, yeah, but then what's receiving the overlay?
And then we're going to do all this with our “me,” right?
That's why we're going through it.
So thats rang kyi tsenni kyi drukpa.
Tsenni is “by definition.”
Rang shin kyi drukpa means that “things have a nature of their own.”
So these are all saying the same thing—but they all have this different flavor of meaning. To have a nature of their own, means in them, from them. Technically meaning that it would be independent of any other factor. Technically, it would make something unchanging—which maybe when we first heard that, we thought, “Yeah, yeah, things are unchanging. Similar to exist in truth. My cup is always the cup. Similar to how the cup defines itself. It is a tea cup.”
But then rangshin kyi drukpa is this expectation that it will be the same, that it has its’ sameness in it, and some innate quality within it that's unaffected by other things.
And I know, of course, we start thinking about that logically, and it's like, “Well, that's silly. That's what the pen in the puppy shows us. My cup, and my favorite cup—clearly, there's nothing in the cup that makes it my favorite cup without “me.” It depends on me there. There's nothing that makes a cup without me there! Well, the little tiny ants (we have ants) the little tiny ants that crawls on it—it's crawling on my cup!”
But not for them!
So we explore these different flavors that are included in our overlay onto objects, so that we can really recognize them in our experience of those outer objects—and when we get good at that, we do the same thing to our “me” when we are down in there, deep in stillness (and able to find the me), then these are three different ways we can go looking for the mistake that the overlay is getting.
So we're already assuming that we agree [that] our “me” is an overlay onto some more subtle something, and that that overlay is including something that's mistaken—so that we can build overlays that are accurate to the way we actually experience (the way we actually are).
So again, we are not trying to prove to ourselves that there is “no me” because that is not only not true—it's impossible.
We're trying to find the mistaken way in which we are holding on to “me” so that we can (in that deep meditation) momentarily stop doing it and get a glimpse of what this “nominal me” is—and isn't!
And when we get that glimpse of what it isn't—that's a glimpse of our emptiness.
Okay, so Panchen Lama says:
“Until we stop the subtle form of what must be denied,
We will never get out of this cycle of pain.”
So what does he mean by “the most subtle form” of the gakja?
He goes on to point out that it's holding on to it’s most subtle form of “me” as somehow self-existent. A “me” that exists independent of the projections happening. A “me” that's independent of projections.
That seems like a different investigation than “finding the mistake within the projection,” but it's a stepwise thing:
First, we find the mistake within the projection (I guess, to prove to ourselves that we are projection), and then we find the “me” that could exist as the one doing the projecting—which is impossible.
We'll see how he takes us there.
So, in that meditation that we did, as we tried to narrow down in, at the very end, Lama Christie took us into looking at what do we believe is there that goes moment by moment, that goes day to day, that goes from life to life, that will likely recognize that we are holding to “something,” “Sarahni,” that will not be “Sarahni” in the next life—but somehow the way I'm thinking of who or what I'll be in the next life still holds some “Sarahni” perspective to it.
My identity, for which I use the term “Sarahni” somehow carries through.
This is a glimpse at the subtle way that we're holding to a “me.”
Language would say, “it is ‘me’ that goes from life to life, but if we can't pinpoint a ‘me’ that's the same two moments in a row, how can we say that there's a ‘me’ that goes from life to next life?”
That's really different than even a moment-by-moment changing “me.”
So even as we say, “yes, I'm changing moment-by-moment,” there's still the overlay. It's the “me” that's changing moment-by-moment—still some “me” that's independent of the changingness.
This is the subtle “me” we're trying to get at—it's the data that gets the overlay. Some kind of subtle center point in the universe, or deep raw awareness. Something that, when we identify it, there'll be this automatic overlay of, “Oh, that's the ‘me,’” (implying that it stays the same [or] that it’s this string).
But wait, there is the mind stream. Come on, there is the “me.” Buddha teaches it. How could we ever reach Buddhahood if we didn't have a “me” that goes from here to there?
But how can we ever reach Buddhahood if we have a “me” that's “me?”
So we do get glimpses into this [process of] going from projection, to projection, to projection, right?
When we're in the appearing nature of our mind, right?
Hopefully at some point in that experience, it will be less “you watching it all go like this” [hand movements indicating individual projections], and it'll be more [of an] “experiencing” going like this, like this, like this [hand movements with more of a flow to them], the shape-shifting constantly, and the “experience” will be projections happening, projections happening—versus “me watching projections happening flowing by.”
That comes with time—this shift into experience-ing.
And when we then go try to do that same thing with our “me,” rather than [having] “me” investigating “me,” we will shift into this fleeting sense of being part of the projection, constantly shape-shifting—and my experience is that we can't hold it for very long, because it's so different than what all of our seeds have ever been imprinted with.
But it's a huge powerful goodness-planting to get glimpses of that feeling of this constant shape-shifting, never the same two moments in a row, without flipping out and going, “Oh, I just disappeared.”
Because you won't.
All right, what am I trying to say here?
When we went through that series of questions:
Is my “me” the body?
And it's like, “No, of course, I'm not the body—that's so obvious.”
But we can take the time there to really check and recognize, well, when the ripening happens, that sensation that’s included in the projection is, “That's ‘my’ bottom on my cushion.” And we recognize the “my” part of that, “my body on the cushion,” is within the projection, that sensation.
And then we go, “But of course, that's not ‘me,’ because the ‘me’ is the one who's having the experience. So it's not ‘me’ (the body).”
And then we can look at it from the thoughts as well, as the thoughts come up:
“Me” is aware of those thoughts.
“Me” is different than the thoughts.
“Me” is not the thoughts.
And then as we explore it further, recognizing that these thoughts are ripenings, passings, ripenings, passings—we start to recognize, “well, the ‘me aware of this arising’ is part of that arising.”
And then that “me” passes, and the next “me” aware of the next—whether it's the “no thought yet,” the “waiting for the thought,” or some other sensation—whatever ripening is happening, we can get to this shift between “me watching it all pass by” and becoming a part of each one: “coming up, coming up, coming up.”
If we can reach that and stay there with stillness: that's a closer window of opportunity to get to the non-existent, self-existent “me,” because you're already in this moment-by-moment shift pattern, and all you have to do is go, “Wow, will the real ‘me’ please stand up?” and you've just shown yourself there isn't one.
There isn't the “real me,” the self-existent “me.”
Technically, “Will the real ‘me’ please stand up?” is the one that's going shape-shift, shape-shift, shape-shift, right?
The “subject side” in every ripening.
But even when I say that, my mind goes, “Oh, ‘subject side,’ that's the ‘me.’” and I've got something tangible, unchanging, existing by definition, and (oh, what's the other one?) exists in truth, right?
I want one of those so badly that even as I get these more subtle explanations for myself of what's going on—bink---I grab onto the “subject side” part of that and make the same mistake again, which is why we're exploring these three mistakes—so that we can get more aware of them as we're doing it.
All right, so are you the thinker of your thoughts?
That was one of the questions: do we think we are the thinker of our thoughts?
Yeah.
Can we be a thinker of the thought before the thought arises?
No.
So we're not the thinker of the thought until we're thinking the thought. So the thought makes us be the thinker.
Doesn't work that way either.
Thinking happening—in which case, there has to be a thinker thinking happening.
So yeah, all projections.
Even me thinking “I'm the thinker.” is projection happening.
All right, we've primed ourselves to think that—to remind ourselves of that—by way of spending all that time in the appearing nature of my mind, reminding ourselves: ripenings, ripenings, ripenings, ripenings; so that when we get into the analysis and go, “Wow, I can't be the thinker of my thoughts, but thoughts are happening. I'm part of the process happening, and nothing, but…” we can be aware that that is all also ripenings happening.
Our analysis is ripenings happening.
Our conclusion is ripenings happening.
And we'll be so at ease with that happening that we'll be able to get underneath it, and glimpse the no self nature of our “self” that's the necessity—the negative necessity—so that there can be any appearance.
So who's doing the projecting?
Can somebody else be doing your projecting? No.
Am I doing the projecting? Seems like it.
Can you be the thinker of the thought before the thought happens?
Can you be the projector of the projection before the projection happens?
What's projecting?
We're the projector, meaning the one who's running the machine—what's the projecting?
What's the projector machine?
Yeah, I heard the words. I saw the words, karma, right?
What are the projections?
Concepts, right? Ripenings, those ripenings.
Can there be a ripening without the ripener—the karma—the machine?
Can there be a ripening without the one who made the karma in the first place—oh, slippery—careful there—because who made my karma for you guys in this class?
“Me?”
This “me?”
Some past “me!”
That past “me” isn't “me”—but it couldn't be somebody else!
What “me” is that that isn't there until the projection happens—but is always there when the projection happens?
Can there be a projection without you? No.
Is it possible for there to be a “you” with no projection? No.
Can projections ever stop? No.
Even when we're in deep, deep, deep sleep, no-dream sleep; the process is still happening.
Even in this lifetime gone—death—the process is still happening.
Can there ever not be a “me?” No.
Can that “me” ever be the same, two moments in a row? No.
So there always is a “me” within every projection—that's the “nominal me.”
I'm digging myself a hole…
I'm trying to make the case for that “me” that's changing moment by moment (part of every projection), to be more real, and more sustainable than my “self-existent me,” and I'm watching my own mind as I try to do it—and I'm not getting there.
When I get to the “moment-by-moment changing me,” it gets really slippery, and it's like, “Wehhh” [gestures of trying to stay balanced while slipping], but if I can hold it and go there, it'll step into that [realization of]: “Well, then the real me is this “availability within every moment of ripening”—not before the ripening—but within the ripening.
A ripening makes [the] things [called] subject // object // interaction between, happen.
It's done.
You can't change anything.
…and in the next fleeting instant, it has shifted—because the seeds ripen, and new ones ripen, and new ones ripen…
So, if my identity can be that process, then my identity includes this availability to be what each one is—and, at first, the availability is targeted on the “subject side,” our “me.”
What I personally found is as I explored that, and explored that—I realized that it became harder and harder (at least in meditation) to find the line between my “me,” my “other,” and my “interaction between.”
The identity started to shift into “Being all of it.” and I can't hold it in the outside world, of course—but it gave me glimpses into what those “four bodies of a Buddha” are trying to describe, you know, this identity shifting into all—instead of constant subject-object-interaction dance—the identity goes underneath that, and includes all of that, and can at the same time still play the role of the “subject side,” in an “object world,” with “interactions in between,” and do it from this propelling of love and knowledge // wisdom of the mistake that I still see in my world.
All that suffering is merely a mistake—terrible, horrible suffering—but unnecessarily perpetuated by misunderstanding this separation between subject, object, and interaction between.
So like we're drilling down into the:
“No no no,
That can't be true—
Because “me” is “me,”
And “you” are “you.”
And sometimes we get along,
And sometimes we don't.
And that [it’s] so true, moment-by-moment, that to say all I am is “seed ripenings and nothing but…” my mind goes, “No, I have to be the one planting the seed!” and that is true—but my overlay of, “I'm the one planting the seed.” includes a “me” separate from the system—and that's this big mistake.
There can't be a projector (the machine), [there] can't even be karma without our “me” and “other,” and there can't be the “projections happening” without being “me” and “other” and there can't be… What's the third part of that? There's no project-ed without the process happening.
[This] is how this investigation of the “me” will take us to both the appearing nature, and the empty nature of “me,” and then all things—which is approximating our direct perception of emptiness, which will be our own emptiness, and the emptiness of all existence (because technically those are not two different things).
All right, I just actually finished Bok Jinpa 16, Class 2—I think it took us like three classes to do what Lama Christie did in one long night.
She was pretty awesome.
I thought I would get farther, but I don't want to start into this next explanation with only a few minutes to go—and so technically we'll review it a bit in next class, and then pick up and go from there.
So, we have a week to think about this:
How do I believe I exist in truth?
The pen exists in truth because I think [that] when I leave it on the desk, it's still there when I'm not looking at it.
How does that apply to my “me?”
Rang kyi tsennyi kyi drukpa—how is it that I exist by definition?
My “me” exists by definition.
Rangshin kyi drukpa—how is it that I have my own nature?
Start with the obvious, and then see if you can get a little bit more subtle (just intellectually, not even necessarily in meditation) so that when we go there in the next class, we'll be able to dive in (maybe).
Ah, that was a hard class—so I'm supposed to double check and make sure that I'm not leaving you feeling scared that you “don't really exist.”
So truly anybody feeling like, “Oh my gosh, this is going to take me somewhere scary.”?
[If any readers are feeling uncomfortable at this point in the transcription, please discuss with your Lama or another qualified teacher]
Think about the overlay of “snake” onto rope, and how [it’s similar to the] overlay onto our “nominal me,” [by our] “self-existent me.” [Our “self existent me”] is like the “snake” that isn't really there—because what's there is the rope; what's there is our “nominal me,” and what we're putting onto it is “self-existent me,” and if you step back and look at it—like when we step back and look at the snake—it reveals itself:
“Oh, that's just a rope.”
“Oh, I'm just a nominal me.” and see how it feels.
Okay, any burning questions?
Yes, Rachana?
[Rachana: Just logistics. So today is September 30th, so I think we will have class on the 6th, and 13th (is my guess), and then may I ask the schedule after that?]
We are Mahamudra—we'll be back November 4th—after being off the 21st and 28th. We'll do class [on] the 14th, and then not again until November 4 [2025], thank you for reminding us.
You've got two weeks off.
[Rachana: Thank you.]
Yeah, thanks!
Anything else? [Tom raises her hand]
Is it a long one, Tom? If it's not just logistics, let me do our closing prayers, and then we'll stay on and answer your questions (so if people need to go, they can go). Okay?
So we've learned a lot that we will use to help that other in that deep and ultimate way—and that's a great, great goodness, so please be happy with yourself.
Think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands.
Recall your own precious holy being.
See how happy they are with you.
Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart.
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 other…
To share it with everyone you love…
To share it with every existing being everywhere.
See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom.
And may it be so.
Okay, thank you so much.
So, anybody who needs or wants to go, you're welcome to click off. Tom always has great questions, you're welcome to stay, and I'll leave the recording on.
Is that okay, Tom?
[Roxana: Thank you, dear Lama. I just have two hours of internet, so it’s going to stop any time now.]
Okay. No worries.
[Tom: So I'm getting to a few different conclusions from this class. One, the existence of “me” has become more substantive than before—which is a little more depressing, I guess, because I feel like I'm on a path of liberation.
So what am I getting liberated from if now the “me” has become more attached to the “me” because I can't experience anything without the “me?”]
All right, so you're going to explore what “me” you mean by that.
If you're still meaning the “me,” “Tom,” with all her suffering—that's the overlay, that's mistaken, right?
So you're going to keep exploring that, because that is a not-accurate conclusion, right?
[Tom: Yeah, that wasn't where I was thinking, but I don't know what to call the little part of the “me” that's still left that we need to exist and to the consciousness to move through, to meditate.]
Right. Keep exploring, right? Keep exploring.
[And then do we really even have any free will in that sense of, our past lives are coming [up], our past seeds [are] coming [up], so is the idea (which maybe I need to explore what [are] those ideas)... Is creativity, and different thoughts, are they even really new? Are they really even existing, or just continuously cycling through the same patterns all the time?
And so do I even have free will? Because there's always the “me” that even if I get rid of the little “me” and I continually dissect that part, there's always, I don't know what to call that “me” yet, but.]
Right, right.
Just as any other material thing, or any other conceptual thing, free will is a projection—part of our projection—and so it exists.
There isn't such a thing as “free will” established as a thing that has a quality that makes it possible for everybody to choose something. And, there is “free will” because we have the seeds for having allowed other beings to make choices.
So we have the seeds for “free will.”
When you try to logically pin it down, does “free will” mean that we can act outside of our karmic seed ripening?
No, of course not.
So to have a situation happen where we can choose:
“I want to act this way, but I'm going to choose to act that way instead.”
That's what we would call “free will,” we have the free will to choose.
The fact that we can even choose a different response is coming out of seeds of having allowed, or facilitated, or seen others make other choices—choose their behavior.
So free will happens—is true—because it's included in projections.
Do we want to continue to perpetuate free will? Absolutely.
So we encourage other people to make their own choices. We help teach them how to make wiser choices (if they're interested), so that we have the seeds for our own ability to act differently.
We don't have the “free will” to change something that's already ripened, and make it ripen differently, because it's done already.
Where “free will” comes in is how able are we to choose a different reaction—a different response?
[Tom: Okay. And then my last question is we tend to speak in the sense of like a karma ripen [ripening “from us” or coming “from our side”] so now I still don't know what to call that little subtle “me” that has to exist in.
Is that still doing this [coming from me] or is this like concrete in me in that sense? Does that make sense what I asked?]
It does—and when I work with it, my own [understanding], trying to [figure out], “How do I get it more accurate than this [hand movement that indicates that my world is coming from me]?”
At one point it was like, “Okay, make it be like this [hand movement starting further back behind the head so that] the “me” is [included as a] part of every projection—but then even that doesn't seem right.
And that's actually how I landed on this mudra, the “lotus turning” mudra [makes hand signals], this feels more accurate to what I'm trying to explain to myself, and that when I do this, I'm trying to access this sense that subject, object, interaction between—it's not a popping up and going away—it's this constant shape-shifting dance [gestures the lotus turning mudra several times] constant shape-shifting dance.
Not even, “Here's data: it gets the overlay.” but just infinite data, already always available, and the infinite ripening patterns happening—and my “me” is a part of that [gestures lotus turning mudra and makes noises flowing noises].
[Tom: And that space has to exist for it to ripen? So that's that space of me that exists? There is a certain space that I don't know what it's called, let's say highway, whatever—and on the highway, there are lights, and cars, and different things that appear—but that internal highway has to exist for those things to be. So it's not so much a projection—it has to be there for it to stream. It's kind of like the internet is available, but you need to have cables to run through, [in order] for it to make the connection of electricity.]
Right, we're trying to identify as the process // with the process // the process happening—whereas our overlay consistently is, “I'm the one doing the process. I'm the one making it happen.” and we're trying to unravel all this and identify more with the process happening.
You know, long ago, I decided I'm going to relate to myself as a verb instead of a noun—and that helped me a lot.
It sounds silly—but it helped me a lot.
[Tom: Yeah. I guess the gap that I sense is that I recognize “the process,” I'm recognizing it as it's appearing, like, you know, recognizing, “Oh, I'm about to get angry.” or whatever it is—and then I'm conflicted with the right action to have with it.]
Right, right, right. And that's why we have the vows. That's [why] we have our vows and learn them—because we can't figure it out in the moment, for sure, and we can't technically figure it out accurately when we're still colored with our self-existent “me” that wants it a certain way.
We have to rely on this omniscient being.
[Tom: But even with the vows, I still feel conflicted on a lot of things. Because we live in a lot of gray, like the rainbow is like, nice, but we live in a lot of in-betweens.]
Yeah, so you keep chewing on them until you can show yourself a pattern. I have found that what's useful is to take the “I will avoid doing this,” “I will avoid doing that,” and think, “Well, what does that mean I'm actually trying to cultivate?” and I'll make a list of those: I'm going to cultivate protecting life and protecting others’ property—and I focus more on those [lists] as how I keep my vows, [rather] than [trying to come up with], “Where have I avoided killing?”
It helps me to try to grow the positive, [raher] than to be careful to avoid the negative—which is what the vows talk about—and that's where the gray area comes in. So I found that helpful.
[Tom: It's that I feel like I'm doing positive, but I'm wondering if my positive actions for myself are causing harm for someone else—and that's where I'm conflicted in those behaviors, and I don't feel like I'm finding an answer into the correct way of moving forward.]
Right. Okay. So when we are choosing the “positive behavior,” the way we come to the conclusion [is by asking ourselves], “Is what I'm doing now—if someone were doing it to me—would [it] be pleasant or unpleasant?
And then if we truly decide, “Okay, then I'm going to behave this way towards that person—because in so doing I plant a seed that when it ripens, it'll be okay.” and [then] that person goes, “Ahh, you hurt my feelings!” the hurting-the-feelings is not a ripening of what you just planted—you did not hurt their feelings by planting that seed.
Their ripening hurt feelings is a ripening result of some past time when we, ourselves, reacted badly when somebody saw themselves trying to do something kind.
So the conflict wouldn't be, “Did I do wrong?” because the result I just got back was unpleasant. No, [it’s] your ripening result of having been unpleasant in the past—[so] now, how do we react?
We have a new situation to react to—we have a new reaction—and part of that reaction does not need to include, “Oh, what I just did was not the right thing because it hurt their feelings.” It didn't.
As long as we are really clear that our [real intention in] what we did in that moment was designed to be this High Thing—not just, “Because I know this will come back to be good for me.”
That's just the criteria; that's not why we're doing it—that's our criteria for doing it. Right?
The why you're going to be kind in that moment is because that's what's going to bring everybody freedom from suffering—but how we determine what to do, is by this criteria [of], “If somebody was doing this to me, would it be pleasant or unpleasant?”
Maybe that'll help.
[Tom: I’m going to have to do a lot of walking for that.]
Yeah, good. Thank you for asking.
ENG audio: Mahamudra_Class28_7Oct2025.m4a
dak shi = the label takche = the thing that gets the label
lungja lenpapo
yen lak = parts yen lakchen = the holder of the parts
Welcome back we are Mahamudra Class on October 7, 2025, let's gather our minds here as we usually do. We’ll do our opening prayers and go right into the meditation which will be the same as last week’s class—although they’re never quite the same, are they?
Let’s gather our minds here…
The full opening contemplation and prayers can be found in the transcript of Class One under “Gather Our Minds.”
…“May all beings reach their total awakening for the benefit of every single other.”
*************
So, set your body…
***1 minute***
Then bring all of the focus of your attention to your breath at the nostrils.
Gather that clear, sharp, focused attention—that crystal clarity.
***2 minutes 30 seconds***
Now keep that “crystal clarity” quality of mind, and expand your awareness out—drop back, and down—being aware of outer sounds.
Catch if the mind goes out to them—draw it back.
Sink into the bright, clear awareness—allowing them to arise and pass.
***30 seconds***
Then sliding more deeply into inner sounds.
Catch the tendency to follow them into a story—let it all go.
Fascinated, but disengaged.
Bright, clear watcher.
***45 seconds***
Now allow anything to arise using the same pattern—simply observing.
***1 minute***
Now, your observer adds the component of knowing [that] all of what this is experiencing is mental images, rising and falling.
No association with any kind of self-existent object.
Add that to your observer's experience of what it observes—what your “experiencer” experiences.
***1 minute***
And we've entered into the realm of mind—that constant flow of ripenings.
***1 minute 15 seconds***
Imagine we are in that state of stillness—stillness within that flow—and next, take that tiny corner of your mind and look at the “observe-er,” “the experience-er.” Somewhere, moment to moment, there is the “me” who is meditating—the “me” who is doing the “experience-ing,” the “me” listening to the instructions and applying them.
***30 seconds***
What is that?
Who is that?
Where is that?
***30 seconds***
It's not the body sitting here—that's just mental images arising and passing…
Information getting labels…
***15 seconds***
The “me” aware of that, can't be that.
***15 seconds***
Is my “me” my thoughts?
A certain series of thoughts?
Those too, simply ripening mental images—arising and passing, arising and passing.
The “me” is aware of them—so “me” can't be them.
***45 seconds***
Is your “me” behind your eyes?
But then it has to be behind your ears too…
***45 seconds***
Our “me” is clearly present—but where is it?
It's always “me,” but is it the same?
***15 seconds***
What is “me” made of?
***45 seconds***
When we conceive of it—it is simply a conception.
When we picture it—it is simply a picture.
***15 seconds***
It, too, is “arising mental image passing.”
Arising, passing.
***15 seconds***
What fixed, unchanging, ongoing “me” could ever be there?
***1 minute***
And could your “me” ever not be there?
***1 minute***
What “me” could be independent of a projection happening?
***45 seconds***
What “me” can be independent of my experience?
***15 seconds***
We'll sit for three more minutes—use whichever one of those questions or comments helped you trigger some insight the best.
Review it, find a conclusion, and try to park within that conclusion.
Three minutes.
***2 minutes 45 seconds***
Nice, now let go of that object—but slide back up into the awareness of “the flow.”
***15 seconds***
And then come back up into awareness of specific things arising—either thoughts, or sounds.
And then come back up to the awareness of your room around you—your body in your chair.
And then dedicate whatever insight you gained along the way to using that to grow your wisdom.
And then when you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch—we’ll give us a couple of minutes to write, if you want to write (Tom asked for time last week, so I will stay quiet—as hard as that is to do).
***2 minutes***
*************
Okay, so Roxana is asking about the “three spheres” of finding our “me.” Using the three spheres would end up being this infinite regression—which would be really helpful.
So, we have the “me that we're looking for” [which] becomes our object, and the “me that's doing the looking” is still the subject, and the “looking for the me” is the interaction between. So in the same way that you apply the emptiness of the three spheres of the banana—giving the banana to Aunt Mary—we would do the same:
What I see ripening as my “me” is a ripening, and nothing but.
The “me” that's looking at that “me” is also a ripening, and nothing but.
And the actual ability to look at it is a ripening—because if it wasn't a projection ripening, I couldn't be having this experience.
So which “me” is it?
The “me” that's looking, the “me” that's being looked at, or the “looking happening?”
We're wanting to come up with that conclusion of, “Oh wow, the one I thought was there is impossible, because it depends on these other things happening all the time,” without meeting that idea of, “Which one am I?” [and] being fearful, but rather being [like] “Wowww!”
So it takes dipping into it again, and again, and again, to reach the point where the conclusion of: the “me” I thought was there since forever is not there, is impossible, totally mistaken, all along—and have the reaction of, “Finally! Wow!” because we've met that doorway to the real “me,” which is the one that's actually always been there—never not—just never the same two moments in a row.
How do we relate to that?
So, the emptiness of the three spheres is another way to go about it. I like that logic! If my “me” can go from subject side, to object side—then it's not in it, from it, because if it's subject side [is] in it, from it, it can never be anything else but that (in which case, I can never be aware of my “me”).
Wait a minute—that's the only thing I've always been aware of—it doesn't make sense. If our “me” could exist the way we believe it exists, it makes no sense at all—but it won't not make sense until we look, and that's what Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen is wanting us to do.
First, find the “me” we think is there—because if we don't identify that one, we won't precisely be able to point out to ourselves that that one is just absurd (not just “not there,” but absurd to think that it even is).
So we are looking for that “me” that we believe is there—trying to find how we believe that it exists.
It doesn't exist—but we believe it exists in a certain way, and that's what we're trying to find. When we find that and negate it, we find the me that does, in fact, exist—and it's called “the nominal me,” which makes it sound so simple!
It's like, just tell me I'm a “nominal me,” and I'll go through life as a “nominal me,” but it won't really mean what it's supposed to mean—it won't bring the reaction that it's meant to bring (the words “nominal me”) until we go through this process of finding the “me” we believe is there—and negating it.
[Negating it,] meaning “finding out how impossible that one is,” not just “negating it,” but [realizing,] “Oh my gosh, that's just crazy to think that I had a “me” like that!” before it'll finally let go [of] its grip on us.
So the “me” that we're looking for is: that “me” that gets its feelings hurt, that “me” that gets angry, that “me” that gets sad, that “me” that gets jealous—and then acts to get what it wants, in the way that it wants.
That does not mean that when we find that that “me” is actually impossible, [that] we will stop having any actions in our world; we won't stop experiencing things; we won't even immediately stop being jealous, or stop having our feelings hurt—because we'll still have that in our seeds, they can still ripen—but our response to ourselves in those experiences will be very different, and in that way, we are able to stop perpetuating the broken cycle.
So, First Panchen Lama has pointed out for us, three ways that we hold to our “belief in things as self-existent,” (that's what we did last week). The reason he pointed that all out is that he wants us to go and look—use those three ways [that] we believe in objects, and other people, as “truly existing,” and apply that to our own “me”.
So, remember we had the denpar drukpay “exists in truth,” where we believe the pen is on the table, whether we walk away or not. That's hard to do with our me, because we can't put ourselves on the table and walk away, and think we're still there—it just doesn't apply.
The second one is the rangshin kyi drukpa, which means “exists through some nature of its own.”
Because it's a pen it writes,
And because it writes it's a pen.
If it cuts bananas, it is not a pen.
Because it's a pen, it can't cut bananas.
That's an example of what we mean to say, “a thing exists through some nature of its own,” as if something in it makes it right (which also makes it not able to cut bananas).
Then the third one is rang kyi tsenni kyi drukpa, meaning “exists by definition,” where the pen defines itself; the pen establishes itself as distinct from other things—which means it'll always be a pen as long as it exists.
[These] three are just three subtle differences in our experiences of things, and other people—just subtle.
So, how do we apply these to our “me,” to our “self,” that exists in truth, denpar drukpa—a “me” that's there even when I'm not experiencing it?
It seems absurd—we can't really say that.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen suggests that the “me” that exists in truth—is how we're holding to our “me” that continues on through different states of consciousness. So, there's “me,” I go to sleep at night, and then there's the “me” that wakes up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom—I go back to sleep—there's the “me” that wakes up in the morning.
We hold to the “me” that must have been there through that deep sleep, even when I wasn't aware of it. We hold to it as being a “me” that's the same “me” going through all those different consciousnesses, and how we hold it to “me,” it's hard to pin down with words:
I'm holding it to be the same “me.”
No, no, I'm not exactly the same because I'm two seconds older.
But it's still “me,” same “me.”
So I don't mean “same,” [as in] exactly the same, but I mean “same” by way of “I don't turn into dog or cat just because I'm sound asleep.”
I don't wake up as Barbara, I wake up still as Sarahni—and I think I'm the same Sarahni who went to bed the night before.
Okay, fine, going to sleep, waking up—that's fine—but we have a sense of that “me” that actually was the one that came into this life, and will go through into the next life—a “me” that exists in truth.
I won't call it Sarahni, of course—I didn't call it Sarahni in that previous life—but the way I'm holding to my “me,” I'm thinking my “me” is the same “me” in the previous life as this “me” // as that “me.”
We're not saying there's no “me” at all that goes through that—but how we're holding to it—the belief that we have when we say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I have past and future lifetimes,” we're still holding to the “me” that has those in the wrong way.
So we're misunderstanding it—a “me” that exists in truth.
I believe there's still a “me” there even when it's not within my conscious awareness of it—to exist in truth.
The second one, rangshin kyi drukpa, the “me” with some nature of my own—this is that sense of being some inherent thing inside of “me” that makes “me” who I am. [As if I were saying,] “How could there not be some inherent thing unique to ‘me’? If I didn't have some inherent thing unique to ‘me,’ I would be whatever is being experienced at the moment—I would be the cutting banana, I would be the traffic going by—there'd not be ‘no me,’ but [I’d] have to have a distinct ‘me’ inside me; or else what?”
But we think this inherent thing within is, like, the owner of the body // owns the body // is the one who makes the decision for the body—”It's my body, I'll do what I want with it!”
What does the body say back to that?
“Yeah right, honey—you really think you're in charge? Watch this!”
“Oh.”
But still—even when that happens—we go, “My body, it betrayed me; it got sick!” We still have this inherent “me” inside.
Geshe-Hla has said [that it’s] like the Wizard of Oz “behind the curtain,” [where] we think we have this controller inside.
Even when we're out of control, [or when] we don't have control—we still believe, “Oh, the system's just going wrong, but I still am the controller (it’s just [that] right now it's not working very well).”
That inherent “me” is what we think goes on moment-by-moment. Even as we understand that [it’s] experiencing things and changing by way of experiencing things—but we absurdly still hold on to, “No, no, it's the same me, it's the same me changing moment-by-moment,” and it's like, wait a minute—you can't be the same and changing at the same time! It just doesn't work.
It's not just illogical—it just doesn't work, and yet we hold on to this “me” even as it experiences different things.
“Me” experiencing different things—it doesn't seem so absurd, does it?
I remember [being as] a little kid going to Disneyland [and saying,] “Wow, wow, wow, wow…” I remember yesterday (sort of), and yet I still have this “me” that experienced all that stuff—but I still have this inherent “me” that is the same.
But how could I experience different things if I'm not a continuously present experience-er?
If I'm different [in] this moment, than [in] that moment—how could there be any kind of continuity to experience?
How can I experience something and not be changed by the experience?
How can my “me” change and stay the same at the same time?
Third consideration, rang kyi tsenni kyi drukpa: “I exist by definition;” my “me” exists by definition.
How is it that we are defining ourselves?
Remember, “defining” does not mean “words in a dictionary,” it means, “here's this unidentified scrambled mess—and [then] something happens—and a tree gets ‘defined’ out of the mess.”
[It’s] like delineating—how is it that we delineate ourselves from the vastness of existence?
There are ways that we are holding on to qualities of our “me,” which we hold to be as fixed beliefs we have about ourselves:
“Oh, I'm Sarahni,” versus, “My name is Sarahni.”
“Oh, I'm a jealous person,” as if it's part of my identity—instead of it being an experience of the moment that's temporary (that maybe recurs, recurs, recurs), but I've added it to my delineation of who “I am.”
Lama Christie said [for example,] “I am a suffering being,” as if we've added to our delineation of who we are. It was a very subtle clue—stop identifying yourself as a suffering being.
“Well, I can't—I am suffering!”
Right! That's why we are investigating all of this—we lock ourselves into these identities when we are believing that those qualities of “me” are what define me.
My personality is different than yours; my personality is different than my brother's—and it was the instant I was born. My parents could tell us apart by way of our physical bodies, by way of our behavior, and from the get-go, our own “me” is building these different beliefs about our “me,” and those beliefs are our qualities and characteristics, and it is how we define ourselves in the world—how we come across to others.
We're not doing it consciously, of course.
What we're trying to find is this deep subconscious belief that there's a certain way that I define myself amongst my world of others, and that means if I don't define myself like that, who will I be? What will I be? Will I disappear?
So we actually hold on to these identities—even when we find them unpleasant. Why is it so hard [that when we] find some quality about ourselves that we dislike—why is it so hard to get rid of it? [One] would think we'd just go, “Oh, I'm like that? I don't like that. I'm going to stop being like that,” [but then] we turn around [and] in the next minute, we're being like that again.
We know the punch line—it's because it's forced by seeds.
All of this is because it's forced by seeds—we know the punch line—but we're trying to get in there underneath so that we can come to the conclusion of the punch line ourselves, instead of just applying it because we know it—we want to find it.
Okay, so in English (as I just said), we say things like:
“I'm shopping.”
“I'm Sarahni.”
“I'm driving.”
“Don't bother me, I'm driving.”
And in English, the words “I am” have these different connotations; it has in it the connotation of some shortened version of saying, “This is what I'm doing right now. This is what's happening right now. I'm shopping.”
But it also then—in this other way—is a form of an identifier, right? “Hi, I'm Sarahni.” Now people know that that's how to identify me.
So, how does our imprint know the difference when we say, “I'm shopping” versus “I'm Sarahni”?
Might we be getting mixed up—or might it be a subtle clue, like some kind of weird built-in language clue (at least for English speakers) that when we say something like, “I'm shopping,” it's actually a seed for reaching wisdom—because technically, we're going to find that we are part of every ripening, and we can't remove ourselves from the ripening—it takes all three: subject-object-interaction between, arising at the same moment, for there to be that moment of arising, and so we could push our identity to say, “Wow, this happening—we don't want to call it ‘me’ (if we're still thinking me in the old way),” but we expand our sense of being in a way that gives us a glimpse of what it might be like to be omniscient and have emanation bodies.
Not that we all become “one big thing,” (Natty and I had that discussion the other night), but our identity will expand. This identity—the wisdom identity—is bigger than subject in a world of objects and experiences that are coming “at us.”
So, just an interesting thing to think about as we use language.
Maybe we want to get more specific—maybe not.
All right, let's take our break.
We haven't quite gotten to today's class yet—but we will.
*************
[Roxana: Dear Lama?]
Yes?
[Roxana: When we were meditating, I was kind of, you know, trying to find the “me,” but in order to try to find the “me,” I was also listening to all the birds outside—and it wasn't just one bird, so then my mind goes, “Oh, it's just like the ripening of, not just one bird singing, but the ripening of many birds singing—so that's more spheres, right, that are coming, the awareness, and the little itch that I have here, that's another one, and the car passing by, that's another one. So there are too many things going on, but you need to keep your focus.]
Right, that's why we want to be at stillness before we do this analysis.
[Roxana: But when you go looking for the “me,” the “me” that you think it's there has it's other parts that are listening (as you've mentioned before) that they're not making that “you,” but are ripening seeds—I mean, you're experiencing the ripenings—so when you're experiencing those ripenings and you are the observer looking for that “you,” and you're just letting them pass by—the subject part, does it play like the consciousness, the one who's aware, or how does it play?]
Yeah, you want to be looking at the observer in the same way that you were looking at the birds: nothing but ripening, sound: nothing but ripening, decibels: nothing but ripening, that very label: nothing but ripening—we're wanting to do that with the observer.
So forget what it's observing, and back up—find the observer and do the same thing: “Oh, ripening and nothing but, ripening and nothing but, ripening and nothing but—and then what are we going to have to do?
Look at this observer too: “Oh, ripening and nothing but—and then this infinite regression with your “me” in the position that the singing birds were, which is why we need to get to the point where those birds can be singing on the chair next to you and you will not be aware of them—because you're so focused on this flow of the river.
[Roxana: Okay, I understand, I get the flow of the river.]
*of the “me.”
[Roxana: Right, I get the ripenings, but probably the labeling between observer, between consciousness, aware-er—that's the part.]
It's distracting when the leader of the meditation—I find it distracting—because it sounds like I want to be aware of putting the word on, and it's not really what the meditation is about. It's about simply being aware that in order for this experience to turn into a recognizable experience—that's what we mean by it getting labeled. It doesn't mean put on the word, it means be aware that something out of the mind stream is blipping out into an identity [makes gesture].
That's what we mean by the labeling happening.
[Roxana: Okay, thank you. I think I got it more clearly so I can practice it.]
Yeah, we want to be in that subtle level underneath the words underneath the thoughts underneath the identifications to reach stillness. Just [making hand gestures of ripenings], and when that's happening we can take this little corner and say, “Who's doing that?” and find the conclusion eventually to be, “Whoa, nobody—it's just the process happening,” and step into that process happening and let go into the “and nothing exists in any other way than that,” and into emptiness—if we're at that platform where our mind can sustain it.
So we practice, practice, practice—and then pretend (which we haven't done yet) going into the emptiness pretend yet. [We] pretend that we actually reach it, come out, do it again, do it again, do it again.
[Roxana: Perfect. Thank you dear Holy Lama.]
*************
So we are looking into ourselves, our personalities, our habit patterns, our way of reacting to things. Our very life, what we hold as our heritage, and at death, we're going to experience the collapse of all of that.
First, our outer world, and then our own body, and then our own way of responding to things, our own personality collapses, our own “me” collapses. And it's incredibly painful and terrifying. When everything familiar is disappearing.
If we go into that with the usual state of beliefs about the existence of our “me and my world,” it's a hugely different experience when we go through something similar, trained.
The reason that collapse is painful and terrifying is because we are grasping to this “me” in this mistaken way, which is why we're trying to push ourselves beyond those limits of who we think we are // what we think we are. We're trying to push ourselves beyond the limits of our body and mind as it is right now.
The way we hold to our body and mind now limits our love and our compassion.
We experience others believing that they are the same way as we—even the worm, we're somehow deeply holding that that little worm has some kind of [it’s own] self-identity—it's worm, tree, car, jerk—we're holding the same mistake about others as we're holding about ourselves—and we don't know it's a mistake.
We don't recognize our limitations, which is the purpose of being in a lineage that has trained teachers to help us come to recognize those limitations. We know that whole story: we can be in a lineage and if we aren't really open to the teachings, we can hear the words and not get the meaning.
In this particular lineage they keep saying (as a student) [to] ask, ask, ask, ask, keep asking, so that we're sending the message to our own mind [and] heart that I really do want to learn; I really do want to change.
This Mahamudra practice is about exploring how to deconstruct this “me” that we grasp to so strongly. We showed ourselves that we could do it with sensory input when we went from “bird singing in the tree,” to “bird song,” to “sound,” to “simply ripenings as sound.” We [also] showed that we could do it with our body as we withdraw from our awareness of the whole body.
I like to close my eyes and think, “what am I really directly experiencing right now?”
Okay, I'm sitting on a chair.
Wait—what information am I actually getting?
I've got a little pressure in the back of my legs…
Well, wait a minute—what makes that sensation “the back of my legs?”
Well, because it's in that location.
Yeah, but what makes that “that location?”
I keep just deconstructing until I realize, “I don't know—I can't say what that thing is at all.”
We can do it with our feelings and thoughts, that's the first half of the meditation: we're going through these levels, allowing anything to arise, and intentionally imposing our understanding, “Wow, this is just a ripening mental image, a ripening karmic seed. Let it go. Let it pass.”
So we are deconstructing our feelings and thoughts—reaching that level of awareness of “ripenings happening,” mental images, constant shape-shifting, that flow of mind (we called it).
The teachings call it “into the realm of mind.”
Once we are familiar and comfortable with doing it with all those different levels, that's when we take our “me” and deconstruct the “me.” We have to be able to recognize it before we can deconstruct it—that's the point of those three different ways in which we are holding to our “me.”
Find the one you resonate with and explore that one, you don't need to do all three. We do all three to explore them [in order] to find the one we resonate with, and we can do that outside of deep meditation.
Take these three: I exist in truth, I exist by some nature of my own, I exist by definition, and try to explain it to your cat, to your dog—in your imagination, explain it to somebody and let them (in your imagination) ask questions, like “Well, wait a minute, what about this?”
Try it—just keep trying—and you'll find a way to explain it to yourself that will be more clear that you can then use in your meditation so you don't have to do this in meditation. You'll get your own process of doing it.
So, Lobsang Shukgyi Gyeltsang, thank you Lama Christie for translating this for me, gives us these three different pairs of words, concepts, to help us with this deconstruction of our me. They work for other things too. Here's these pairs of words.
Dak shi and tak che,
Lungja and lenpapo,
Yen lak and yen lakchen.
Dak shi, she means “the basis,” and dak [in this context] means “the label.”
The label basis here means “the label that's going to get put on something,” but call it projection—dakshi.
Tak che means “the labeled thing.” So, here's the tak che [holds up a pen], and the dak shi is “pen” // “blue and white pen.”
Was it this class I was saying [that] I had the same pen for so long? It ran out of ink the very next day that I bragged on how long I had my pen!
I thought that was funny.
So, here we have a new one.
In order for this thing to be here, there has to be the thing that gets the label, and the label that it gets, right? Can't have one without the other.
Even if we say, “The thing is here, but the fly is on it,” for the fly, there's the thing that gets the label, and the fly's label “landing pad.”
Dak shi // tak che.
Then there's Leungja and Lempapo in the same idea.
Lungja means “that which is to be taken on,” and lenpapo—len means “take” // “the taker on.”
So, we have this pair of, let's call it, “the label that's gonna go on it” and “the thing that's gonna take that label.”
The object that takes the label “pen,” so it becomes pen.
Without taking on the label, what is it?
Without a thing to take on the label, where does the label land?
It takes both.
The third one is yen lak, which means “parts,” and yen lakchen, which means “the holder of the parts” // “the possessor of the parts.”
The parts, and the one who has the parts.
So, these are three different ways that we can also explore this “me” that we believe either exists in truth, exists through nature of its own, or exists by definition.
For an existing thing to exist…
What's the definition of an existing thing?
That which is perceived by a valid perception.
That right there says [that in order] for an object to exist there needs to be an experiencer of the object, and then that means there have to be three different things going on—an object, a subject, and an interaction between—for there to be anything.
So, here there are three different ways of looking at that. There needs to be the label that's gonna be put on the thing that gets the label—dak shi // tak che.
Which [one] is the “me?”
Is the “me” the thing that gets the label, or is the “me” the label that goes on?
It has to be both, right? Everything has to be both.
But wait—there has to be somebody who's doing it.
Yikes! Where's that one?
So, we can investigate in any one of these three ways:
That which is to be taken on, and the taker-on-er of it
The parts, and the possessor of the parts—which we're going to slide into calling that the “whole,” but…
The “whole” and the “possessor of the whole.” Those are different things:
Here's my body, it's got all the parts.
And then I've got this whole body
Based on all the parts, and I can
Take some parts away and I'll still have
A whole body—but it's not as whole as it was before.
And at some [point], I take away a particular part
And I don't have the body at all anymore—
Even though all its other parts—
Or maybe all its parts—are still there.
So, it's not “parts” and “wholes.”
It's “parts” and “owner of the parts,” which is different, right—the “me” that owns my parts.
So, Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen is going to zero in on that one [when] helping us deconstruct our “me.” It's like there’s this “me” we think is somehow inside our body (do we think that?) and then we somehow think it's the owner of the body; we somehow think it's the in-charge of the body; and it's one [method to use] to find the mistaken way we're holding to that “me.” [The method is to] check out this relationship between “me” and “my body.”
But then, Buddha taught we have all five heaps and the body is only one of them—form, feeling, discriminating between things, all the other factors that make me up, and all the different kinds of awareness I possess—”me” has five heaps.
So, we're going to want to look at the “me” that owns, or is inside, those five heaps.
Within the five heaps—the heap of form—its elements are those subtle elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space.
And then within the other four heaps, there are other elements that our “me” is having relationship with, that we can use to look at whether the “me” can:
Exist in truth
[Exist] in its own nature
Whatever that third one was (it's escaping me right now)... By definition.
All right, so, Panchen Lama is going to go through these with us.
First, he says [that] we want to go looking for the “me,” which means we need to identify where that me could possibly be—and in all of existence, we're either going to find the “me” in the body, or in the mind.
In our body, or in our mind—we really don't need to look in [the] things of our outer world or the other people of our outer world, because we don't hold ourselves as being “in” those things.
If that's [not already] so obvious, right?
You don't have to go looking for your “me” in the tree…bless you [someone sneezed]…we already know that it's sort of limited to this thing, and this thing's time frame. So, he goes, “Good—that makes things a whole lot easier because there are only these two places to look.”
So, he says first of all [...] we're going to look at our “me” in relationship to the five heaps (which is more than the body) to see whether our “me” could be any combination of those parts (meaning the different heaps) OR if it takes all five heaps to be there, and then when we break them down, for instance, when we break down the body—is my “me” in all the elements, or any one of the elements, or some combination of the elements?
We did this in ACI ever so briefly (I don't remember what course it was) and here Lama Christie helped us spend more time in doing this investigation—and it helps beyond just finding the “me.” It helps to understand this relationship between “parts” and “wholes” better; to come to really be aware that whether we're experiencing anything as parts—it has to have a whole—and a whole has to have parts, and there can't be a one thing in the way that we believe it is when we're so keenly aware that we can't experience a whole thing, and we can't experience a part of a thing without knowing about its whole.
It takes all of it, and yet when we go experiencing a part of a thing, it also has parts that makes it the whole.
I can't experience my thumb as a whole, because here's the front of it, and here's the back of it, and I can focus on the front, and I can't focus on the back at the same time, but I know it has to have a back in order to be my thumb, right?
I'm experiencing “wholes” and “parts” at the same time, and what I'm actually doing is impossible compared to what I think I'm doing (experiencing one thing at a time).
So anyway, he starts out saying [that] we can't just say, “Look, my ‘me’ encompasses my body and my mind—and that's all I need to know. Because once I see that my ‘me’ depends on those things, and those things depend on my ‘me,’ ta-da! I understand the emptiness of ‘me.’”
And I can say those words, and underneath here [holds up one hand back towards herself], right, there's a part of my “me” going, “Yeah, yeah, you just stay at that level, honey, let's see how far it'll take you,” because the next minute somebody insults me and all of this [philosophy] disappears, and this guy goes, “Meh, meh, meh,” right?
So it's not enough to just say, “I exist dependent on all my parts together,” and he says, “and further, if we were to investigate that ‘me’ that exists with all of these parts,” he says, “there would have to be multiple ‘yous,’’ because if there's a “me” that's aware of what my eye information is giving, so that I can have an experience of seeing “the tree,” the seeing-the-tree experience is a different set of information being given to me than is “the hearing the birds in the tree.”
My eye consciousness can't hear birds.
My ear consciousness can hear—but it can't see birds.
So, the birds my ear hears, and the birds my eyes see are different things,
and the consciousness that's seeing versus hearing—they are different things too.
They don't overlap.
So, if there's a subject side that's seeing, there would have to be a different subject side that's hearing, and a different subject side that's tactile, and a different subject side that's thinking, because what is happening is so different in the consciousness that can't overlap.
It's kind of a slippery argument, and he says, “and that's why you can't just say my me encompasses body and mind and have it be enough,” because the ramification is then that you would have to have multiple different “me's,” and it's like, well, wait, maybe that's the actual conclusion:
Maybe I do have multiple different “me's,” and it's a different “me” seeing than, hearing than…
Maybe that's a clue that we really do want to explore that and see—but not in the sense that then from that would come [the thought] “well then, will the real me please stand up,” which is either scary or like [confusing].
So it might be another opportunity to go exploring:
Why would there have to be multiple “me's?”
All right, that's his first exploration. Then another one (he says) about the heaps, is [when] using those heaps as an exploration we can use it to help us find the mistaken “me,” because assuming we have that conviction that there was a “me” before I got into this lifetime, and there will be a “me” that goes to the next—if that conviction is so strong that we can use that understanding [to prove that] there was a “me” that existed before this lifetime.
The reason that's helpful is that what we know is absolutely true is that we were born—because here we are—and so if we absolutely know that in order to be born in this life [that] there had to be a “me” before that, then the fact that I'm here now means there had to have been a “me” before.
If we don't believe that, this argument doesn't hold water—so I'm going to assume we believe that.
So when we are thinking, “Okay, the ‘me’ now is here and that's the only thing I really know. Then that means there had to be a ‘me’ before, and I'm thinking of that ‘me’ in the same way I'm thinking of this ‘me,’ which is [that] there's a ‘me’ who's in charge; there's a ‘me’ who's the real thing; there's the ‘me’ who's going from moment to moment.”
All those things that we were talking about before, we’re holding to our “me” from before in the same way—and then we add to it by saying, “And because I'm here now, that ‘me’ had to be there then,” so we're using it to confirm our mistake instead of using it to show ourselves the mistake.
The fact that “we were” before—and not this, not the same—tells me that my “me” is dependent on the circumstances I'm experiencing, but we're using it to justify or to show ourselves the mistaken me that we don't know is mistaken. So it's useful to identify that (as we've said before).
He says, we say, “There has to be a ‘me’ independent of my five heaps because when I was born I took on new five heaps.”
If there's not a “me” to take on five heaps, how could I be here now? (Says our mistaken “me” that we don't yet know is mistaken).
His response is, “By saying there is a me that takes on the five heaps, he's saying the mistake you're making…” Wait, I'm losing it. Ah, I just lost it.
The taker on of the five heaps can't be the same as the five heaps—it has to be different than the five heaps. That's what our mistaken mind is saying—and Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan is saying, “That's correct,” but it's correct for the wrong reason from the mistaken mind.
If we say, “I take on the five heaps and those five heaps become ‘me,’” then we're mistaking the “taker on” lenpa po for that which is to be taken on.
We are mistaking the tak che (the thing to be labeled), for the label.
So in the same way that we might say, “When my ‘me’ takes on the five heaps, I become the five heaps,” we're wanting to explore the “me” that exists independent of the five heaps, taking on the five heaps, understanding (not sure I've got this right) understanding that my “me” with the five heaps is one of these processes of needing both to have either.
[When] a thing gets a label, getting the label makes the thing there—the basis and the label brings the “me” into existence.
So if that's true that you need the five heaps, and you need the “me,” you can't have two separate [things called] “me” and “five heaps” that come together to make (suddenly) this whole thing, without still having “parts” and “wholes” interdependent, mutually arising, all these weird words that we're learning what they actually mean.
I don't feel like I'm getting this across…
We're using the experience [of] “me,” [separate from] “five heaps,” [then] I go into them [and then] I get a new birth, to recognize that at any place along the way there's this process of a ripening in which these two things are coming together to make a third thing.
In every place we say, “Me does this,” what in fact is happening [is that] there's a ripening in which the “me doing this” is the actual existence—not the three separate things coming together, but all three happening—and that's what these three pairs are helping us to wrap our mind around.
We don't have “parts” and “the one who holds the parts” without having both of those at the same time.
We don't have “the taker-on of the label” and “the label” as two separate things that happen—we only have it happening.
Same with the label and the one who gets the label–and they're all describing this situation where we think there are two things that come together, and our exploration is taking us to: “No, it appears to be two things coming together (and so they can) because that's coming out of this ripening seed that always has all three happening—the subject, the object, the interaction between.
Every seed planted has those three spheres—so every seed ripening is going to have those three spheres.
The “me” is one of the spheres always; always ripening; always ripening; always ripening; ripening; ripening; ripening; ripening.
It can be a consistent “me” because [my] subject side never mixes with your subject side.
They can't, can they?
Your subject side is my object side.
My subject side is your object side.
Without being able to get into my “me” (my subject side) we can't mix subject sides.
So really even we'll find that our language reinforces the mistake, obviously. When we say things like, “I am going shopping,” or, “I am cutting a banana,” because we are reinforcing this distinction between the “me,” the “object,” and the “do-ing,” and that it would be more accurate to be saying, “Cutting banana happening,” [or] “driving to grocery store happening.”
It's more like “aware-ing is happening” rather than “me aware of that,” and it's helpful (but not very functional) to be in that space of “finding pickles happening,” it's just like it doesn't seem to work very well when we're out in the real world—but when we're home alone we can explore that and see what happens to “me.”
Our “me” has to be part of the “aware-ing happening,” but it's distinction as “separate from what's happening” starts to get slipperier so that we are relating to our object and interaction in a different way that will help us actually be less reactive and more aware (actually) to the in-the-moment need of others—because we're more in the experiencing, the happening, and our contribution to that becomes more clear, more helpful maybe.
So in your reading you'll see Lobsang Chukyi Gyaltsen, he uses a couple of different examples in trying to help us still identify this “me” and tiptoe into that realization that that “me” is impossible, without sliding into the, “Oh well then there's no ‘me’ at all,” because that's the cliff where we don't want to go over (I mean, we can't go over it because it's impossible for you to not exist) but if we're still clinging to the belief in the “me” as a separate thing, then there's also the belief that I could disappear and I could not exist, and that is terrifically scary—and so he's very gentle with us.
He tiptoes us towards that cliff without pushing us over (thank you very much).
He gives these different examples, [and in] one of them, he says, “Places where we can investigate [and look] for our “me” is when we say things like: “I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm good, I'm shopping…” (like we've already spoken about) and see what we're identifying with as we're saying those things.
The second one, he says [that] another place that you could investigate your “me” as a separate thing from your experience is if you were pregnant and carrying this child inside of you…
And it's funny, it's like, why would a monk talk about that?
And yet it's an interesting thing, because, you know, I've never been pregnant, so I don't know what it feels like—but I can imagine that odd space where you have another conscious being within your physical body, and like, where does my me end and them begin? And yeah, there's clearly a new body, but like, it wasn't human until it reached some kind of shape, right? First, it looked like a blob, and then it looked like a fish, and then it looked like a turtle, and then it looked like [something else], and now I recognize it as almost human, and then now it's big enough to I want this human out of me, right? I'm going to pop if it stays any longer—but all the time, it's a different being, it's a different me—but it's so within the confines of your own “me.”
He says, “That's a good place to explore the limit, the boundary of “this me” and “that me.”
Like [in this example] the baby is totally dependent on mom's body—and who knows what their awareness is—but now mom, she says, “I'm me, but I'm pregnant—so I have this other being inside of me.”
And she's still holding to her “me” in the same way—but it's so different—because her body is so different [that] it has a whole other beings “me” inside of it.
How can your body do that?
If your “me” is somehow tagged to your body—how can it change to have another “me” tagged to it [and] as dependent on it as you are?
Just an exploration [in thought].
It just seems curious that [this] would occur to a monk to use as an example for how to explore the “me.”
He gives another example, which is exploring our mental continuum (this one I don't relate to so much) it leads into looking at the mental continuum as it's aware of visual objects, auditory objects, etc. I spoke of it before when he said, “If you're relating to your heap of form there would have to be at least five “yous” because a different one sees, than hears.
He's using that [example] again—but he includes the sixth consciousness, which is the consciousness of mind, which is not part of the heap of form.
Consciousness of mind is one of the consciousnesses.
Mental consciousness is the consciousness that's aware of thoughts.
Mental consciousness is not aware of sight, colors, shapes, sounds, tastes.
It's a little bit slippery, because we think, “No, no, underneath all the other consciousnesses is the mental consciousness. There is eye consciousness, there is nose, right? And there's mental consciousness for mental things, not other things.
So again, when it comes to the “me,” there must be a “me” that has those consciousnesses in order to experience the things that those consciousnesses are telling me about, and in this same way with these pairs (both of which are necessary to have anything) we can recognize how our “me” is part of one or the other of these pairs—one or the other aspects of these pairs.
Is the “me” the holder of the parts?
Or is the “me” one of the parts that's held by something else—held by the whole?
Is the “me” the taker-on of the projection?
Or is the “me” the projection that's being taken on?
And of course, the answer is: it depends on which way we're looking at it—doesn't it?
So if my “me” could be either one of these pairs, then what is it really?
Doesn't it have to either be the projection, or the thing that gets the projection?
No, it has to be the projector—the one who's doing it.
Yeah, but the projector has to have something that's getting the projection “projector” on to it—doesn't it?
What's that?
Well, wait…
Without going, “Oh, so no me at all,” [and instead going], “Oh, my gosh, I really can't pin down the ‘me’ as anything separate than what's happening at any moment.”
How is that helpful?
How is that going to show us: “Well then how I react is critical.”
If it doesn't go there then none of this is going to be helpful.
When we reach the “Oh, I could be anything for anybody at any moment,” why don't we just stay in the clear light?
[In] diamond way, when we reach emptiness directly, it's called the clear light—beyond blissful experience.
Why not just stay there forever?
Can anybody see you?
No—you're basking in the absence. What you? Absent one!
What bliss? Absent one?
What good is that, right?
Nobody else can perceive you, what good is that?
My own blissed out emptiness forever…
Something's gonna stir forth, because going into it (I don't know how to say it) there will also be a part of you that knows, “Wow, this is the true nature of every conscious being—I want them all to have it.”
What is the state of mind “I want them to have it”?
What do we call that?
Love.
So we get into that blissful clear light, and what will stir forth is love. Because you [realize], “Oh my gosh, this is everybody's true nature,” not in those words, of course, but in some impulse—and then eventually, not right away, but eventually out you will flow as your “Buddha-you in Buddha-paradise emanating.”
No wonder we emanate, right?
Love has to emanate—because it gives.
It's the impulse to give—give happiness.
So by trying to find our “me” that we think is there and show ourselves that it's not there, what we're actually showing ourselves is this be-ing (verb) from which all happiness is possible.
So we set ourselves up to have that in mind before we do this exploration, so that when we reach our conclusion [of], “Ah, ‘me’ is the all-potential,” what we want to do with it is give it away, share it—not because we want to make more of it—we want to give it away because we know that [it’s] every conscious being’s birthright.
Every being in existence [has this] birthright [of] knowing their true nature. So it's like, “Ah, we want to share!”
So as we're doing this exploration and it's feeling tedious, go back to, “Why am I bothering to do this?” Because the “me” that doesn't exist in the way that I think does exist in a way that can be the source of happiness for all existence.
Technically, even the rock and the mountains and the trees.
So that our conclusion when we reach the, “Oh, no ‘me’ isn't no ‘me’ at all.”
It's like, “Ah, that being,” right?
I think of it as a verb.
All right, so class is done—I didn't finish class three yet, and we have next week, right? We'll do one class next week. And then we're off for a little bit so it'll be good timing. It'll give us time to explore these things without so much of a rush.
So nobody's freaked out by the emptiness of them, right?
Thank you.
Remember that person we wanted to be able to help? Yeah, I agree, Roxana.
We have set in motion the end of their suffering someday, and that's a great, great 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 being.
See how happy they are with you, how impressed they are with you.
Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart.
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 happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom.
And may it be so.
Okay, thank you again for the opportunity to share—it helps me so much.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 29
Welcome back. We are Mahamudra class, October 14th, 2025.
Meditation
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do.
*** 1 Minute 45 Seconds ***
Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. 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. They are 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 to help fall short,
how wonderful it will be when we can also help them 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.
Deeper down, we know this is what we are meant to become.
Studying emptiness and karma, we glimpse how it's possible.
And so we turn our minds back to that precious holy being.
We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way.
And so we ask them, please, please teach us that.
Show me that.
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 perfect 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 a great earth filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers. The great mountain, four lands, where the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.
Idam guru ratna mandalakam nirjatajami.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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 and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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 and sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other.
[7:37]
End of Meditation
So let's do our meditation where we sink into the appearing nature of mind, withdrawing the attraction to the senses, withdrawing the attraction to the consciousness of those senses, sinking down deeper and deeper. And then at one point, I'll trigger the little corner of the mind that goes looking for the self, the ME, and brief analysis. And then I'll let you do your thing on your own. And then the coming out in this one, we're going to add a little bit different, a different thing. Start your process of pulling in, start with settling the body as you know how to do.
*** 30 seconds ***
[8:50]
Start Meditation
Then bring your focus of attention to the breath at the nostrils, using that time to get the sharp focus, the clarity, the intensity.
***1 Min and 40 seconds ***
Now keep that sharp, bright, clear, fascinated observer quality of mind, drop it back, open up, become aware of outer sounds, noticing first the following them, cutting off the following, sinking into pure observation.
*** 30 seconds ***
Sinking more deeply into inner sounds
*** 30 seconds ***
More and more clearly aware of the rising and passing, of shifting mental images
*** 30 seconds ***
Sinking more deeply into more subtle arisings. Notice any shift of awareness, simply mental images rising, passing,
*** 20 seconds ***
The constant shape-shifting of that realm of pure mind.
*** 2 minutes ***
Now imagine you've reached that state called stillness, and within that stillness, take a little piece of your mind and focus it on the who's doing this.
Who is the observer?
*** 20 seconds***
Actively check all the ways that your ME asserts itself, and check to see if it is there the way it says it is.
*** 3 minutes ***
Recognize whatever arises is a mental image arising and passing, just like any other.
*** 3 minutes ***
What ME can be independent of this flow of ever-changing mental images?
*** 1 minute 30 seconds ***
Is there no me at all?
*** 1 minute 10 seconds ***
We'll stay three more minutes.
*** 3 Minutes ***
Now release that focus, but pay close attention to watch your ME reassert itself. It's actually already done so, me listening to her.
Become aware of yourself in your body.
Your body in this room.
Be aware of your ME, deciding when it's time to open your eyes and take a stretch.
And be aware of your ME assessing how that session went.
And I'll give you a little bit of time.
Lekture [32:40 ]
Okay, so we had left off last time. Where Lopsang Chökyi Gyeltsen was pointing out that if we were coming to a conclusion that our ME is like the consciousness, awareness itself. He said, well, then there would have to be six different uses there, because we have six different consciousnesses. The eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, nose, tongue, tactile, and mental consciousness.
And our inclination is to say, yeah, I'm the mental consciousness. But mental consciousness is only aware of thoughts. It's not what's aware of colors and shapes.
It's not what's aware of smells, right? There's a separate consciousness for each one of those, they say. So we would have to then either be all six of those consciousnesses, if we're identifying ourselves as the consciousness, awareness, or we'd have to pick one, right? If our me that's there the same all the time is one of the awarenesses, consciousnesses, we either have to be all six at the same time, which then we can't be the same ME moment by moment, because those are flitting around.
Or there's, there's, we'd be one, and then the other, and then the other, and then the other, in which case, it still doesn't fit. It still doesn't explain our experience of ourself. And he says, but really, beyond all that, we don't identify ourself as awareness. We are much more concrete in some way than simply awareness.
But it's interesting. To me, it's an interesting insight into what do we think the mind and awareness, like, what is this thing mind? It still is really confusing to me what this thing mind is. And then what's ME that has the mind, right? We say, I am, I have a mind and a body. And that's what makes me me is my mind and my body.
But when I really go to pin it down exactly what that mind thing is, it's so obvious. The thinker thinking, the aware or aware-ing. And yet when I try to really find it. What the heck is it? And we know the punchline, don't we? Projections happening, the river flow of shapes shifting, seed ripening, seed planting happening.
And we are able to get to that awareness of the flow of everything and call it the appearing nature of the mind. And we learned that reaching that state, Ganga Ma practice said, that's called sky-like meditation, bless you, where you reach that experience of the ever-changing appearingness of what we call our mind, our mind stream. And we come to see that this thing called our mind or our mind stream is ever available for anything to arise in it.
And whatever arises within it doesn't affect it. It just arises and passes, arises and passes. And we can come to experience that constant flow in this very pleasurable way that keeps us focused on it without any longer going off on stories about the subtlety of the arising.
But of course, just the arising itself is a story about some shift that's happened. So even to get to this place of being in the constant flow, the sky-like meditation of the appearing nature of our mind, there's still some identifying happening. That's what it is for an appearance to be there.
Some kind of identification has happened. Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan is saying, in the Gelugpa version of Mahamudra, reaching that sky-like meditation is the platform from which you will find the no-self nature of the self, even though in Tilopa's instruction it didn't include going there. But Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan's point is, if you were to stay with that meditation apparently long enough, it would trigger a change in our behavior such that it would trigger our goodness, that would trigger sending us into the direct perception of the no-self nature of our self, without doing any kind of analysis. [39:10]
You know, the Gelugpas would say, right, and that could take a really long time. So he shares with us, there's another version of sky-like meditation, and that's the meditation in which we intentionally withdraw from those five consciousnesses to rest in the mental one, the one that's aware of the mind movement. And when we get undistracted by all those other awarenesses happening, meaning there's no more stories about things we see, things we hear, things we smell, things we taste, things we are tactilely aware of, and we are in that flow of the appearing nature of mind, that from that state of undistractedness, we actually do reach this stillness, meaning the quality of mind that can penetrate deeply enough that we can turn on the analysis of the ME doing that meditation. And go looking for that me, in order to find what's there and what's not there.
We find some version of how to analyze our ME that works for us, and then when we get familiar with it, we apply it, we apply it, we apply it, we reach our conclusion, beyond words conclusion, but I've got to try, where the ME that can't be the same moment by moment, but can't not be there at all. The ME that's part of every awareness, and nothing but that. When we can drop into the nothing but that, that's the no self nature of the ME that's there moment by moment, and we drop into this nothing but, calling that emptiness, a conceptual perception of the emptiness of the ME. And we try to hold it.
And if we can hold it, it gives the opportunity for that to go from conceptual to direct, it may not, something will pop us out, and then we start the analysis again from wherever we want to or need to, to trigger back into that and nothing but. So to reach the nothing but level, even conceptually, in this sequence of withdrawing, withdrawing, withdrawing, withdrawing, reaching the appearing nature of mind, that's where the ing is happening, and dropping underneath that, using our ME as the object of focus to get underneath that, is what Galupa calls a sky-like meditation. Because the sky-like aspect is reaching that empty nature. It's not that in your vision, everything will turn blue or clear like the sky. It's that we're finally in that space of the all potential, that is beyond words, beyond description, beyond picture, beyond visual picture, because we're beyond visual consciousness, we're deeper than that.
So he and Lama Christi were sharing all these different ways of triggering this, this ME that I think is there, and no, it can't be there like that, to give ourselves the opportunity to slip into that nothing but level of our ME.
We can apply just the punchline, oh, it's all projection. And that will be useful once we've worked with what we mean by projection deeply enough that using that idea or even that mental word in your meditation will trigger you into the nothing but. And so maybe, oh, it's just projection - doesn't work yet for us. So one way we were investigating finding my ME was trying to find a piece of ME that stays the same moment by moment.
And it's like it sure seems like it's the same ME every morning I wake up. You know, it seems like I'm in the same room. It seems like Sumati is still Sumati. But it seems like things are the same. And I get fooled.
It seems like the ME at noon today is going to be this ME, but at noon. And so it does take some digging to find that belief, because intellectually we go `that's silly. I'm changing moment by moment.`
And even as we say that, there's a part of me that goes, like, yeah, but if I'm changing my moment by moment, then will the real ME please stand up? Right. And that's how you get to the one we think is there, but it's not there. As we try to find these different ways, we define ourselves as ME and are holding to me wrongly.
So the same moment by moment, day by day, through my lifetime, lifetime to lifetime, all these different tools that we can use to look for our ME to find that, no, it doesn't exist in that way. Are we trying to find a ME that doesn't exist at all? It's slippery because the self-existent ME doesn't exist at all.
It never has. It never will.
So there is a piece of coming to the conclusion that no such thing. Totally impossible.
And yet it's not true that a ME could ever not exist. The self-existent me doesn't exist.
And we want to completely find its absence. Completely annihilate it. But wait, if it's not there and never has been, what's there to annihilate? It's a belief in something that we're wanting to annihilate the belief.
And yet somehow we go through this thing that we think is there to find it. To find that, oh, my gosh, it can't be there. To break the belief in it being there. So how do we know whether we're breaking the belief or not? Sitting in meditation, maybe we really are single pointed focused on that self-existent ME. No such thing.
Wow. That's such a relief. It feels so great to be identifying with the no self nature ME that anything's possible me anything at any moment.
Wait a minute. Does that feel great or is that scary? Like if anything could happen at any moment. Right.
But is there any me that could be impacted by either one of those? Yeah. Right. That's life.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan says, actually, when we're getting close to this identifying what's not there and what is there. We will go through a level in which it's scary. That no self nature, all potential me. If we're really trying to live in that, there's nothing to rely on.
We can't know for sure that our house will be here in the next instant. Then the fact that it is would be like, wow. Thank you. Thank you. Passt me. Thank you. Past everybody's that my house is still here that my clothes are still on that. I still got right. Wow. Because if we're in this moment by moment, anything's possible. There is no groundedness. There's nothing to go by except what — seed planting.
When we understand that, what appears is results of past imprints ripening into current imprints, and there's nothing but that. And we're living in this, call it freedom of the all potential. All we are interested in is what we're planting.
So as our belief in a self existent ME is diminishing. What we would be finding is that our impulses in going through our day would be so much more focused on planting, planting, planting. Wich means we're much more focused on helping the other guy, whether the other guy is a living being or an inanimate, right?
Instead of me, me, my needs, my, this, my, this, we would be more effortlessly outflowing in our interaction with others because our belief in the self existent ME that was making this is going away. So there's nothing there that needs or wants or grasp or the thing that's making all the mistakes, our belief in it is getting less and less. It's going to show up in our behavior.
So that's how we're going to know if it's getting easier and easier to turn our focus of attention on someone else. Then we can say our Mahamudra practice is benefiting us.
Not that it's not benefiting if we're not getting more other concern. That the piece that he says is really a key tool is in the coming out of meditation. Is as important as the meditation itself. I don't know. Maybe that's going too far to say it's as a point, meaning that to become aware of how our ignorance is reasserting itself. We will help us slow down the process.
So Lama Christi said it reminds her of somebody who wears contact lenses. You know, they they can't see then they put those lenses in their eyeballs and now they can see. She says it's like coming out of Mahamudra meditation. We're putting on ignorance. Lenses, eye lenses. And as we come out of the meditation, we go back to believing there's a ME here that things are coming at. Because the world goes through those lenses.
Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan calls it the demon of ignorance reasserts itself. Implying that for a little while, while we're in our deep Mahamudra meditation, the demon of ignorance is not asserting itself for a while, which means for all that while we are planting our seeds very differently. Even if in the meditation, we don't think we're anywhere close to emptiness of ME directly.
To repeatedly ask, right? Well, the real Me, please stand up and come up with the absence until something shifts. And then we go at it again. Every time we do so, we're imprinting in our mind this increasing ability that as we come out of that meditation, we can be aware that the Me that's reasserting itself is still this same projected ME, projected ME, imprint part of the imprint Me. Ripening results me.
However, you're going to find the word to remind yourself that as you come out of meditation, the process is still happening. So we don't go back to the old demon of ignorance, eyeglasses, seeing everything that way. And we impose, we try to impose that like the first object we see when we open our eyes, we impose, well, that's a ripening of the flow of my mind, just like what I was doing in meditation itself.
The wall, it's an appearance, it's projection, it's there. And so it's there and so it's real. Trying to replicate what we were doing in meditation in our outer experience, when we've got the full on eye consciousness or eyeball, the data and the eye consciousness and the ME telling a story about the eye consciousness, all that happening and being intentionally aware that it's no different than what I was doing in the meditation.
This constant shape-shifting that includes the me, not the me doing the constant shape-shifting.
So that's another way to go looking for the ME. Who's the me who's doing the projecting? Who's the ME that can be independent of the projection and then experience the projection? That's ridiculous. I can't be independent of it and then experience it.
Yeah, well, is the projector happening someplace else? And then if I'm on the screen with everything else and we could investigate that, we'd still have to go, well, then who's who, what's the projector if it's outside there?
ME moment by moment, ME as projector or being projected, or another way to go about it is.
How about the me independent of any experience? Like we're trying to find this me that's self-standing, that has experiences, that experiences happen to.
Like could there ever be a ME without experience?
Yeah, we want to say yes, that's the one that's there first. There it is. That's what I was trying to get.
If there's a ME that things happen to, then me has to be there first. Nagarjuna investigators, we've spent a lot of time on that. Is Me there first and then I experience it? And then is ME still there after I've experienced it? No, I've changed.
So where did I change? Which one was it that changed? The one that was ME first or the ME after? Another way to do it. [58:48]
In the meditation, we are focusing on the ME and applying the same tool that we did for the sounds and everything else. This is an arising and nothing but.
And getting to that place where our ME is, flow, flow, flow. And then at some point going, well, and what ME is there other than that? And see if things freeze frame for an instant. Technically they don't, of course, because even the awareness of our no self nature is ripening, is happening.
It will be at such a subtle level, however, someday, that we won't know it's happening until we come out of it. Let's take a break.
[Student: I have a question. I understand. And I think I get it when I'm in meditation. But you just said something that caught my attention. When you're out of meditation and the first thing you see. And the first thing you see, oh, that's your first ripening. And we're experiencing. I mean, I'm experiencing a solid world outside me. So those are seeds ripening that I planted before. Right. But I have like this idea that whatever it's ripening, it's still ripening. And someday they will stop ripening like something can break and that'll just toss it away. So how do I experience that ripening of objects that I see around me when I come out of meditation?]
You know, I don't know if I can describe the feeling of like, I keep coming back to this mudra [showing with hand]. I find it so useful when we're in the deep meditation at the level of the awareness of the flow. It feels like this is happening. Right. Just this shape shifting, shape shifting, shape shifting. And then to try to continue to hold that sense as we're opening our eyes. The solidity of things will shut it off. But if we can hold the feeling about them.. It's this, you know, still the constant shape shifting happening.
We can feel it for a little while.
[Student: So I don't focus on vase or chair, I focus on shapes, colors]
The feeling. Right.Right, right, right.
[Student: Because I don't have the time in that moment to think of a word, to label it. It goes fast. Just ripening, like something like that.]
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you impose it, right? You intentionally impose it as if we're experiencing the things flowing out of our heart.
[Student: Okay. As the same as I'm doing in my meditation that I just]
Imagine it.
[Student: Okay. I'll do my best. That's a, that's a good exercise to practice with. I think that one's harder. Than being in meditation[.
Especially hard when we're interacting with someone. You know, it's one thing walking around the street. Nobody's interacting. I can. But as soon as somebody. Hi, how are you? Goes away.
[Student: Right. I mean, I need to practice that because in meditation, I do. Follow it. I do get it. But when you said experience it outside. Yeah I mean, that's. Thank you. Thank you. I'll practice] [1:03:29].
I think I'd like to sometimes sit and look at something and blink my eyes fast. You know, and then it's like. You can kind of. Get a feel for. How the frames are moving.
[Student: I was going to say Roxanna, I. For me, it's like, if you staring the sun. Or like, if you look to the sun, your eyes are closed, but you can still feel the light going through the eyelid. Does that make sense? You still feel like. Some type of brightness. And then when you open it, it's like, wow. . So there is that like, it's like. I don't know. It's, but you see shapes. You know, if your eyes are closed and there is light on it, you still see shapes inside of your eyeball. That's how it feels. I don't know if that helps. This practice was really interesting. First. I thought I had like the craziest starts of coughing. I like all of a sudden, like my body was like, sorry. And like my sinuses, I was like, okay. So it was a little harder to like - stay focused, but I was like, okay, do the thing cough, but be present. And then again, when you ask that, like, where is the me? And it was like. And it hit my head so hard and I had a massive headache. And like, I could feel this and then this, but there was like a really clear line going upward and my chest kept doing this. And the moment that we came out, no headache. I don't know what was rising up, but it was very physical. Even though my mind was struggling. Cause like the coughing, it was like, there was other stuff like coming in and like focus, but physically it was very sensory.
Also, I wanted to out of like not connected. I know you still dealing with the cough I read yesterday in TCM monk fruit tea could be really good for coughing and throat pain. And I thought you're traveling East. You might find some or you might bring it. I don't know.
Yeah. I just figured you'll have some in Malaysia to probably try]
[1:06:40]
Okay. Are we back? So Lama Christy pointed out a couple of things that she became aware of in the, about this text, Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan's auto commentary about the Mahamudar verses that he had shared. She was so impressed that in his commentary, in his prayer about the Mahamudra, he shares the different traditions, versions of Mahamudra practice.
And then he shares the Galukpa version. And Lama Christy said, she noticed her own mind was automatically thinking, well, the Galukpa presentation is the one that's right. The one that's the real one.
And the other ones, you know, they must be flawed in some way and that must be what he's going to point out in his commentary is how the only one that really works is the Galukpa version.
And what she found right after finishing the translation. And by this part in teaching us the Mahamudrais that she was so astonished that once he taught the Galukpa presentation, he was using the comparison between it and the other versions to show that the other versions actually include all the pieces that the Galukpa version points out.
They just weren't pointing them out. And so it's like Lama Christy's conclusion. No, my conclusion of Lama Christy's conclusion is - it's like maybe the other traditions practitioners don't need all the details pointed out. They can go through this sequence of getting to the river level of mind. And from there on their own go, wow.
And there's nothing that exists in any other way than that, including my ME freedom. Right. Same with the other versions that if we have the seeds, any of those Mahamudra practices will get us to the stillness that will allow the platform for getting to the true nature. The underlying true nature, they all reach the appearing nature, true nature, but that's only half of the true nature. We need to also get to the experience of the no-self nature of the appearing nature to have the two sides of the coin of our Me and my world.
So they will all do that. And for Galukpas, we get it broken down. Maybe like from my own perspective, for my own E, I'm not judging anybody else. You are also bright. I need it broken down. I need it step by step. I'm like the kindergartner. This is how you tie your shoes. So runny, not just go tie your shoes, right? So all of the different practices, they all work. Any one of them works. And it's so beautiful for a tradition as Galukpa Lama to, to provide that insight into the other traditions being as, as effective.
And it's a little, I mean, it's like, he's a peacemaker, right? We've heard of him and his skill as a peacemaker. It's another version of his peacemaking skill is that he shows all those Mahamudra practices are effective. They all work.
Don't disregard them. If one of the others attracts you, said Lama Christy, go find somebody to teach it to you and use it. Use what's going to work for you. We all have different propensities and it may very well be that we do the ACI. We get this background, but then we meet a Lama who's Nyingma. You are not, you know, ditching the boat.
If you find yourself attracted to some other version of practices, someday. I personally have gotten so involved in this tradition that I don't have occasion to meet people in other traditions. Isolated in my world, but don't feel that you have to be. Is, is the point.
The other thing Lama Christy pointed out here is that again, she was teaching a group of people who were also already teachers or becoming teachers. And she used this piece to remind us not to take students into emptiness too far, too fast. To get glimpses of our own ME, no self nature. When we're ready, it's freeing. When we're not ready, it's terrifying.
And so they teach us to teach emptiness first by explaining the pen thing, because it's not the least bit threatening. It's threatening to our worldview, of course, but it's not threatening to our own self-existence.
And it doesn't really either automatically threaten our behavior yet. But it's the doorway to talk about the reason why a dog sees chew toy and a human sees pen as being results of past behavior so that we can then talk to new people about what we call karma. And Geshe-la so skillfully doesn't start out using that word because nowadays people have heard the word karma, and we tend to already have a preconceived notion of what it means.
And for the most part, they're inaccurate. And so it's helpful to call it something different, like the mental seeds until we get in deeper. So she was pointing out how really, really critical it is when we're sharing this with new people to be sure that we're focusing more attention on explaining how it is projections get made, how they get imprinted.
So explaining the laws of karma, explaining the way karma works in our lives in terms of how our behavior imprints our minds and how that goes on to come back to us as what we see others doing towards us to give people a really strong foundation in the understanding that their behavior now really does matter. Even when it seems like behavior now doesn't matter so much, because sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. So it comes back to Sumatii's line of saying, you know, it's my karma.
And so meaning I'm going to choose my next behavior carefully because I understand it making my future. Versus saying it's my karma. But meaning I'm going to do what my impulse says I should do, even though I understand that it's karma. It's like using karma, but making an excuse to use the same behavior I've always used.
It indicates we don't understand, right? The same behavior I've always used is the behavior that's causing trouble now. Even though I can't put those two together directly yet. So one would not take brand new students and teach them a Mahamudra practice because it was the one that took you to stillness so quickly or took you to the perception of your own emptiness. And it was so freeing for you.
You want to share it with everybody, of course. But unless they have the seeds for it, it's too much too fast. And we would start with the emptiness of the pen and then move to the emptiness of other people, right? So he shows us, do the pen thing, then do the two husbands in the kitchen. And I don't know if he's even gotten to the emptiness of self in his DCI groups. [1:17:08].
He may still be talking about emptiness of everything else. So that they've got the seed system down well, that our reaction to anything is what seed to plant, what seed to plant, what seed to plant.
Not sitting down at your desk and deciding your four steps, but on the fly. What am I planting? What am I planting? What am I planting. Whereas our ordinary state of mind is react, react, react. No. And then we sit down at the end of the day.
What did I plant all day? Oh man, a whole lot of demon of ignorance. Shoot. But like if we're on the fly, we can be planters all the time, creators all the time.
And that's what we're learning. Once we get a clearer picture that the Me. The me that's doing the creating is part of the ripening of what it's created before. And it's gonna be the recipient of what it's creating now. It's like we glimpse this full power that we have to like be in the matrix and reaching into the matrix to bring out whatever's needed at the time, whatever we want. Lama Christi would use the words, when we live in that space, I call it of the in-between, you know, you truly are in the space where you can just manipulate things and make them whatever you want.
But she's talking to a group of people who theoretically at least all they want is for every being to know the truth of where happiness comes from. Like they wouldn't ever reach into the matrix to make themselves a new Cadillac, right? So that they could impress people. Could they do it? Yes.
Would they do it? No, right? Because that's not the purpose of being this being who can manipulate things. So it's, again, it's dangerous because, wow, cool, I can get in there and I can make myself into the wealthiest person and right, take over the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you really could do that.
If you had the goodness from past lives, to do that. So you wouldn't do that because who would waste that, the power of that goodness on just material stuff? That what we would want would be this outpour. Outpour of what somebody else would need. So really, probably until we're at this place of our hearts, our hearts so compassionate and our wisdom so clear that we probably won't be able to stay in that space of the all potential at any moment until our goodness is such that we'll, that our impulses will always be to use it for kindness, right? The selfishness will be gone by then.
So there's probably not actual danger of misusing being in that space. You know, on the other hand, we, I'm seeing a being in my world who has such extraordinary good karma that they're like, can get away with any kind of disastrous, awful thing. And a lot of people are, yeah, you're the best, right? It's like karma is so clear that just because we've got really, really great karma does not mean we still don't have some major selfishness inside there somewhere, right? Purify, make merit.
That's where we started with this whole class. Okay. Purify, purify, purify.
Said Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan. Grow our compassion, grow our reliance upon our holy teacher to protect ourselves from going down the wrong path with the power of these meditations.
[1:22:33]
Okay. So that actually finishes the book, Jampa Course 16, Class 3. We have two or three more in Course 16 and four more classes in Course 17. But each class has taken me two or three or sometimes four classes to get through.
So I'm thinking we're still at this until March, maybe next year, but you know, no hurry. Hang in there with me. But we've got the crux of the practice in this one that we've done for the last several weeks.
We're going to go do other things in the meditations, but this is the one to fine tune and make it your own so that you can sink into the flow faster and spend more time in the analysis if you want, or maybe other days you want to stay in the flow and just touch the analysis briefly. That's totally your discretion about how you use it, but you have all of the steps now. So Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan, he doesn't like leave us with just keep ripping away the self that you think is there.
He so skillfully says part of identifying, part of overcoming the demon of ignorance is to understand the distinction between what's not there that we think is there. And what is there. So when we go looking for the self-existent ME, we find nothing. When we go looking for the actual ME, dangerous word, actual, we find the projected one.
When we find the projected one, the demon of ignorance will make us think, oh, that's the real one. But then we want to go, okay, which projected one is it? This one or this one? Or this one or this one? So that we can find the projected one that's never the same two moments in a row, but never not there. Because with every projection, there has to be a subject side.
The subject side is our Me. So for any experience, there has to be a subject. Do we ever have two experiences that are the same two moments in a row? No.
So can your subject side be the same two moments in a row? No.
Can your subject side ever be absent from an experience? No. Or there'd be no experience.
Can you ever have no experience? Yeah, deep sleep, unconscious.
I had that procedure. They squirt this juice in, they say, good night. I remember going, good night. And then the next thing I know is, I'm in recovery. Hello, good morning. And there's just nothing. But there was nothing, not nothing, right? There was… Okay, so we get it.
So he's saying, we want to be able to clearly identify the appearing Me and identify it correctly so that our demon of ignorance doesn't assert itself onto our real ME. Right? So when I say, well, the real ME stand up, I get nothing because the real ME I'm talking about is the self-existent ME.
But in fact, the moment by moment changing ME is the real me. But which one is it? This one or that one? This one or that one? See how it's so confusing. And then it's hard to even imagine being in the direct experience of the no-self nature me, the always projected Me, the one that's never not there, but not there in the way I think.
Like, no wonder you can't describe that because our verbal stuff is all linear and it's beyond that linear stuff. So, he gives us this term. I mean, from the Galugpa but he didn't make it up.
We've heard it. I think it comes to us in course 12.
It's not really a sentence. It's three words, words, three ideas. I think we've seen it before.
Ming Tsam da Tsam tokpe tak tsam
It means border. Like the border of your retreat space is called the Tsam. You put up your some tsam borders and you don't go out.
Tsam.Tsam.Tsam.
It also means nearly or only or nothing but. That's the version I like. Nothing but - tsam.
Like limited to. That's like this. Tsam boundary.
Tsam.Tsam.Tsam.
So, Ming means name. Da - which is apparently all really the BRDA apostrophe.
I don't know what that means, but it's pronounced short da means term. Literally means term TRL.
And tak. They Tak. Means concept.
So, merely name. Merely term. Merely concept.
Familiar, right? What are we trying to describe? Appearances. Experiences. Subject. Object. Interaction between. Like any. Anything. That is existing. It's not the emptiness of the thing that's existing.
It is Ming Tsam das tsam tokpe tak tsam
Name. Term. Concept. So, they all seem like they're saying the same thing. Andc learly, there are subtle differences or they wouldn't use different words for them.
Altogether. This is what we're talking about as projection. The Tokoe Tak is sometimes called projection.
So, to say something is Ming Tsam.. Some means to say it's only name. Or simply name. Or name. And nothing but. Right? My personal preference. But you choose yours. Name. Da means term.
And it's like, what is a term versus a name? You know, the name of something. What's the name of this thing? [shows a pen] Pen. But when we say pen. That if we say the term for this thing is pen. The implication. I don't know if in English it's true. But the implication is that to use the term pen. It has more information in it than just pen. Like the term means somehow its qualities or it's function or. Like more story than just name. They usually say things are a name and a term.
So, like we can't say pen without knowing what pens. Could we? I don't know. A baby learns the name pen at what? Three years old. But they maybe don't really know what a pen does. Yet. They see. Right. What happens. With these objects. But to have this say. The idea. Oh, I would use a pen to write with. That's not going to happen until they're older. So maybe you could have a name before you have a term.
Once we're at this level of study, we'll probably see that names and terms sort of go up together at the same time. But so does Tokpe Tak. Tokpe Tak Tsam this concept.
So all of them have some connotation of being ideas. Right. The idea in our mind of something.
Tokpe Tak means information glued together into an identity. That's a concept. It's like no concepts means. I have the concept of peace. Peace means everybody gets along. I have this concept of war. War means everybody fights to get what they want. Those are concepts.
But in fact. Right. What is this thing? It's a pen. That's a concept. No, it's not. Here's the thing. You know, peace. You can't go. Oh, there's the thing. Peace. Right. A concept.
We're making this idea that concept is more a mental consciousness. That's not quite right. It's an idea. Right. It's an idea. It doesn't have a tangible thing.
Here we're saying even the tangible things that are getting nothing but. Our name, our term and our concept about it. Is what makes this thing what it is for me, what it is for you.
Are our names for it the same? You know, English, it's pen. We have different names, right? Because we've got four or five different languages, six different languages here with us. The term when you say your word for this thing is the term different. [1:35:10]
You use different words to describe the term. But for all of us, whatever we call it, it's the writing instrument. It's term.. We want to say the same. Technically, it's not a court. And the concept. Also. Seems to be the same.
It's a writing instrument. It's made out of plastic. It's got ink inside it. It came from a pen factory. It's my pen. Don't you take it from me without asking. All those stories that come as a result of being Tokpe tak tsam. Only that only that only that is what some is saying. But honestly only a name on a term and a concept. Well, what the heck am I holding? I can't hold a name. I can't hold a term. I can't hold a concept. This does so have some nature of its own. Do you see why we struggle?
So we go down in level. Well, what about the thing I'm holding? We would do the same thing. Oh, it's solid. It's tactile. It's hard. It's cool. It's right. All the different ways I would try to describe my experience in order to show myself that the thing really does exist would just show me something on a level of more subtle names and terms and concepts. And then it's like, wow, that that's nothing but those two.
What about underneath that? Like I can only go about three layers before it's like, I don't know what else I'm experience here. But it doesn't take much more than getting to the level that you can't find anything more that you're experiencing to go. Oh, da. Right. It's nothing but these names and terms and concepts. And that's what makes it a real pen. The real pen I thought was there before. Poof. It's just gone. But that's even incorrect because it was never there in the first place.
Something goes away, but the object does not. It's not like to reach the understanding that this is a projection. It has to disappear and then show up again. Because it's never been anything but a projection. My belief in itself existence and this has to disappear. I need to take the lens of the demon of ignorance out of my eyeballs. And then this will be obvious.
Ming Tsam da tsam tokpe tak tsam - nothing but nothing but nothing. That, in my opinion is more important than understanding the Ming, da and tokpe tak sam. But the nothing but is, is a really necessary piece because we could land with, yeah, everything's projections and then fall for the, and that's what makes them real.
And so that ugly boss is yelling at me again. They really are hurting me because I'm nothing but a projection. They're nothing but a projection.
Do you see, we can come to the wrong conclusion if we just decide, oh, projections are real. If we don't understand they're nothing but projections. That makes us, or should make us ask, why me. Like who's projection? If they're just plain projections for everybody, it doesn't help. If this projection of angry yelling boss is unique to me because it's nothing, but the projection I'm experiencing.
Now I've got some, what do they call it? Now I've got my hands in the game or something because now there's something I can do about the names and terms and concepts that I'm experiencing. If they are unique to me, then they're changing them as unique to me.
And we start flirting with that personal responsibility, which is also too big to put onto somebody who's brand new to their interest in Mahamudra. So when we are in the flow level of our Mahamudra, one of the aspects we want to be able to turn on is the aware, the observer, the observer aware of what they're observing is this Ming Tsam da tsam tokpe tak tsam - don't apply the words, but try to get a feeling of what we're observing as the images are going blip, blip, blip, blip. Is it, this is nothing but seed ripenings happening on subtle levels.
So that as our observer is just observing, we are planting seeds for being more keenly aware of this is all seeds ripening, happening and nothing but when we're out of meditation. Then when we take it deeper and go looking for the Me, who's doing that observing, we can apply the same thing that Me, the Me that is there is name, term, concept, ripening with each experience. We can still be saying subject side.
Me is the subject side. Object is other interaction between is what's coming out of the seed. Deeper - subject, object, and what's happening between is all coming out of that seed ripening.
My me is nothing but some name, term, concept: The object, nothing, but name, term, concept experience. We're having nothing, but name, term, concept. What's the conclusion? Not in the meditation, but out of meditation. What's the conclusion?
How do we make name, term, concepts, ripening? We put them in. So how we interact right within our own process happening is what determines the future quality of what we're experiencing. And we see that more and more clearly as we spend more time in that finding the ME that doesn't exist, the one that's independent of this whole process and identifying with the one that does exist.
The Me that's merely name, term, concept, shifting, shifting, shifting. What do we want our name, term, concept made to be: Buddha, Buddha, me and Buddha paradise emanating. Thank you very much.
See how it's possible. Plant the seeds. Well, how do I do that? How do I write what I see myself doing for others is what comes back to me.
Like, how do I do that? How do I help others see themselves as Buddha? Yeah. If I'm not a Buddha, can I do it? Sure. Yeah.Nice.
Ming Tsam da tsam tokpe tak tsam
Okay. So loves on Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsan says, this is how the self emerges once your meditation on the emptiness of yourself has completed. So once your timer goes off and your Me reasserts, reassert it, know it, imposed. There's me name, term, there's name, term, concept Me. There's projected Me.
And there it is again. And there it is again. And there it is again, right? Now I'm aware of my, ME and my body, my, MEin my room, all the projections happening, trying to hold that quality of understanding within the experience as it becomes more and more tangible.
And then dedicate like crazy. I always forget to do that. So that we're building those seeds from the meditation and coming out of the meditation as strongly as we can.
He goes on to give us metaphors, metaphors for how this, how to relate to this projected ME, how to think of this projected ME. And for that, he goes to the Samadhi Raja Sutra, the King of Concentration Sutra. Didn't we just meet that sutra in the book gym book course? Yeah.
Interesting how these all come around together. And he puts it into his commentary. These few verses from Samadhi Raja Sutra.
So I'm going to read them to you to, to just give you some food for thought, because we're going to be off now until November. I don't remember exactly what. And I don't want to go into the explanation of these because I don't want to rush it.
So here are the four metaphors, four advices on how to relate to ourselves in the world after we get out of our deep meditation on the emptiness of ourself. So listen
So this is Buddha talking to us, right? Samadhi Raja Sutra.
[1:48:10]
Know all things are just the same as what magicians conjure.
They can call up forms such as an elephant or horse or cart. That is how they look to us, but really nothing is there at all. Know that all things are just the same as when a maiden dreams, when she finds she has born a son, the birth fills her with joy.
And when she watches her child die, she grieves over the death. Know all things are just the same as moons you find in twilight ponds. Although they shine inside all water that is clear and still, the water is devoid of any moon completely formless.
Know all things are just the same as the summer sun in the heat of the day. When a man is wandering, parched with thirst, he starts to imagine he sees a body of water at a distance. Although the water doesn't exist, people lost in darkness long to drink from the mirage.
Know all things are just the same. The water is unreal, nothing we can drink at all.
So these four metaphors are a magic show, a dream, an illusion, and a mirage.
And they're not all saying the same thing, which we'll go into next class. But all of them are giving us clues as to how to interact with our experiences out of Mahamudra meditation. So we can be thinking about them, about how they apply to our own self-existent Me that reasserts itself.
And we can think about how they apply to the self-existent other of each of our experiences and how that reasserts itself. And we can apply them to how the interaction between the experience that's going on. These four metaphors, we can explore it in those different ways.
So I'm going to leave us there. Please keep doing your Mahamudra meditation at least a little bit. I know we're going to have lots of distractions coming up.
But try, please, because you're making such great progress. You don't want to slip. So any questions, comments, needs before we're going to be gone for a little while.
Thank you to those who are transcribing and making it available to people. Be sure you dedicate those efforts. Okay, then.
Remember that person we wanted to be able to help. We have learned a lot that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way. And that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to guide you, help you, inspire you, protect you, and offer them this gemstone of goodness.
See them accept it and bless it. And they carry it with them right back into your heart. 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 true ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom may. 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 happiness.
Filled with loving kindness. Filled with wisdom. And may it be so.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to share. Have a wonderful couple of weeks.
[Student: Beautiful class. Thank you for everything. Love you.]
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 30
All right, for the recording, welcome back. We are our Mahamudra class. It is November 4th, 2025. It's nice to be back. Thank you for gathering with me. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. 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 just by way of your thinking of them. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates from them, encompassing you in its light. And then we hear them say, bring to mind someone you know who is 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 them 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. Deep down, we know this is what we are meant to be. So I invite you to grow that wish into a longing, and that longing into an intention, maybe that intention into a determination. Then turn your mind back to your precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet. We become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please, please teach me that. Show me that. 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 perfect 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 forelands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. 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 reach 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 reach 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. So I thought we would do the meditation practice the whole one through, nice and slowly, take our time, and then if you wish to talk about how your practice is going, and then pick up where we left off in the text. So recall that what's unique to this practice is that we're using our own mind as the meditation object. So they say technically you can't ever lose your object. Like I must be special because I know I can lose my object even in this one. But it's harder to really get off. And that we had those three steps. First, we are recognizing what's arising. We start from outside and we go inner, inner, inner. The steps are we recognize what arises, and then we recognize it's constantly changing nature. And then we put on to that our understanding that it's projected. Eventually, we're going to see it happening. But we impose it, first of all. And then we add the fact that it therefore must be empty of its own nature. So all that's in thinking, but it's going to turn into in feeling and the ideas we're planting seeds for it to become an actual experience. So it's always those same steps. First, tune into the level of what's arising. Then note it's constantly changing nature. Note that it's projected. Note that because it's projected, it must lack its own nature, be empty. So first, those first level. Second, we recognize the aware-ing of those things, the mind level, the clear and aware. And we do the same thing with it. It's changing. It's projected. And so it's empty. And then we shift to the me doing it. And the same. It's changing nature. It's projected nature. And so it's empty nature. So we're going to go through that. I'll prompt it. I'll give clues. We'll start with the preliminaries. And then I'll bring us out. And I don't know how long it's going to go. So settle in, please. Hi, Mike. Nice to see you. So we're planting seeds to experience subtle impermanence, the changing nature of things, dependent origination, the fact that things are ripening out their mental seeds, and then the ultimate nature. So set your posture well. Recall your holy angel and your bodhicitta. Recall your refuge in terms of karma and emptiness and what that means for your behavior. Recall your holy angel. Think of their good qualities and what they must have done to create the good qualities they see in them. Feel your admiration and your aspiration. Recognize how they are helping you and feel your gratitude. And then make them an offering. We feel so safe with them that we can clean our heart of something. The antidote can be this meditation session. And then fill that place with some rejoicing. Tell them of some kindness you did. Some kindness someone else did. And some kindness someone you have difficulty with. Some kindness they did. Now ask that holy being to please stay close to you, to continue to guide and teach you. Ask all those who help you become a better person to stay close, to be healthy and have long lives, and dedicate what we've done just so far to gaining some insight in this next meditation so that you someday really can help that other in that deep and ultimate way. And if you need to shift and settle back in, bringing your attention to your breath, that very close, specific focus of attention on the point at your nostril where the air goes out and in, looming in into everything until everything else falls away. Sharp, alert, fascinated. Now shift the object of fascination to the whole body breathing. Now intentionally shift this fascinated observation to outer sounds, letting go of their identification, sinking into fascination with their changing, changing, changing.Now intentionally let go of outer sounds, sink in deeper to the inner sounds, like putting on identities, fall away, simply experiencing changing, changing, changing. Now intentionally allow that fascinated observer to observe any arising thoughts, words, pictures, ideas, sensations, whatever arises, observed and not followed. Sink deeper into more and more subtle levels of change that is occurring, fascinated, receptive, yet disinterested in specifics, the realm of mind, constant flow, images arising, passing, let it lose all meaning, all specific, yet there is constantly something happening. Impose the recognition of these arisings as karmic seeds ripening, projections in constant shape-shifting, so you are knowing the projected nature of every instant of experience. Fascinated, and with each appearance you are aware of its empty nature because it has appeared. We are experiencing the true nature of gross and subtle appearances, objects of mind. From this place I invite you to become aware of your own mind, that which is clear and aware within which those objects are appearing. Some days that clear and aware is obvious, other days it's hard to find this clear awareness through which observer you experiences those flowing projected objects. Does it have boundaries? Does it have shape or color or even location? Does it ever stay the same? This is the subtle appearing nature of our mind, clear and aware. Can there be a clear and aware without being aware of something? And that is its emptiness. There is no independent, self-standing, clear and aware, waiting for objects to appear. There is always clear and aware, and there is always appearances. And so it's more like awaring, happening, as each shape-shift occurs. With every moment of clear and aware, there must also be the necessary emptiness of clear and aware. We get a glimpse and we lose it, go back and establish it again. Every time we glimpse it, we are bringing an end to suffering. So try. We'll stay three minutes. What was the first two parts? Let's do part three. The first emptiness we will experience directly will be the emptiness of our me, what we mean when we say or think me. So shift your fascinated observer back to allowing the flow of projections, the object side of moment-to-moment experience. Now take a little corner of your mind and focus on the observer, the meditator, your me. It's not the body. That is just mental images, objects of projection. It's not the thoughts. Those are just mental image objects, projections. It's not the clear and aware. That, too, is part of every projection. It is who or what has this clear and aware, this me that seems independent of what's happening so it can happen to me. Find that me that's doing the fascinated observing. Once we find the me that we believe is there, apply wisdom to it. One way to do that is to recognize that to find this me, I had to use a subject's state of mind to look for the object me. If there is a me which exists independent of projections, that would not be necessary. So, duh, me is projection and so empty of self-nature and so constantly changing but never non-existent. Subject, object, interaction between, and the emptiness of each instant by instant. When we catch a glimpse, we try to hold it.When we lose it, we go back through it again. Every time we glimpse it, we are bringing an end to suffering. So, try. We'll stay three more minutes. Find your me. Now shift back to the observer of the flow, imposing the awareness of the emptiness of each image in the flow and then rise up to the awareness of being inside a body with sounds and sensations and impose the awareness of the emptiness of each sound and sensation and rise up to an awareness of being inside your room and impose the awareness of the emptiness of the things of your room and think of the goodness that we've done. Recall the person of your bodhicitta. Recognize how you will be able to help them. Hold that goodness in your hands. Recall your holy angel. Feel your gratitude. Ask them to stay. Offer them the goodness and withdraw them into you and dedicate and when you finally open your eyes, impose the knowing the emptiness of what you see and so when you're ready. Good job! That was a whole, almost a whole hour. Now, you don't have to do all three parts of maha mudra meditation every single time but we do need to get to that deep level of awaring happening before you focus on either one of the levels of the object side, the clear and aware side or the me, right? You have those three different options. So, how's it going in terms of your regular practice? Is the maha mudra helping you in any way? Well, Roxanna and I were talking about you and David's health so I wondered if that was an object to take that and see the emptiness of that because if we have things that come up, I guess technically they are objects to do but I mean I guess at this level I'm trying to do the easier ones. Maybe that one's not so easy. Right, right, right. But do you see the sequence? Find its changing nature, changing, changing, changing-ness and then find its projection nature and then in order to be projected unique to me, it has to lack its own nature but then there are all those questions. If it has no nature, does it, is it not at all? Right, we fall off that cliff, we're going to be talking about it. So, we keep working on that pair of seeds ripening and so empty until they are so tied together that to think one is to think the other and you can do it with any object and once we do it, once we have the sequence, you don't have to be in deep meditation to do it, right? To think it through and go, oh wow, right. The deep meditation part is then we're at the near the platform where it could trigger the direct experience. So, any object we do it with is going to be helpful. Anything else? I mean if we are so powerful, it's coming from our own side, you know. There's a concern that government shutdowns coming from our own side. I know. What else? I have experience that when I'm looking into, I don't know if I'm looking into emptiness, but I'm looking into what it is there and I feel intelligence there. Intelligence, that's nice. But it's not emptiness, I guess. Yes, it is not emptiness. I'm not guessing. I know what, sometimes when I explain, yeah. So, I feel there is this larger intelligence and it is, there's love, like the principle of, not the principle, but emanating from this intelligence, like intelligence of love, if I can say it like that. And it is everywhere. It's not like it's in the air or it's in the chair, it's in the toilet. Like there is nothing that is not it. And is it independent of you? No. I mean, it is at some level it is, but it's somehow, if I look at it, I want to see it connected with me, but it's… Can it exist independent of your experience of it? Yes. Yeah, we want to say yes, right? Yes. But how would we know? We will not know. So, we can't establish it as being existing, independent of our knowing that it exists. Right. I cannot, from my point of view, I cannot. Exactly. But there's still this part of us that believes, well, that's no problem, it can exist independent of my knowing it, because I'm just puny little me, don't we? No, there is some connection between me and this intelligence. Yes. Good. It is? Nice. Keep exploring. All right. Anything else? Yes, Tom? There's like a few things that come up, like when we do the practices, I feel like this… First, I apologize for coming late. I got really confused with the times. Math and times is not my strong suit. But what was really clear was like, it was like a mask. When you said that, like me, it was really clear at the back, and then it almost felt like an eye that you put. And then another thought came that I was like, oh, I'm like, hugging my suffering. Like almost like you're like holding into something. And I'm like, oh, we're just like replacing each suffering with something else. And I keep hugging it. And I'm like, this is just… So those are like two things that came really strongly. And then in the everyday life, I feel like I recognize those moments of like, the mask, the I'm the seer, who, when and what's happening. But what is I feel more is disattachment, because it's not me, I'm just seeing it. Right? So in application on everyday life, it's creating more disattachment rather than like, what to do with it yet, if that makes sense. It's like, I don't know how to play with it in my day to day, rather than like, I'm retrieving into like, oh, I'm just seeing and there is an intelligence in just seeing and observing because I do feel like very strong, like observation levels. But I don't know what to do with that. Okay, okay. So, so what I'm hearing is that, that the you is more detaching from the recognizing that things are just this constant shape shifting, but you are somehow outside of that. Kind of, I guess. Yeah. And it's a phase we go through. Actually. So it because the me that's believes it's outside of it is doing so for as a safety mechanism. Because to be completely within it, right is too painful. And it seems like there's no in between either completely owning it all. And no, that's not that things don't aren't happening like that at all. So, right, it's the two cliffs, actually, but the right, so as this watcher watches, and it sometimes needs to be from this more distant place, we'll see that no matter how distant we get, there, it's, we are still involved. And that, and that it really is our seed ripening coming out of us. And so how we wait our, our engagement then is in this level of what, what, how do I influence what's going to come out later. So we get into that seed planting mode. And it's not that you do step in and fully experience all that pain. But rather from over here, you recognize that this me is also this constantly changing thing. And that everything I'm doing is planting seeds. So this me over here, trying to be independent of it all, is, is more engaged in planting, what this is going to look like in the future. Right? So you're, what you're doing, becomes more intentionally planting for some future that you may not ever be aware of how that seed actually ripens. But you've planted it in a way that any way it ripens great. Okay, I think I got it. That's what isolated you does is it goes looks for places to plant seeds. Yeah. Right. You're gonna be being kind and being helpful and etc. Thank you. Right. Thanks. Anything else? And we'll take a break. Okay. Let's take a few minutes break. And then we'll go back into the text. I wanted to share if it's okay, not related to class. I saw a new segment in Israel, and it was with a guy who had what she would call it what Lama Sumati has the Parkinson's Parkinson's Thanks. And he actually doesn't have it anymore. Yes. And I remember you said that he or he's he shared with me that he's working with like a physical therapist or something every week. But basically, this guy was a runner his whole life, like, and when he got it, he lost the ability of walking has strong tremors. And I just kind of wrote down like what he did. But basically, he just did isolated movement to figure out which area of the body is weaker, and then made it stronger by exercising the specific area rather than the whole body, which is similar to what we did mean him together. So he got his walking ability back to 100%. And so technically doesn't have Parkinson's anymore, they interviewed the doctor, he just have like light tremors left in his hand. So I don't know if it's something that could be worked or like help to Lama Sumati with his physiotherapist. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Nice. Also, the retreat with Geshe-la's classes felt like the last few ACI and Mahamudra classes got like a baby together. I don't know if anyone else felt it. But I was like, oh, this is a Mahamudra class with like some drops of a little bit of this ACI and this ACI class. I was like, we're having a review class. We can't hear you, sweetie. I see your mouth moving. About now. Now, yes. I'm not using my physical therapist anymore because after six months, I didn't see much improvement, but I don't know that it's doing what you were talking about. So I'd be interested in pursuing what you were talking about. I do have, Anatole is going to work up a yoga practice for me that focuses on my posture. And so I'm going to start doing that when we go through it. So that's my condition now. I can still walk without a walker, but after a few minutes, I get bent over almost 90 degrees because of my clenched stomach muscles. Okay. So I think that workout routines are like meditation routines. You have it like a part of your heart and then the long-term goals come. So if you don't really have a routine, you can't really, well, you can get the effects of it, but it's better of a routine. And then someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, do you have one? I did for six months and it didn't do anything. I didn't see any kind of improvement. I don't know if my lovely wife did. The routine would be like brushing your teeth. You just do it. It's not like six months. It's like hygiene. You just, and meditation, just do it. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the age of 72 says he eats whole foods now and he does machine rather than free weights because you can have resistance, you can have specific muscles. So there's different ways of doing your workout routines. And if perhaps, I don't think doing things quickly are necessarily, it depends on what your goal is. I mean, you could have a short-term goal and a long-term goal if you want a short-term effect, but it's possible that your walking is a long-term goal. I'll just say that. I know for me, Tai Chi is a long-term goal. It doesn't happen in six months to be able to put someone down with seemingly very little effort. But my goals are superior superior structure. I want my... Oh, we lost you. Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt my structure break. Okay. Thank you for everyone's input. All right. So in the text, we are at Lopshinsky-Geltsin's part where he's talking to us about applying our mindfulness out of meditation to how our me doesn't exist. Not that it doesn't exist, but how it doesn't exist. So our me does exist as nothing but a name and a term. We learned that before. A name, a label applied to a collection of parts. What parts? We could say the five heaps. We could say the body-mind. We could say moment-by-moment awaring happening. We could even say a label applied to another label. This label, then that label, then that label, then that label. But all of it is subject-object interaction between happening arising together because they were planted together. Meaning dependent, everything we're experiencing, including our me, is dependent upon those mental imprints ripening. We call them seeds, karmic seeds. And those seeds ripening are reflections of our deeds done because that's how seeds are planted. Imprints are made by how we are aware of ourselves interacting with others. And so when those imprints get enough power to manifest, they have subject-object interaction happening. So Lopsangchuky Gyaltsen is referring to that Samadhiraja Sutra, King of Concentration Sutra, which we're going to find Kamalashila is using as well in Bhagavad Gita, of course. And Geshe Michael is referring to it as well. I don't remember where. And we are reminded that that sutra is a sutra that is used by the highest middle way masters in their teachings and in their use of authoritative scripture for proving some of their points. So we come to know that the teachings of Samadhiraja Sutra are Mahayana, first of all, and then Prasangika, highest worldview level. So he gave us the a series of verses about the illusion, using it as suggestions for how we can explore our relationship with our me and my world out of Mahamudra meditation that will help our Mahamudra meditation go deeper, help us be able to get the glimpse of the aha and hold it. So I'm just going to read it to you again. Know all things are just the same as what magicians conjure. They can call up forms, such as an elephant or horse or cart. That is how they look to us. But really, there's nothing there at all. Know that things are just the same as when a maiden dreams. When she finds she has born a son, the birth fills her with joy. And when she watches her child die, she grieves over his death. Know all things are just the same as moons you find in twilight ponds. Although they shine inside all water that is clear and still, the water is devoid of any moon, completely formless. Know all things are just the same as the summer sun in the heat of the day. When a man is wandering parched with thirst, he starts to imagine he sees a body of water in the distance. Although the water doesn't exist, people lost in darkness long to drink from the mirage. Know all things are just the same. The water is unreal, nothing we can drink at all. So when we're trying to describe dependent origination and emptiness, we use language, words, sentences, and they lack the ability to get the nuances of the ideas. And when you use an image, a picture, or a metaphor, it gives more information than you can say in words. Or like you would be saying in words for so long to get across the message that you can get in a metaphorical image that often these sutras and commentaries are giving these different images rather than long explanations. So here we get four different metaphors for dependent origination and emptiness. And Mama Christy said, why do you suppose we need four? You know, it's like, why wouldn't just one of them have been enough for Lobsang Chukigaltsen? Why wouldn't have just one of them been enough for Samadhi Rajasutra? But if we look at these different metaphors for illusions, we'll see that they have different nuances. And each of the different nuances is pertinent to how we believe our me exists independently, and how we can use the different nuances to show ourselves that we don't, can't exist in that way, that we in fact exist in this other way. Same for anything we can experience, right? Subject, object, interaction between. So when we look at these three, we have the magician's magic, we have the maiden's dream, we have the moon in the pond, and we have the man wandering in thirst. The magician's magic is talking about functioning things. The maiden's dream is talking about emotions that we have over, about, or towards impossible things. The moon in the water is about reflections, and how circumstances, certain circumstances are necessary for certain reflections, and how we mistake the thing in the reflection for being somehow a real thing. We'll get to it. And the last one, the man wandering in thirst, is the image of a mirage.But it has to do with how the illusion is created by our own desire. So we're going to go into each one in a little more detail. So maybe one of these will be the one that you explore, and it triggers this deep aha about your own nature, or the nature of your outer world, and the other ones don't talk to you so much. And then maybe later on, you'll revisit this for whatever reason, and it's like, whoa, the one about the maiden, how did I miss that? Like, that's so potent, right? So you don't have to feel like you have to dig in deeply to all of them, but start with the one that speaks to you, and explore it a bit. So the one about the magician, he can conjure an elephant, a horse, or a cart. It's like, back in those days, those were things that you would use to get your work done. An elephant, or a horse, or a cart. I mean, he could have said a hammer, or a cooking knife, any tool that we go to use to accomplish our task. It means functioning things, looking at functioning things. And when we think of a functioning thing, we believe that there's an object there, first, that we then interact with in some way, that makes that object make some other object change. So for functioning things, something has to touch another thing, and impact it, right? Here's our friend the pen, there's the clicker with the tip of the pen, here's the paper, right? The pen has to touch the paper, and make the drawing. And look, it did, right? So my palm that didn't have the winky face on it, and now it does this, changed that, right? So this functioned to make a change in this, which now makes this function differently than it did before. So there has to be this, and there has to be this, and they have to come together to make the change, right? You're supposed to be going, no, no, impossible, right? But it just happened, it's not impossible, I just did it. What's wrong with the picture? You tell me. What can't happen? There's lots of different levels, okay? Try this. Let me see if I can get it. Here, can you see it better here? Maybe you can see it better here. When does it touch? I'm watching in my camera, I can't tell, I was expecting it to touch. When does it touch? Tell me. Somebody holler stop. Somebody holler stop. Stop, stop, stop. You passed. So now think logically. When two things are getting ready to touch, experientially they touch. But think physics. Is there a moment that there's an edge to this and an edge to this where these two can actually make contact? Why not? Because the point of this that meets the point of this, they both have to have an outer edge, don't they? Otherwise the instant this touched this, it would sink completely into it. There has to be a place where it touches and a place where it doesn't touch in order for it to just touch. Otherwise the instant it touched, it would completely merge and that doesn't happen. So there has to be in the two places that they touch, there has to be a this edge and there has to be a this edge and there has to be a that edge and a that edge where they don't touch in order for them to touch. That make sense? Which means that this place they touch has to be the same. There has to be a little place, a little place and a little place they're not. And you can go infinitely down until we go, well wait a minute, there must be something else going on here because they do touch. But logically speaking, physically speaking, it's impossible for this thing to stop this thing, right? It either should go straight through or it should merge completely and it doesn't in our experience. But we think that for something to function, one thing has to be there, the other thing has to be there, they have to contact and so this one changes that one. But how can that happen if this cannot actually ever physically touch it? And yet you saw it happen. So we're not negating that things function because they do. But we're negating how we think they function, which is here's my hand independent of pen, here's the pen independent of pen, here's the me in charge of both, not who makes the pen touch the hand and thereby influences the hand to change. Functioning things. So when a verse says, all things are like what a magician conjures up, they call up forms such as an elephant or horse or cart, that is how they look to us. Meaning they look to us as an elephant, a horse, a cart in them from them, like my hand, like the pen, in it from it. But really there is nothing there at all. Is there no elephant there? Or is there no elephant in it from it there? Can you feel the difference? I'll say it again. Is there no elephant there? Like if the, you know, the magician has the stick abracadabra poof, there's the elephant. If you were to walk up to that elephant, apparently you would touch an elephant, right? You could feed it peanut. There is an elephant there. But is it there the way we think? One that was born from a mother elephant, you know? No, this one was born from the magician's spell. Metaphorically, what's the magician's spell that we're trying to understand better? My seed's ripening, right? The conclusion of it can't do what it's doing from it, from it and from it, without the my contribution to it, because they can't ever touch in space. They can't ever touch in time, okay? This thing is not such that it can influence anything without my influence, but not my influence in terms of my willpower as a human to make it right, but my influence in terms of my seed's ripening, making me using pen to make smiley face on my hand in order to make a point about class happening, ripening, happening, like all of that coming out of those seeds. So the magician conjures a functioning thing. The functioning thing appears to be there independently, but it's not there independently. It's there as the magician's conjuring. The magician's conjuring is our seed's ripening. Got it? Things function by way of our seed's ripening them functioning. And so you put the key in the car, you turn it and the car starts thousand times before you do it once and it doesn't start. If it was really the key starting the car, it could never not work as long as you had the key. And then why would you have to put it in the ignition if it was the key? You would just have to wave the key. It reminds me that when Mike was leaving, his car was all packed. We went out, we were going somewhere and he was going somewhere and I pushed my car button to unlock our car and his car started. Or something like that. His lights, something happened. His car started when I pushed my button and it was like, wow, I really caught me for an instant. And then he was standing at the door, you know, and I realized, but it was like, if I could have stayed in that instant of like magic happening for, I think I could have disappeared on the spot. And it was just that fast. But it's like, why not? In which case, why would I need my fob at all? Why couldn't I just look at the car and go, okay, seeds ripening, car start. Technically that could happen. Okay. So what elephant is there? What elephant is there? Seeds ripening elephant. What elephant isn't there? Any elephant, not my seeds ripening. Can there be elephants for me if I don't have seeds for elephant? No, but come on. There's elephants in our world, whether I was born here or not. Isn't there, right? You'd have to say no, not for me, but then that implies, yeah, well for everybody else, but there's probably somebody living somewhere that has no concept of elephant, right? So there's no such thing for them. And it still hits us hard. It's like, yeah, but there's still elephants because I know elephant. There's still cars because I know cars, which is true, but it doesn't make cars because in them, from them, the way we believe that they are. All right. Functioning things. When we come out of meditation, this is the context of this teaching. Lobsang Chukwugelsen says, when you come out of your meditation on the no self nature me, what happens naturally is we go right back into the self-existent me, self-existent other. And he says, make your practice be come out of meditation and hold the awareness of shapeshifting seeds, ripening me so that it becomes more and more real for us. It is real. It's not anything we've ever not experienced in any other way. We just never knew it before. So it shouldn't be so hard. It's not like we're creating something out of nothing. We're removing something that blocked us from being experiencing things accurately. So me as a functioning thing, I come out of my meditation and I try to recognize that the next thing I do is seeds ripening and nothing but. And I try to hold that and it lasts that long. But as I work with it, maybe it lasts that long. So one way is to relate to ourselves as a functioning thing and try to hold that awareness like, oh, I'm like a magician's magic.Got it? Okay. Everybody's related to that one big time. I can see. Next one. Know all things are just the same as when a maiden dreams. When she finds she's born a son, the birth fills her with joy. When she watches her child die, she grieves over his death. Hmm. In ancient India, apparently, every young girl dreams of getting married and having a son because that's what makes her life meaningful and valuable. And so here's this young woman, not married, right? Virgin, who has this dream of being married and giving birth to a boy, not just a child, but a boy. And whoa, her emotions in the dream are just so amazing. And then in that dream, the child dies and her emotions are so strongly grieving. And then she wakes up and she goes, oh, it was just a dream. I didn't really happen like that. Hmm. So here the, the metaphor is how we, we, our emotions are related to, to things that are like dream things. And in dreams there, you know, dream metaphors used a lot. And one of the conditions of the dream is how things shape shifts so swiftly, but in the dream, we don't go, wait, how am I at the beach when I was just in my living room? We just like, that's natural, right? Okay. The dream just carries on. And if it's, I mean, either good dreams or bad dreams, when we wake up, our automatic thought is, oh, that was a cool dream implying didn't really happen. Or that was an awful dream relieved that it didn't really happen. And the way our emotion, how we feel our emotions related to our experiences of life, his point is, is, is just like, in a dream, we, we get so emotionally. Yeah, attached. We think our emotion, the emotion is being caused by the experience we're having. And then our emotion is either an emotion we want to keep because it's so pleasurable, or that we want to avoid that's because it's unpleasurable. And we blame the object or the experience on that feeling. So we grasp and we avoid. And he's pointing out that, that object as the cause of our emotion is the object is a dream object. It's an object in a dream. When you wake up from the dream, that didn't really happen. It's like it's no different. The objects being our projections are real, but the object that's causing us to be happy or upset. That's not real. It's not just not real. It's not even there. It's like a dream. Seem to have happened, but didn't really. The where will the where did that happiness come from? Where did that grief come from? Where did that anger come from? If it wasn't from the boss yelling at me, if the boss yelling at me is like a dream, why am I so upset? Right? Wisdom being would say, right, why are you so upset? No need to be upset. It's just like a dream. Yeah. Well, in this dream, I'm going to get fired. Right. I mean, all these bad things are going to happen because this boss is blaming me for something that I didn't even do. And all of it's like a dream. Would that be useful if we walk around in life going, oh, this is all just a dream, right? It depends on our response to it, wouldn't it be? It's like if it allows us to recognize the emotions that are arising, aren't really coming from what's going on, that in fact, it's my seeds ripening, making what's going on, triggering this emotion. Then how do I want to act? Because I made those seeds. So I can make seeds now in a more intentional way. Like we are making seeds, whether we do them intentionally or not. We might as well make them more intentionally, right? So it's the blaming the other for the emotion that I feel that is the mistake that the maiden made in her dream. That's what the dream metaphor is saying. If in her dream, she was thinking, oh, you know, I'm just dreaming, having a baby. It's not real. She wouldn't have had this great joy. And then when the baby died, she wouldn't have had the great grief. But that doesn't mean walk around in life with no emotions at all. And the point of the metaphor is, ah, the person who's causing my emotion. No, my seeds are making that right, this whole thing is like a dream. In the sense that I think that it's really happening, like I think it's really happening when I'm in the dream. Is it not happening at all? No, it is boss is yelling. Is it happening in the way it seems to be happening? No. So should I react the way I want to react? If I believe the old way? No. At at minimum, be like a bump on a log. Yeah. At best, try to be kind. What if trying to be kind makes the boss even matter? Yeah, the two are not really related, are they? In the same way that the boss upsetting us was not related. So why do anything? Because that's how we create.Interacting with other is how we create, right? We are the creators of our world. We are the dreamers of our dream. Okay, so emotions, function, and emotions we have. I think I can do the next one. Moon in the pond. Maybe I can't do this one. No, all things are just the same as moons you find in twilight ponds. Although they shine inside all water that is clear and still, the water is devoid of any moon completely formless. We see this metaphor of moon in a pond a lot in different contexts. Here, it has to do with reflections. When there's a body of water that's still enough, and the moon is in the sky, in a clear sky, so it's clear enough, and there's no obstruction between the two, then you look in the body of water, no matter how big, no matter how small, the moon is there. If it's a full moon, it's full moon. You can peer at that full moon, and if it were still enough, theoretically, you could take a microscope to that, or a magnifier glass to that, and you could see the craters, right? You should be able to get all the details of the moon. We know it's just a reflection because the conditions were right. Usually, they use that metaphor as how to explain seeds ripening. When the conditions are right, we experience subject-object interaction between, and it's like, yeah, well, what makes those conditions right? But here, it's more having to do with recognizing things as reflections. So, I love the image of the mirror for this one instead of the water, which when you're standing in front of a mirror, and you're looking at the mirror, I know intellectually we know, right? That's not me in the mirror, but what if that auntie is holding a baby in front of the mirror? You know, the baby reaches out to the baby, and then they hit the mirror, and they probably start to cry because it's like, what's wrong with that baby that it felt like that, right? Because for the baby, there's a baby in the mirror, and then suppose that the mother walks in, and baby sees mother's reflection in the mirror. Baby goes to mother, but mother's over here, but baby goes to mother, right? Mother in the mirror. Baby thinks what's in the mirror is real. Now, look out your window. You are the baby. Thinking that what's out there in the world is out there, when in fact, it's coming from something behind us, right? What is it that's behind us? Not literally form behind us, but seed planting behind us. So, this thing about the moon in the water is about reflection. You're looking at the moon in the water, but actually, the moon's up there. The moon's behind us. Our past behavior is what's behind what we see in front of us. And technically, because in our past behavior, as we plant the seeds, our mind believes there's a me, and there's a them, independent, that I'm contacting and doing this thing towards. Those seeds are planted with that misunderstanding that when the seeds ripen, they force me to believe that those things outside the window are out there, like the baby is forced to see mother in front of them, when in fact, mother is coming from behind. So, when we come out of our meditation, where we've been glimpsing the true nature of me and the not true nature of me, we want to open our eyes. And from this level, still understand that what I'm experiencing, me, room, end of meditation, is in fact, a reflection of past behavior, and nothing but, like the moon in the water, like image in a mirror. Yeah? So, now we've got three to work with. Coming out of your Mahamudra meditation, either work on the level of me, a functioning thing, or on the level of me and my emotions, blaming others, or the level of me reflection. If the me part's too hard, do it with your outer world. It's easier. Okay, I'm going to relate to my outer world of functioning things as nothing but my changing, seed ripening, and nothing but, those three, or my emotions, changing, seed ripening, nothing but, or my experience as reflections in a mirror. Okay? And then we'll do the fourth one next week. So, remember that person, that being we wanted to be able to help. We worked hard, we learned a lot, we got glimpses of what will be the end of their suffering, and that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close, to continue to guide you and 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 your heart. 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 may. 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 happiness, filled with loving-kindness, and may it be so. Okay, thank you very much. Nice to be back. Oh, I'm stopping recording. See you next week, if not sooner. Thank you.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 31
Welcome back. We are Mahamudra class. It's November 11, 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. We're just going to do our opening prayers and then finish up that section on the four different concepts of the illusion and then we'll meditate after that.
**** Meditation ***
So bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again, please.
** 1 Minute **
Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom, and see them there, 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 to someone you know who's hurting in some way. Feel how much you would like to be able to help them. Feel how limited we feel in our ability to help them. Yet deep down we know that we can. We know that this is what we are meant to become. And we know there are beings who have become that. And we know that one of them is there with you right now.
And so turn your mind back to them, ask them. Please continue to teach me, show me, help me, help that other. 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 perfect 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 a blanket of flowers, a great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon, in my mind I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed may every living being experience the pure world,
Idam gura ratna mandalakam nirjatajami
I go for refuge until I am enlightened, to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community, to the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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, to the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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.
**** Lekture **** [7:30]
We left off last week in that discussion about Lobsang Chökyi Gyeltshen´s quote from Samadhiraja Sutra about those four different illusions, ways of thinking of things as illusion. And what he's getting at is the fact that we don't relate to Me, my world, and how I experience it as illusory is forced on me by the misunderstanding that all those things have their own natures in them. And so Buddha in Samadhiraja Sutra is helping to give us different aspects of our experiences that we want to come to recognize how they don't exist in the way that we believe that they do, but not that they don't exist at all. Which is the point of the illusion. Something looks like it's there, but it's not there like that. An illusion does not mean something's there, but not at all. It's there, but in a different way than we thought.
So the first one you recall the magician's elephant horse cart, right? Meaning functioning things. And we talked about how the way things function looks like they're doing it in the moment, cause and effect, but that can't be for all those reasons. And so function is illusory. Yes, the key starts the car, but not because of the key contacting something, making something shift, right? All of that is part of the illusion ripening that makes the car start, but the car starting does happen and we do drive. So it's not that the illusions don't work. It's that they function and work in a different way. Functioning things.
Then the second one was the maiden dreaming. And then that was about how, about our emotions and how we believe that the experience that we're having is the immediate cause of the emotion, right? We think the experience is the cause of the emotion that we feel. And so if we like the emotion, we want more of the experience. And if we don't like the emotion, we want less of the experience. And that drives our reaction to the experience. When in the same way that the functioning thing can't have cause and effect in the moment, neither can the experience be the actual cause of that emotional reaction to it. And we didn't go through all the different analyses of that, but if you are someone whose mental afflictions are driven by emotional reactions to things, that would be the one to investigate further.
And then the third one: The moon in the pond, which is a reflection and how the reflection is there because of all the conditions coming together, but there's no moon. And yet there is the appearance of a moon in the water, complete. And so again, that's pointing out that the real cause of what's going on in front of us is something, right? That's way far away. In the analogy, the moon's way far away and it shines in this circumstance. But for us, the what's way far away. That's ripening as the reflection is our past deeds. Our karmic causes, all of these. The bottom line is karmic seeds ripening, mental images ripening into the Me, other, and experience between that includes the belief that it's all happening, influencing things moment by moment. All happening by cause and effect. All happening in the way that they seem to, which is in them, from them.
So the fourth one was the mirage, but the circumstance is important. It's not just about a guy standing in the desert, seeing a mirage. This guy's dying of thirst and he needs water, right? That's what's on his mind. You know that image, I guess, from the cartoons. The guy dragging himself through the desert, water, water, water, water. And then there's the mirage. And so he musters the last of his strength to get to that mirage. But does he ever reach it? You know, in the verses, it says you can't ever drink from the mirage. But in physics, you can't even ever reach the mirage. Because the faster you go towards it, the further it goes. And then finally, the physical conditions for it go away. And then it's like, it's gone. The water's gone. The appearance of water is gone. The mirage is gone. So you can't ever drink from a mirage because you can't ever get to the water.
And so this analogy has these two aspects. First, that when we're seeing the water there, we're misperceiving. We are seeing a mirage. We're not seeing water. When we're seeing water, we're not aware we're seeing the mirage. So we can investigate this mirage analogy from that perspective, to be able to come to, I guess, understand that when we are actually perceiving something, we can at the same time be aware that we're perceiving it as in it, from it, and we can know it's not really like that. Like, you can perceive the water and know it's a mirage at the same time. We've probably all done that. First, you have the glimpse. Water! And the next instant is - no mirage. Right? But it still looks like water there, even as you know it's a mirage. So that's one aspect of this investigation about the mirage for anything we experience, visual, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc.
But a deeper piece to that is that the analogy is the guy is dying of thirst, and his need, his desire for water it is what generates the vision of water. That's what generates seeing water, is that desire, that strong desire. And then he tries to get to that water that his desire is creating. And he can't ever reach water to satisfy the desire.
Do you see the significance of that? We're driven by desire. Like, whether it's, I want that, or I want to avoid that, it's still desire-driven. And I want, I want, I want perspective. Even the most selfless Mother Teresa, His Holiness is, if they are perceiving themselves as ordinary beings, and I don't know, then even in their selflessness, there's still a component of - I want - underneath there. Even if it's just, I want another day to serve selflessly. It's still in there. For me, it just drives everything.
I wake up, I want more sleep. It's like the first experience. It's like, I want more sleep. And it's like, no, class. I do want to do class. To get to class, I want a cup of tea. To get to a cup of tea, I get to eat the water. It's all driven by, I want, I want, I want. And then I think, okay, having the tea helps me be ready for class, or at least rewards me, so I'll come to class. And then class is the best thing in life. And then class is over. And then, okay, how long before the next class? What do I, right? It's all me, me, me, me, me.
I'm sick of it, to be honest with you. Just sick of it. Because it's never finished, right? It's never like, oh, wow, thank you very much. Right? We can stop here. Because we don't ever stop. I mean, if our thought, if what's driving us is like, somewhere along the line, I'll finally just like: Ah, everything will be fine, and I'll stop wanting. If that's our goal, it's like the thirsty guy going after the water. Even if he would managed to get to the mirage, and he threw his face into it, what would happen? Poof, he'd be in the dirt. And it's like he'd probably drop dead on the spot. Because his desire that with the expectation of getting his needs met, was finally like, he used up his last amount of energy to try to get that desire satisfied, and it didn't work. That life he gives up.
[19:40] But we're doing the same thing all the time. It is the point. So this one is like the most drilling into our nature and the mistake that we're making. And the scripture, well, Lobsang Chökyi Gyeltshen doesn't take us all the way into that, delving into that analogy. And Lama Christi just hinted at us, at what's the alternative. So if it's desire for my needs once, wait, let me before I go there.
You know, when we study the Wheel of Life, you know, there are all those links, and you study all the links. And it seems at first like they're talking about how moments of this life are going from this one, to this one, to this one, to this one. And then we realize it's like, no, actually that one comes from that life, and this one comes from this life, and right, it's actually they're kind of all mixed up. But then the question always is, what triggers the karma that's been planted, the clay guy, what triggers it into the pregnant woman giving birth to dying. Because it goes that fast. Pregnant woman give birth dead, blind guy. What triggers that? What triggers a karmic seed to ripen? What makes it go over the threshold into manifestation?
And you have those links, I don't know, it's mostly like 7, 8, 9, but all of them are included. And 7, 8, 9 have to do with that, I want, I really want, and I act. So it's like that craving, grasping and craving is what powers this previously planted seed to get over the threshold. And exactly how I still don't quite understand, but we can, we'll dig into that if we take this thirsty guy in the desert mirage analogy and apply it to how we are responding to every experience in life.
To dig deep into how it is that our own expectation for what we do and the thing we're doing it towards to bring us the result that we want. And no wonder that we're all mixed up, because they always fail us, even when it seems to work. So even if he reaches the mirage, and he magically gets to drink water, he'll come up and walk in a different direction, and he's still in a terrible desert. And he'll get thirsty again, and he'll do the same thing over again. Looking different, just looking different.
And so as long as we are misperceiving, no, even deeper, as long as we are mis-motivated by what we are trying to achieve, we are the thirsty guy running after a mirage to solve our problem. And it's like the conclusion is not. Oh, so there's nothing that works and there's nothing to do, and I'll just go back to bed. Thank you. I would love that conclusion, but it's not the right conclusion. The conclusion we'll get to as we analyze is important, because it has to do with whether our goal, I don't know how to verbalize it, whether our goal moment by moment is something that we expect from something that's coming at us, or something that we realize is something that's coming out from us.
And when I first took this class, it's like I thought I understood. And then many, many retreats later, I met this conceptual difference between that really, really subtle, I want, I want, I want, and that equally subtle, I love, I love, I love. And it revealed to me the difference between the energy of me in the middle of something, right, where the energy is going like this [shows to herself] and the energy instead being outgoing. It still felt like a me in the middle, which is still misperceived, but it shifted from this to this [showing coming to me and coming from me], you know. And then, I don't know, years later, I meet Geshe Michael, and he's going around the world having people go like this, right, instead of like that. And he's having them plant seeds in their minds, right, for this shift in personal identity from a me that's going through my world doing this, you know, as a kind, helpful, nice person. And a shift in identity to an energy that's going like that. And I'm still working on it, because I can't hold it. But there's this big clue in Mahamudra to be able to reach that - I don't know. Reach that aha. That in that is, in that is held the mistake that we are, right, that, that keeps coloring us to perpetuating samsara. And that, you know, it's just so hard to get to in words. [26:05]
And it's almost impossible to get to when you've got all your visual sensory input, reinforcing our old worldview. It's really hard to make ourselves stay in that other space. So we do it when we're in the space of shutting down our sensory or not shutting them down, deciding to stop paying attention to all that sensory input, and going deeper down into this aware, aware, aware, aware, aware, aware, aware.
And then that little piece of looking like, where's the me that's aware, and starting to find how nebulous that me is. Without going off the cliff of, well, then there's no me at all. Which really is ridiculous, because you don't disappear as you're finding the no self nature me, do you? You know, it starts to get rocky, what is it really, but it's not like you blank out.
So you really aren't, I mean, you are going to meet the fact that your me can't disappear, which helps a lot. But anyway. So that was more than I meant to say.
So we have the illusion of functioning things, the illusion of things causing my emotion, the illusion of things not being a reflection of something else, to something else being my own deeds. And for the illusion of the mirage, that my desire that drives me can ever be satisfied, that anything can ever satisfy the desire that drives me. And so there's the can things satisfy the desire, and what's the desire trying to satisfy? What is that deep desire that drives you?
You know, and don't just say, oh, self-existent me. What is it? You are searching for, really? Okay, all right, got it. Lama Christi said, I'm just going to read it, “What we are longing for so desperately drives our every waking moment and creates our entire world”. So see why a mind imbued with bodhicitta is so powerful? Because a mind imbued with bodhicitta is what we're longing for so desperately as Buddhahood for everybody. And that's going to create and drive our world. Yeah.
So, wow, that took a half an hour. Let's settle in to do this meditation. This meditation I find particularly difficult, so I'll do my best to help you through it. [29:46]
*** Meditation ***
Okay, so get your body settled, please,
And lock it still so you can forget it.
Then bring your attention to your breath at your nostrils.
Turn on the focus.
Turn up the brightness.
Turn on the eagerness.
Zoom into that object, the sensation at your nostrils of the air moving. Make it really sharp and clean.
And relax into enjoying it.
** 1 minute 26 seconds **
Now shift what you are focusing on to sounds that are arising, not listening, simply aware.
If you find yourself identifying them, catch it, drop it.
** 1 minute 20 seconds **
And sink in deeper, switching to any kind of mental image that arises.
Sliding back into that watcher state, aware of whatever surfaces.
Just watching them arise and pass, understanding.
Your watcher is understanding. These are all simply mental images.
** 1 minute 15 seconds **
You relax into the experience, staying bright, staying fascinated.
You enter into that vast landscape of mind where there's nothing but the picture arising and passing to awareness.
No identities.
You can sink down into the flow itself, aware that this experience, too, is mental images ripening, passing, ripening, passing.
** 1 minute 45 Seconds **
Now within the state of simply the flow, take a corner of your mind and ask yourself, this mind, what is it?
This vastbeyond any physical realm, infinite, untouched, unchanging by anything that arises within it?
What is it?
*** 30 seconds ***
Scripture says that which is clear and aware, but what is it that can be clear and aware?
Oh, it's my awareness, this mind, this thing I call mind.
But wait, if that's what it is, we should be able to find a moment of it.
To look at.
But any given moment of awareness, what happens when you try to hold it?
That's a different moment of awareness.
** 1 minute **
If you can find a moment of awareness, you should be able to find its start.
We should be able to find its middle.
We should be able to find its end before the next one starts.
** 45 seconds **
If you've lost the sense of being in the flow of mind, go back and get it.
And then try to find one moment of that flow that you can hold on to.
As if we could stop it and look at it.Can you do that?
No, because to do that is another moment of the flow of those mental images rising and passing.
** 1 minute **
So this whole flow that's happening is also an illusion.
Ripening mental image of flow, mind flowing.
Awareness happening.
** 30 seconds **
And all of those illusory moments contain all that have ever been or all that ever will be.
** 30 seconds **
All time is held in a single moment.
** 30 seconds **
What is this vast available landscape we call mind?
** 1 minute 15 seconds **
Those who know call it the clear light.
** 45 seconds **
Okay, now come back up out of the flow into awareness of things ripening.
Into the awareness of you in your body as a ripening happening.
Into awareness of your body in a room as ripenings happenings
Into your awareness of you in this class as ripenings happenings, and you're ready.
[53:38] *** End of Meditation ****
Open your eyes and the first thing you see, think, wow, ripening happening.
The flow looking like this.
And relax.
I don't know, I think sit and process that.
I find that particular meditation really difficult, and I didn't even do it the way Lama Christi did it. I'm going to read to you how she did it, just so you can hear it. I never find out, I never get come to rest in a conclusion in this meditation.
It's just like, but do you see where it ends up? It should end up. I just can't get there. So it's a little unsettling.
Intellectually, we know my mind is empty of self-existence, but when we really, really penetrate, that means it's not a thing. Just part of the process happening. So then what's me? Me, I have heaps. I have a mind. It's hard. All right, I'll shut up.
*** Break *** [Until 59:50]
So I'm going to read to you the pieces from Lama Christi's, just so you have it in the transcript, if you ever want to explore it on your own. She guided us down through till we got to the flow. I'm not going to read that part. Once she had us in the flow,
“She says keep yourself in the back. Don't jump after all those mental images, and they'll start to change in nature, focusing on the flow.
So again, we ask ourselves the question, what is mind? This vast landscape beyond any physical realm, infinite, untouched, unchanged by anything that crosses it. They say, like how a bird leaves no trace in the clear blue sky as it flies. Is it a thing, this mind? Is it our awareness? Can we look at our awareness? Can we analyze the watcher state of mind? Then who is analyzing and who is the watcher? So there is a moment of mind, a moment of awareness, consciousness. And in that moment, we draw a line around every other moment we have ever had of awareness. All the moments that don't exist. All the moments we can't remember.
We can't even draw a line around moments of awareness, because they are not available for us to draw the line around. It's just a feeling. The I is just a feeling. Just another picture.
Is there even a moment of awareness we can hold onto? How big is a moment? The whole concept of moments too, is an illusion. All the moments of the past and the present and the future, they are all contained in a single instant, in a single ripening, in a single picture, a concept.
And that's how you could hold all time in a single moment. And that's how a single moment could last forever.
What is this available landscape we call mind? Those who know call it the clear light.”
And then she brought us out.
[1:03:41]
So you can explore that if you want. The term Clear Light is significant to hear in a Sutra class. So if we were a more traditional, like if we were lay people studying the Lamrim in the traditional way from the Lama at the Dharma Center, we would not even know the term clear light, probably, because it's a term that's used in the Vajrayana. And they keep the Vajrayana very secretly. Deeply, until one is, you know, well-prepared, the students well-prepared, and then they're introduced to it.
In what they say is the tradition, I'm coming to believe that that's all the story that they tell. But in actual fact, in some, even in some of the Tibetan schools, the first thing you get is an initiation into Chenrezig, and you're taught about Chenrezig. And, you know, in that, I don't know, Chenrezig Sadhana, but in almost all the Diamond Way Sadhanas that I've seen or read, you know, clear light's mentioned in there, maybe not by actual term. But anyway, so here Lama Chökyi Gyeltshen is again doing this crossover thing in his open teaching, crossing over with a Diamond Way mixture. He can't help it, right? His winds are so in his central channel, he can't do anything without it having the tantric take on it, which is so beautiful. I'm seeing that in Geshe Michael as well. So I get to do it too. Because I'm being driven by them. So hooray.
So anyway, it's significant that we meet about the clear light and we'll get to it sometime later.
Panchen Lama is pointing out these different qualities or characteristics of this thing we call mind, that I think in that meditation we kind of got a glimpse into, it's not maybe the tangible thing we thought it was. Not even really the intangible thing we thought it was. I think we're getting a glimpse that it too is within every ripening happening. But it's like, how can that happen? Like there has to be a thing it's all bubbling out of, right?
And it's like, yeah, but when you go looking for that thing, it's a bubbling out of it too. When you look for that one, all we find is this. And then, well, then where's me, right? Because me has to be a tangible thing. It has to be outside this, right? No. And how do we relate with me and my world when there's nothing, the same two moments in right? It's like really disorienting at first. And then freeing when we can get it right.
So he points out these four different qualities of mind, ways that, Here they are.
The mind is formless, meaning it's not physical, meaning it's beyond our physical realm, which means it's infinite in its expanse. And it's infinite in its location. Like it has no location. So if we think we have a location someplace, mind is always going to be there. There isn't anywhere it can't be. It's formless.
Secondly, it's free of every obstacle. Meaning it's untainted by anything that arises in it. Meaning any positive, neutral, negative that arises in mind does not make the mind positive, negative, or neutral. It remains unblemished. Still totally available at any moment.
Third, it appears as a stream. It appears in a stream. Meaning with no pause in between is the thing. It's not like this, none, this, none, like a river. Each drop is flowing by, but it's not like a drop flows by and there's nothing, and then the next one comes by. It's all happening smoothly. That was the third one.
The fourth one, and it's all just another concept. So when we say concept, it means this and this that we put together into a that. To conceptualize something means you have other information and you arrange it into a third thing to conceptualize. To make something out of other stuff. And it gets so slippery and confusing when we're looking at this thing called mind. Beyond physical, you can't find a moment of it, and yet still it's conceptual. It's something we think of in a certain way based on other stuff.
Well, not other stuff of mind, other stuff would be other moments. Based on this moment of mind and that moment of mind, we come up with my now moment of mind, and by the time we do it, it's gone. So we can't really ever pin down what's happening because you can't directly experience it because by the time you do it, that one's gone.
But the next 15 billion are there, so there's always another one to look at. But then eventually, I guess, we go, ah, nothing exists in any other way than that, and then you're supposed to go into the direct perception of ultimate reality. The fact that nothing exists, I'm supposed to stop there, but it leaves me going like, nothing exists at all. Well, that's not right. I have to say from its own side, right? Because I think otherwise nothing exists is saying the wrong thing, but it's not so hard. [1:12:26]
So when we're pinning all this down, trying to pin all this down about our mind, it all also applies to our ME, which I don't know which one's harder, to go through this analysis about mind or to go through this analysis about ME. They're both really slippery, but to do it with one will help us do it with the other.
So whichever one seems more accessible to you, work with that one first, and then at some point, go to the other one and work with that as well, because of course they are related, integrally related.
Lama Christy went into this concept of the moments of mind or the moments of me and how our memories are simply current ripenings as things that we believe happened in the past.
We talked about this last week, did we? Was it this class? Talking about memory? Like all my classes seem to be talking about the same thing, so I'm not exactly sure who's heard what. I'm getting confused.
We think, you know, I think back in the memory of this life and that happened to me and that good thing, that bad thing, you know, that medium thing, that good thing, that bad thing, and it informs me, right? It's made me, me. And so I believe that those experiences, actually in some way, I'm believing that those experiences are still influencing me. The good ones in good ways and the bad ones in bad ways. And then in the course of my spiritual life, I've come to revisit those memories and say, well, even the bad ones actually helped me get here. And so, you know, they were bad at the time, but now that I look back, not in them, they're not so painful. I can say, yeah, really that, that helped me, that being helped me. And so I can even say maybe that being was a manifestation of my holy Lama and I just couldn't see it then.
All that spiritual revisionism, which is really helpful and still believes, yeah, but all that stuff did really happen. And it did. We're not saying it didn't, but we're saying it was like the mirage in the desert. It was like the maiden's dream. It was like the magician's show and it was like the moon in the water. So when we think of those memories now, that's a current moment experience as a memory of something that we cannot actually confirm ever really happened.
Because all we have is our current moment of memory and we go, yeah, yeah, of course it happened. But no, what's happening is this moment of believing that it happened. And so it's still influencing me. And that's a dangerous teaching to hear because we could say, oh, okay, forget all my past completely. None of it ever happened. And then it's like, well, then how do we identify ourselves anymore? No. And then we say, well, then it doesn't matter what I did either. Because if I can just erase all my memory, I just erase all my memory of the deeds that I did towards others. And that'll just erase my karma and who cares what I do, right? We could get to the wrong conclusion.
The conclusion they're hoping we'll get to is like. Oh, then my past does not need to limit me anymore, right? In this moment of me with my memories that are valid perceptions at the moment, but don't really have any way of knowing that? What's in the past is gone. It's not just hanging out somewhere: like this is what happened before. They're just gone, non-existent. The future is non-existent. All we have is this present moment. And we don't even have that because we can't get a hold of a present moment that'll sit still long enough for us to feel solid in it or secure in it. And we're actually wanting to be able to get to that place where we can live in that slippery, only this moment, no moment at all, infinite changing availability to be anything for anybody, anywhere.
Buddha, Buddha me and Buddha paradise emanating. So Lobsang Chöckyi Gyaltsen is wanting us to investigate this thing we call mind, the mind of the moment, the mind of the past, the mind of the future, and come to recognize that any way we are investigating it, all we're going to find is moments of conceptual ripening, images ripening, passing, and nothing but. While we're doing that towards mind, Lama Christi says, we will come to see how our me keeps asserting itself. Because who's doing the analysis? Right? Me. I have to be there to analyze this mind to come to this conclusion. And if we're coming to the conclusion that, - oh, my mind is seeds ripening and nothing but - that in order to be aware of that, there has to be a me thinking of it, experiencing it. And so we're still holding on to this me that's somehow independent of this mind movement that is our every moment of experience. That our belief in self-existence is so crazy strong, because it's in every seed, right? So we really are swimming upstream, the upstream of our own karmic seeds, but that's karmic seeds. So we have the seeds to be able to swim upstream. She give us confidence that we use this analysis of our mind to more clearly recognize the me that keeps coming up. Because when we can get a hold of that ME better, then we can turn that analysis onto IT similarly.
[1:20:55] Our me is somehow wrapped up in those memories that are just current moment ripenings called memories, and our anticipation of the future, also just current moment ripenings of what our future will be. And our current moment awareness of both of those. Our me is an integral part of each ripening, but nothing other than those ripenings. But already my mind goes, yeah, But who's holding the place where the ripenings are happening? There has to be a me that's all happening in. It's so difficult to identify as that process. But all these little clues are getting there. It's not that our ME is going to disappear. Lord Buddha has a sense of me, but their me is really, really different. What they mean by me, if they use the word me.
So Lama Christi is saying one way to investigate our mind is to try to pin down a moment of consciousness, and then try to find its start, its middle, and its end. Which if we think we can find its start, then we take that one as the moment of consciousness, and look for its start. I mean, very quickly we go, oh, this is ridiculous. But there's a reason to go through the exercise to get to the feeling of this is absurd, versus the intellectual recognition that this is absurd. To keep looking for a point that you can find that would be the actual start of something.
We want to get to that really deep connection that that's impossible for anything to start. When we get that about our consciousness, we will get it about the starting the car with the key. We will get it about turning the doorknob to open the door. We will get it about waking up and getting out of bed.There's no start to anything. There's no end to anything. There's no middle to anything. There's being the flow in which things appear to start, and appear to stay, and appear to end, and appear to interact with each other, and appear to do stuff.
Because they're not going to stop appearing to work. From that sense of how it's all actually happening; we'll choose how we interact with others in ways that will create worlds where things do work in the moment, in the way that we intend. Because things work for Buddhas. They can still drink a cup of tea.
[1:24:58] We see that the conclusion of things don't start, stay, and stop means we have this illusion, these karmic seed ripenings, ripenings, ripenings that don't have a space in between them. I like the constant shape-shifting idea. It leaves us thinking, well, there is some all-existing stuff that's constantly shape-shifting, and that's incorrect. But the idea of everything is potential to be anything, and it's all just shape-shifting into my moment-by-moment experience. From what I'm directly experiencing to what I think is going on outside, beyond me, beyond me, beyond me. All of it.
And when we're understanding that accurately, it's not like, oh, so nothing's nothing. It's like, wow, cool. And this Me is a part of it, so I'm going to flourish. I'm going to share. I'm going to expand it all. I'm going to outflow. So that my shape-shift is contributing to your shape-shift. And we can all make all these shape-shiftings that are fabulous. So not scriptural, my trying to interpret for myself what scripture is saying about nothing has any nature of its own. It's all karma ripening.
So that's true of moments of consciousness as well. So moments of consciousness, everyone is available to be ripening anything or everything. So we can get a glimpse of how, because of the empty nature of our mind, it could perceive itself as perceiving all existing things and the emptiness of all existing things in all times, at all times.
Omniscience. We can see how omniscience isn't just possible, but it's inevitable because everything is planted in every seed and ripens in every seed. It's already that. But our perception of me, other interaction between separate makes us perceive them as separate things. They can only happen like those three at a time.
So Lama Christi is trying to point out that there's this connection between analyzing how we believe our mind is. What we think it is and how we think it's functioning. With what we think is our me and how we think it's functioning. Like to understand it clearly about mind will apply the same thing to our Me. First Panchen Lama is saying, investigate your mind and that's how you're, you will better find the me that we want to investigate.
Remember when we started, we said, look at the me, the one that's watching. And then for some of us, it was like, I don't really know what that means. And then Lobsang Chöckyi Gyaltsen says, all right, so put yourself in this situation where somebody says, you know, accuses you of something you didn't do. And you go [angry] I didn't do that. He goes, that's the me that you want to investigate. But do you see how much deeper we've gone into our me already than that one?
I hope we've gone deeper into our me than the, ah, don't blame me for that. Like we're at the aware, aware, aware, aware, aware, right? The one that's in the center that everything's coming at. I hope we're at that level of investigation.
So before we were investigating, is the mind a part of me? Is the Me the one that's in control of the body? Is the Me the one that's in control of the mind, right? Those are a long time ago. Is awareness that fifth heap, consciousness, all the different kinds of awareness that I possess as the Heart Sutra. But are we thinking there's some overall awareness? That's like a sixth awareness? Are we suddenly talking about the refrigerator? You can see where it comes up? In the lineage. It's like there must be an overall awareness to be carrying this flow. But it's like, okay, so there is an overall awareness that also is empty of self nature. That's all right. Okay.
[1:31:30] So apparently in Lobsang Chöckyi Gyeltshen's teachings, in his own auto commentary, he makes the case for mind being the Me. And he apparently took a lot of flack from his fellow Gelugpas for that statement. The mind is the me. Or the me is the mind. And apparently, when his buddies asked him, where'd you get that? He said, my Lama told me. So he is oral tradition as his reasoning. I don't know t that price started a big brouhaha too.You know, because his buddies are gonna think who has his physical Lama. But you know, Lobsang Chökyi Gyeltshen's direct Lama.
Lama Christi pointed out. Yes, we will get to a point in our personal practice, where we are getting oral tradition, that we are getting oral tradition. And then oral tradition that we get personally is not necessarily an oral tradition that you would share with someone else and expect them to accept as oral tradition also.
So although oral tradition is said to be one of the reasonings you can use to make something true. It's only true if you've already proven that the oral, the person who gives the oral tradition can't lie has to be valid perception. You remember all of that that we did in ACI?
So oral tradition for me could be very different than oral tradition for my Christian friends, right? And I'm not going to say, well, my oral tradition makes it right for you. Same within our own personal practice. But then it's dangerous, because we can fool ourselves into saying: Well, you know, I got this direct message from the angel, and she told me to do this. And everybody's saying, well, you know, you're breaking your vows, right? We still have a responsibility for our behavior and its influence on the rest of our projections to understand whether we understand the oral lineage instruction well or not.
Because maybe we get an oral instruction and we misunderstand it, and oh my gosh We make big mistakes. So it's really a deeper lesson for Lobsang Chöckyi Gyeltshen to say, your mind is your you, your me is your mind. And then to stand on that and say, because my Lama said so to other people. He was brave to do it. You know, my guess is his motivation was that those who were interested would go, what do you mean? How did that work? Tell me about it. Instead of just either rejecting it, or deciding, okay, I'll believe that too. And he wanted them to ask, no doubt.
So then, so if that's accurate to say, okay, my mind is my me. And what I think is my me is just some mistaken aspect that I've held to since forever. Then, when he uses the term, come meet your own mind face to face. This practice is about meeting our mind face to face. And we said before, it's like, recognizing that the appearances, the awareness of appearances is only the appearing side of our mind. And that it's empty availability to be aware of this, to be aware of that, to be aware of that, is its true nature. And for there to be mind at all, it takes both an appearing side and its emptiness. And now he's saying, and when you come and meet that mind face to face, you are meeting your real Me. The me that's appearances and emptiness happening, happening, happening. Come meet your mind face to face. Also means come meet your true self face to face. That's cool.
No, like, Sarahni, here's the real Sarahni. You know, beyond name. Whoa, hi. How are you? Where you been? Nice to meet you. Take me over. Make me you. All right. And that's where Lobsang Chöckyi Gyeltshen can't help but dive into Diamond Way explanations. And because when we meet that Me face to face, then that m
Me has those same four qualities of mind is not physical, right? So it has no limitation in location.
What were those four?
* It's not physical.
* It's free of any obstacle.
* It appears in a stream.
* So it's never not appearing. And it's a concept.
Who has the concept? Here we go again. Okay. It's conceptualizations happening. Labels being made, images, pictures, names, functions, happening, happening, happening. So now where's you? What of you is there to identify as? Like, we're just getting baby glimpses of this availability to be.
[1:39:44] Lama Christy says when we can get this clear conception of our own being, let's use the word being instead of self, our own being as emptiness and appearances. Then we truly have the place or the space to re-identify ourselves. Like our identity, me, Sarahni human being, that's held in these moment by moment ripenings. And as I identify less with that and more with the process, we have this moment by moment opportunity to grow the re-identification of our Me and my world. Because the Me and my world that we're re-identifying have no identities of their own anyway.
So we can re-identify them. Just by wishing it? Technically by wishing it, imagining it, we plant the seeds that eventually will ripen into it. So you could make the case that yes, you can wish things into being, just you're in this time gap that it might take you 17 lifetimes to get the wish to happen, but you still wished it into being, right? That's creation stage. Creation stage work, you're imagining things. Certain specific important things. Over and over and over and over again. To plant the seeds again and again and again and again. In order to put in things that we want to come out later. And the more complete our plantings and the more consistent we are with the practices that you do off the cushion, the more powerfully those seeds are planted. And so the more quickly they will ripen. Theoretically, even to the point of ripening before the end of this life, but exactly what they mean by this life starts to get fishy for me. I'm not exactly sure.
So this Mahamudra practice, it's a sutra practice. And without even doing all these elaborate visualizations of creation stage, what we're doing in our analysis and being able to get into that awareness of the flow and the awareness of the availability of every moment of our being is planting seeds so that when you are at the place of ripening your creation stage practice, you will have this background.
These seeds of the background of your Mahamudra practice, the space in which this creation stage can actually blossom into something, as opposed to before having these insights that you're gaining from your Mahamudra practice. Without having those insights, the creation stage practices feel more like they tell me to do this, so I'll do it. And less like, oh my gosh, this is where I can really create.
Which is why I feel it's so important for people to learn the Mahamudra before they go into diamond way or once they're into diamond way, you know who I'm talking about? Because I think that it will help inform your practice so much better. Now I'm not saying Geshe Michael doesn't know that. And because he's the one who instructed Lama Christi to teach us this. I'm just saying it helped me so much that I want to share it. So that's why we're here doing this. And this is the important piece, this recognition that our identity is a moment by moment ripening and it could shift like that. It could shift for the better like that and it could shift for the worse like that.
So they say these four aspects of the mind are its purity. Meaning its empty nature is totally pure. And purity is the angel. Meaning that aspect of the pure nature of your mind already is your Buddha nature. So we already have Buddha nature. Does that mean we're already Buddhas inside? Not the way we think. But do we have the potential to see ourselves as Buddhas? Absolutely. Do we identify with that? I don't know about you, but I forget, right? And it's stupid. Like once I figure it out, how can I forget seeds, right? Seeds, seeds, seeds.
So we don't become the angel by wishing it. But if we wish to the angel and then we act like the angel, it plants the seeds for that to become reality. Does the angel do anything they want? No. The angel is intentionally kind, helpful, useful, willing to do anything, even if it's unpleasant, if it can help somebody.
Being the angel doesn't mean, okay, anything I want. It means I'll be for you what you want, what you need. That's still moral, ethical, necessary to not be the thing that hurts them ultimately. So you, the angel, is not going to go, okay, I'll be your next hit, you know, of cocaine because it'll bring you happiness, because angel knows it'll hurt him in the long run. Angel may be the one that does the intervention. And then the person you're intervening hates you for a long time, but you, the angel, is willing to be hated. You know, because you got them the help that they needed. So to just wish ourselves into the angel, but then behave the same old selfish way, that doesn't do it.
This emptiness of Me then shows us the power of our behavior, because it's through our behavior that we recreate what we're experiencing. In the future, still, still for one to be angel, it'll be future ripening. But eventually, it's going to be experiencing everything all the time. We can see how that is possible. We get glimpses when we recognize the true nature of this thing called mind, called me, called the process of reality.
So how does that all relate? Does this thing we call karma, is it obvious? Like when we really sink down into the flow, and there's just this shape-shifting happening, shape-shifting happening, is there a part of us that's recognizing: Wow, this is karmic seeds ripening. Like we're learning to impose it, but does it really bubble up on itself that, oh, well then I want to be more and more kind. As we're saying seed ripening, seed ripening, seed ripening, seed ripening. It takes a little bit for the words to connect to the behavior choice change. And so what is karma? The definition, movement of the mind and what it motivates.
Sorry, I was getting something. It didn't come through clear. I think this is all premature. I'm not going to do it. You know what? I'm going to stop there. We've got 10 minutes yet. Tell me what's on your mind.
[Pause of recording]
We have set in motion the end of their suffering by way of this class, and that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you, with the progress you're making, the insights you're gaining. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart. 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 may. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person, to share it with everyone we love, to share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom, and may it be so.
Okay, thank you again for the opportunity to share. May it serve you.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 32
Welcome back, we are Mahamudra class. It is November 18th, 2025.
*** Meditation ***
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again.
Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And there they are 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 is hurting in some way.
Feel how much you would like to be able to help them.
Recognize how the world in ways we try fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help them 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. Deeper down we know this is what we are meant to become. And so we turn our minds back to that 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. And so we ask them, please, please show me that, teach me that, help me become that. And they are so happy that we've asked. Of course, they agree. Our gratitude arises.
We want to make them an offering. And so we think of the perfect 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 a blanket of flowers. The great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world.
I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this glass and the rest, may we reach 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. To the merit that I do in sharing this glass and the rest, may we reach 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. To the merit that I do in sharing this glass and the rest, may all beings totally awaken to the benefit of every single other.
*** Lecture *** [8:08]
So before we do our sit, let me remind us we're in Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen's auto-commentary of his root text about Mahamudra. He's been describing, trying to help us meet our mind face to face. And yet he's been talking about how to experience the true nature of our me. Like he says, go looking for your me. But then he keeps talking about mind, the mind, the mind, the mind. And finally he says something pretty radical.
Look, your mind is your ME.
And of course we go, wait, where'd you get that? And he says, oral tradition, right? My Lama said so. And that starts us down a wormhole. But it's interesting because it makes us shift something radically just to investigate whether that might be true. We ordinarily learn what makes you up? My five heaps. What are my five heaps? My form, my feeling, my discriminating between things, my all the other factors that make me up and all the different kinds of awareness that I possess says the Heart Sutra. There has to be a difference between the I and the awareness I possess. They've got to be two different things. Don't they?
We did a little bit of meditation where we're actually looking for the me. And then Lama a Christie and Lopes and Chökiy Gyaltsen has shifted back to focusing on mind, the awareness, trying to become aware of the awareness, which if the awareness is a thing, we ought to be able to get ahold of it and experience it, right? Like we can get ahold of and experience something else, except that we've already shown ourselves that what we think we're doing isn't really happening. Just as an as a synopsis, before we get to this meditation.
If in order to meet my own me, it requires an awareness of me. And awareness is mind And we show ourselves that awareness is simply constantly changing projected moments of aware-ing, then that subject side ME must be similarly constantly projected moments of what is aware of. And nothing but that.
So to get this connection between awareness and ME, and to be aware of how the awareness of ME depends on the ME and the me depends on the awareness of ME. Then how can you find one independent of the other? And when we can't find one independent of the other, we don't disappear. So we can't conclude - oh, so there's nothing, right? We have to conclude - Words fail, and we rest in that conclusion. When we try to say the conclusion, we say, oh, projections ripening out of movement of the mind. It's too long. You just drop the old belief and rest in this new revelation, new recognition for as long as we can.
And then we come out of it. And as we come out, we're trying to impose on our experience that what we recognized was happening when we were in that subtle state is still happening when we are in this gross state. Even if we can't experience it directly, we can know it. Just like when we see a pen here, we can't see the space it's in, but we know it's there.
So we can experience, and it all seems the same as it's always been, but we know, right? We know it's these projections happening moment by moment and nothing but.
Once we realize, meaning. Once we know, like deep, deep, deep down, know that our mind itself is empty, knowing what we mean by empty, we have the power to completely transform ourselves. And that's the basis of the Diamond Way. [14:46]
How do we do it? We use desire and the mental afflictions that come out of desire. We use aversion and the mental afflictions that come out of aversion. And we use the ignorance and the very mental afflictions that ignorance propels. We use it all. How, right? Lots of tricks of the trade for how, but the basis of how we do it is recognizing this state that none of it is how we're experiencing it, other than as projected results. And so constantly changing. And so how we interact with it can be different, can be perceived differently. Will it change the sensory perception of what's happening? Probably not for a long time, but it can change drastically our reaction to it. So we'll learn.
So given that understanding, right? Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen is helping us understand the true nature of our ME, but he's getting there through the true nature of our mind. And he's showing us then that if to experience anything, we need to have that awareness, but the awareness isn't anything without it experiencing something. He's going to walk us through that again, in the same sequence we've been doing again and again, so that we can try and rest in that conclusion. Projections happening, nothing but a wearing happening and nothing but. Or even just happening and nothing but. In that flow of things, passing, passing, passing, and try to slip into the nothing but.
Now, is there ever a moment when there is not ripenings happening? No! So although we kind of think, if things are nothing but a projection, then if nothing got projected, then there would be nothing. And that would be true, but it's not possible. There's always projections happening.
Okay, so let's do our sit [18:05] [then technic issues]
Okay, so this meditation was from our class six of Bhojjimpa 16. Our term's classes were finished at this point because she offered us a Moksorma initiation. And it took us the rest of the term and like a week later after that. So this is our last meditation from this one. We have four more of her classes from course 17. So we're getting to the end of Lob Chökyi Gyaltsen's Mahamudra, but it'll still take us because of the holidays into the new year, I suspect.
We'll see how it goes. Okay. All right.
*** Meditation *** [19:43]
So let's settle ourselves in. Get your body set so you can forget it.
Once you have it set, you bring your attention to your breath at your nostrils. Watching that movement of the air as it flows out, flows back in. Using that object to turn on your focus.
Adjust your brightness and bring up the intensity. Fascination. Fine tune your quality of mind. Sharp, crisp, clear, eager. Sink into that object.
So there is nothing but that. And my instructions, of course [21:55]
* 1 Minute *
We are aware of and fascinated by this appearance of constant movement, constant sensation change.
* 1 Minute 15 Seconds *
Next, intentionally move inward and be aware of outer sounds. Notice whether at first you're still somehow forced to identify those sounds and where they're coming from.
Let it go.
Keep letting go until you are experiencing hearing without following the stories.
* 40 Seconds *
It becomes more an experience of receiving instead of the mind going out.
Sink down deeper into any inner sounds or inner sensations.
If you don't find sounds,
experiencing,
resisting going on to the story,
simply the observer, the receiver.
** 1 Minute **
Drop down further into the experience of thoughts. Any kind of mental image that pops up.
Stay in that receptive state. Experience and let it pass.
Still focused, sharp, fascinated,
going deeper and deeper into this realm of pure mind. Awareing. Happening.
* 40 Seconds *
Being in this flow is pleasurable.
* 1 Minute 15 Seconds *
Now take a little corner of your mind and we'll do a small amount of analysis.
These images that arise and pass, they are not the mind.
They are this constant flow, all made of the same stuff.
Shapeshifting, appearing, happening.
They lose all meaning.
We can see behind them or within them.
They're empty in nature.
Nothing of their own identity.
All of these arisings and passings, they have two layers.
The appearance of the image and what it rests upon its own empty nature.
*30 seconds *
Try to rest again in that flow.I'll call it the flow.
It's the added component of the awareness of the necessary emptiness, necessary no self nature of every appearance happening.
Focused, sharp, clear, fascinated, receiving and knowing.
* 1 Minute 30 seconds *
Now ask yourself, where do all of these appearances come from?
All their projections.
The projections must have a projector, but then they must have a watcher, an experiencer.
Where are those?
To bring them up, to consider them, requires our awareness shifting.
They are nothing but images ripening.
Projector. Watcher. Watched.
All images shapeshifting in this constant interplay, constant dance.
What lies behind it all?
* 1 Minute *
Within it all, is that nature where nothing changes, always totally available.
Let's sit three more minutes.
Take yourself back and forth between the awaring, the flow of the awaring happening and the empty nature of the components of that awaring happening.
* 3 Minutes *
Now bring yourself up through your levels.
Become aware of the images that are ripening now.
Let their stories come.
Become aware of the inner sensations of your body. Let their identities come.
Become aware of the outer sounds. Let them have identities.
Become aware of your body and your will.
When you first open your eyes, the first thing you see, know it. It's a ripening with no nature of its own, so it is what you see unique to you.
*** END of MEDITATION [45:50]
How's that going?
In class, it's hard to go deep, but we're learning these steps of drawing ourselves in with the same quality of mind attention, trying to reach this allowing state of mind without the clinging to the story that happens, that makes our mind go out, go out, go out. I like that term receptive, to just let it arise. Almost like waiting for the next one. Although there's never not a one, but waiting. [47:50]
In my career, in my life, there's been a lot of waiting. I'm recognizing now it's like there's some important recurring theme there to understand the power of waiting.
But then when we get into that aware of the flow happening, it really is pleasurable. Are you getting a glimpse of that? And it's tempting. I'll just stay at this level. Thank you very much. I know it's my seeds ripening. I'll just ripen, ripen, ripen, ripen. Yes, we want to leave a part of our mind there, but that's not the realization that will help us transform.
We need to take that corner of our mind and check it out. So we switch from that pure receptive to the analytical, but we're still not going back to the going out, right? Because the analytical, we are directing that analysis. Like we're asking a question, we're checking the answer. And we're doing it in that very specific way, unique to each of us. But we're looking for the thing that we believe is there that would explain the experience we're having.
Only to show ourselves that that thing like we're thinking of it cannot be there. And I experience what I'm experiencing. Those two are not compatible. And then with any arising that we're having, we then recognize, well, if there can't be an arising without an aware of the arising, and there can't be either one of those without a ME, then all three of those are happening interdependently. Can we use that big word?
Which means one without the other, or two without the third, or even all three together can't be happening in the way I used to believe. What is happening is that they are there. It is a current moment experience, and they all depend upon each other. So their own identities are ….. none, no such thing. We use the word empty, blank. Their identities are me seeing fig tree happening. But their own identity, fig tree, none, me, none. Seeing it, none. And not no thing at all, but not three individual separate things that come together.
All that we've studied, we can use any of it to follow our mind through this analysis, to come to that conclusion of this flow is revealing to me the no self nature of all existence, no self nature of ME. ME and my parts. Me and my world. Me and my experiences, however you want to phrase it. But finally stop using the mental words. If those things aren't there the way I think, then what is there? And sit there, rest in that, and then something will pop up and re-establish, sink back down, try to rest in it. All right. So let's take a break here. [52:30]
The rest of this, not this class, the rest of the last class, I didn't finish last class, but the rest of it, she was having this debate-like class with the students. And there were like three or four main students that were engaging with her. And it went on for quite a long time. And it was investigating how we use this practice when we come out of our meditation in order to work on making this transformation of ourselves. That is the promise that Mahamudra practice is giving us. And that group of students were all doing this debate with her from a tantric perspective. And it's helpful and useful, but I don't feel comfortable recreating that debate because it was unique to the people who were there. So I rewrote the essence of what went on. And that's what I'm going to share here to come to what I hope will be a similar conclusion that will help us going forward. So let's take our break now. And then that's what that's what we'll do the rest of class.
Pause [54:00 until …
Student:
“I feel in this meditation and in the last meditation, like a Google map, when we're like zooming in, and I'm like, you're seeing like the tiniest thing. And then there is this like, and you see the whole globe happening. And then there is this like, you did in the last class, you're doing this and talked about going from you. But to me, it feels like it's going through me, like, like there is like a whole way through, like, right the center of my chest and my spine. And I was like, so that was really like, shifting in my perspective, like I'm zooming in, and then I'm like, I'm going out, and I'm zooming in. And then, and then it was very, like, a veil here. I was like, there is something like wants to like. So I personally started to feel like I'm having like, very, like, intellectually everything you're saying. I'm like, yes, me, but not me. But I don't like totally like, there's no fear in that. But I am noticed that like, in the last two meditation, I was like, my brain was like, chatting. I was like, it's like the resistance in the body, or not knowing what to do with this. But emotionally, it does feel kind of settling. Like, it's like, yeah, it's like, cool. Like, totally fine with that. Not scared or nothing. But physically, I was like, you're saying look at the corner. And my brain was like, looking in the corner, I was cleaning the corner of my brain, I was like, I was becoming so attached to every words you were saying, and like grasping to it and becoming visually, like, ooh, like, and it was like, come back, come back. So I've noticed like, arise in distraction more in the practice. But intellectually, like you're speaking and there's like, yeah, yes.But then it's like, I'm having like an internal fight a little bit. So I'm trying to like, relax to it. But it's like, yeah, I just feel like I'm pulling back and forth in myself. So I don't really know how or what to do with that”
Yeah, this practice would say, let it all be a risings and passings in the flow of this vast landscape of mine. So you don't have to do anything with it, but recognize, let it happen. Let it rise and pass. If you're doing these meditations, always guided, like you put on the audio and you listen every time you do it, it's going to keep you at a level, right, that's limiting. So we want to eventually be able to do this meditation self guided. And then, right, you won't have the my words distracting, you will have the our own words distracting us. But then this practice is slip underneath and, right, you tell yourself the instruction, and then let it go slip underneath and do it.
Student
“I just feel like what I'm doing along the meditations, I somehow have a moment in it that I lose confidence in what I'm doing. And then I'm like, this, I don't know what I'm like, and this is what's coming up, like for the past year, and I feel very stuck in the lack of confidence in that. I would say that about everything that we covered in the Mahamudra class, it's things that I've concluded and experienced through my physical yoga practice. And like those intellectual question, but then now I'm trying to do it alone. And I'm like, I'm like, it's like, I don't like I don't think I'm having this internal doubt. And how to move forward and getting more confident in it.”
We'll get there.It's a part of the process. Eipening is happening. Valid and incorrect. Right? We're talking about how to work with life. It'll be part of it. So it's good overall, right? You're on track.
End of pause [1:00:00]
So some Chöckyi Gelson's auto commentary is helping us use the power of reasoning to place ourselves in single pointed meditation, residing in that space of certainty, that what is appearing to us cannot exist.
Now, I want to add the words cannot exist in the way that we think that if you need to add those words do so. But if you don't need to, don't. When you no longer need to add the words in the way we think, then stop saying them. Right there a bit of a crutch.
So we're wanting to get to this single pointed meditation residing in that space of certainty, that what is appearing to us cannot exist. Our ignorant thinking holds that something is real, because it's made up of parts. Or what makes a think real is being comprised of other things, whether it's parts or its function.
Wisdom shows us that anything made up of other things cannot be real, cannot be its whole real self, if it depends on other things to make itself itself. Right? So the very nature of our ignorance is using the reasoning that's mistaken to come to conclusion about our reality.
Ignorance isn't a not knowing, it's a misknowing. It's a belief in something that's impossible.
He goes on to say, when we take anything to explore for what makes it real, it is our me, it is our mind. He uses those terms. It's way I'm exploring the true nature of the ficus tree, and you're telling me that ficus tree is my mind. Like, who does that sound like in the different schools? Yeah, mind only school. There's nothing that's not your mind experience appearing to you. And it doesn't make sense if we're thinking my mind is limited to inside here, right? How can the ficus tree be my mind? But the ficus tree I'm aware of, right, is unique to my experience of it, isn't it? I mean, you're not looking at my ficus tree at the same time I am, but suppose we're all looking at this thing, same white objec. Like we can't really tell what it is, I don't think, because at least my eyeball can't really distinguish anything but a white glow when I look at it there in the picture, which I assume is how you're seeing it too. [showing the pen] But you know, I can point out, look, there's this little clippy thing, there's this thing, you can almost see the little tip come out, can you? You know, our mind goes, oh, a pen. But then really, the pen we're aware of is our own mind's picture of the pen, isn't it? So this thing for you, this thing for me, we want to say it's what my mind is showing me. Right?
You know, when you put the slide in the projector in the olden days, and you put it on the wall, on the screen, it's like what the picture is showing Me is all the little pococks, you know? And it's the same. Each experience is unique to our own mind. And then we go, yes, so I'm the only existing thing. No, no, you're you, right? Yourself is part of that existence.
So you can't say you're the only one exists, you might say, oh, so nothing exists. And that would be true in the sense of nothing exists in the way that we think. But it's not true in the sense of, oh, then nothing exists at all, which is impossible. Because we are having an awareness right now. And if we are aware now, we had to have been aware before. And before that, and before that, and before that. And if we could say, well, awareness could blink out. And that would establish nothingness. It's like, yeah, but you could never establish nothingness, because to establish nothingness exists would take some mind to be aware of it. Otherwise, you couldn't say whether it existed or not.
So if I have a mind now, there's going to be a next moment, and the next moment, and the next moment. So annihilation is impossible. Non, non, like, un, absent. What's the word? Non-existence is impossible.
So anything we've been, anything we explore, anything we experience is our mind. And what makes our mind our mind versus your mind is what we call ME, subject side. So my mind requires my ME to be my mind. And both of those require something awaring happening for them to be happening. It's always happening in that same way. It's the subject, object, interaction between the three spheres. And as I say, the three spheres, I'm still can feel it, that my sense is, it's an object, and me the subject, and we come together. And yes, I understand. It takes my awareness to make that happen. And I feel like my awareness is a fourth thing there.
And all of that is because that moment by moment experience is still colored by the belief that a thing exists in order for me to experience it. A ME exists in order for me to experience things. Ignorance, the mistake, coloring every seed.
[1:08:32]
So when we go looking for the thing, and we find that we can't find what we're looking for, we are actually having experiences that will help us reach that conclusion that, oh, nothing exists in any other way than this constant stream of mental images shapeshifting by this process. What process? Imprints planted, imprints ripening, movement of the mind and what it motivates. What is that? What we call karma. We use the word karma when what we mean is imprints, X prints, imprints, images, imprints, images. That process is what we mean by karma.
So by doing this repeated, getting into the most subtle level of the appearing happening, the experiencing happening that we can get, and then taking a corner of our awareness that's just in receptive mode, take the little pinky finger of that and do the analysis mode without losing the receptive mode of the things going by. And you go, who's doing this? What's going on here? What's really happening to reach that conclusion of, oh, seeds ripening, happening, and nothing but. To reach that conclusion that our ME is that. Is that process. Not the subject side me, but the experience, the existence happening.
So Panchen Lama quotes the 8,000 verses, the Prajnaparamita in 8,000 verses, a perfection of wisdom Sutra. In it, he says, there can't be a mind appearing to our mind. The mind's nature is the clear light. The clear light is the diamond way term for emptiness. Experiencing the clear light is the diamond way term for experiencing ultimate reality directly. They use a different term because you use a different method to induce that direct perception. The emptiness we experience is identical to sutra emptiness, the lack of self nature of any existing thing, including ME. But the going into it and so thus the coming out of it is different because of these methods that were taught in diamond way.
So we're reaching this intellectual understanding that our own mind's true nature is its absence of self existence. Stated that way, it's becoming more and more obvious. Is it? The true nature of my own mind is the fact that it depends on whatever it's aware of at the moment to be aware of that, to experience that. My mind depends on whatever it's aware of to experience that thing. It's not a mind sitting there waiting for something to arise because there's never a moment that there's nothing arising. There's always something.
There can't be a mind independent of being aware of something because that's what minds are, is aware of. But then that term is wrong because it implies there's something to be aware of when what the aware of is the shape-shifting of the mind, the appearing nature of the mind. But it's appearing nature is not its real nature. We learned that earlier.
So even when we are able to get to that place where we are resting in aware of aware, you remember that session? The aware is the object. Somehow the one doing the awaring is the subject and there's still an interaction between which one was the mind, the aware or the aware-er or the experiencing. None of it and all of it is the answer, of course.
If my mind were not absent of self-existence, if it had some nature of its own, then how could it be whatever it seems to be at any moment? If it had its own nature, independent of something influencing it, then it couldn't be influenced. It would be a certain way all the time.
And if we try to find a moment of mind that's the same two moments in a row, can you find it? No, because by the time you reach this one and you look at that one, you've changed. It's changed. So a self-existent mind is impossible, but not no mind at all.
And so just like everything else, pens, horses, angers, doubt, all of it is the appearing side happening necessarily with its no self-nature as it appears. And it seems like, well, once we get a hold of its all projections happening, why does the no-self-nature even become important? And yet the no-self-nature is the most important piece that we're working on because under realizing the no-self-nature of our ME is the portal through which we transform our subject, object, and interaction between.
So to come to a deep realization that I have nothing but projections happening, happening, happening, it isn't quite enough if we're somehow still thinking, well, that process of projections happening moment by moment by moment is the nature of reality. If we think karma runs the show, it's true, it does, but it is not a thing that does it. It is an explanation of the process of emptiness and dependent origination happening constantly.
[1:18:04]
So when we experience anything, there is the appearing nature of all the different components of the experience and simultaneously there is their true nature, their availability to be whatever is ripening in the moment. Now, once they ripen, are they no longer available to be anything? No, you know, the seed is ripened. It's hard cement. You can't change it. But is it still empty of self-existence? Absolutely. Right. It is still my projection. As long as the yelling boss is still yelling at me, the projection, me being yelled at by boss, my feelings being hurt happening, they are ripening. And at any moment within that, because none of it has any nature of its own, it could shift, couldn't it? And actually we, if we really look, we know by experience that it does shift. If you just sit there and take it, the boss will finally stop yelling. You didn't really have to do anything. Bump on the log technique, right? Use it up. Use up all those seeds for boss yelling and the seeds ripening, my boss yelling at me, hurting my feelings, blaming me for something I didn't do. I don't like it. I'm getting sick to my stomach, right? All of that is happening, happening, happening, and all of it is no-self-nature. So it runs out.
Is there a way to contribute to the running out of it in a way that doesn't create the causes for more of it? Ordinarily, we get in that stream of those ripenings happening and our misunderstanding of the process propels us to dislike the feeling that we're feeling. And somewhere along the line in life, we've learned how to react to that feeling to protect ourselves. And probably we yell back at them, right? Or maybe our MO has been no lie, right? Or maybe it's cry, right? Cry right now. And that will always turn them, right? It will always stop. We fall back on some method that we've learned within our ignorant world. And then that's our immediate reaction.
As adults, we probably decide: I know crying would not be appropriate here. Even though I want to cry, I'm gonna do something else. Wisdom is helping us understand what's going on here better. It still hurts. I hate it. I don't like this. I want to slug the guy. But I know that that will just bring back more violence in my world. And I won't do that. What else could I do? Right? Do you see how much mindfulness it would take though, in the middle of such an unpleasant situation to keep our wits about us enough to choose a different reaction? Right?
Which is why Master Shantideva says, at least just be like a bump on a log. Don't act from those impulses. At best, recognize what's happening. Try to be kind in some way. And that starts this whole question about, well, what do you mean by kind? Kind according to whom, right? There's no self-existent kindness that will always fix a situation. Right? You can say to that boss, I am so sorry, you are upset with me. How can I help? And it can make them angrier. Or they could be so angry, they don't even hear you. Or it could stop them short. Because the response we choose is not the cause of what happens in the next moment.
But the cause we choose to plant makes the causes for some future experience. Where, when we are upset in some way, one we are upset with has a kind response to us. Right? That's how we use our growing understanding to transform. And it's like, I didn't transform anything. I just stopped that particular incident, stopped myself from creating more of it. That's a transformation.
Because habit would have perpetuated it. So now, there are other ways of contributing to that transformation that we learn in Diamond Way. Geshe-la has already been teaching us. What if that boss, we don't know their mind. We do intellectually at least know their empty nature. Maybe they're Buddha. Maybe they're willing to ripen my seeds for having yelled at other people and made them feel terrible. And they're giving me the opportunity to feel that kind of terrible and recognize I don't have to act in the same old way I can act differently. Maybe that boss is Buddha. Then as I act with kindness towards somebody that I know is the boss, but I'm thinking maybe they're Buddha. That's included in the seeds we plant. Maybe they're Buddha.
Which is going to ripen at some future time where it's easier to think maybe they're Buddha. You see, it's like the conclusion of there's nothing but karma and emptiness happening is, oh, I'm the one who makes my karma. This perception of a ME is what makes the perception of karmic seeds, which makes the perception of my ME and my world. We're not trying to get rid of our Me. We are learning to transform our relationship to it. Whose relationship to whom? Right, me.
From some little me, like I think of it as little me and little letters, small cap letters, growing into a ME that's big letters, capital letters. In English, this works. And then you flip it over and it becomes we. And it's like, okay, I get that. I get that message. It's like seeds from all that exchanging self and others that's really expanding yourself to include others. Like it all really starts to come together at some point.
[1:27:11]
So panchen lamas is the key to being able to hold our own in the space of the yelling boss or whatever, whether it's an unpleasant situation or a pleasant situation is repeatedly doing this thing about examining our mind to find what it is comprised of, right? What it is and what it isn't. To come to this conclusion, right, that helps us be able to stay in the space of every moment I am planting and shift from the every moment I am experiencing and so reacting, shifting from react mode to plant mode.
So Panchen Lama says it's important to get familiar with being able to examine our mind. And he gave us those different tools for doing so.
One, we can look for any form or shape or color or delineation because we feel like this thing, our mind is something we should be able to pin down in some way. But when we go looking for its shape, its form, its location, we find it's simply clear and aware are the words that they give us. Now, you know, I've, I've taken some classes from other Buddhist traditions, other Buddhists, like Westerners, who are Buddhists, and even non Buddhists. And they keep saying, I keep running across them saying, you know, the mind is the problem. We need to stop the mind. And right, we need to quit relying on our mind. And it took me a while to recognize that they mean something different by mind. They mean intellect. They mean, right, our reactions to our emotions, ego. That's what they mean by mind. And I, you know, I don't know why, but it's like, our tradition doesn't, we use the term mental afflictions, and then mind. And although our tradition is usually very specific with its terms, its term for mind is like, so nonspecific. And it kind of drives me nuts. Just tell me exactly a word for this thing mind that I'm really looking for this thing awareness. And there doesn't seem to be one, right? Maybe detective Janet can go looking, see if you can find out the mind, right? The word for mind, of course, there's not going to be one is there. For this very reason, we can't pin it down. We can't really say my mind is this. The closest we can get is clear and aware. And they usually say that which is clear and aware. But come on, we're at the level where we're saying there can't be a that which is, that can only be clear and aware happening every moment.
Because, because, just because, because I'm the mom, right? Because I say so, because we exist. We have experience. So if we can't pin it down, and the one we think we have, we think is pinned down a bull, and we can't find it, then guess what, the one we think we have. Isn't there? That's simple.
Second one, we can look to see if whatever rest within or upon the mind can show us the mind that it's resting upon. So if we say, the projection of the pen, right, arises upon my mind, and rides on my mind as long as the pen is there. Then just like, right, we say you can, you can find the pen that's resting on my palm. If the pen is somehow resting on my mind, coming out of my mind and sitting on it, then we should be able to find the mind the pen is sitting on. Does that make sense? If they are two separate things, and we are experiencing the pen, we should be able to find the mind, the pens coming out of or resting upon, they call it resting upon, right? Like, pen, notepad, like that. We must have a level where we believe that. And I can kind of feel it. Like, I feel like my mind is always there. Like it's the basis from which any experience can happen. But it's always there first. And then the thing, right, gets set on top of it. But when we go looking for the place, those two happen, we can't find it. The moment those two happen, we can't find it. We've done all these analyses, you get to choose the one that works the best for you. That helps you go, I think that I show myself this can't be that has to be blank. So that you can go through it, go through it, go through it.
Then lamas always say, don't always stay with the one that's easy. Every now and then, go and take the one that doesn't make sense and work on it intellectually and see if maybe you can unlock its secret. And if you get to that one, try that one on first size to see if it will sink you in as well as the one you like best. 1000 different ways to analyze for emptiness.
When we do this analysis of the, can we find the thing that rests upon the mind? They say the way you do that analysis is that if the mind is a thing that the pen rests upon, then the pen resting upon the mind has impacted the mind in some way, such that when the pen goes away, that impact on the mind would go away with it. I'm not sure I logically agree with that. But they say if the mind if things rest upon the mind, the mind should change accordingly, and then go away as that thing that changed it goes away, because the change is not happening anymore.
And to follow that train of thought, we come to see that if that were true, like that can't be true. Because the mind is always available for the next thing to arise. And if everything that arose in past took a piece of my mind with it, wouldn't I eventually run out? I mean, it's a little bit absurd. I don't. It's one of those that I don't use, because it doesn't take me like bing, bing, bing, bing through.
What that's supposed to take us to, however, is how the mind, the mind, the mind's presence in the moment of the experience in the moments of the experience of the pen is like the presence of empty space in the moments of the location of this pen. The space this pen is in is unchanged by the pen being in it. Because if the space changed, when the pen got in it, it would no longer be the space for the pen to be, and the pen could not be there. So as long as this empty space is there, which it is, right? Whether it's occupied or unoccupied, the space itself is unchanged. So that things can go in and out of it.
The mind is similar. The mind is unchanged by what arises and passes. Whether we think that those things arising and passing are something appearing to the mind, like the pen going into and out of space, or whether we think they are things that are bubbling up out of the mind and going back into it. The mind can't be changed by what's appearing, because if it were changed, then the thing that's appearing could no longer be there. So is the mind changing as things appear? Yes. But is it being changed by the things that appear? No. It's a subtle but important piece. Is the mind changing? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. But is the mind changed by the thing that appears? No.
The thing is the manifestation, the appearance of the change that's happening, right? At any moment, is the true nature of the mind changing? Is the appearing nature of the mind changing? Constantly. Is its true nature changing? What is its true nature? It's emptiness, right? It's blank. It's availability for these changes happening.
So with each one that ripens, each one that happens, is the mind changing? I know. It's like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Appearance is changing constantly. Empty nature always in the same way that space stays space when a thing is in it or out of it. Empty nature of me, you, interaction between, has to remain always 100% available for what's ripening. Even when the ripening is happening, it's still empty of self-nature.
So still infinitely available to be something else in the next moment. Yes, it's hard cement once it's ripened, but there's only that instant that it's hard cement. Next seed ripens, hard cement. They look similar. But at any moment, the shift can be dramatically, radically, incredibly different. Okay.
So they say the mind is unstained and unblemished, always totally available for whatever comes next. 65 per instant, say the ones who've seen it happening. [1:42:39] But still, it leaves this little bit of, well, then there's a mind there waiting for it all to happen.
And it's a great level to get to, to be able to rest in the mind that's waiting for something to happen. But it is not the ultimate nature of the mind. There isn't a mind that's out there waiting.
So Third way, t we can look at it in this form of the apparently flowing mind stream, right? Stream of awarenesses. Ignorantly, it's a stream of mental afflictions. And that's a little odd to say it that way. It's like, no, you know, I only get mentally afflicted a couple of times a day. Now, the rest of the time, I'm like, pretty much on neutral. And it's like, no, honey, right? You are mentally afflicted constantly. What about me? What do I do next? How come my knees hurt? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Shut up in there, right? It's not going to shut up in there.
So we call it mind stream, which implies like any other stream or river, it's flowing from one point to the next ever forward, which is true, right? Although the analogy kind of fails because the stream is going ever downhill, right? And we're trying to make our mind stream go uphill in the sense of growing our realizations. But maybe we should rethink that and think, no, no, you know, I'm on the downhill slide to my Buddhahood. It might help.
So our tradition says, you know, mind stream, mind stream, mind stream, like that's the ultimate reality of us. But Panchen Lama, he says, it's like a mala, a mala, right? It's a circle. So constant, but it's made up of beads and string, the physical mala. It depends on parts. Of course, it depends on an idea as well. He said, or it's like a whole bunch of men dressed in uniforms with weapons. We call it an army, but there's no such thing as an army. There's what we call this group of guys here, men and women dressed in uniforms, carrying weapons. There's no such thing as mala. It's just what we call the string of beads that we use in a certain way. He's saying our mind stream is similar, made up of moments of awareness that we string together and call mind stream, my mind stream. But the mind stream, the thing we're referring to like the mala, the thing we are referring to, is simply something made up of parts. There is no whole mala unique in it, right?
So there's no mind stream thing that has parts that are flowing along. There are simply those moments of awaring happening, happening, happening, happening, seemingly in a flow, one to the next. And we call that mind stream so we can talk about it, so we can explore it. But then our ignorance makes the mistake of thinking that it's the mind stream that makes the parts of the mind stream, right? It's the mind stream that is there to experience those different moments. And it's like, no, no, the different moments make this thing called the mind stream so we can talk about it. But how many of those moments does it take to make your mind stream?
Yeah. One moment is not a stream. It's only one point. And if you say all of them, it's like, yeah, well, how many of them can you remember in the infinite stream of this thing, mind stream? I don't know that my amount of memories is like really puny compared to the 65 per instant of X prints and imprints that I've been making since forever. Like that's impossible to conceive. And they're implying that if it takes all the beads of the mala to make the mala, then it would take all of the moments of mind to make our mind stream. And if that were true, then they would all still be. And we ought to be able to remember all of them, which technically we can someday we will. But then we get into that whole argument of what about past and future? Like does the past exist? We talked about it not too long ago. No. Right. Does the future exist? No. When we are having a memory of the past, is that a past experience? No, that's a current moment experience of something we call memory. Just like the current moment of the experience I'm having now called this class. How is it any different? Our memories aren't any more valid as something that happened in the past as our thinking. Oh, I want this to happen in the future. It's like it hasn't happened yet. It maybe won't ever happen. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Right. Future we know doesn't exist yet, but we think somehow the past still exists in some way. Not just this moment of now. Well, if my just this moment of now is the only reality I have. How can I say that my mind is a mind stream? Because all I can experience of it is now and now and now and now. And when we go to evaluate or define the exact now, what do we find? Oh, my gosh, there's not even a now. What? Blank, right?
Into the all potentiality, not into nothingness. Which is why you don't take a brand new student through that logic, because you could end up in that conclusion. Well, if there's no past, there's no future, there's no now. There's no nothing. So nothing matters. I'm going to go eat chocolate, drink beer. If things get worse, I'll just go shoot myself because who cares? Right? Wrong, wrong, wrong conclusion. From no now. The no now means potential to be anything at any moment, kind of now. Cool. How do we do that? Right, right. We're getting there. Give me 10 more years. I'll take you there. [1:52:00]
So the mala is a label putting it put on a collection of parts. Our mind stream is a label put on a collection of put onto a collection of parts. But so this mind, my awareness that I think is some substantial thing can't be what I think it is.
It's the label put on collections of parts. What parts? Subject, object, object, interaction between ripening, happening, constant shape-shifting. Scriptures say it's illusion. And it takes that long explanation of what do they mean by illusion so that we don't come to the conclusion that it's not real. That slippery word - real.
Can things have their own natures in them from them? No. Do we believe they do as we experience them? Yes. Does the one we believe is there, is it there? No. The one that is there, the ripening seed one, is there, it's real. The one we relate to is the one that's not real. The one that we relate to is the illusion because we're misperceiving it as being the real one, when the real one is the one that's coming from me, not at me. So is it that now that we understand about real and illusion, now that we understand about things as no self-natures, finally things can have no-self-nature? No. Things have always had no-self-nature. It's not like all of a sudden we were creating our world in a new way because now we know.
We're just stopping the mistake. So now reality can reveal itself. And when reality reveals itself, these things that we believe are real from their own side fall away and things that are real from my side are appearing. But things as projections still, when I hear the word projection, it feels less real, right? Because the ignorance is still coloring. Even the word projection, when I think I know what I mean by it, my reaction holds the ignorance.
So every time we're getting down into using the words to reach our conclusion, oh, things are empty. Check. Things are just projections. Check what your reaction to that is and try to clarify before you rest in your conclusion so that we're fine-tuning the conclusion we're getting to. We have these opportunities to do that.
So this idea of the illusion, for those who have not experienced emptiness directly yet, maybe even for those that have, I have to think about that. It means that every moment, the experience is an apparent subject, apparent object, apparent interaction happening. Every piece of every experience is these three happening. And infinitely possible to be anything at any apparent moment. I like the word apparent. You say to somebody, is that a guy standing out in the field? And the other person goes, well, apparently, which means it looks like it, but I'm not exactly sure. And then you're both staring at it and you go, oh, no, it's a scarecrow. But technically, it's also apparently a scarecrow, right? Because we're both thinking the scarecrow finally identified itself as a scarecrow and we figured out what it really was. Wrong. Our seeds shifted. So I use the word apparently, that's not from scripture, that's from me to help my mind get off the automatic pilot of believing the thing that I see has its nature in it. If I say there's apparently a ficus tree in front of me, it leaves this little doubt in my mind that it's there the way I see it.
So every moment, every detail of our experience is an apparent subject with an apparent object and apparent interaction between happening, infinitely changing. So we can grow the ability to be more and more clearly aware of that as we experience and inherent with that, but we need to impose it, is the understanding of that availability, the empty nature of those three aspects of every experience that holds within them the promise of transformation. Awaring, happening, and nothing but. Why is the awaring what I seem to be aware of? It's results of causes. What causes my past behavior? Because that's how my apparent mind gets apparently imprinted, which is what apparent causes create apparent results. And it all works. Exquisitely, beautifully. So, you know, moral to the story, come out of your meditation, I'm going to be more kind because that's how we create the causes for the results of any goodness that we experience.
Okay, enough class. I didn't quite finish again. It's like we go two steps forward and one step backwards. Oh dear.
Remember that person we wanted to be able to help? We have glimpsed a lot that we are using to help them in that deep and ultimate way. And that's a great, great goodness. So please be happy with yourself and think of this goodness like a beautiful glowing gemstone that you can hold in your hands. Recall your precious holy being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your devotion to them. Ask them to please, please continue to help you and inspire you. And then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accepted and blessed. And then carry it with them right back into your heart. 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.
And to share a special one with Rachana’s Joe that he can heal quickly and may it be so.
All right, thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 33
All right, welcome back. We are Mahamudra group. It's November 25, 2025. Let's gather our minds here. We'll do our opening prayers and then go into the same meditation we did last class. We're pretty much the same anyway. So let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And now they are with you gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion, their wisdom radiating from them, their 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 that 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. Deeper down, we know this is what we are meant to become. And so we turn our minds back to our precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. 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 perfect 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 a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make these the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. 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 glass and the rest, may we reach 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 glass and the rest, may we reach 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 glass and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. All right, let's set our bodies for a meditation session. Go through the steps that you found work for you to get that body parked. Once you have it set, bring your attention to your breath. Use your focus on your breath to get your mind parked. Focus, clarity, intensity. Everything else falls away as your mind sinks into your object, the sensation at that place. Next, intentionally shift your object of focus to sounds, what we call sounds. Keenly aware of these risings and passings we call sound. Sinking more and more subtly, simply observing. Maybe it's more like receiving, and intentionally shift the object from sound to thought, meaning any image that pops up into awareness. Maintain that same receptive, observing state. Let them arise and pass without identifying or pursuing. We sink into that state of the constant flow, all made of the same stuff, ripening mental images, shape-shifting. The images lose all meaning. We can feel the empty nature within each moment of the flow. We are experiencing these appearances and knowing their empty nature. Now, stay in the same subtle place and take a little bit of your aware-er and look for the one who's watching, who is the meditator. This experience, her mental images arising and passing, and the emptiness within them. Sink down into the emptiness of that watcher. If you lose it, go back and find the appearance of watcher. Investigate. Find its emptiness. Sink into it again. We'll stay five minutes. One more minute. Nice. Now, let's come back up the levels. Become aware of the flow of things popping up and passing, all mental images. Come up to the awareness of sounds. Come up to the awareness of being inside our body. Before you open your eyes, think this is still mental images, ripening, and nothing but that emptiness level. When you open your eyes, the first thing you look at, think the same thing, mental images ripening and emptiness within, and then dedicate that, that all beings reach wisdom. When you're ready, open your eyes. Take a stretch. We'll take a few minutes and think about that. Maybe you got a glimpse of our own being, these series of mental images popping up, and the emptiness that they must have or be in order to pop up in the way that they do. That's more words than what we were doing. But to get this glimpse of what it might be like to identify as that emptiness, like to identify as that all potentiality, if we want to use another word that isn't exactly accurate, but helps me. What if that all potentiality to be anything for anybody at any moment, including me, was our identity? Like we're wanting to get into that, through that doorway. And it's like this, going down through the layers of appearance and nothing, but appearance and nothing, but finally not needing the words to be experiencing our experience in that way, as it's going by. And then we say, who's doing that? Same. And we can slide into this moment by moment, and then get underneath. So it really is a simple, simple method. But like, whoa, does it take effort? And then where Lama Christi was taking us was, so suppose we get really good at our Mahamudra meditation, and we spend an hour a day. And of it, we actually reach the Mahamudra of me and my own mind for about five minutes out of that. And out of that five minutes, I get, you know, two seconds of glimpse, and then I'm out, and three seconds of glimpse. And then we spend the other 23 hours of our day, back in our outer world, in our same old state of mind. She says, it's going to take a lot of Mahamudra meditation. I mean, probably we couldn't even do it, because 23 hours versus one, versus the five minutes in actual deep awareness of Mahamudra, right? Meeting my own mind. It's like, we're never going to get ahead of the ignorance we're planting as we keep going through our day with the same old state of mind. So we, of course, want to be applying our same understanding when we come out of meditation. And that's what Lobsang Chukyagelsen was saying, right? When we come out, now we know things are ripening images and nothing but, and it's not that when you come out of meditation, they stop being that. It's just now we're getting so much information at once, that things seem more complete, more solid, more real. And it can't be real in the way that we think. We proved it to ourselves in meditation. But then we come back out, right? And our old seeds, for believing what we're seeing as in them, from them, which is what we mean by real, we go back to believing that. And the effort we make to not believe that is what it is to practice. All right, so we're still building up to how do we actually do that. And last class, I was doing this review because I needed to get sorted out with where we are here. And we left off in the review at the place where Panchen Lama was helping us find that me. But in that coming down in awarenesses, is your me, the meditator, following the instructions, getting more and more obvious? Yes or no? Is our me more obvious? Once you get down in there, it's like me is doing this. And once it's so obvious that I'm the watcher, I'm the observer, I'm the doer, it's like, okay, that's fine, that and now do the same thing that you did with breath sounds, any images do the same thing with that. And we'll be able to because we're so good at doing it. You see, so we get that me factor, then as the object that we experience as mental image and nothing but well, who's the me doing that? Right, right. Right. Because you go, well, it never stops. I'm never gonna find a me like that. But you're never gonna not find a me. Right. And if in doing this, you hit up against, oh, my gosh, I don't exist, back yourself right back out until you get to the place where you're not in that ick anymore. And do it again. Our, our accurate conclusion won't be, oh, my gosh, I don't exist. It'll be, oh, my gosh. Right, my potential is infinite. So we don't want to imply that we want to come to experience it. Okay, so Panchen Lama says, find and explore that me. And the way he had us do it was to look at the me that has a body that believes it has a body, the me that has a mind, right, we look for it in all those five heaps. And in doing so, we find that the awareness as one of our heaps, that we then believe there's a me that has awareness. That's where he makes this leap and he draws from scripture and he says, look, the mind is the me, not just a part of me. So he's implying that all those different kinds of awareness that I possess, that those are mind. And right there, it's like, if I think I have a mind, and that mind experiences or has the eye awareness, the ear awareness, the nose awareness, etc. Well, like, which mind is it? That is the mind mind? Is it the one seeing the one hearing are those separate minds? No, they're separate experiences of the mind. But I'm thinking there is a the mind that's doing it all. And we are wanting to find that mind. And we would do the same analysis of does that mind only come about when I'm seeing something? Or does it make the seeing happen? And how does it make the seeing happen? Because how does seeing, right, something aware touch something physical, like it can't work the way we think it works. Which in this, in our given, if Mahamudra were our only practice, we could see how it would be like a lifetime of doing this investigation, figuring out each step of the way. But fortunately, we have our other studies, right? We study Nagarjuna so that we understand already how it is that two things can't touch in the moment, right, a physical thing can't touch him. And we know all of that argument, because we've dug into it. We don't have to do that in our Mahamudra meditation, because we've already shown it to ourself. We just have to go Oh, look, right, that mine can't work like that. I know that already, because I've studied this. So everything starts to come together. As we slide ourselves down through these layers of what am I really experiencing? Okay, what's, what do I think I'm experiencing? And what's really going on? So he says, the mind is me, not just a part of me. And it's kind of radical. And he goes, I, he says, I say so based on oral tradition, which oral tradition is valid only for those who believe in his oral tradition. Right? So it could be helpful, or maybe not. And he says, according to the oral tradition, the way to get to the true nature of the self is to meet the mind face to face. So that's where the conclusion gets drawn, that you want to meet the true nature of the self, meet your mind, face to face, meet the true nature of the mind, and you've met the true nature of yourself. So he says, so that means the mind is the me, the me is the mind. So what is this other me? Right? That's going on. As we're doing this, go down through the layers of Maha Mudra, where me is getting so clear. Because it seems like that me can actually look at its mind. And if it were the mind, how could it look at itself? See, here, we've got another piece that we study, is that whole argument about, can the mind have self awareness? And it's like, why were we studying that years ago? Can the knife cut itself? No, yes, no, yes. And it's like, well, because we're going to meet up against that. Is the mind me? In which case, how am I aware of me? How can I be aware of me? And it's like, it's not as simple answer, because by the time we are aware that we are aware of me, that means a moment behind, right? That means gone. And then we think, okay, I'm getting ready, I'm going to meet my future me, but there's no future me. Right? There's only the me in the moment. And it's like, yeah, but I can't, I can't find it. I can't get it to stay still long enough to say that's it. And we either get scared by that or we go, oh, I get it. Right? And it's like, it's not an aha, I get it. Until we've really worked through all of these other resistances to being able to relate to non-self existence and appearances, being simultaneous, I think. Okay. So he says, you want to meet your real self, meet the mind face to face. You could probably go the other way around. You want to meet your mind face to face, meet your real face, your real self face to face. It should take us to the same place. And to meet the mind face to face has this connotation of doing something for the first time. And it's like, oh, you're my mind? No. Oh, so nice to finally meet you. I've heard about you. And it's like, well, is there a mind we've never met before? You know, it's easier to say, is there a part of my mind I've never met before? Of course, it's empty nature. But he says, no, it's as if we've never actually met our mind. So if I'm thinking the mind that I have met is a mind that has some identity of its own. Has there ever been such a mind with an identity of its own? No. So the mind I think I'm so familiar with, isn't like once I meet my real mind, that other one's gonna say, okay, bye, you don't need me anymore. It's like it never was. This mind that I have believed I've had since forever has never been the one that I had. And it's, I don't know, that's scary, seems to me. So this meeting the mind face to face, he must not be talking about the mind, that which is clear and aware. And it's 42 or 56 mental functions. Because that one, we are really familiar with, like we are good friends with that mind. So he can't be talking about meeting that mind face to face, because it wouldn't fit the doing it for the first time. So the second reason he's saying the mind is me, is a tantric reason. And then, you know, are we allowed to use tantra reasoning in a sutra class? Right? They say no, big no, no. Are we allowed to use sutra reasoning in a tantra class? Absolutely. Because tantra is based on sutra. And so Lobsangchuky Gyaltsen, you know, his mind so pure, he can't help himself. And he just decides to say, look in the secret teachings, the very subtlest form of winds and mind is the subtle basis, which we call the self. I'll say it again, the very subtle form of winds and mind is the subtle basis, which we call the self. And then we hear that, those words, and whether we really understand what it's referring to or not, our, our mental seeds ripening that that are stained with misunderstanding, hear those words, and automatically think, oh, so there is some thing, some basis for my me. And in that feeling like, oh, there's something really, really subtle, but still present, that I can rely upon as my me. It's thinking, oh, there is some existing from its own side, subtle movement of awareness. That makes some existing from its own side, subtle form of me. Good, that's more comfortable. But it's incorrect. It can be useful, because it's very, very, very, very subtle, which we are very, very, very, very gross, obvious. So the subtlety helps. But it isn't from that level of subtle me that still has some nature of its own is then a subtle me that can't transform. And it's like, wait, you have to have a me there to transform it. Yes. But we can't have a me that has some nature of its own, that's in any way still part of a suffering world and transform it. Because to say it has its own something to say it is itself in any way means it cannot be affected by anything else. And it's like, well, that's ridiculous. Every existing thing is affected by every other thing. Right? And the wise ones say, yeah, you say that, but you don't believe it. Because we hold that, that dumb drunk driver on his cell phone drove into my car, right, we blame the other guy. And if we really understood, right, we, we couldn't blame the other guy. Would there be another guy? Yes, of course. And we would understand that. Yes, he drove into the car. And we would understand that the whole process was forced by my own perceptions of things happening. And it's like, well, if that was true, couldn't I have seen it coming and changed my perceptions, right? And made it not happen. It's like, you know, maybe at some point, we'd be able to do that. But we are not in control of what's ripening, as we know, I'm getting distracted. So any version of any explanation of the true nature of me, my mind, my body, right, my heaps, all of that, my emotions, all of it, and every explanation of all of it is projected results, forced by imprints made by some past behavior. So any explanation we get is still not real in the sense that it's not, it's, it's not an explanation in itself that's accurate, that's true. That works, it could work. But only if we have the seeds for it to work. Right? We hear those words all the time. Yeah, it works only if I have the seed. So I make the seed. But then there's that time gap between making the seeds and getting the thing I want. And in the time gap, I just stay disappointed. Because my time gap so long. And it's like, yes and no. All of that also is projections happening. There's nothing that's not at any level. Hmm. We won't ever find a thing, an experience, a moment, a me that is itself. It's always made up of other things. It's always made up of the other things of seeds planted by our past behaviors. Which the conclusion of course is, oh my gosh, my current behavior then is the key to everything. Nothing else is important. But how, how I interact, how I respond to anything that's going on. Like it seems so simple. If we could just have that as our motivating factor, we would be so different. And that's Lopchang Chukagatsen's point. He's like trying to get us to recognize how different we could be, how different we will be. When our identity shifts from, I'm a suffering being in a desire realm, to I'm empty. I have no identity of my own. Without it being scary. Because I hear myself say that and part of my mind goes, right? And it's like, oh nuts, right? It's still not coming out right. Okay, so Lama Krishna had two classes here where her audience is mostly her tantric students at Tantra Course 16. So pretty, been exposed to the training almost completely, two courses to go. And, you know, looking back, I'm thinking, you know, probably a lot of us thought we understood it better than we really actually understood it. But, you know, so we had some arrogance there. But right, she's able to, so she, she did this course, like debating with the tantra students. And so I can't do that here. Both because I can't do that debate, I don't have her wisdom. And that, right, I have an audience that anyway, so, but the essence of it was that everything we, we, our task is to learn to use everything as our path to transformation. Like there is nothing that we can experience that is not available for us to use, to plant our behavior seeds in such a way to create paradise for everyone. There's nothing that can't be used in that way. And so the practice is to learn how to use everything, how to be, be using everything. And it's a state of mind, of course, a state of heart, not a state of intellect. We use the intellect, but it's a state of heart that we train ourselves to go through what appears to be an ordinary day. And we choose to understand it differently. And so choose to respond more consciously, consciously, intentionally, which very likely is going to look really different than what the still appearing to be ordinary beings in our world would expect from us. And, and the, the willingness to do that. Drives the force of our practice. And then the, the, the training that helped us get to that level was the training in our Vinaya, our discipline, our moral ethics that must not be crossed in this process of interacting with our still apparently suffering outer world in a way that will transform that world from suffering into paradise. So it's slippery and tricky and, and it, it happens by way of our understanding that every moment of experiencing and all three spheres of the experiencing is all inherently empty of being what it appears to be. And so I can respond to it differently. I can be a different me responding towards a different object, even as the information appearing to my sense organs and even my sensory consciousnesses is as the same ordinary world. My wisdom can be telling me something different. And so guiding my interaction differently. It may look the same. It may not, it may look the same as what I would have ordinarily done. Maybe not. I'll get back to that. At first, when we understand this empty nature of self of mind of every moment of what's arising in mind, we can powerfully pretend to be this holy angel experiencing fill in the blank for the benefit of others. And so doing fill in the blank to help those others reach their own happiness, regardless of what our apparently suffering human being is experiencing. Like we'd be in this total fantasy world as we're going through our usual human world. Scary, isn't it? But isn't it curious that it's like within my lifetime, video games developed, right? And they went from just these words and things that you did on your computer. I mean, I never did them, but Samathi has. And then now they're this sophisticated, you put on those goggles and it's like, you're in there doing it. Right. And it's like, where did that come from? Like, I think it's has had a terrible influence on people's minds. But it's like, it shows that we write realities are not what we think they are, because if they were, we wouldn't have been able to come up with that. So we have clues all over the place, that we we are already transforming from a solid material world to, or we call it a virtual world. And then we say, oh, it's not real, because it's virtual. And it's like, well, guess what? This real world is just as virtual. And so maybe in those video games, right, you've got one going on, and you don't like where you are, just change the channel. Right. And now you're in a different one. And it's like, same, really, like there, there, there could be this ability to just change the channel. So, meanwhile, we go through this period where everything's still looking the same, same old suffering world. But because of our understanding of karmic emptiness, the Mahamudra experience, we can get these glimpses of recognizing, wow, it appears that I'm at the grocery store, buying yogurt. And the emptiness of me says, right, this could be any, anything, this could be, you know, the middle of a war zone. This could be paradise. This could be anything. What it is right now is this moment by moment grocery store experience happening. What do I do with that? I go buy yogurt, right, and go home. But what can I do with that? Like, it's like, wow, look what I'm providing for everybody. You know, everybody find exactly what they need. It's like, wow, look at this. Look at 17 kinds of mayonnaise people could choose from. You know, instead of why do we have 17 forms of mayonnaise? Wow, right? Look what I can be for them. And we really would be like, isn't there some character in a movie that she's just like, wow, wow, wow. And everybody thinks she's so weird. But it's just like, it's more true. Look what, look what I'm, look what I'm providing, right? We can think of it that way. Bigger, look what I'm being for everybody. Look what my appearance is providing. Imagine going through your day, just like whatever you need, whatever you need, green light for you, red light for you, right? Whatever. Yeah, how fun would that be? And it's like, if we do that, we'll walk through the grocery store and never get our own yogurt, right? Because we'd forget about that. And right, we find this balance. But then it's dangerous. It's like, okay, Serani, then I can go and do anything I want.Because you just said anything that's happening is happening, right? Out of seeds, and it's an opportunity to use anything. So I can use my emotions as well. So I don't like that person, they hurt me once upon a time, I'm going to be the angel, I'm going to teach them a lesson. Blah, right? Does that work? No. Right? We are still planting seeds. So when we use our understanding of emptiness and karma, in a mistaken way, that's going to come back to us. As somebody thinking that they can help us by hurting us. And it doesn't work, right? It's unpleasant. And that's not paradise. So whatever we did, thinking we were creating paradise is not creating paradise. So it's not just a matter of, oh, I'm the angel, anything I do is fine. Which is why we can't go into that practice formally until we are well-trained, well-grounded in sutra, well-grounded in our ethical choices, and under the care of a supervisor, right? A teacher who we rely upon for guidance. And not do things just because they say so, but not do things just because we want to. Okay. So Lobsang Chukagaltsen is saying that the whole purpose of meeting our own mind face-to-face is to help us shift this identity from suffering me that needs to be purified and make merit, to empty me that is suffering, and by way of the seeds I plant, can bring all that suffering to an end by planting seeds through which I'm trying to help others' suffering come to an end.Can I make others' suffering come to an end? No. Whether they suffer or not is their karma. But how I see myself interacting with them, I know what is painful when somebody does it to me. So I don't know for sure that that other person doesn't like being yelled at in the same way I don't like being yelled at, but it's wise to assume that they do and so not yell at them. And then if you come to find out that person just feels loved when they're yelled at, well then maybe later on you go, okay, I'll yell at you. Like we were in Romania. Oh, I talked through our break. We were in Romania last summer, right? And the little bit that we were out in the public, it's like it seemed like everywhere we go, people were yelling at each other. And it felt so harsh to me. And I mentioned it to Roxanna and she thought, no, no, that we're just communicating. That's how we communicate. She says, as little kids, we would stand out on the street and holler at our friend's mother. You know, Mrs. Barbu, can Roxanna come out and play? And you just hollered until Mrs. Barbu finally said no or yes, right? You just had to holler to get your needs met. But you holler at me and I like shrivel up and fade away because I think I've done something wrong, you know, just different kinds of communication. But how we know how to behave for ourselves is what would be unpleasant for me. That's all we have to go on. We learned that in ACI, you know, one, two, three, four, five. And it still is necessary, even as we're beyond our training. So that's why it's important. All right, so let's take our break. It's so, it can go so deep. Thank you. Because what, what with my husband, he doesn't like anything spiritual, because he associated with religion and he hates any religion. And so whenever I talk about intuition, or I can feel what you're thinking or your state, he like, for him, this is very painful. And emotions also. So there's many people who are just closed up with their emotions. They don't want to hear anything about emotions because they, they, it's painful for them. And then there's, there are people who are emotional by nature. So it's a huge conflict all the time. And, and then you choose to not to choose yourself, right? If you're emotional being, and you have to communicate with somebody who is not emotional ones, you just choose not to show it. But if it's all the time, what do you do? You kind of negate yourself completely, which is not, not correct either. Right. Because you're also one of those beings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is, it is, it is difficult to reach this place where we're always putting the other's needs first, right? That our, our own me says, yeah, but what about me? And it's valid. The what about me is valid until we reach a certain level. And then it, we won't need it anymore and it will drop away. But in the, until then, yes, it's valid, right? Yes. You need to communicate emotionally. And then, and I don't know, like the, the glimpse, just in what you've just said, the glimpse I heard was there. Maybe he has the sense that religion controls people. And then if we're, if we're really resistant to being controlled by others, we're resistant to our emotions because our emotions control us too. So if you can interact with him in with some kind of insight about his fear of being controlled, then, and, and like, help him not feel controlled by you're talking about intuition, how you would do that, I don't know. You would find, right, your ability to communicate with him better. I don't think it's possible because the pain is very deep and it's very like, a wounded child. And it's, it's not, it's like, there's nothing possible. I don't, I don't think it's possible. I've tried, but the problem is that for so many years, by just not saying I'm wrong to myself by feeling, by experiencing all my, what I'm experiencing, and just saying, I'm, I'm, I'm wrong. I just need to comply with what the others are saying. I, I, I caused so much damage to myself. I know, I know. But you're saying, no, it was right. Just because that's what your seeds were ripening for you in this life. Use it. Okay. Use it, use it to transform. We have the opportunity. I'm not saying you have to use it. I'm saying we have, these teachings are pointing out how it is that there's nothing that can't be transformed when we use the wisdom to change how we interact with others. And that's the only way these things will change.That's what these teachings are saying. How any of us use those teachings is totally up to us and totally up to our seeds ripening, right? Our ability to do it. If it were easy, if we just heard these words and it's like, okay, I'll change. We'd all be enlightened by now, right? Our, our lifetime wounds block us. You're absolutely right. Are we back? So our meditation time, our meditation time is when we can try to go into getting glimpses of this appearing me, empty me, appearing mind, emptiness mind, to get more and more familiar with the fact that those, uh, yeah, are appearing simultaneously. Like we will toggle. Here's the appearing mind and I know it's empty. Here's the appearing mind and I know that's empty. And then we're trying to be able to not feel this toggle one or the other, but here's an appearing mind that there's, here's an appearing mind that's empty. Here's an appearance to my mind. That's empty. Here's an appearance that's empty. Here's an appearance that's empty and be able to identify that as it arises instead of, there it is. Now I know it as an appearance and now I know it's empty, but just like, and be in this identity of the shape shifting, right? I can't get there either, but we can see how this practice is taking us there. And then, and then out of, as we come out of the meditation, we try to impose that to whatever level we got it. And then we can hold that for, you know, a few moments and then we forget. So his point is out of cushion, keep, find some way to keep reminding ourselves of whatever level of understanding of this appearing and emptiness happening, constant flow that we can hold as we're going through our day with our interactions with others, whether the others is a human or an animal or your car keys to be trying to hold this same sense of awareness. The more we're able to do that off cushion, the deeper our ability to get into it on cushion will come. And then the deeper we get on cushion, the more clear it will be come off cushion, right? And, and this upward spiral goes, but it isn't just that just by meditating, we'll be able to do it. It'll automatically happen in life. We do need to make the effort. Most of us, some, you know, it's like, Oh, wow. And we just do it. But most of us, we need to intentionally make the effort because we get on automatic pilot as we come out of meditation. And it just is like going 23 hours back into desire realm and one hour outside of it or a glimpse of being outside of it. All right. So in the commentary, what comes up is this discussion about nominal reality becomes our methods side and ultimate reality becomes that born of method. So we usually hear methods side and wisdom side. And we think of them sort of as two separate wings of the bird and you get them both on the bird and we can fly. But here it's saying, actually our wisdom side, our ultimate reality realization is born of our method side. And, you know, we, we understand that too, because we learned that we do our six perfectionizers in order to grow enough goodness for our intellectual understanding of emptiness to go deeper. Wait, we grow our goodness. So our meditative concentration can go deeper so that our intellectual understanding of emptiness can go deeper. And then our, our ability to give with wisdom gets better, still not perfected because we don't have the wisdom yet. That deepens our meditation that deepens our emptiness understanding and the cycle is what pushes us to the direct perception, the cycle of gathering the goodness. So our method side is what gives birth to our ultimate reality. But in another sense, it's like, no, you can't say it gives birth to it because that would say there is no ultimate reality. And then you gather a certain amount of goodness. And all of a sudden an ultimate reality is born. It's like, no, there's always been ultimate reality within any appearing reality. There is its emptiness, whether it's a suffering reality or a pure reality, it's still empty of its own nature, empty of not being ripening results of the one who's experiencing it in the way that they are experiencing it. So wait, I got distracted. So what they mean by nominal reality becomes our method side. It means that as we are understanding karma and emptiness happening off our cushion and so intentionally planting our seeds in order to create happiness for everyone, ultimate happiness for everyone. That's the place where we create the mental imprints that are growing, that will ripen into the perception of Buddha, me and Buddha paradise emanating in which all being suffering has ceased and in which your emanations go to those beings who don't see themselves as beings who aren't suffering. They're still seeing themselves as suffering beings. And so we help them come to see that they're mistaken.Yeah. So ultimate reality already is because there is appearing reality. But our met our nominal reality gives birth to ultimate reality means it gives birth to our direct experience of ultimate reality for the first time. And it gives birth to our being ultimate reality and appearing reality simultaneously someday our Buddha. So you nominal reality is our method side means using learning, training ourselves to use every moment of our appearing reality to transform it into a pure reality for everybody. And the way we do that is by way of how we how we respond to any experience we're having. And our response includes how we think about what's going on. So our nominal reality is every experience that we have on every level, physical, emotional, intellectual, reactive, aware, awareness, and it includes the belief that's all happening to me for an ignorant being. So the task is to get off the automatic pilot that's driven by the seeds planted by it's all happening to me, color and recognize these ripenings. They are empty. And so I can respond in really any way I choose. And and that's the slippery part. It's like in where we've learned once a seed ripens, it's concrete, nothing you can do about it. And that is true. It's ripened. You can't change the ripening. But we can change how we choose to believe it, how we choose to interact with it. Our automatic pilot will say, they yell at me, I yell back. Or if I say that to them, they're going to get angry. I need to say that. But I'm not going to say that. Because I don't want to make them angry. Right? That's a slippery slope. You've done a good thing, not make them angry. But you haven't communicated in a way that you need something that they you need for them to hear for everybody's benefit. Right? Very slippery. But as long as we are still in the well, this has ripened in this unpleasant way. It has happened. It is happening in this way. I need to protect myself or I need to act in a certain way. We are trapped in perpetuating that they are like that in them from them. When we can recognize Oh, yes, they're right. Yes, this is an unpleasant thing that they are doing. And yes, it's empty. And yes, I want to yell back. But that means I'm reinforcing the belief that they are this nasty, awful person in them from them. And so by acting in the way I expect myself to do and they expect me to do, I reinforce the misperception. That's not going to change them. Just having that thought. But it gives us this window of opportunity to say, How can I respond in a way that doesn't perpetuate this perpetuate the situation and stops perpetuating my belief that they are that way in them from them? Right? Can we have this fleeting thought? Maybe, right? They're Buddha giving me this opportunity to act differently in the face of a habitual pattern. We're not saying no, really, they're Buddha. Because really, they are not. Really, they are not that mean, nasty person. Really, they are not Buddha. Really, they are nothing but ripening my seeds right now. And they are infinitely available to be anything as am I, I can't change what I see in them. I can change how I respond so that I see them differently in the future. How can I respond? Maybe I run away fast. Maybe I drop my purse. Maybe I call the police. But I do it with this awareness that I am planting seeds to create paradise for everybody. Right? And again, it's like, we if we were really in that space of this is empty, it's shifting moment by moment, we would have no need to react from that space of, you know, what about me, I need to protect myself. I don't know, maybe, as the muggers coming at you with the knife, you would just reach out and hug them and give them this big bear hug. And they may stab you 100 times in your back as you hug them. And so what, you know, it's like, Oh, my gosh, are you telling us to do that? No, I'm not. But we get a glimpse of what it, right, what the potentiality of us is. When we identify as that potentiality, instead of as this me, whatever this me is, that's in a world where everything's coming at it.Right? Where the learning, the career path to Buddhahood is learning how to use everything that happens as the path. Brushing our teeth with bodhichitta, remember that class becomes a cause for Buddhahood. It's like, well, all I have to do is think bodhichitta. Right? Write it on your glasses, you know, so you see everything with bodhichitta. That's all it takes. Not all. But you see, we've been planting seeds for this wisdom all along. So at some point, I hopefully will go, Oh, maybe I need to try. Maybe I need to try to kick my merit, my kindness up another notch. And rather than kindness based on understanding of planting, planting seeds, kindness based on the understanding of that empty nature of every moment in every moment, which is this all possibility to be anything in the next moment. If we want that to be to go nicely, we plant it by helping things go nicely. Don't we? Otherwise it could be as chaotic as a dream. Yeah, one moment we're driving to the grocery store, the next moment, I don't know, you know, we're at the beach in Costa Rica, and the next moment you're in a earthquake, you know, and everybody's dying in the next moment, like that wouldn't be so useful maybe, but maybe it would, right? Maybe that's what it's like to be aware of our emanations. It's like this one, that one, this one, that one. I don't know. Okay. So Lama Christi kept saying again and again, there's nothing that we can't use as our practice. There's nothing that's not an opportunity to plant goodness, to plant kindness. But we need to make the choice to do so, and not make the choice because somebody said, make the choice. But we, right, we chew on all these ideas, and at some point, we get enough of a glimpse that we go, oh, right, if I keep doing what I've been doing, I'm going to keep getting what I've been getting. Nobody can change that but me.I'm going to choose to make this shift, and then we can hold it for a little while, and then things get hard, and we slide back. But once we've made the choice, we've made an imprint in ourselves that we'll keep coming back to it. We'll have opportunities that will remind us. And then part of that choice then is, I choose to recognize that everything that's happening is happening for the purpose of bringing this one to stopping the suffering that it has created, right, since beginningless time. Like, everything is about the opportunity for me to end, end the mistake. And, you know, we tend to think, oh, yeah, when an unpleasant thing happens to me, I'm purifying opportunity to make merit. And we forget that the pleasant things that happen are also our own seeds ripening. And we can use that too as opportunities to plant seeds for future pleasantness for everybody by sharing it, offering it, right, doing something with the goodness moments to help perpetuate them. Not meaning making chocolate ice cream that you get more in your bowl, the more you eat, because who wants chocolate ice cream forever. But the pleasure of chocolate ice cream, right, can come back. Even when you're, I don't know, seeing a flower, the same kind of pleasure can arise. And then that pleasure can become perpetuated, perpetuated, perpetuated by sharing it. Not by going out and finding more ice cream, maybe going out and getting ice cream for somebody who loves it, as we understand the process. So, as we are choosing this path, we keep choosing and use every opportunity that comes to us, because every experience is our own ripening. And they are being burnt off, right? To ripen a seed, that seed is done and gone, right? So, just to ripen things and not perpetuate them, not replant them, is a goodness. But we don't ever not plant seeds. By experiencing something, we have a response to it and that plants a seed. Just the mental movement of the experience is replanting. And then the more intentional we are about our planting seeds, right, the more we can direct our, I don't mean direct, the more we get to the place where whenever those seeds ripen, they will be great. They will be helping me move on along this path to the end of suffering for everybody. So then our focus of attention can be just plant. Plant the seeds we understand will create the end of suffering for everyone. How do we know what those seeds are? We have our vows. Right? We have our guidelines of behavior. That's why we have them. Mostly they are avoid this, avoid that, avoid this. And then we can flip those around to the positive. Do this, do that. It can help us map out how we want to train ourselves if we look at it that way. Hmm. So there isn't anything pleasant or unpleasant that we couldn't train ourselves to recognize. This is unpleasant. It is empty. It could change in a moment into paradise. If I had the seeds, the one yelling at me could be Buddha guiding me to paradise. If I had the seeds, how do I make the seeds for that to be my future experience? Number one, I don't yell back, right? Number two, I try to be kind. I'm sorry you're upset. How can I help you? Maybe they get more upset. I'm sorry you're more upset. How else can I help you? Right? The result in the moment is not a result of what you just did. It's from the past. We know all this. So pleasant things we share, we offer. Unpleasant things, does that mean you just sit there and take it? No. Does that mean we just go, okay, nasty person. I'll burn this off. I'll go be kind to somebody else. Yes, but we can do it a little bit further.Nasty person, but empty of that from their own side. These feelings, hurt, disrespected, whatever. Those also empty of being those, that conclusion from that sensation. My reaction, empty of being what's right or wrong. Actually, so let's plant what when it ripens will be great for everybody. Not just for me. When we're creating our paradise, we're not creating it just for ourselves. We're creating paradise for everybody. When we say I'm creating my Buddha paradise, if it doesn't include all beings, right? If we're not doing it for the benefit of all beings, it won't be Buddha paradise because we won't ever get it. We won't ever make it. It needs the all sentient beings. Bodhicitta needs the all sentient beings, right? That bigness. So he goes on to say, any strong emotion can break the causal chain. And that's really an interesting phrase to break the causal chain means to get off the automatic pilot of blaming the other. And so having to react in this way to protect myself, to break the causal chain means, oh, finally I get it, right? What's happening is forced by my own seeds. The way I respond to it creates my new, I'm going to respond differently than my seeds want me to, which is coming out of our seeds to the ability to say, I'm going to react differently. That seeds ripening to hooray, right? It's a big, rejoiceable to think back times where we were in a situation that we would have responded in one way. And because of something we've learned, we said, no, I'm going to do this anyway. I'm going to do this instead. Right. And so in our preliminaries to meditation, right? It's like offer the llama something from your practice. Do you see why they want us to do that? Because they want us to replant those seeds to be able to get off automatic pilot and to be able to choose a different response, a more wise response. See yourself offering that to a holy being increases the power of the times when we actually did it. Then you rejoice for it as well, waters those seeds, right? The system is built for our success. If we'll just let it, let it do its thing. We'll just cooperate. We will make progress. Sometimes progress like this, right? That's how mine's been, but progress. So here he's saying strong emotion can cut this causal chain. And it feels a little odd because when we have strong emotion in a situation, right? That strong emotion propels us to do our habitual response to it. Doesn't it? And, and it seems like when we're more in the mild, cool, common collected, it would be more likely that we can hold this Karma and emptiness choice thing because not we're not propelled by this strong emotion. But he says, because if we have this strong emotion going on, and we can still think, wait, emptiness of them, emptiness of me, emptiness of this strong emotion, hurting me in this way, we can instead use the force behind that emotion, right? Strong emotions feel really forceful. We can use that force with the new seed we're going to plant. We can plant that kindness with the power of that emotion. And he says, that seed planted with the power of that emotion that was an unpleasant thing turned into the force for a pleasant thing. He says that will have the effect of cutting a piece of our ignorance, bigger, stronger, more powerfully than all the little bitty ways we do it when we're cool, common collected. So it's not an either or thing, of course, the more we cut our ignorance in choosing a different response, the more our wisdom growth, but do it especially when we're in the midst of a strong emotion, and our emptiness understanding will like skyrocket. Just do it once Lama Christi said, and you'll be amazed at the shift. And we can see that even, I think conventionally, right? If we're in this pattern of a certain emotion, driving our behavior, and one time we can get a hold of it and use it in a different way, we're going to go like, whoa, wow, it's possible, right? It's really possible that this could shift. And that possibility, right? Glimpse, even if six times later, you can't do it, it stays that seed is growing. And so we can see how maybe, you know, finally one good, strong emotional situation and you choose wisdom instead, is enough to break that whole habit pattern for you. And those triggers go away, right? Wouldn't that be nice to be able to get rid of those triggers. And it's the only way to get rid of those triggers, right? Is to use them differently, redefine. It's not, it feels like, no, no, the triggers, they're still there if you're just redefining it. And it's like, no, actually it isn't, it's gone because we've cut its causal chain, right? The rest of its seeds that we probably still have from more have just shriveled. They're not getting added to by our belief. I have to act like this when I feel like that, right? When that belief is gone, all the rest of them are not being fed by the belief anymore. So how do we do it? We really do need to apply the mental words for a while. No, when we're in the midst of something, right? Anything. We're repeating the mantra, like, emptiness in appearances happening, right? Find some phrase that you can use. I use appearances. I've said that before. I know appearances and emptiness. And I've fine-tuned that myself, you know, ripenings and nothing but this unique projected reality.That's what I use personally. That's not from scripture. That's just my own way I try to rephrase as I'm walking through my neighborhood, this unique projected reality. And then it just feels more like it's going out. And I mean, Christie has said before, we are in fact, this process, we call profound dependence in constant shape shift. And so like, we're experiencing this in this moment, and the next moment hasn't come yet. So it is ultimately available to be anything. And then we take another step. And now it's this appearing reality. And that if we could, if we were like pausing, and then like the old slide projected, there would be, could be anything next that we step into, could be anything next, could be anything next. And then, again, we could have this awareness and be terrified, because it could be anything awful. But then as we smooth it into there's never a moment where there's not an appearing happening, then it begins to feel like this outflowing, providing, like this is all unique to this one. And look at it. Oh my gosh, look at it. Oh my gosh, look at it. And then what do I do with that? Personally, it's like any omniscient being, right? Look, right here. It's not all beautiful. It's not pure, you know, sparkly stuff, but still it's unique to me. So I'm contributing to their existence, aren't I? So offer, offer, offer, offer. Can I do that same thing when somebody's being nasty to me? I mean, in my, in my life, nobody's ever nasty to me, I have to admit, I really have that goodness. But I have unpleasantness happening a lot. You know, my knees hurt, my back hurts, my butt, it's too hot, it's too cold, right? It's like constant something going on. So whatever our constant something is, whether it's somebody being nasty, or, you know, something inside being nasty, that it's still this ripening and offering, right? It's a little embarrassing sometimes. Look what I'm, look what I'm offering to you now. I'm so sorry. It's just yuck. But for them, it's bliss, right? For an enlightened being, everything is bliss, wisdom. So it just sounds like so fantastical. What? You can go to the grocery store and just blah, blah, you know, offer it all. Yeah, why not? And then get the yogurt, right? And be doing the same thing. Why can't that be going on in my heart, in my mind, as I'm interacting with what looks like a real world, ordinary world suffering people? Why can't it be going on at the same time? So Ronnie, if people knew that's what's going on in your mind, they would lock you up. Right? So I don't let them know, right? Please, it's my secret. Don't tell anybody. I don't let them know. But you see, it's a fine line between fantasy and mental illness. So what if I took that state of mind, and I were to then say, well, then, my job is to be whatever any being needs in order for them to reach their ultimate happiness. And I know for me, the Buddhas were willing to, you know, be unpleasant experiences in my life that woke me up. So I'll be that unpleasant experience for you to wake you up. Right? Are we actually on board with the system, if we're deciding, I'm going to be what's nasty for you to help you? No, right? Buddhas don't sit in paradise and figure out, oh, I need to make Sir Ronnie's parents crash their plane to wake her up. They do not do that. Right? Was that emanations of Buddhas happening? No, yes, no, yes, yes, no, yes, no, it was empty. It was my seeds. It was the worst thing that happened to me and the best thing that happened. And at first, I nosedived. And then I came up and here I am, who would have ever thought? Right? Thank you for doing that. So it doesn't have to take forever, right? It doesn't have to take years and years to go back and go, oh, maybe that was for my benefit. But it does not mean that using everything for the path means I'm now, I can now, you are now open game for my emotions. Right? Emptiness does not allow us to do that. Yes, anything is possible. Yes, sometimes as a parent, right, you have to be wrathful with your child to get a point across. But it's right, that's of a need out of love. When we are driven by this new identity, boom, that's what we mean by love. Yeah. Right. I'll share this with you. I'll share this with you. I'll share this with you. If their seeds ripen, seeing you be nasty or weird or something wrong with you. All right, fine. I'll respond to that as well. It's not that with this state of mind, unpleasant things won't ever happen, but we will use them because we'll use our reaction to them to respond in a way that plant seeds for the end of that person's suffering. My seeds I've just burnt up. They've planted seeds. So I want my response to be such that it will help them when those seeds ripen for them. Maybe I've planted a seed in their mind to respond differently. And that would become my task on my path to use everything as an opportunity for transformation. Transforming ourselves and our world by way of the seeds that we're planting, by way of knowing the empty nature of everything that's happening. Being aware of the empty nature, even as it's happening, because that really does mean it could shift in the middle, right? The middle of the angry yelling boss, seeds could shift and all of a sudden they're saying, and I'll give you a $10,000 raise and you hire whoever you want. Like in the middle of it, it could happen, right? Seeds shift. They're shifting like this. Okay. Louisa, I had a hand pop up for a moment, but maybe you just pushed the hand while the hearts were coming up, huh? Did you have a question? No, no, no. It was just the hearts. Okay. You taught me that. All right. May I ask a question? Yes, you may. So what I'm understanding, maybe it's not correct, but please do share. So what I'm getting, it's not what you're saying, but what I'm getting is that being in a state that is open to not having, not being like, how do you describe, like in a flow, whenever you are open to whatever is arising, not to judge it, not to label it, or this is better, this is good, or this is whatever. It kind of opens, frees up the space for you to be more open to for this intuition to come in, because we cannot know for sure which of our action will be good. Like we cannot know in the beginning, we are going with the plan. We cannot make the plans of this. We will do, like we will not yell or we will yell or in advance to prepare to do this or that to kind of be good. Oh, okay. I cannot say it. So how to know which, what to react, whether to punish somebody, to show them that they're not wrong, that they're wrong, and to make them realize something or not to like be completely acceptant and not to be always kind, not to say anything and just be kind. We cannot choose it in advance, kind of. We need to go with the flow and use our intuition to act in a moment, to be present in a moment. Is this true or not? Well, you know, the problem with relying on our intuition is that our intuition is colored by the ignorance of self-existent me, self-existent other. It does give us greater insight, worldly, to follow, but I would hesitate to say yes, go with intuition, because it's ignorant. That's why we have our vows and that's why we study our vows and our, right, the vows are what to avoid and the opposite is what we can do instead so that we're more likely to avoid. And all the nuances in the vows is what gives us the guidance of how do I discipline my daughter, right? How do I speak up when I need to get a point across? How do I do it in a way that plants seeds for in the future when somebody needs to get their point across to me, I will be able to hear it. I will be able to, you know, maybe even act on it. How do I discipline my child in a way that when someone needs to discipline me, it will be effective. I will think about the, right, my decision, my choice of behavior. I will think about the ramifications of doing something to make up for it. I will, right, how do I plant my seeds so that when somebody does that to me, it will be effective, right? And then, right, so intuition may or may not give you the answer to that. Right, the vows are the base, but even the vows, they have contradictory. I know, that's why we need to learn them, right? We learn about them. Right, but we learn them. But even inside of them, there are ways to choose this or that. Just following the vows is not straightforward. How do I say? It's still a choice that you have inside the vows, how to follow them. Right, that's what I'm saying. So you work with the vows, you think about it, right? But in the moment is not... That's how well we need to know them. That's why I found that when I flip them around and said the positive, I could relate to doing the positive in different circumstances more than I could relate to just avoiding the negative, because then what do I do? Right, so maybe if you haven't done that yet, maybe that would help show you the availability of different behaviors. If you look at all your vows and go, what would it be like to do the opposite of what this one's avoiding? Because there's a lot in there. It's not just one behavior. There's a lot. Right, and sometimes that for some person, for some situation, one vow will be saying this, and for the same vow it will be different for a different person. And I think what I'm asking is a level up, not at the vows, a little bit higher level, that the decisions are maybe not intuition, maybe just the intention, is what you... Am I hearing that your behavior, even you're following the vows, because... Yeah, so ultimately we want everything to be driven by love, but we mean love capital letters, not human love.Right, love means I want your ultimate happiness. But see, that's too vague for me. That's a feeling, but it doesn't tell me what to do. Okay, but then there is the intention that we have that this is what we want to achieve. Where are we going about Cheetah is the intention that we keep, and it's leading us. That's what I'm calling intuition, but I guess it's personal as well. Right, right, right. So the danger with intention is we can say, my intention is to do what will help you reach your enlightenment as quickly as possible. And so I'll just borrow your car to go to the grocery store without asking you, because my intention is I'm going to buy you your favorite yogurt. Right, it's like, yeah, your intention was good, but your result's going to be somebody's going to take your car, right, without asking you. We can't say, oh, it's just intention. Yeah, that's why I'm saying that's next level. So first are the vows, and then the next level, because even with the vows, just practicing the vows, your teacher can tell you go and rob the store, and you still need to have discernment of some kind. Right, right, and your intention is inside your discernment, right? Your intention, it's going to color your discernment. Right, at the already next level, I'm not saying that. So the first level, what you said are the vows, then still, there is still a level that needs to be addressed. Maybe I'm not communicating. Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Yes.Yes, Luisa. Actually, let's do our dedication and so anybody who needs to go is properly dedicated, and I'll stay, Luisa. So remember that person we wanted to be able to help at the beginning. We have gathered goodness that we will use to help them in that deep and ultimate way someday, and that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to help you, guide you, inspire you, and then offer them this gemstone of goodness. See them accept it and bless it, and they 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 may. 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 loving kindness, filled with wisdom, and may it be so. Okay, thank you so much for the opportunity. Anyone who needs to go, you're welcome to click off. I'll stay. Yes, Luisa. Sorry, I didn't find it. I have a question with what you mentioned before, that anything that is happening in our lives is an opportunity to apply what we have been learning or to transform it into something beautiful. So if I get a bit confused with the signs, let's say, or the, like, for example, in my case, I'm struggling a lot at work, and then I keep pushing myself, like, I should not give up, right? But then I think, I remember Geshehla saying the other day, if you are a woman who is going through domestic violence, then yes, it's your karma that that is happening, and yes, you are kind of getting back what you have done in the past, but you should protect yourself and then step out of the relationship. So I get this confusing message of, okay, should I step out because it's really killing me, or should I keep pushing or trying to transform it, because if I don't, then what am I learning? Right, right. Well, how do you know what is the moment to stop? Right. It feels to me that by way of the words that you use, staying in this job is killing me. I hear that to say it's become too much, too dangerous to stay. And when Geshehla says, yes, it's our seeds for the abusive relationship, and get yourself in a safe space, we would still be working on our seeds that we know we have made for having been in a situation of domestic violence. We would still want to be working on those seeds, which we can now do because we're in a safe place. So for you to say, I just can't stay in this work environment, it is too much. The harder I try to transform, the worse it gets. It's killing me. And then you are able to leave, even with maybe the courage to not have anything to leave to. If you say, okay, I'm going to leave that all behind me, I'm going to start over. All of that's going to come back bigger someday. But if in leaving, you are able to outline what was it that was so hard, and then continue to work on those issues in a place where you actually can, you will have successfully used your current circumstance to make the transformation that it came to you for. You don't have to stay in it to make the transformation is what I'm trying to say. But if we leave it behind and don't ever address those issues that came up, then you've missed the opportunity to use it as the path. You don't have to stay in it. But that might be a more scary leap to leave it than to stay. At any point in any experience, and we're understanding, yeah, I know it's karma and emptiness, and I'm freaking out here. I know I can't respond wisely. Get yourself out, whether it's some situations happening to somebody else, whatever. I know I've been in situations where I've just frozen and not know what to do. And in retrospect, I've thought if I just threw myself on the ground and pretended I was having a heart attack, it would have shifted everything in that moment of what was going on. But I didn't have the presence of mind to do it. Now, I think I would because I thought it through. You know, as an option. It would not be a failure to say, I can't keep doing this wisdom process in the arena of my work because it's just gotten too hard and it's affecting me and my life and my relationships. And it's not that you're failing. It's actually you're stirring those seeds. And that's a goodness. But if it's too hard, back out. The issue that I struggle with is that because of the, let's say, the worldly responsibilities, it had absorbed me to the point that I don't practice or I cannot even do the Dharma things that I was used to do. And this is why I feel okay. It's not that I'm trying to transform because I'm not, because I'm kind of being absorbed by the mundane stuff. It's just I feel like I'm going in a hole. Right. And then. Right. Right. And we both need to admit that by leaving that job, you may not come out of the hole, but it will give you a window of opportunity to regroup and set your priorities. You don't have to stay. You can stay, but you don't have to. The teachings don't say you have to stay there. You have not failed to say, I can't do this here. Thank you. Yeah. I wish I could fix it for you. All righty. You know what, Louisa, that's all on the recording. Would you like me to ask? No, it's okay. It might help someone else. It's okay. Yeah. It'll help somebody. Okay. All right. Thanks, everybody.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 34
All right, welcome back. We are Mahamudra class. This is December 2nd, 2025. And I keep looking at my schedule and things keep shifting around and I can't remember, did we decide we were going to carry on through December or are we going to stop? Did we already decide? I see blank stares, so apparently not. So I would like that today's class will finish Bok Jinpa 16. We have four transcripts left of Bok Jinpa 17 to complete Mahamudra. So now would be a good time to stop, but that gives us like almost six weeks off. That's too much for me, I don't know about you, but then there's a five houses review course on the 16th in this time frame. So if anybody in this group has to take that five houses review course, right, let me know now. If you don't, then I'd like to do class. I'd like to do class next week and then the 16th and then take 23rd, 30th, and January 6th off. So then we're only off three weeks instead of six. How does that sound? And if you do have to take that, right, you get this one in from recording. Does that sound okay? I see one nod, I see two nods, I see three nods. Tom, yes, Tom. I see a thumbs up. Okay. All right. So we're going to yes on the ninth and yes on the 16th. And then after that, we'll be back on January 13. Okay, good. Thank you.
All right, let's gather our minds here as we usually do, please. We're going to do class first and meditation at the end. So we'll do our opening prayers. So bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again, please. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And there they are 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 love 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 that the worldly ways we try fall short, how wonderful it will be when we can also help them in that deep and ultimate way, a way through what which they will go on to stop their distress forever. Deep down, we know this is possible. Recalling what we know about karma and emptiness, 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 maybe even into a determination, and turn your mind back to your precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach us that. Show me that. 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 perfect 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 a blanket of flowers, the great mountain, four lands, wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. 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 reach 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 reach 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 all other beings, not just human.
All right, so we're going to read the root text together. The idea is to recognize how far we've come in having studied it, not word for word, but by way of the instructions. So I'm going to do the intro and then I'm just going to invite you to read. If you don't care to read, just say no, thank you.
[Everyone in turn:
Victory Road to the Great Seal
By the First Panchen Lama, Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen
I bow down to Mahamudra
My Holy Lama,
In You is the entire store of wisdom
From a billion Enlightened Beings
Yet you masquerade in the dance
Of donning the saffron robes.
To You, the one who grants to me
The three Kindnesses
With deep respect do I press my head
To the lotus beneath your feet
Mahamudra is the essential drop within the hearts
Of every Victor – past, present, or future.
It is the core of the meaning in the great ocean
Of teachings – open or secret
And so, in the footsteps of every
Mighty yogi who has Gone to Bliss
I will now set forth a light to
Make this practice of Mahamudra
Crystal clear.
Mahamudra
Reaches everywhere
It is the nature of everything
There are no words to describe
The indivisible diamond realm of mind
I place my head with great respect
At the holy feet of my matchless Lama
Lord among Yogis, Master of all
Who lays the teachings bare
Following the footsteps of that highest yogi
Dharma Vajra, and his spiritual son,
Who distilled from that great ocean
Of Geluk advices, both open and secret
A single drop of the essence—
The perfect summary,
I grant to you this book of guidance
On the practice of Mahamudra
Divide this teaching into three:
The prelude, the main event
And the conclusion,
Here now is the first of the three:
Since refuge is the entrance to
The teachings of the Buddha
And the Wish the central pillar
Holding up the Greater Way,
Just mouthing words is not enough—
Fervently take refuge
And bring the Wish into your heart
Whether or not you can see
The reality of your own mind
Depends on how well you have
Gathered goodness, and
Cleared away the dirt
So purify your broken vows
With the 100 syllables—
Complete exactly 100,000 mantras.
Then do the hundred prostrations—
As many cycles as you can
Now beg for help from your root Lama
The One inseparable in nature from
Every Buddha of the past, present, or future.
Go to Them again and again
From the bottom of your heart
Although there are myriad schools of thought
On the subject of Mahamudra
They can all be grouped into
The open and the secret ways.
This is the Mahamudra of
Saraha and the exalted Nagarjuna
This is the Mahamudra of
Naropa and Maitripa
It is the deepest core within
The unsurpassed class of the secret word
Illumined in the collected works
‘Attaining’ and ‘The Essence’
Then there is the former one
Of the great, medium, and brief
Which teaches us directly
How to meditate on emptiness
As that highest realized being
Nagarjuna has stated
‘There is no other path to freedom
Any different than this’
In keeping with his true intent,
In the words of the Lamas of my lineage
Now at last the time has come
To give the instructions on Mahamudra—
The way to meet your mind, face to face
The Spontaneous Capsule,
Gauma,
The Practice of the Five;
Balancing a Bitter Taste,
Instructions in Four Syllables;
Putting Our Torment to Rest,
Cutting off the Object
The Great Completion;
A Book of Notes on Middle-Way View…
It has been emburdened
With so many different names
But anybody skilled in both
The texts and arts of reasoning
Or any yogi who has had
The actual experience
Can delve into their true meaning
And see that they all come down to
The same basic idea.
There are two methods we can use
To undertake this practice—
Using the View to reach meditation, and
Using meditation to reach the View.
Here we will be following
The latter of the two
Atop a seat conducive
For reaching meditation,
Fix yourself in the seven-pointed
Posture of the body
Clear away with the nine-fold
Cycle of the breath
Learn to cull the mental fluff
From the crystalline awareness
Then with a heart of pure virtue
Take refuge and bring up the Wish
As we did before
Meditate on the profound path—
The yoga of the Lama
And after you have begged Them
Earnestly a hundred times,
Watch the Lama dissolve into you.
Don’t let any conceptions
Drag you into hopes or fears
Within this state of wavering appearances
Go and test the waters
Of deeper meditation
Where there is no movement whatsoever
Just like falling into sleep
Or losing consciousness
Don’t try to stop
The thoughts which come to mind
Set yourself off at a distance
Of undistracted awareness
Use the sentry of the mind
To catch it running here or there
Then hone in on your focus
To gaze nakedly upon
Its true nature – crystal and aware
Whatever mental picture
Happens to arise
Meet it face to face
For what it is
Or, be like a blade master
Chopping off the head
Of any conceptual thought
That dares to show its face
Then at the end of battle
When you are staying, still
Let go, without
Relinquishing awareness
“Lock it down, then
Let it loose—
This is where
To leave your mind”
So they say, and furthermore:
“If you release
This mind of yours
All tangled up in knots
Have no doubt that
You will be released”
Loosen up
Just as it states,
Without getting distracted.
And when you look into the face
Of any thoughts that come your way
They simply vanish by themselves—
Fading into emptiness;
Then even as you stay there, still
Investigate the mind
You’ll see its emptiness unveiled
Luminous and clear
This is known as “mixing
The moving with the still."
So, don’t stop an image
If it happens to arise
Recognize it as a movement
Stay in its true nature
It’s similar to the metaphor
Of a bird held captive on a boat
Who tries to fly away:
“It’s just like the raven
Who flies from a boat—
Once he circles ‘round
In every direction,
He’ll come back to
Land on it again”
If you continue in this way…
You’ll see the face of meditation
crystalline and bright
Unobscured by anything at all
And since it has no solid form
It is like the sky—
Inherently empty
And anything that crosses it
Is likewise crystal clear
“If you release
This mind of yours
All tangled up in knots,
Have no doubt that
You will be released.”
“Lock it down, then
Let it loose—
This is where
To leave your mind.”
These days almost every master
Meditating in these snow capped peaks
Is singing with a single voice—
“When you see directly
This ultimate nature of your mind
It is of course by utilizing
Meditative vision
But it cannot be defined—
You cannot point and say: “It's this.”
The guidance pressed into our hands
By the Able Buddhas is to
Hold the mind loose
Without grasping onto
Anything that comes to mind.”
What they say is true of course
But Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen
Will tell you how it is:
This technique is an extraordinary
Way to trick beginners
Into reaching mental stillness
And it is also the way to
Encounter the deceptive state
Of your mind, face to face
But how to meet the ultimate nature
Of your mind, face, to face?
Now I will explain to you
The way to go about it
By setting forth the whispered words
Of my holy root Lama
The One who holds the wisdom
Of the Enlightened Buddhas
The One who lures us through the guise
Of holding saffron robes
The One who washes clean away
The darkness of my mind.
And I agree that one is free
From all elaboration
In either the cycle or beyond—
Free from any extreme
Of existence or the like—
Within the deep space of
A perfect suchness meditation.
Then once you've emerged from it
If you stop to look around
You'll find a world in name alone—
Simply a projection.
The interdependent workings of things
Arise infallibly.
They seem to rise up on their own
Just like a dream, or a mirage,
A moon inside a lake,
Or a magical display.
The play of this appearing world
In no way negates emptiness;
And emptiness is not a
Refutation of appearances.
When emptiness and interdependence
Become one and the same,
That's the pure and perfect
Path Called forth into being.
It is that wise old recluse
Known as Lobsang Chukyi Gyeltsen
Who has spoken this advice to you.
And by the virtue I have done,
May every single wandering soul
Quickly rise to victory
By traveling this Path,
This one and only door to Peace.
May all beings be happy.
]
Yay. Thank you. Can you remember the first time you heard this verse? And the reaction to it? And then now? I'm hoping it's more familiar. Okay, I see now what he's talking about. I'm getting it. And then we even recognize his metaphors, right? About the dream, the mirage. We talked about that stuff. And so in his last part, this is how it really is. I don't know. I still read that. And I'm hoping he'll go number one, do this. Number two, do this. Number three, do that. And he doesn't, right? But he goes into this idea of appearances and emptiness, and emptiness and appearances, and back and forth and back and forth. And so that's what we've been starting to dig into. And we'll dig into further as we finish up this Mahamudra commentary that we've been studying. Opsang Juki Gyaltsen's auto-commentary. And we had left off last week in this discussion about how we are trying to train ourselves to toggle between our recognition of appearances that have to be empty of self-nature. And are trying to grapple with what do we mean when we say the empty nature of something? And what's the relationship between that emptiness and the thing? Because you can't have an emptiness without the thing. And you can't have the thing without its emptiness. And our mind naturally goes, well, then which one's there first, right? And that's the big mistake, isn't it? That's our misunderstanding talking. One of them has to be there first. And then it's like we go, no, there can't be one of them there first. There's just both. And my circuitry still like goes, pops a few gaskets or whatever those things are called, synapses, when I try to think of two things arising, right? This thing interdependence, profound dependence is the word I relate to right now. So, OBSUNGCHUKWI GELTSEN's method, right? Is we set ourselves all up and then our aware is practicing being able to be aware of arisings, right? With more and more subtle identifications of those arisings. So that we can just first impose. Oh, there's the sound of the bird in the tree. No, nothing about it is bird in the tree.There's just sound. Well, wait, there's nothing about that experience that sound until I label it sound. But wait, right? We keep going, keep letting go of the label, the thing that gets the label. To be able to practice being able to be in that awareness of just this constant shape-shifting happening. And then that's actually quite profound to get to that, you know, in the flow of mind, the appearing nature of the mind we've reached. But that's not Maha Mudra, right? That is meeting the appearing nature of our mind face to face. Oh, it's all right. All my seeds ripening. But that's not the true nature of the mind. Because the true nature of the mind is the fact that it's nothing but that happening, right? It's empty nature. And then we try to find the mind itself as some separate thing that's being aware of these things going by. And I don't know, my mind still gets sort of scrambled when I get in there trying to dig down in, although I know the punchline. And so I can jump right to the punchline. But there's a usefulness in trying to find that thing called the mind that's being aware of all this flow that is the mind. But we're still holding the mind as some separate thing that that's all happening within or happening to. And then to stay in that same, allowing everything to flow and still take a piece of that mind that we're investigating and go, what are you, right? And then do the same thing. Oh, an appearing thing, appearing, appearing, appearing, appearing. Well, I've trained myself to recognize that anything that's appearing is seeds ripening and nothing but. And then I don't know what happens in your mind when you get into that nothing but, but mind starts explaining it again. Wait, shut up in there. Just sit in the nothing but. But just to sit in the intellectual conclusion, oh, nothing but isn't the direct experience of the emptiness of my mind. But it's planting seeds to reach it. If we go through that sequence repeatedly and we are at the level of meditation called shamatha, then flopping into the nothing but can, you know, at any time we do that, it could be the trigger that we slide into its direct perception. And then we understand the power of actually being aware of the luminous seed ripening into pot on stove. As a direct experience, being the precursor to the experience of and nothing exists in any other way than that, the direct perception of ultimate reality. And so that's why in building up our Mahamudra practice time, we are intentionally being aware that anything that bubbles up into our awareness is this seed ripening, right? So Lopsangchuka Gautam doesn't say, visualize the silver seed opening, but we're essentially sitting ourselves into that experiencing seed ripening happening in that first half of our Mahamudra because we need the power of that awareness to trigger not just the conceptualization of the empty nature of all of those things as each one pops up, but then eventually sooner or later, the direct experience of the emptiness of those things popping up that will actually, the one that we first perceive apparently is the emptiness of our own me, right? The subject side is the emptiness. They say the first emptiness we see, but you can't differentiate. It's like the me is what's going to take us into the direct perception of emptiness. So Lopsangchuka Gautam, he's kind of going, get your mind to that space of aware of appearing natures of things, of anything that arises, and then take a corner of your mind and investigate your me, which we did for a while, right? Hopefully we're still doing. And it still kind of feels like there's a difference between me and my mind. And then he laid last week or the week before, he said, and your me and your mind, they're the same thing, right? Your me is your mind. Your mind is your me. And it's like, wait, so we've been working on that one a bit. Isn't my me something different? Isn't my me something different than my mind? Because me has a mind, right? And it's me, the meditator, that's doing all this stuff. But then when we go trying to investigate that me, what do we find, right? Ideas, an idea popping up and we go, whoa, seed ripening, nothing, but seed ripening, nothing, but seed ripening, nothing, but, and then we hit that. Well, I hit that wall. It's like, well, yeah, well, the me is looking at the me and finding the same process as when I looked at anything else. Well, then who's the me looking at the me finding that same process? And it's like, oh, wait, same thing, same thing, same thing. And it's like, well, it's taking my mind to do that. My me has to have a mind. It has to be aware. And then we do the same thing with that, right? So we're wanting to get really familiar with this. There's an experience. We recognize it as a ripening or a, right? A karmic seed, whatever word triggers for you. Oh, just an appearance and no identity other than that. And, and use that sequence to trigger this, this, this, this automatic, more and more automatic awareness of whatever I experienced. Oh, it's a ripening seed happening, including my me experiencing it. And this reveals the empty nature of all of it. So it can be what it is, right? Too many words. We're learning to do it in, you know, what's the word for when you just know something is happening? Gestalt or something like that. We're trying to be able to get this experience to happen both on and off the cushion without having to repeatedly go through all those mental words to describe it. So he was saying, actually I'm getting my courses mixed up. Kamalashila was saying, when you come out of meditation, recognize you're doing the same thing as what in meditation, was it him? But anyway, wherever it was, we learned it. We're wanting to apply the same kind of awareness in our outer life. Oh, this is just appearances, right? Coming up this constant shape-shifting of the seeds of my own past behavior, revealing what I call me and my world. And with every appearance is revealed the no self nature of all three aspects of the experience, my subject side, the object I'm experiencing and the interaction between.And then of course, in that like three spheres, there's a fourth thing, which is my impulse to react, which the experience of the object shape shifts into the impulse to react. And that shape shifts into the awareness of what I do. And that shape shifts, right? If we start with just the three spheres, we have the tools to understand that the feeling of what I want to do next is the same process happening. Thank you. And we come to realize more and more clearly that it's in that space of the react or response where the new seed planting is happening, that will be the deliverer of some future experience, right? We know that punchline. We're trying to get into the experience of it happening on and off our cushion. So we're learning on the cushion, how to toggle between appearances and their emptiness, which really means between my karma ripening and emptiness, which really means results of my own past deeds and emptiness, which really means seed planting now and emptiness, all these different ways that we can describe to ourselves what's within this process called interdependence. I prefer profound dependence. The fact that any existence is ripening results of past deeds and no nature other than that, no natures of their own, no natures good or bad, no natures right or wrong, no natures, no natures, no natures. So that they can be right, wrong, good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant, me, you, that, this, right? Without empty natures, things would be what they are, in which case they could never change because they would be what they are, independent of anything but themselves. And if we start from there, we go, well, that's ridiculous. Nothing is independent. Of anything else, nothing, right? We know it already. We think everything's dependent upon worldly causes or somebody else's, right? Mental affliction or, right? We have all kinds of things that we will blame for the qualities and identities that things have knowing full well, they're not totally self-existent. So as we move ourselves through our training, we come to recognize that what we actually mean by self-existent is for something to happen, something to exist, something to be, something that's not my own mental projection. Like the deepest level of to say something self-existent means it exists in any way other than nothing but my projection. And again, we hear the word my projection and all of a sudden we're talking, oh, it's like a movie, it's like a dream, it's like a mirage and our ignorant mind goes, and so it's not real, right? Wrong conclusion, the mean right conclusion, it's not real the way we thought it was real, but our projections are reality, they have always been reality, they make things that reality, they make things real. We need a new definition of real, like a new reaction to when we say real. To mean, oh, yes, real, because my seeds ripening make it so. My seeds ripening taxi cab breaks my seeds ripening legs and my seeds ripening hurts, that's real, right? The jerk taxi cab driver who is watching his phone instead of me in the crosswalk, that no such thing, not just that's not real, no such thing as that. So these different words that I just use, toggling between appearance and emptiness, toggling between my karma and emptiness, toggling between my past deeds, and emptiness, seed planting opportunity and emptiness, add your own pair of words. We want to get to the point where any way you say that pair, that they all feel synonymous. They don't to me yet to say toggling between appearances and emptiness feels very different than toggling between seed planting and emptiness, right? Because each of the appearances description is a different experience. It brings up a different image. The point of tagging them to emptiness and trying to reach the place where it's like to say any one of those gives me the same, I don't know, what do I call it? The same response, the same aha is what we're growing by way of our repeated effort on the cushion to reach that space of whatever arises I'm aware that appearances, right? I think by an appearance, like a wave, a bubble, no, a ripple on the ocean of my mind that shifts, right? To a different, something different, something different. So where Lama Christie went in this last class of Maha Mudra, which always included for us to do the final exam in class. So the class was shorter, her class, her words were shorter. And then we had an hour to do our final exam. So in this particular section, we had gotten, well, she pointed out that at the end of the root text, Upsanchukyi Gyaltsen finally says, okay, now we've reached the point where I can tell you what Maha Mudra really is and how to get there. And before he does, he says, and I'm relying on the words of my holy teacher. Recall that in his root text or in his commentary about his root text, he had gone into a little bit about all the different traditions, Maha Mudra practices. And he pointed out how they're different from his own. And then he concludes that section by saying, but anyone who's succeeded by way of any of them knows that they are all taking us to the same place. So he's saying they all do the same thing. He's saying, this is the one that works for me. It's the one I recommend to you, but any of them will take you there if you do them, right, the whole way. So it seems like there should be like one teaching somewhere or one teacher somewhere that is the source of all of it if they all lead the same place would be a mistaken conclusion, but one that could come. And he's personally telling us, look, I've studied all of those others and I follow the one that my personal teacher taught me. And it's like, we would go, duh, right? Of course you'd follow the one your teacher taught you because they're your teacher and that's why they're your teacher, right? You have that relationship, you trust them. And our tendency, well, so Lama Christie said that we shouldn't just leave it at the level of, this is his teacher teaching him. He used the practices. He reached that state that the practices were training about. So for him, what his teacher taught him worked. So of course he's going to teach that because he wants it to work for us. Lama Christie says there's a deeper message in there in the sense of this relationship between ourself and our high holy Lama, right? That the better we understand that relationship, the more powerfully that relationship can help us make this transformation that we profess to want to make, that we're on our path about. I want to reach my total Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. The relationship we have with this being called high holy Lama is the vehicle through which we make this change. And although we'll have many teachers, there's one special one for each of us, they say. And, you know, maybe the one special one looks the same for many people. Or maybe that one is one of the many teachers. And then even when we say, well, there's one special one and I've met them or I'm still creating them, doesn't matter. We are in this mistaken state of thinking there are separate individual teachers. And it's like, yes, they are. And no, there isn't. Because, right, they are all ripening out of our own seeds. But it's like, well, wait, if I have the seeds to see one being as, oh, that's the one. They're the one totally enlightened being. I know that even when I look at them, maybe they still look human, but I know they are totally enlightened being manifesting to me. And I understand nobody else can see them that way. Even as I'm saying that to myself, I'm thinking, and, right, they have that goodness in them.They made their own seeds to make themselves into that Buddha that I see. And I'm thinking that they are separate and individual and independent of my seeds, even as I know that my seeds ripening are bringing them to me, right? It's the level of my karmic emptiness understanding. Is there's a them who's enlightened, which means there are others that are not enlightened. But wait, if I can ripen seeds to see one being as enlightened, to believe, maybe I don't see it with my eyeballs, but to believe one being is enlightened, how come that doesn't automatically make me see every being as enlightened? And it's like, well, I have the seeds to see one being as a horse. It doesn't mean I see everything as a horse. It's the same. We could perceive or believe in one being as fully enlightened and not everybody. And as we explore that special being's existence and come to realize in and out of meditation that they are my projections and have no nature other than my projected reality of them, what happens, right, to our belief in them? Does it get stronger or does it get weaker? Oh, they're nothing but my projection. So I'm just making them up. So when they tell me to do something that I don't like, it's like, well, I'm just making that up too. I don't have to follow that is a common tendency when push comes to shove, subtly or obviously. So I'm getting ahead of myself. So we're not talking just anybody who teaches us. We're not necessarily talking anybody who is called Lama by a whole bunch of people. We are talking about that one special one that we personally have had some experience with that shows us, oh, they are a fully enlightened being manifesting to me for me to reach my total enlightenment as quickly as possible.That's wonderful to have that experience with someone. And they say, if we follow based on just that, we are having what's called blind faith, which is a great thing to have just that much devotion to someone, but it seeds ripening. And so this tradition says, spend the time to do your analysis, to figure out, right, where is this being, am I thinking of this being accurately to the way they really exist so that we can perpetuate them and this relationship that we have with them? Let's take our break and then we'll dig into what she means by this. I'm sorry, your cough is getting to me. I'm sorry, don't tell my cough nobody. Something that came up to me from last class in this class is like the wizard of Oz, like meeting the wizard for the first time. And one, he's a scam, right? He's an illusion, but he also reminds you of your own illusions and tells you what he wants to hear. And then I was like, that's also the me inside of me that is unveiling itself. So I just had this like last session and this session, I was like, woo. So many things are like falling into place, very in like a calm manner in a sense. Yeah, I just thought it was very fascinating because I was like, it's still gonna be that part there, right, there's gonna still be a little bit of it, it's still necessary, but I don't have to have all those stories around and all the things around. And then when we talk about like purification, so it's also made me realize like a lot of the practices that we do like in preparation are like taking care of the symptoms. So like Natty was talking about in last class about intuition, but without clarity, without like clear mind, relaxed mind, healthy, clear mind, you're not gonna feel very intuitive or you can't count on it versus those days when you're like, right, like when you're in a retreat or you come out of a retreat, you feel very intuitive, like your intuition is really strong. Or when you sleep for 12 hours and you're taking the sip of a tea for the first time, everything feels so like calm. And so it's like all the other practices are just taking care of our bad symptoms, right? Like they are purifying to get to see our reflection. And when we're in the moment, maybe there is not such a like peak in height in our emotion or the symptoms, right? Like we're not coughing so hard, we're not having this like physical reaction to crappy situation, right? Like someone yells at me, but I'm not. So like the symptoms are just not symptoming as high, right? Like you also said at the beginning of the class, like you don't have anyone bad in your life, but it's not like you're not experiencing pain or this and that. It just doesn't take such a huge like aspect of your everyday. I remember when I went to therapy about like trauma and like the therapy said, if like you have like two shoulder or like this is the path, the trauma doesn't appear on the path like 24 hours. It's just like, okay, it happened. And it's like you moved on, like you bought a new tire for your car. You're not digging into this flat tire 24 hours. So this class and last class just made it very like we're taking care of symptoms to come meet ourself in the me of the me, but it's still gonna be there. Right. Okay. So that was to always be there because it's the subject side. Yeah. And it's necessary to a degree. Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Nice. No, thank you. May I ask a question? Okay. What is the karma to have everybody pretend to not be enlightened? And then what can we do then to unplant that? I don't know. Karma to see everybody pretending. Is it a good result or a bad result? Uh-huh. Because you have to start there to be able to figure out the seed. If it's a bad result, it's from some kind of unkindness, some kind of selfish thing I did. If it's a good result, then it's some kind of kindness I did.Would be easier if everybody stopped pretending. Would it? Would you learn what you needed to learn if everybody stopped pretending? I want to say yes, but maybe not. Yeah. It's dangerous though. So that means bad things have to happen to me in order to get enlightened. Why can't our path just be one of pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure? It could be. But is it, do we typically learn something new that we want to change about ourselves because we've experienced some extraordinary pleasure? Probably not. If we were at the level of like every pleasure, we learn how to share pleasure with others. You know, of course you could learn your lesson through pleasure, right? One of my body vows is that. Like everybody's path will be pleasurable. But then maybe that'll mean, I don't know, that karmic seeds ripen them in a car accident and it's pleasurable. It's like, wow, I get time off work. Yeah, my neck hurts, but I get physical therapy and massages. It's like, well, the best thing that happened was this getting beat up in a car accident. It sounds crazy, right? And we already take refuge in pleasure. We think it's our source of happiness when it's not. I will point out that the Ganges Maha Mudra instructions did not come from pleasure. No, good point. I'd forgotten those. All right. But like if we did use every pleasurable moment as an opportunity to know emptiness, dependent origination and share it, we would gather goodness fast. In the Mixed Nuts yesterday, right? Geshehla was saying to his audience, he was holding a glass of water. And he was saying, when you understand, when you don't have misunderstanding, all you'll do with this glass of water is share it. And my mind was still going, right, so you would never drink from it. And then like the next few minutes later, he picks it up and he drinks from it. And it's like, I know, I know we drink from things, but at what point, right? At what point do you finally partake? And it's a good question to keep investigating because I know it's a limit of my understanding. To think if I always give something away, I will never experience it myself. But maybe I don't actually need to. Maybe thirst is better quenched by taking a glass of water to somebody else. But wait, you can die of thirst. Maybe you couldn't. If all you ever did every time you were thirsty was take water to somebody else. I don't know. Yeah, but that's why they call it the middle way, right? Isn't it? Well. I mean, not take things to the extreme. It's like, yeah, I share, but I also have my own needs. I don't know. Yeah. When you're not thinking selfishly, of course. But in my own experience and right now is I'm missing home. I miss my time. I miss and then I understand that I'm getting this unique opportunity to serve. And for example, Edward loves your classes to Holy Lama. And he sits and he goes, can we see class today? Yesterday, we're seeing a Tongaling class of yours. And last week he did Mahamudra and Bhojjimpa. I took the camera off. So we wouldn't distract anybody. But he was listening to your classes. And I go, where can I experience this? And I'm giving him the opportunity as well. So I don't know. It's just our minds are so tangled up in so many things that we don't see the goodness sometimes. At least I'm speaking personally, of course. That's why it's a path. That's why it's right. Right. Okay. So when Upsanchuky Gyaltsen gets to this, now I'm going to tell you the real, the real part. He references the words of his high holy teacher. And it's like he's perceiving his teacher as Buddha. He says his teacher is omniscient.My omniscient Lama. And when we use the term omniscient, right? We've been trained. That means they're totally enlightened, because that's the difference between Nirvana and Buddhahood is the omniscience. And the omniscience is a ripening result of extraordinary method and wisdom. The wisdom side, right? Of the method. So when he says, I'm giving you the words of my omniscient teacher, that means he's giving us the words of a Buddha, which have to be right. Right? I know. It's like, wait a minute. I become that bobby head thing. And it starts the way it starts us through that whole conundrum. Right? Buddhas are beings of direct, correct perception. Born of their goodness. Born of their total purification. Well, then how can Buddha teach six different levels of understanding of emptiness and dependent origination? Because they teach to the level of the need of the person they're teaching to. And then the one they're teaching to, they have their own unique experience of what's being taught. Don't they? So I would get slippery really fast. Can there be a totally omniscient being who can teach the same thing to everybody and everybody will get it in the same way? No. Well, then what good is being omniscient? If what you teach them isn't what they hear, but you know that or you experience it directly. So, you know, you are teaching them exactly what they are needing to hear, because what you are doing is ripening their karma. Whatever they hear is exactly what they hear. Yeah, but how does that enlightened being help me learn something new if everything's coming out of my mind? Well, everything coming out of my mind is new. Because it's new seeds ripening. They've changed from what was planted, right? We don't ripen identical to what we planted because they grow. Because there's time and because things, because there's time between the ripening and the planting included in the planting and the ripening that time. And during that space, those seeds are influenced by similar ones and opposite ones. So never the same two moments in a row. We can't even experience the same thing the same way. Even those things that we do habitually the same every single time. And we think we're doing the same way. Same thing. Never the same. So, you know, back to this holy omniscient being. Opsanchuki Gelson sounds like he's saying it's okay.These are the words of advice that will work for everybody. Because my omniscient being is, I'm sharing with you what my omniscient being shared with me. But he knows, right? He knows that that's not necessarily going to hold water for everybody who reads those words. Now, this text is an open teaching text. And as we learned before, it was sliding into tantra like every chance he got. As does Geshe Michael. And it's like once one's own mind and heart is so on that wavelength of dependent origination and emptiness as happening, the words we use to describe experience, you sort of can't help it. But share that those pieces that are called secret, they're only secret because our seeds won't ripen them until we've gotten to a place of a certain amount of cleaning out our belief in self-existent me, self-existent other. And once we have reached that place, the diamond way starts happening, right? We start experiencing special events, special people, special coincidences, you know, being taken care of, right? Seeing angels in the world, Geshehla calls it. Or getting to be the angel for somebody. Hey, we've had those experiences. You just happen to be the one who shows up at the right time for somebody and make this huge difference just by a little bit of kindness that from your side, it's like, well, I just happened to be there and that's what I did. But for them, it's like, wow, you are so special. And it's cool. So, Lama Christie encouraged us to go through this logic about who is our teacher, that special High Holy Lama for you, whoever that is, or whoever you imagine it will be. But that one who is the one you've devoted yourself to if you have them. So, Lama Christie said, supposedly this heart teacher that we're talking about, the reason we've taken them as heart teacher is because we perceive them as this being who knows what we need, knows how to help me, has nothing in their motivation other than getting me enlightened as quickly as possible. I call it a being made of love, compassion, and wisdom. And we are so convinced that that's who and what they are, admittedly in them, from them, that we've made this decision, okay, I'm going to follow them, I'm going to rely upon them, and they become for us a powerful karmic object. And that's the actual reason to have one. It's like, yes, they're going to teach us. Yes, they know what we want. And mostly, they are the one to whom our interactions plant our seeds with the greatest power that then behooves us to use them in that way and be really, really careful about our interactions with them. If they get too familiar, right? We're planting seeds of familiarity. If they're too formal, we don't get close enough to get cracked against our worldview. So we want to do this analysis, like, are they really enlightened being or not? Right? And that's a clue for starters, when we say really, we would want to start out by asking, what do you mean by really? Do you mean really self existently? Or do you mean really from their side? Or do you mean really from my side? What do you mean, really? And I'm going to ask you, when you think to yourself, I have my High Holy Lama or I have one in mind, or there's one from historical, and you think of them as fully enlightened being, whatever word you use, you know, how are you? How are you holding them? I have to admit, it's like, in them from them. I know karma and emptiness, because I know they had to do the deeds to purify and make merit to come to know themselves as a fully enlightened being. And I'm believing that that's what makes them a fully enlightened being. Is it or isn't it? Yeah. The fully enlightened being they see themselves as had to come from their own purification and merit making. Right? Right. Do I know what they perceive themselves as? No. Well, wait a minute. Then how can they be a Buddha for me? If I can't know their mind, so am I stuck that I can't ever have a Buddha in my life and until I know their mind? No, because I have non-Buddhas in my life and I don't know their minds either. Well, wait, then maybe I don't have non-Buddhas in my life. If I don't know their mind, I don't know. Do I? Oh, wait a minute. So let's go back. My teacher is a Buddha. In that commentary, he brings up that he says, you know, the Tibetans, they all grow up in this culture where the family has a Lama and then you, the kids, take that Lama too. And then you learn, you know, to look for your own special Lama. And, you know, you may or may not find them, but they understand. Oh, Lama is Buddha. They know all, right? We ask them to say the prayers. We ask them to do the blessings. We ask them to do the purification, right? Because we're not the Lama. We don't do that kind of stuff. We don't have the power, right? They're given all this power. To the Lama. And the Lama becomes a powerful karmic object for them. And they make offerings and they, right? They do their prostrations. They do all the right stuff. And Lobsangchuky Gyaltsen says, yeah, and that's all great. And it's all useful. And it's all mistaken. Because they don't actually understand, right? They're thinking of the Lama as special in them, from them. And they're thinking of themselves as ordinary in them, from them.And they're planting good seeds. But not seeds that will go on to help us end the suffering. Maybe that's not their motivation, necessarily. So Lobsangchuky Gyaltsen says, however, you see those relationships. And you see those people that when the Lama isn't able to come do the prayers that they want done on the day they want them done, right? Then they do stuff like withhold their support for a couple of days or, right? They're willing to behave not so kindly towards that Lama that they're praying to and bowing to. Right? Their behavior is inconsistent, which reveals the fact that they don't really understand what they mean by my Lama is a Buddha. He's criticizing. But in the sense of pointing out how it is that we can be on alert for our own behavior in our relationship with this being we are holding as this powerful karmic object that helps us recognize when our worldview is slipping. No, when we take this being as our high holy Lama, it's because they are so special.And then as we interact with them, those seeds of specialness can wear out. They don't have to, but we are using them up as we interact. And if we are not replanting, they are so special seeds. We could find ourselves ripening seeds where we're seeing them do something that doesn't look so enlightened being ish. And then our own seeds are colored with the misperception. And our mind goes down that road of, well, maybe they're not fully enlightened. You know, maybe I made a mistake. Maybe instead of automatically, like, what are they showing me now? Right? Why would a fully enlightened being do that? And it's difficult. If we were already closing, if we had the goodness to never see our high holy Lama be or do or say something that we don't think qualifies as high holy Lama, like we wouldn't need one. We need them because we can't hold. I can't hold them in this light in a constancy of relationship. So, you know, again, it's like, am I saying they aren't really Buddha? Or am I saying they are really Buddha? Or am I saying they are Buddha because we need them to be Buddha? Which implies they aren't really like, what are, how do we really grapple with this understanding of who and what they are? If I say your Buddha angel guide, they're nothing but your projection. What happens to their reality in your mind? Does it get stronger or does it like, wait a minute? They're imaginary. What if I say your high holy Lama is your karmic seed? Do they feel more real or they feel less real? If I say my holy Lama is results of my own past deeds, more real, less real. What if I say my holy Lama is a seed planting opportunity that has its own connotations. Like I say that and they're back to being real from their side. And something I can use, right? Which to say I can use still has a funny, bad connotation in my mind, right? It's meant to be good, but I watch my own reaction. Oh, they're my seed planting opportunity. None of them are quite right. There isn't going to be one way of describing that. It's like, oh yeah, that's exactly it. So we keep exploring, exploring, exploring. So Lama Christie did it debate style with her group and everybody was doing their answers. So the transcript is chaotic. I can't follow it. But I'm just going to, I give you a brief like review, logic review and let us chew on it. So the statement is, consider our Lama, consider my Lama. There's the, they're the topic. They are fully enlightened being. They are a fully enlightened being because try this one. Because Buddhas exist. So the way we apply a logical statement, the way we assess it is first you check. Is there a relationship between the statement number one and statement number three? Is there a relationship between my Lama and Buddhas existing? And it's like, okay, I think so, right? In that my teacher, I'm saying my teacher is a Buddha or a manifestation of one. So there must be some relationship between them and Buddhas. Then we look at statement three and statement two. If statement three were true, then necessarily would statement two have to be true. Not in real life, just in logic. If three, then two. If it's true that Buddhas exist, does that necessarily mean my Lama is a Buddha? And then it's like, at first you want to say no. But then as we, if we were to take the time to dig into it, it's like, maybe that's harder to decide. We may have to decide. We have to investigate what is it to be a Buddha. But then, so if we say yes, sorry, if we say no, just because Buddhas exist does not necessarily mean my Lama is a Buddha, then that kicks out the whole syllogism and we need to find a new because. If we say yes, then we negate statement two. And if negating statement two necessarily negates statement three, then you have a syllogism that is proof of your statement. So if we decided that, yes, it's true that if Buddhas exist, my Lama has to be one of them. Then we say, well, if my Lama is not a Buddha, does that necessarily mean Buddhas don't exist? And it's like, no, right? So even if we took second step as yes, third step says no. We wouldn't go to the third step if second step said no. So we need a new because. So I have some suggestions for different becauses, and then we're going to do our meditation instead of go through it. My Lama is a Buddha because, consider my Lama, they are a Buddha because I want them to be.No, right? I want my car to be a pony and that doesn't make it happen. Consider my teacher, they are Lama because I need them to be. My Lama is a Buddha because they teach how to stop samsara. That's a good one. My Lama is a Buddha because I can then plant seeds in my mind with the most powerful karmic object. My Lama is a Buddha because, find your own reason and then play with this. What it'll show us is that the Lama can be the Buddha for me and not for you. And that being can be a Buddha for me and not even for them. But if I decide this one's the Buddha and then I act in some way towards them as if they are doing something to me that I am offended by, then I'm showing myself that I don't really believe that the conclusion I came to because if my Lama isn't Buddha, then everything they do is to get me enlightened as quickly as possible. And I would be grateful for everything. And then it's dangerous because what if like Tilopa and Naropa, you know, any good student of mine would jump off this roof. Over he goes. Is that really what they meant? And is it like my misunderstanding that keeps me from jumping over the cliff or is it my understanding that keeps me from jumping over the cliff? Okay, so let that all simmer and cook. And let's do our Mahamudra practice, which isn't going to be about whether your Lama is a Buddha or not. All right, it's going to be the same one. All right, so settle your body and your attention to your breath. Use it to adjust the focus, the clarity, the intensity. Step back a bit into that watcher of the breath. Lie down and back to the hearer of sounds, either outer or inner. Let go any stories. Shift deeper into the watcher of thoughts, any idea, any picture. Watching them pass by, no following. Watcher remains alert and keen and slides down into more and more subtle levels of movement of arisings, sinking into that realm of mind. This continuous stream of appearances, more and more subtle movements or simple shifting. This continuous stream of arisings. No matter what appears, watcher is simply experiencing. Enjoy this subtle shifting appearances nature of our being right now. Next, take a tiny part of that watcher and use it to be aware of the watcher. When I said enjoy this subtle shifting appearances, what was it? Who was it that appeared to do the enjoying? That part of our mind experiencing the watcher. Is it any different than anything the watcher is watching? Try to find the me. What is it other than part of every appearance? The watcher part of the experience watching. Can it be separate from the experience? Can it be the same two moments in a row? Can it not exist at all? What is it independent of any other factor? Identify the appearing nature of your watcher, part of every ripening and step into its true nature. Whatever is happening right now, recognize it as appearing and then step into its true nature. And so this true nature is necessary for whatever appearing is happening. Come back up into the flow. Come back up into the awareness of some specifics in the flow. Up to the awareness of sounds. Up to the awareness of your breath. See how your whole body pops into being. Become aware of that appearing nature body here in room. Know its true nature too. When you're ready, open your eyes. Look at something very specific. Identify that object. Look at something else very specific. Identify that object to get grounded again. So I hope we're getting familiar with the sequence. Down, down, down, down till we're in this. Feels to me like an ocean with not these kind of waves, but just the kind of waves that rise and fall. And then from under there, we go, who's watching? And then realize it's just part of the rise and fall. And then it's like, wow, nothing other than that. And then hold that pause for however long we can. Something comes up. Just start from there. Appearances, me watching appearances. Appearances, nothing but ripenings. Into that all potentiality. In and out, in and out, in and out. Hopefully spending more time in as it gets more familiar as we grow the seeds to be able to slip into that. Use your own words. I use what's its true nature. But we might want to use somehow, you know, absence or empty or potentiality. We want the sense of something gone, but it's a little slippery because there isn't anything that goes away, but a belief. But it's a definitely a different feel to be grasping to emptiness as a thing versus the absence of own identity. So we don't want it in words. We want it in sensation. I don't know how to say it. All right, so well done. Remember that being we wanted to be able to help at the beginning of class. We've learned some stuff that we will use sooner or later to help them in that deep and ultimate way. And that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your reliance upon them. Ask them to please, please stay close to continue to help you, guide 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 your heart. 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 may. So use those three long exhales to share this goodness with that one person. To share it with everyone we love. To share it with every existing being everywhere. See them all filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so. Yay, thank you.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 35
Alright, welcome back. We are Mahamudra class. It's December 9th, 2025.
Let's gather our minds here as we usually do. Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. 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 just by way of your thinking of them. They are gazing at you with their unconditional love for you, smiling at you with their holy great compassion. Their wisdom radiates 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 them 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. Deeper down we know this is what we are meant to become. So we turn our minds back to our precious holy being.
We know that they know what we need to know. What we need to learn yet. What we need to do yet.
To become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, Please, please teach me. Show me, guide me.
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 perfect 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 a blanket of flowers. The great mountain.
Four lands. Wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of a Buddha.
And offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest community. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest. May we reach 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. To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest.
May we reach 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.
To the merit that I do in sharing this class and the rest. May all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. So did anybody explore that issue about why one special lama is omniscient? The reason we were even talking about it was because First Panchen Lama, towards the end of his text, he says, You want to know how to really do Mahamudra? To meet our own mind face to face? Now I'll tell you what my holy perfect lama taught me.
And you know, in the word perfect, means their Buddha. Means they are omniscient. And so it's implying that Panchen Lama used that method and achieved results.
And so that's why he's sharing it with us. Because it worked for him. So that means it's definitely going to work for us, right? So it's not going to work at all.
No. Now we know the punchline. If we have the seeds, it'll work for us.
But I don't know, just to hear that, it leaves me feeling like, Well, what the heck then, you know? If I've got the seeds, it'll happen. If they don't, it won't happen. But that'd be true for any of their methods too.
But here we are in this class, learning this method. Those are our seeds. So it's like, wait a minute, maybe we do have the seeds for his method because here we are in a class about his method.
Where's that coming from? Right? So it's like, oh, it's meant to encourage us, not discourage us. Because by the very nature of taking a class by Panchen Lama, it means we have the seeds for his teaching and his methods. Otherwise, we'd be in a class about whatever the other ones were.
I'm not remembering right now. And then that would be the method that we would use to reach that no-self nature, me, face-to-face for the first time. And in his text, he went through at least mentioning all those different methods.
And he said, you know, anybody who achieves the goal sees that all those methods can take you to the goal. So then why learn any one over the other? Because we've got seeds for one over the other. So thank goodness we hear about all of them.
Because maybe, I don't know, maybe you find seed shift and you find yourself in a different practice, a different lineage. And nothing wrong with that. I hope it doesn't happen because I love you all.
But it wouldn't mean, oh, you know, I wasted all my time in that Gelugpa stuff because now I'm where I belong. Because we would have learned a whole ton of stuff in the Gelugpa stuff that would then help us to understand this shift. So she wasn't making the case for shifting practices.
Just pointing out that when we hear Panchen Lama saying, you know, now I'll tell you how it really is, our minds tend to think, oh, that means all the rest of those is not how it really is. And that's a mistaken reaction, right? Born of our ignorance that makes us compare. When it's revealing to us our own seeds telling us we're in the right place, right? Hopefully to encourage ourselves.
So then our next question would be, for my Mahamudra practice to be what takes me along the path to trigger that direct perception of the lack of my own true nature, and so therefore the lack of true nature of all existing things, I need to cultivate that. I don't want to just assume that I have enough seeds to carry me all the way there because we're using them up as we're planting new ones in each of these classes, and we're using them up as we're planting new ones with each Mahamudra meditation we do, in class and out of class. So our question would be, how do I cultivate these seeds so I don't run out before I actually achieve my goal? We would want to be gardening our seeds of learning the Mahamudra by both practicing what we learn and sharing with somebody else something about what we've learned.
Not meaning you have to go sit somebody down and say, let's do a Mahamudra, but having some kind of discussion with somebody about what you learned, what you talked about. And it can be amongst each other. It doesn't have to be somebody different or somebody new.
We would want to be somehow using something that we've learned in daily life, both on and off the cushion. And with Mahamudra in particular, we're learning that toggle between the appearing nature and the no-self nature that has to be within, is that right, the appearing nature of any experience that we have. So at any moment that we are able to just stop and go, whoa, this is projections and nothing but is what it is to cultivate our Mahamudra.
So then we learn it from someone. And then I'm trying to make the leap from the person who teaches you the Mahamudra and the relationship with that holy being that we call up at the beginning of class, who's really the one who's teaching you the Mahamudra, right? I'm just the go-between. And so this relationship with this holy being that we have, is this pivotal piece of our gardening our seeds of any practice, but I'm talking about Mahamudra practice, through which we grow our seeds for our Dharma study, contemplation, and meditation, to add to the seeds we already have, to get them to ripen into progress along the path.
So this being that we are learning to devote ourselves to, they need to have the qualities that we aspire to, because otherwise there's no reason to devote ourselves to them. If we devote ourselves to somebody who's a spectacular soccer player, but we're not the least bit interested in learning how to play soccer, it's like, what good is that? We want to have this relationship with a being who has the qualities we want to grow in ourselves, and then from my puny perspective, I don't really even know completely what those qualities are that I want to grow in myself. I have an idea and I cultivate those, and then they get bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper, or broader and broader, I don't know what adjective to use.
As I gain glimpses into the quality of this being that is the one I'm using to take me along my path. So we need that being to know, to know the practices, to know the theory, to know the philosophy, to have gone through the process of having been ordinary suffering being, and learned how to stop perpetuating that, and learned how to garden their own seeds. Then we can be inspired by them, and have aspiration to follow in their footsteps, and grow our trust in their teaching and their advices and their guidance.
Then once we decide to open ourselves to someone, being that one that we trust with our spiritual real estate, to trust with our own progress from suffering being to totally enlightened being. Once we make that determination, then everything that they do is exactly what we need. Whether it's what we wanted or not, whether it's what we expected or not, whether we even see it as them having intended to do it or not.
They are opening the door to them as our precious holy guide. Makes that relationship be such that we use everything that we perceive about them for our own progress. It's tricky though.
They don't want us to follow them blindly. And we use everything as personal instruction. Meaning everything is a choice-making opportunity for the highest merit, for the highest and best of everyone concerned.
And we can use someone like that whether we're physically close to them or not. And if the one we are seeing in that way is currently manifesting a physical body, and then for whatever reason they no longer are, it does not mean that your relationship with them has to stop. Because they never were that physical body to begin with.
So, Lama Christie said it's the virtue of believing in them that makes it happen, are her words. But she was talking about this special relationship with the Lama, where they really do seem to know your mind, and they answer your questions before you actually say them. And the next class that comes up is like, whoa, that's exactly what I needed to hear.
Magical things like that. It's not coming from the Lamas, it's coming from our own seeds. Our own seeds of perceiving them in that way, like believing in them in that way.
Our own seeds drag it out of them. And it's a beautiful relationship to be able to rely upon that without losing the sense of connection and needing them. So, I don't know, in our class's discussion about why the Lama is omniscient, what a lot of people came to the conclusion was, well, because I need them to be.
And it's like, well, you know, I need groceries in my refrigerator, it doesn't make it happen. But it's a little different in the sense of believing in your teacher as omniscient makes them so. From their side? No, from our side.
From whose side does it matter? Our side. So, do we just make it up? Oh, they're omniscient. Kind of have to cook that one.
Like, what makes a belief a belief versus I want it to be a belief? Beliefs are tricky things, aren't they? Like, we believe in Santa Claus, and then all of a sudden something happens and we don't. And then we can pretend we believe in Santa Claus and still play along and have a lot of fun, and it can be really important. But deep down, no, I don't believe.
Versus, yeah, I believe. Where belief goes to knowing. And the reason it's important to think about beliefs is that our ignorance, our misunderstanding our world, is a belief in something that doesn't even exist.
So we don't need to bring to an end some substantial, powerful thing called ignorance. We need to stop believing in it. And shouldn't that be easy? Whoa, how stupid.
I'm done. Like, that's how easy it was with Santa Claus. You know, the big brother says, come on, you know, there's not really a guy like that.
I wish my brother had never said that. I don't actually remember. But beliefs, beliefs are powerful things.
So this being that we are entrusting this special relationship with or to, we grant them the power to mold us into fully enlightened beings. And the more purely we respond to them, the more power we grant them, and the more swiftly we get taken to heaven is the term that they use, particularly in Diamond Way, meaning the more swiftly we transform, and as we transform, our world transforms. So really our progress, the progress is in the hands of the student, not the teacher.
The progress we have our sights on, if we had to line them up, would be growing our renunciation, our bodhicitta, our worldview. And in the process of that, we're growing our meditative concentration, to shamatha, and then using that to chip away at our belief in the self nature of things and self. And then we'll use that to work on our mental afflictions and obstacles to grow our six perfections, and then we'll use that to clear the obstacles to omniscience.
And that's all we have to do. So Mahamudra comes to us as a tool for reaching shamatha by using our own mind, our own awareness as the object of meditation, and then using shamatha on that object to delve into the true nature of that object, the no self nature of the me, which is the one that one perceives directly first in one's first direct perception of emptiness. So we could do all kinds of different practices with that goal in mind.
And here's one that kind of cuts to the quick, brings us both to shamatha and to deepening understanding of emptiness in the same practice. Efficient. Nice galukpa efficiency.
Okay, so with that, we've actually completed Bhok Chimpa course 16. And in course 17, which is the last one on Mahamudra, we had four classes of Mahamudra and then three more classes of something else. So I only have four more transcripts worth to share with you on Mahamudra.
It's partly review, partly some details, right? It's a nice wrap up for this practice. Each of Lama Christie's classes, it takes me two or three of them to finish. So we've got a few classes yet to do together.
But then you'll be Mahamudra trained people up to you what you want to do with it. And thank you for that, because there aren't many who've trained in Mahamudra to this extent. So I'm proud of you.
So let's do the meditation that she gave us for this class. It's pretty much the same of what we've been doing. Settle your body, bring your attention to your breath.
Use it to turn on the focus, the clarity, the intensity. Taking on this bright, clear, eager observer quality. Now intentionally switch your focus to the sound of the breath.
Don't make it have a sound. Just tune in more deeply and let go of that identity sound of breath. Simply observing.
You lose the sharpness, correct? Now sink in more deeply. Shift your observation to your thoughts, any kind of mental image that arises. Watch it arise.
Watch it pass. Fascinated watcher, the fascinated alertness. As you sink deeper and deeper into more subtle awareness of those arisings and passings, reaching that level of that continuous stream of what we call appearance, to your awareness happening, the understanding none of this is real.
None of it has importance. None of it is coming from itself. None of it is what it appears to be.
So then everything in our outside world, all the way up to the thoughts in our minds, have this nature of illusion. And even as we rest here, deeply aware of the risings and passings as appearances and nothing but, we are grasping to our watcher, watching as something with its own nature. Our me is enjoying these subtle shifting appearances, knowing they are appearances.
So keep your same awareness of arisings and passings and take a little corner of that mind and be aware of the arising of the watcher, the me. Is it any different than any other appearance, rising and passing? Find the me, watcher me, you think is there. Does it stay the same two instances in a row? Find the watcher me, independent of watching something.
Once you find the absence, try to immerse in it, move toward it, staying in it as long as you can, and then it'll fade. And when it fades, go back to the watcher watching, then looking for the watcher independent of the watching to find the absence again. We'll stay four more minutes.
Embrace now knowing your own nature as emptiness and appearances in that constant shape shift. Bring yourself back up through the layers. Let the watcher watch the watchings.
Become aware of sounds. Become aware of being inside an apparently solid body, that apparent body inside an apparent room. Wiggle your apparent hands and feet.
When you're ready, open your apparent eyes. Take a deep breath. Take a stretch.
The Lama Christie had said that when our minds are getting closer and closer to wisdom, the quality of that mind will get more and more clarity, more and more sharp, more and more clear, more and more eager, more and more high, and that it's common that as a practice like this gets more and more familiar, that we might find ourselves sinking into subtle dullness. When we reach this place where we've got the watcher watching, and then we go, wow, but what about the watcher itself? And then recognize that if I can be me watching the watcher that was the me before, well, I've got the same process going on and aware of an appearance and nothing but, and then that's the same for that watcher and that one. Whatever method you use to take that peace of mind, look at the watcher me to find where's the one that is the one doing something to go, oh, my gosh, no such thing.
Where's the one that's there without anything to watch? Oh, my gosh, no such thing. When we get to that absence, the tendency is to sit in that aha, thinking we've reached it, and then our mind sinks a little bit. Now, subtle dullness is not drowsy.
It's not foggy. It's not. It's still quite an alert state of mind, but it's missing the keenness, the gnar, the eager, the curiosity, not in words, but in quality.
So Amal Christiee reminded us to continue to have our Sheshan alert, right, our checker for the quality of our mind as we're down in the part of our Mahamudra where we're toggling between the appearance of the watcher and the emptiness of the watcher, the absence of the watcher that we think is there that's doing the watching, so that as we penetrate into its absence, we don't grow the habit of sinking into subtle dullness and thinking that that will carry us forward because it won't. It's great to get there, but subtle dullness is a powerful seed to plant, and then it can take over our mind. So we need this extra alertness.
And so she said when you're getting close, penetrating into that absence, if your experience is that she called it electric, everything goes electric. She says that's the quality that tells us we're on the right track, and then it's a pleasurable feeling. And so we'll want more ignorantly, but then that's what keeps us coming back to our effort to practice.
Some days we get it, some days we don't. But because it's pleasurable, it helps us get there. But then she says the easier it is to get there, the more familiar we get with it, and then the less electric it feels.
We're reaching the same quality, but we've gotten so used to it that it's like then we risk again going into subtle dullness by getting too familiar. Somewhere that cycle will break, and we won't have to worry about losing our ability to hold that quality of attention. And really what she's talking about is the reaching Samantabha level, the stillness level of meditation practice.
And Panten Lama goes into that a bit as well, in that at the beginning he says, Mahamudra is a great meditation practice because the actual object of our meditation is our own mind, and we can't ever lose the object. Even when we're thinking about lunch, we still have an awareness of our own mind. So it's a sneaky way to get us even on to the level four of our stages of meditation.
Then as we're getting clearer and clearer about this watcher state, it's this tool for being able to more clearly recognize the me, the me, the one doing the watching. By the time we get to that part of the meditation, that watcher is pretty clear. And then we can investigate that watcher as the me to be able to establish how it exists and how it doesn't exist.
And that in the process of that practice over time, we will move ourselves through those nine stages of meditation in order to reach the level called stillness. And in this course, we haven't talked about stillness, but in Bok Chyampa we were talking about what's meant by stillness. And Master Kamalashila was saying, technically until we are at the level of stillness quality meditation, we're not even meditating.
We're just contemplating really well. And Panchen Lama is referring to that. He's saying actually our investigation of the me, the watcher me, to reach its appearing nature directly and its no self nature directly can't actually be effective until we're doing it from a level of stillness.
And the practice of the watcher watching is the method of getting us to stillness. So he's technically saying do the watcher watching part until you reach stillness. And then take the little corner of your mind, look at the watcher and investigate the watcher because you won't lose your quality of the mind on the object when you do this little thing that would otherwise be a distraction.
And then it's discouraging because it's like, I'm going to be watching stuff for a whole long time before my mind reaches that state of stillness. And he says, right, really, you would take a practice like this into a retreat, you know, a month or two or three, and just work on the watcher watching the appearances until you're at that level of stillness. Well, then what's stillness, right? And we learned that from Master Kamalashila.
Level nine, single pointed concentration, and then those practice eases come on and then we're at the level stillness. So it's break time. Let's take a break.
There's a but coming up, so not to worry, but let's take a break. And get refreshed. Can you get me some water? A little more water, please.
I have my glass here. It's nice. This left side.
Do the beamer. Do the beamer. That's a good idea.
How much? Do you want one? No, just a couple. You're a good teacher. Thank you.
You're a great teacher. Thank you. Any more seeds? Review class for quite a while, because people are taking the etch-it courses for Diamond Way.
I'm just thinking of just calling off the review class for the 11th. They can't do it. Wait, I thought you won't start until January 11th.
The review class 11th. Oh, I got it. They can't do it Thursday, because they're taking the etch-it courses.
The next Thursday is a retreat. You could have them do it from the guest list audio, the original audio. That's a good idea.
It's just a muscle. I'm sorry. Okay.
I think my neighbors are conspiring against me. Every time we're doing meditation, they're banging, drilling, and then the landscaper with the machine pass, and I can't even try to get into it, because it's too stressful. I'm like, oh, my God, because they come and go.
I feel like in the cartoons, when you have a spinny bird, and you're like, go away. Demons. I'm like, all right, I'll circle back to sitting quiet.
That's right. Are we back? So the advantage of retreat is that in retreat, you design your day such that you don't have anything to do, but work on your Mahamudra, and there's none of this usual ordinary life distractions, and you set up to do usually four sessions a day, but those sessions can last two to three hours, and within any given session, you would go in and out of your Mahamudra. You might do three or four sessions of Mahamudra exploring and doing experiments and really working on your mind so that you're working in this state of mind of watcher, aware of appearances and nothing but, you know, almost 24-7.
And we can see how powerful that would be compared to the hour or two that we spend on it in an outside retreat life, and then 23 hours in our same ordinarily worldly state of mind it's like you take maybe a big step forward in your meditation that day, but then 23 more hours of going backwards. It's difficult. It's, you know, not meant to be discouraging.
It's trying to make a case for building retreat into our lives is really, really useful, and it feels scary and impossible until we just put in the seeds, like maybe that would work. Maybe that would be something that would be helpful for my whole world is to withdraw myself from it from time to time. And you start with a long weekend and then maybe go to a week or 10 days and then go to two weeks and then, oh, my gosh, life adjusts.
If we keep the ideas like no way can I ever do that, then no way you will never do that. But just open the opportunity when somebody is going on retreat. If you hear about it, how can I help, right? Can I send you, you know, $100 for your meal? How can I help? Support somebody in retreat just to plant the seeds for your own life to shift.
And don't be surprised when it does, and it won't be this big, oh, my gosh. It will just be like the next natural thing is to get to go into a deep, long retreat. So anyway, the advantage is this undistracted focus on our practice.
So Kamalashila has said, until we're at stillness, we're not actually meditating. Everything else is contemplation. And Panchen Lama has said, until we're at stillness, don't bother doing emptiness of yourself meditation because it won't get you anywhere.
And then it's like ee gads. And then he goes on to say, but it's useful to pretend we're at Samatha level at some point in every session and do an investigation into the emptiness of our own mind because to just try to meditate on emptiness is the highest goodness we can do, period. So the seed planting of pretending we're at Samatha, working on the emptiness of our own mind, reaching that absence and resting in it is so powerful.
Our mind pops out and we look back and it's like, oh, no, that wasn't it. It doesn't matter. It's like, yes, it was close to it.
So try to stop the habit of coming out of that meditation and saying, no, that wasn't it. Just that was my experience today, seeds planting. And they will help grow our ability to be at Samatha level, to go into that more clear experience of the absence of our own nature, that we will then do repeatedly still planting seeds until the seed shift happening of direct perception comes on.
It's a system built for triggering that because we're spending all this time watching our seeds ripen. They don't say watch the silver seed crack open as we're doing the watching the shape shifting of the mind. It might happen that suddenly, especially if you're a visual, you'll see this.
I think of it as the ocean waves like going up like this, that what's flowing along and that at some point that may just shift to where you're seeing it come like this, right? Which is why I love that mudra because it just seems so perfect. Which if that other ever happens, it's like, no, like penetrate at that point. Is it anything that happens in any way other than that? No, it's a doorway.
All right. So the Lama Christie said in our direct lineage, meaning Geshe Michael, Ken Rinpoche, Trijung Rinpoche, Pabongka Rinpoche, in Pabongka Rinpoche's liberation text when he's teaching about meditation, about fixation, about review meditation, analytical meditation, and fixation meditation, he says, some traditions say perfect your fixation, perfect your analytical, perfect your review. Do each one first.
And then Pabongka Rinpoche says, that's like planting a peach tree and waiting until it's mature and giving peach free fruit before you plant your apple tree. Why not plant all three trees at the same time and cultivate them all at the same time? And then you can harvest peaches, pears, and apples. Right? Don't do one at a time.
It'll take lifetimes to do one at a time. So in our tradition, we cultivate our reaching Samantabha. And in the process of doing so, we do spend some time with each session penetrating into the empty nature of whatever our object of meditation was, so that we are growing both trees at the same time of Samantabha and Vipassana, right? Our special insight.
So that's why we do it the way we do it. Yes, we are still at contemplation level, probably. And that's fine.
We're still planting good seeds. It helps us, though, to understand that we would want to keep pushing ourselves, to keep checking and pushing ourselves so that we don't stay at the level of being a really, really good contemplator, but never actually shifting into Samantabha level. And it's like, how will I know when I get there? And I'm not sure the answer to that, to be honest with you.
It has to do with those appliances, the shinjongs, and that's why we're studying bok chen pong. So you'll know. You will know.
I can't tell you how you'll know. So, again, this class that I'm sharing with you now is the first class of Course 17, which means Lama Kristi's group had been off for five weeks. So she took us on a review, which I find helpful anyway.
So in Panchen Lama's Mahamudra, the first course was about his description of how to use this practice to reach this thing called stillness, the platform of meditation called stillness, which does not mean you're parked on one thing and your mind's not doing anything. Remember, stillness means there is balance. There is no more the struggle to keep your dullness and your agitation at bay.
That's just all gone. And so the stillness, the peacefulness is that you now have this mind as a tool that you can do anything with because it's so pliable and undistracted and not dull. That's what we mean by stillness.
So he was teaching us about using this practice to reach that platform. Then the second course was the different traditions, explanations or practices for what they call Mahamudra. And we learned a little bit about them.
And we took that longer detour into the practice called Gangama. And then finally, he gets to the Gelugpa presentation. And Lama Kristi pointed out that the very fact that he went so carefully through all the other traditions, pointing out that in the end, any one of them will take you to that goal of stillness and special insight.
Lama Kristi said the very fact that he went through all of that and pointed that out, that made that presentation a Gelugpa presentation, which is really interesting because she's pointing out that to be a good Gelugpa, you don't reject everybody else. You actually might even learn from those others and use what you learn to clarify your own position. Deeper.
So he wasn't disrespecting those other traditions in his teaching. He wasn't saying, here are these other ones. Don't do them because ours is best.
He's saying, look, there are different tools. He's honoring the different ones. That's an emptiness teaching in itself, isn't it? Yeah.
Then he finally says, now I'll give you the Gelugpa method. And remember that the Gelugpas are the last of the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. They're the most recent one to have developed.
So technically they are resting upon those other lineages and their knowledges. There wasn't something new that Jetsun Kappa came up with. He was trained in those others and he fine tuned them for his audience.
And so we might think of the four as separate, but really think of the three and they funnel down into Gelugpa. Not that they're not useful in and of themselves. They are.
But those of us who are in Gelugpa would be wanting to thank you from those other lineages. And we get it in Lojong comes from the Sakyas. The Kagyus give us a lot in our Diamond Way Vajragini.
We have Sakya and Kagyu. We still draw on those different traditions. What we seem to find in the Gelugpa tradition is this very clear description of emptiness, what it is and what it isn't.
And then that funnels down to us through Geshe Michael's teachings. Particularly that Six Flavors of Emptiness that is called the Maha Mudra practice module. But it's not this Maha Mudra practice at all.
It's a teaching about six different understandings of what dependent origination and emptiness mean at different levels of understanding. And it's an extraordinary course. We'll do it someday soon.
But it's not really Maha Mudra. It gives us the tools that we need to do an effective Maha Mudra, however. And so the Gelugpas do this so beautifully, really succinct how we misunderstand our world in all these subtle ways so that we can recognize when we're doing it, so that we can stop doing it, so that we can purify having done it and grow the seeds to stop believing in that way.
So then why is the Maha Mudra practice so special? And as we said before, it's because we are using our own mind as our object. And it's like, no, we're not. We're using everything that appears in my mind as the object.
And it's like, right. Can something appear to us without our mind being there? No. Can something appear to us outside of our own mind? No.
So as we are watching these things arising, when we first started, we were recognizing all the stories that arise, that identify the thing. They happen so fast we weren't even aware. I keep pointing over there because we had the tree and we had the birds in the tree.
And I'd hear the birds in the tree. And by the time I heard the birds in the tree, I had the whole story about the grapefruit tree with the sparrows. And it was all there in the instant that I heard that sound.
And so this practice was learning to be able to be aware of, I want to say that, but without that whole story, in which case it's not that. It's aware of something entirely more subtle. And we're learning to do that.
We went from outer sounds to inner sounds. Oh, that's the blood in my ears. Wait.
That's just that sensation there. Wait. Until we got to that layer of beyond words, but still something happening.
All of that is watching our mind. It was our mind ripening grapefruit tree bird singing. And to be aware of that is the whole object of meditation is the mind.
Not draw yourself a picture of your mind and look at it. Because there's no such mind like that. The mind is this experiencing happening.
Awareness, aware-ing. We've been through all that lots of times, but it helps me to hear it again, to get in that mode of the happening. I like that, ing.
But then we recognize that we seem to have this belief that there's my mind and there's a me that has that mind. So we would say there's a me that has a mind and there's a me that has a body. And that body, when we say me and my body, we could be thinking we've got it limited to this thing, my body.
If we're still at a lower understanding of dependent origination. And as we're getting more clear, we recognize that me and my body means me and my material experience, which then includes anything in my material world. And in my material world is triggered emotions that are not material, but they're sure related to my material world.
So me and my body takes on a bigger connotation than just me and this thing. So we can investigate me and my body or me and my mind. When we investigate me and my mind, it's the mind.
Our misunderstanding of our mind as being a thing with its own nature is the source. It is jikta. It is the destructible view.
It is the source of our suffering world. It is what causes our perpetuating our mistaken view that believes we can get happiness from some thing that we do in the immediate moment. And it perpetuates the view that anything unpleasant that happens to us was caused by the agent of that action, that activity.
So it's through our mind that we perpetuate our samsara. It's not through our body. Our body is the vehicle through which we act that perpetuate it.
But if we didn't have a mistaken mind, a destructive view of mind, the body wouldn't in and of itself go and do stuff. It needs a mind moving. So to meditate on our own mind, to learn about it, to get more experienced with it, and then to recognize the nature that it has and the nature that it doesn't have is how we bring this destructible view to an end.
And then there's this component between the me and my mind. Like, is my mind me or is there a me that's different, somehow different from my mind? And our destructible view, mind, makes us believe that there is a me that somehow thinks it's in charge when it really isn't. Or a me that's independent of the experience that those experiences happen to.
Or a me that's choosing things to happen in the next minute. We think there's a me independent of that process of the ripening happening in our mind. We're proving it to ourselves because we're being the witness.
We're watching it. And so we can see if we get our watcher really strong, we're actually getting our self-existent me strong enough to see it, to be aware of it, to be able to get a hold of it. So that when we take that little corner and go, well, what about this thing? To come to the conclusion, oh my gosh, it's the same kind of appearance, shape-shifting as everything that it was watching.
Because as it watches this ripen, it changes. And then this ripens and it changes. And this one and that changes.
Well, will the real me, real watcher, please stand up? It's like, so then we go, well, how's the watcher different than the me? And it becomes pretty clear, right? Wait, no, the watcher is the me. Same thing. Will the real me please stand up? But we go through those steps so that when we get to the real me, please stand up, we are less likely to hit that piece of, oh my gosh, no me at all.
So actually, if you're doing your Maha Mudra and you're working at this level and you feel like some agitation, some fear, some anxiety coming up, you're actually getting quite close. But it's the misunderstanding that the no me means no me at all. And it's a normal reaction.
Because when we say, oh, I'm nothing but a projection, a part of my mind goes, not real. Movies are projections. They are not real, right? All that awful stuff can happen.
And no, nobody got hurt. No animals were harmed in this movie, even though it looked awful. Same, right? Same, but not the same.
When we say, oh, my own mind, my own me, there's no such thing, right? Did you feel it? My own mind, my own me, there's no such thing. And my reaction is, yes, there is. And then I want to water it down, right? There is no self-existent me.
There's the me part of the projection moment by moment and a part of me goes, phew, there is a me, right? And that's on the other side of the cliff. Oh, there really is a me. Because no, there's not there really is a me.
There's projection, projection, projection, projection, projection, projection, and nothing but. And you can't have a nothing but without a projection to be nothing but it, right? You won't have an emptiness without some appearance that is empty of self-nature. So we can't non-exist.
Because to know we non-existed, something has to have an appearance of non-existence. And that's not non-existent. So our annihilation is impossible.
But until we really have that deep, deep, deep in our heart, when we penetrate deeply into this, well, where is that me? We'll hit a fear. And let the fear bounce you out, it will. But then recognize it for what it is.
It's like, well, I was getting close. That will help us be eager to try again, to get in there again. Rethink that fear is based on my misunderstanding.
Because it is true that when I penetrate through to my own no-self nature, I have penetrated through to the no-self nature of all existence. And it is not true that what I've penetrated to is non-existence at all. That rather what we'll penetrate to is the all potential at any moment for anything to be anything at any moment, including ourselves.
So where was I going with that? The power of Mahamudra, using our own mind as the object to reach the emptiness, the face-to-face true nature of our mind is its empty nature, is planting the seeds to destroy that destructible view. Do the destruction of the view that is destructible, that is what stops us from replanting seeds for samsara. Long explanation of why Mahamudra practice is powerful.
Because we're using our very wrong view as our meditation object. We're going to blow it out of the water. Is it the only way to do that? No.
Any method that will take somebody into the direct perception of emptiness blows away the wrong view. Some go around the corner and down the block to get there. Mahamudra is just right in your own living room.
There it is. When we go through the steps and reach that level of stillness so that we can actually penetrate through into the no-self nature of me and have it as a direct experience. But do it as an imagined experience from deep level of contemplation and we're still planting seeds.
And those seeds will grow. And we continue to cultivate them. So, Lopsang Chukgyeltsen spent some time talking about dakme and dangzin.
Dakme is that word for no-self. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to stay here very long.
Just to remind us what it looks like. Dakme. Dakme means self.
Me means no, none, negate. And then the other word is dangzin. Dangzin is that word to hold, literally.
But more in the sense of to believe in, to hold as true. So dangzin is the belief in self as true, holding to the self as true. Self-true, self-holding is what the word means.
So these are opposites. Dakme is no-self and dangzin is the self that we hold to be true. Truly existent, having its own nature, being independent of any other factor.
Particularly being independent of projections ripening. And when we think of it that way, it's like, no, no. My me is the projector.
It has to be independent. It's the projector doing the projections. It has to be independent.
And it's like, it can't be independent. Even if you say it's the projector projecting, it can't be independent. But that's not right either.
Because technically, the me is part of the projection. There is actually no projector. There is just the projections going, going, going, going.
And our real me, which is dakme, is in each projection ripening. They tend to say it's its own projection, but it can't be its own. Because it's planted always with the three spheres.
Subject-side, subject-object interaction between every seed is planted with that. Every seed ripens with that. And that's the me.
And that's the continuity of our subject-side. Because our subject-side can never be our own object-side. We can be somebody else's object-side.
We are always. But our me is always my subject-side, and there will always be one. And it's never the same two moments in a row, is it? So that's my train of thought.
So dakme means literally no-self. And usually that term, dakme, is used in the lower school's explanation of what emptiness means. The subtle no-self nature, dakme, meaning there's no core me that everything happens to.
Like there's no soul in Buddhism. In the sense that this core thing that stays the same, that's already pure, not saying there's no soul at all. But there's no self-existent thing called a soul, dakme.
Like a personal, subtle, me-independent. But not at the level that highest school is talking about, a me. So it's a little odd that he focuses on the term dakme.
Because we associate that with the lower school. So when we use dakme, we can be applying it to our own personal self-nature. And it's also a term that refers to any object's self-nature.
So this thing, whatever it is, it's inanimate. We don't think it thinks of itself as having a self incorrectly, because it doesn't. But we think of it as having a self.
Not in the same way that we have a self, but it has an identity in it from it, we believe. And that's its dakme, or that's its dak. And it doesn't have that.
So this thumb drive, it has no self-nature. But in a different way than I have no self-nature. The self that we're talking about has a different feel to it.
But technically, it's the same idea. To have an existence separate from a projection making it be there. But then even as I say to myself, Whoa, this thing doesn't exist except by way of my projection making it be there.
There's a part of me that goes, No, because I'm holding it. It's solid. It's real.
And a projection is like a movie. You can't hold it. It's like mistaken understanding of what it means to be projection.
And we're still working. I'm still working on that. Dongzhen is that belief that this thing does have its identity in it.
I set it down. I don't look at it. I think of it.
I know right where it is. And guess what? I confirm it because there it is. I confirm it again.
And unfortunately, I'm confirming my misunderstanding every time I do that. And I'm perpetuating my ignorance every time I go. See, I was right.
It's still there when I'm not projecting it. But to just think of it, I am projecting it as thought of thinking it where it is. So, you know, we want life to go smoothly and reliably.
And then when it doesn't, we kind of freak out. I had that the other day. I went out to the car to do errands.
I put my key in the car and turned it and the car did not start. And I laughed out loud because it's like, this comes from using that example in class. Now I have proof that it really doesn't work.
And then it's like my mind immediately went, must be dead battery. And then my mind went, yeah, but usually a dead battery does this, this, this first, and that didn't happen. It must be something more serious.
And then I started to like, get agitated. Who am I going to call? What am I going to do? So my teaching classes, right? I fell into the old worldview after a glimpse of the laughter, the uplift that comes when it's like proof, proof, proof, proof. But once in five years, that happens.
And thank goodness it happened in the driveway and not at the Fry's grocery store. Yeah. I really rejoiced in that.
And we got the problem solved. No big deal. But the thing is, those, those, it doesn't work, happens so infrequently and actually happens more infrequently, the more powerful our practice becomes that it's, I don't want to curse, right? It's almost a bad thing because we get complacent.
Whereas if, if the car didn't start more often than it did start, maybe I would start to wonder what really starts the car. But I don't wish that on anybody. Life does get better as we practice after, with some bumps in the road from time to time.
So again, I'm trying to make the case for why it's so special to work on our own mind. When we, for Maha Mudra, it's because we are using our time to chip away at this dungeon, our belief in things, having their own identities in them from them, our belief that we have our own identities in us, from us said more deeply, our belief that anything can happen. That's not a projected result of our own past deeds or any identity I can have of that's not a projected result of my own past me's.
What me does, does, does, does, right? There's not a me other than the one ripening that then responds to that ripening. Even if we're just sitting like a bump on a log, we have made that choice to sit like a bump on a log. Our mind is recording me sitting like bump on a log planting seeds.
We are always ripening seeds. We are always planting seeds. And that process is me and my life, me and my world.
This particular practice is zeroing in on that process happening. As our meditation object. And then we intentionally recognize it as what we're experiencing as that process happening.
And then add the intellectual understanding that nothing happens in any other way than that. Right? The negative is necessary. Appearance and nothing but.
Appearance and nothing but. So that we're getting more and more familiar, familiar with, Mama Christy called it the two layers of reality. But I think layers gives us the wrong connotation.
I don't know another word, but we're growing this familiarity with any appearance. We know it's the empty nature of all three spheres of that experience. With every experience, there's the appearance side, and we know it's empty side.
We can toggle. It, it, it takes intention to be aware of things as ripenings because they've already happened by the time we go, Oh, ripening. Right.
We're an instant behind. And then in order for it to appear in the way that it does, its own nature must be not there. Gosh, cause it blank, but an own nature can't be there.
If what I'm experiencing is my seeds ripening. So we're training ourselves to do that with the FICA street, to do that with the traffic jam, to do that. And then we're trying to train ourselves to do it with the other person.
Right. That's the hardest. When you're interfacing with another person, you've got activities going on.
It's so difficult to stay in that awareness. They're my ripening and nothing, but because you're talking to them, right. You're interacting.
It's very difficult, but it's so cool when we can do it because it's so shocking to our own system that I had to do it once or twice. Helps grow the ability to do it more often, which will grow our ability to do it on our meditation cushion with our own mind in this constant stream, which is what the other person is anyway at which makes them real. Right.
And makes them valid and makes them the garden within which we are planting our seeds in order to come to more directly. We need to really know their document, their no self nature to reach their no self nature. We need to recognize the nature we're holding that they have.
The dung's in. So in order to understand these things better, Lobsang Chukageltsen helped us to go through that understanding that in order to reach the true nature of our own mind, we need to first identify how we're holding to our mind or our me to exist so that we can see if we can find that one that we believe is there. We need to find the Gakcha of my me, the Gakcha my own mind, and then check to see if there is such a thing in order to find its absence in order to overcome this dung's in this holding to myself as myself independent of being a projection.
Why do we want to do that? Because our dung's in our belief in a me independent of my projections and others independent of my projections is the cause for all the deterioration that happens in life. So the very fact that the instant we are born, we are headed towards our death is driven by the misunderstanding that believes there's a me independent of anything I experience and that there are others independent of any past deed I've done. That deterioration manifests as a world in which everything is degenerating even as we struggle to keep things together.
So Lama Christie's example was she makes her bed and next time she turns around, it's all messed up again. And then she makes it again and next thing she knows, it's all messed up again. Right? For me, it's the dishes.
I finally do the dishes and I turn around and there's more dishes in the sink. You know, I'm the one putting them there mostly. And it's like those dishes are never done.
The kitchen is never all cleaned up. It doesn't stay that way. It takes so much effort.
Right? It's all because we don't understand that it's all result of our own past deeds, which if we understood that, we could understand that, oh my gosh, it doesn't have to be that way. And that just sounds nuts because it's like, come on. Yes, it does have to be this way.
That's how the world works. You know, like what does science say? Chaos theory, right? Everything's trying to fly apart and we're struggling to keep them together. But understanding emptiness and karma merit, there could be, we could be projecting a world such that every time we turn around, the bed is perfectly made.
You know, and no matter how much you mess it up, you turn around, it's made again. Every time you turn around, the kitchen dishes are all done and the kitchen is clean. We could make a world like that.
And I'm thinking, yeah, that means you've got a maid, you know, and the maid is just in front of you all the time. No. A world where our mind projects, things get better and better.
Things come together. Things are easeful. How would we do that? Plant the seeds that are ripening.
No, I don't know. Maybe somebody who's spent lifetimes, right? As somebody's housekeeper finally ripens a lifetime where, man, impeccable house always never gets messed up. Nobody has to clean it.
I don't know. But with emptiness and dependent origination, right? Anything is possible. And if saying that makes us go, no way, right? Like we're making an excuse.
Yes, I can live in a house where my bed is always made, but there has to be somebody there making it. It's like, well, I'm not getting it. I'm not understanding the power of the wisdom of nothing is anything, but ripening of past behaviors, right? And said that way, nothing but is its emptiness side.
Ripening of past behaviors is the appearing side because it's not just appearing randomly. It's appearing as a result of some cause. And the way I make my cause is by what this subject side perceives itself interacting with the object side.
But the nature of that interaction is what is driving the process of existence. Okay. So we're still reviewing.
He taught us that when we are investigating our, this perception of our me, there are three ways, three ways that we hold to our me and we're wanting to identify the the wrong one so that we can catch ourselves doing it and stop it. So first way we perceive our me is the simple unexamined me, which we've learned. It's like, that's fine.
That doesn't cause any trouble. If we could just act or react from the simple unexamined me, we'd probably stop a lot of our problems, but we don't. The second one is the me that exists by definition.
When we say by definition, it means defines itself. So a me that exists by definition means a me that is me in me from me. I truly exist.
And then the third me, the third way we can relate to our me or perceive our me is the me that lacks true existence. The me that is the name and term me also said the me that is the projected result of the past. Me's projected called the nominal me.
So we have simple unexamined me. We have the self-existent me and we have the nominal me in name only me. And when we hear those three, I'm a Christie said, how much time do you think you're spending in each one of these three in any given day? And it's like, well, maybe we reached the nominal me for about 30 seconds in our end of our Mahamudra meditation.
And if you took that to the background, they'd say, yeah. And while you're doing that, you're still thinking of yourself. And in the wrong way, but okay, we'll give it to you.
A few seconds in nominal me. Simple unexamined me. And, you know, it's probably underlying there somewhere, but it's not the one that's evident to us.
The one that's evident to us mostly is the, my self-existent me, my truly existent me. When I say self-existent, oh, timeout. When I say self-existent, do you really think you're self-existent? No, you depend on all kinds of stuff.
And so I actually don't like that term self-existent, but do we believe we have an existence independent of this process of projections, projections, projections? Absolutely. And that's what we mean by the define myself. I'm a me that's experiencing all of that.
And that's the one that's mistaken. That's the one that perpetuates the broken view that makes everything go wrong, go wrong, go wrong. And so that's the one we're wanting to get really familiar with.
So that we can prove to ourselves that there's no such thing so that that me can become like Santa Claus and just cut the belief in it, but still able to be in the world and do the magic that Santa Claus does. All right. So we'll pick up there.
Next class, looking again for our self-existent me so that we can negate it. So thanks for the opportunity to share. Remember that person we wanted to be able to help? They are our projections and they are very real and their suffering is very real and it's coming from our own seeds.
And so we can help in a deep and ultimate way. And we've set that into motion by listening to this class. And so, hooray, 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 being. They're really the one.
Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon them. Ask them to please stay close, to continue to guide you, to help you, inspire you. And then offer them this gemstone of goodness.
See them accept it and bless it, and they carry it with them right back into your heart. See them there, feel them there. Their love, their compassion, their wisdom.
It fills you so full we can't contain it. And 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 true ultimate bodies that merit and wisdom may.
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 happiness, filled with loving kindness, filled with wisdom. And may it be so.
All right. Thank you again. I'll see you next week.
Have fun with Geshehla's program if you're doing it. I'm looking forward to it.
ENG audio: Mahamudra - Class 36
All right, time in. This is Mahamudra class, December 16 2025. Let's gather our minds here as we usually do.Please bring your attention to your breath until you hear from me again. Now bring to mind that being who for you is a manifestation of ultimate love, ultimate compassion, ultimate wisdom. And there they are with you just by way of your thinking of them. They are 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 tried 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 and dependent origination, we glimpse how it's possible. And so I invite you to grow that wish into a longing, that longing into an intention, and that intention into a determination. If you feel ready, then turn your mind back to your precious holy being. We know that they know what we need to know, what we need to learn yet, what we need to do yet, to become one who can help this other in this deep and ultimate way. And so we ask them, please, please teach me that. Show me that. And they're 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 perfect 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 practice, make our promise. There is great herb filled with fragrant incense and covered with a blanket of flowers, the great mountain or lands wearing the jewel of the sun and the moon. In my mind, I make them the paradise of our Buddha and offer it all to you. By this deed, may every living being experience the pure world. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the highest community. Through the merit that I do and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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 and sharing this class and the rest, may we reach 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 and sharing this class and the rest, may all beings totally awaken for the benefit of every single other. So set your physical body for a meditation session. Ask that holy being to bless you with guidance and insight. And then bring your attention to your breath, refers to the breath in a general way. And fine tune the focus on the details of the breath, adjusting your clarity, turning on the intensity, the fascination, get that mind sharp and clear, focused on that tiny spot on the tip of your nose. It'll feel like your energy is coming to that point at the top front of that thing we call our body. And when that mind gets really sharp and clear, that's when we drop back into the watcher state. Same sharp, clear, but opening up to allow more information into the awareness, starting with outer sounds, sinking deeper to what we call inner sounds, trying to be aware at more and more subtle levels of those appearances, dropping down in a relaxed but eager way to allow any arising to arise and pass, being aware of these shifting experiences as simply ripening mental images, visual ones, auditory ones, tactile ones, mental word ones, all the same, simply ripening ripples on the ocean of this clear, bright, intense mind. Allow them to flow through you like water and maintain a clear, sharp, fascinated awareness of this flow, this constant shape-shifting. Now with this recognition of this constant layer of appearances changing, changing, changing, add your wisdom that within each is always the emptiness of that appearance, the lack of the appearance's own identity. We know this absence of identity is necessary for the appearance to be what it is for us individually. So observer observing knows the arising as an appearance born of our past behavior, empty of self-nature. This emptiness is the foundation, the reality within the unreality of every arising image, an unchanging presence of an absence because there is always an appearance like to be in this constant changing nature of awareness and the constant unchangingness together. We'll stay three more minutes. Now recognize all of these appearances and the appearance of the ability or not to be aware of their emptiness is all ripening results of causes planted by our own past behavior towards others. No reality other than that. So allow your mind to come up from that depth to allowing identities, become aware of being inside this body, this body in this room, keeping that awareness that this too is ripening results of our past kindness, making these identities of these experiences and dedicate and wiggle your fingers, your feet. When you're ready, open your eyes, take a stretch. It's difficult to feel that constantly changing flow of ripenings feeling and at the same time hold this sense of the unchangingness of the true natures of all of that arising, right? Words just fail. It's too complicated. And the idea of things flowing by starts to shift from a flowing by to this. Now it's this, now it's that, now it's this, now it's that, which doesn't feel so much like a flow from here to there that we're witnessing from the like the image of being in the backseat of the car and everything's whizzing by, right? As we're getting deeper, we're realizing, no, that's not happening at all. That it's, right? So maybe at first we still have this sense that there's a me here, that it's all bubbling out of, and that's a good, that's a good recognition. And then as we're sinking deeper and deeper though, into the bubbling out and nothing, but the, the, the feeling of this set me separate from that will, will start to, I don't, I don't know how to say it. I don't want to say it fades away, but it becomes included, right? The me doing it gets, gets lost into the being, the being. I don't even want to say the being it, just the happening. And, and, and that, that's like the idea. And it's not so much something that we can force, but when you come out and you notice, wow, that, that felt different than it used to feel. It's like, great. No, great. Notice the shift, recognize it. And then, you know, dedicate to being able to reach this direct experience of these two apparent opposites, but experiencing them simultaneously, right? We're toggling really appearance. I know it's emptiness appearance. I know it's emptiness on whatever level we're doing that. As we get more familiar, it'll be less, less toggle and spontaneous, both happening. Okay. So last class we left off where we were reviewing where Lobsangchikigaltsen had brought us so far, learning, we're learning to meet our mind face to face. And then he had said, and mind is me, me is mind. So we could say we're learning to meet me face to face. And then that gets a little slippery. It's like, wait, no, I'm the only one who knows me. And he goes, yeah, right. That's why we need to meet me face to face, because the one you think you already know, isn't quite it. So what do you mean, you know, how do we find that me if you're saying, I don't really know what it is, we need to find the Gakcha me first, the Gakcha mind, he kind of goes back and forth between using the word mind and using the word me, that gets a little confusing, because I'm still in the experience me who has a mind. So when we were talking about the Gakcha me, that me is the one we believe exists in it from it so strongly, that we must protect it at all cost. And the at all cost means, you know, willing, willing to do something even to protect this me, even if it means causing some kind of harm to another. And it's not like we, you know, think, yeah, it's okay to steal that thing, because I need it. And I'm more important. We don't do that kind of thing. But more subtly, we are right in our, in our habitual, take care of me. There's this willingness to do that at the expense of others, at such a subtle level, that we're not even aware. And that's part of the beauty of Mahamudra practice is that this level of awareness of what's going on is getting keener and keener, I hope you've noticed that. And that then off the cushion, that same keen awareness of what's going on, like one step removed, is what helps us get off that automatic pilot of react, react, react. And we can more clearly decide, yes, I'm going to act that way. Or no, I'm not going to, I will choose a different response. So we can find a gaccha me on all these different levels. Highest school level tells us the gaccha me is a me that exists independent of the projection happening at the moment. So if what we had been focusing on in that last meditation was our me, our appearing me, I didn't say that, but if it were, and you can like think of what level you got to of the appearance and its emptiness, appearance and its emptiness, what would have happened to your identity me, if that level of awareness of appearances and emptiness had been all identified as me, me ripening, nothing but me ripening, nothing but, there would have been this, let's call it the surface level, the appearing level, that's constantly changing. And the absence of that identity, not being a seed ripening constancy there. And like, could we be growing our identity me as that process happening is, is like where the Mahamudra practice took me, was this ability to shift what I call my identity. And it took a long time and it isn't, doesn't stay there all the time, but it's easy to get back just by thinking. And I attribute that to this Mahamudra practice that, you know, I've done intensely for years, although not so intensely recently. So I'm happy to be back in it. So first we find our gaccha me, the one we think has its own blast, its own identity, its own existence, that things are coming at, even when we understand the things coming at me are my karmic seeds ripening, we're still holding our me as something that's outside of that ripening. So we're trying to find that me. And then when we do find it, we use that as our object of focus. And let take that little corner of the observer mind to investigate that me. How is it that it really does exist? How is it that I think it does exist, but it can't exist that way? And for these reasons, right, we turn on our analysis. So he said, look, there are three ways through which we experience our me. First was the simple unexamined me. Just when you're out at the grocery store, you're doing your grocery store thing, right? Your simple me is choosing the beans and choosing the yogurt and staying out of people's way. We're just on automatic pilot. Simple me. Nothing's challenging us. Nothing's upsetting us. Nothing's particularly happy. Just automatic pilot, simple me. Then there's the me, they call it me that exists by definition. By definition means defines itself, not the words in the dictionary, not by way of my name, but by way of me, me in me, me in me, my own identity. It's a little slippery because we say the pen in it from it isn't really there. And then we say the me in me from me, wait a minute, I'm thinking of it wrongly when I say it that way. Because what we, anyway, so our own identity me is not there in the way that we think, but we need to identify how we think it's there before we can check to see if it's not there. He reminds us of that. Then we can be experiencing our me as its lack of true existence. We can experience me in name only, right? By way of labels.Geshehla was talking about it this weekend, you know, the Ming-Som, Tak-Som, something like that. I can't remember the Tibetan words. And he impressed upon us that things exist in name only doesn't mean the words of the name. It means the identity of the imagery. And he kept saying a visual picture, but what if you're blind, right? So yes, he's speaking to a bunch of sighted people. So it makes sense to say a visual picture, but the picture meaning the experience, the whole experience, all of that identity of the thing and what it does and where it came from and the worldly causes and what it's going to do to me if I let it carry on. All of that is this, these seed pictures, seed identities. And we're not allowed to just say mental seeds. We have to say mental seeds as a result of how kind I was to others in the past. To really imprint this idea that the seed ripening show happening is all results of our own past experience. Not really our own past experience of what has happened to us in the past, but how we reacted to what has happened to us in the past, which the implication then is, so how I act towards every experience now is what creates the seed pictures for the future. Now you didn't come right out and say it, but the implication of every experience is a ripening result of our own past deeds is my current deeds is where I create. So we know that, right? I need to hear it again and again and again, because when we're on automatic pilot, simple me, and then the me that defines me, I'm not holding this understanding that me is a result of my own past kindness or selfishness. The very way I perceive me moment by moment is ripening results of how selfish or unselfish I was in the past. So we want to create an unsuffering me. This is how we do it. Stop contributing to the suffering of others. How in the world do we do that? I don't know. Don't get out of bed. Pull your covers over your head. But you know what? I did that last Friday because I'd stayed up till two o'clock, you know, three o'clock Thursday morning. And when I emerged out from under the covers, I realized I slept through my obligation to my community to serve in the ticket office on Friday morning. And it's like just by, you know, just by avoiding harming anybody, I harmed somebody, a bunch of people, because they had to do my job. And it's like, ah, right? So we can't just avoid things that doesn't create the right seeds, doesn't necessarily bring the right result. So in our investigation of our me, we find the one. Why don't you blame me for that? Oh, that me. And then investigate that me for its appearing nature. And when we recognize its appearing nature as this constant shapeshifting ripening of seeds, it reveals to us its empty nature. Because if it had its own nature, it wouldn't shapeshift like that, because it would be itself independent of mental seeds ripening. And so it's one way to investigate is to recognize here I am, I'm identifying as the watcher. And I'm watching these shapeshifting happening. And we can have the misperception that yeah, yeah, here's me. And I can watch these shapeshifting. But if we check that out, can we show ourselves feel ourselves that this watcher me has to also change as what it's watching, watching changes, doesn't it? Like we have that thought, no, same me watching this stuff go by. But then come on. You're not the same me. I've seen this. Now I'm not seeing that. Now I see this. Now I'm not seeing this. This thing's going this too. Changing, changing, changing, changing. And if it's changing, it also has to be coming out of mental seeds, because we've already established that's what causes change. If that's not the automatic, oh, then we need to go back to figure out why do things change? We were doing that in ACI. But if it's not clear, then even in your Mahamudra meditation, use your analysis corner of your mind to investigate the watcher for it's what the real role what the real thing is going on as it's watching the constant shapeshifting. And that will help us reveal the empty nature of the constant shapeshifting of the watcher. Not just what it's watching. Okay. So he loves century gals and goes on to say, in this second level, the me that defines myself, self existent me, which is where we were an ordinary being is 99.9% of the time. There's two flavors of this misperception. That is in donkey you'll and the Shen you will we talked about it before. So the way that we hold to that object, that's the mistaken way that we hold to the object. And then the Shen you'll is that how we feel about how we hold to the object. And I was trying to get across that. There's a level of holding to our me as independent of projected results. In a way that's so subconscious. We were, we're not aware that we're doing it until we've already done it. And we look back and go, Oh, did it again. And we and so we really can't work on that level, because it's happening so fast, so ubiquitously, that we can only really witness it when we're in deep, deep, deep level of meditation. But actually that level, although it's happening so spontaneously and effortlessly, it has a power to like, perpetuate itself. The Shen you'll level of our holding to our self existent me is the level that causes all the trouble. Because Shen you'll means other, other powered object or object of other which doesn't really make sense here. But the way it's being used is it's our, it's our, our attachment to this self identity me. That actually is the problem. Because we want, right, we, we want to be me that doesn't come out right. It's like we, we are emotionally attached to the me we are familiar with, just as we are emotionally attached to anything that's familiar, even to the extent sometimes that when the familiar is unpleasant, the safety of the familiar overrides the ability to, to choose a different situation. And, and, you know, that's, that's common and it's human, and I'm not criticizing. And it blocks us. This sense of familiar is safety. And uncertainty or unfamiliar is dangerous. And, and that belief in the self existent me that has this, such a strong attachment to it, to itself as the familiar is the deeper, bigger blocker to our ability to experience our own lack of self existence. It's the blocker to being able to act in a different way in any given situation, because we don't know what results going to come out of it.And I hope you're getting this glimpse. It's like, yeah, but even in the ways that we're calling familiar, we don't really know that if I act that same way, I'm going to get the same result, right? Subconsciously, we must know it, because we're hoping for a different result. Even when we act the same way in situations where acting that way has brought something unpleasant. Our fear of doing it in a different way, makes us do it in the same way, hoping for a different result. Now, technically, you can get a different result, can't you? Because the result is, it doesn't come from what you did in the moment, it never has, and it never will. But we're really attached to the safety of the belief that what I do in the moment brings what comes next. Like the safety of turning the key and starting the car and it does it. No, every time I do it for five years, it does it. And then one day it doesn't. No, really. But it doesn't, one time isn't enough for me to go, Oh my gosh, nothing self existent, because it was, Oh my gosh, it was just the battery. No, and the angel from the mechanic, he came and fixed it. Which reinforced my misperception. Because now it works again. Did it ever work? No. Does it work now? No. Right. So our own clinging to our wrong view reveals the right view if we'll just keep pushing ourselves to keep looking.That's the beauty of Mahamudra practice on the cushion and off the cushion is keep looking, keep looking. I want to say more about how our belief in our self existent me, how we cling to that and serves as a blocker, but let's take our break first. Are we back? The Lama Christie described, suppose we have some circumstance in life that is really pleasant, helpful, good, secure. She used having a partner, but it could just be having a roof over our head or our amazing grandchild or child. And every night we go to bed, we wake up and there they are again. And we take it for granted, right? That of course they're going to be there again, even though we know any disaster could happen, but no, as long as that doesn't happen, they will be there. But have we, have we replanted enough seeds each day to actually assure that they will still be there? And our minds go, come on, you know, the likelihood of some disaster happening, you know, shifting this, it's real, it's really remote. Don't scare me by saying if I don't make the seed, something terrible will happen. But it's not even that anything has to happen. That our seed shifting can be such that we go to bed one night, we have the experience, I'm going to bed one night and our seed shift such that the next thing we know is like, who are they? Or where did they go? Or like total different shift, which in our own mind, wouldn't even, we wouldn't even recognize that it could be the way seeds work, could be, we could wake up one morning and be an Italian person living in Rome. And we would have always been an Italian person living in Rome. We wouldn't be going, whoa, how'd I get from Arizona to Rome? Right? Our realities can shift like that. And I don't know, I hear myself saying it and it's like scary, right? I feel this scariness to it. It's like, then like, what is, is it a good thing that I wake up day after day in Tucson Estates? It's like, oh my gosh, it is a good thing. If it's possible, that my reality could be so completely different. And I don't know, you know, an Italian living in Rome, that may not be bad. But what if it was suddenly red ant, you know, on Geshe Michael's driveway or worse. And when we are getting a glimpse of this actual reality of me and my parts, me and my world, me and my experience, this emptiness of me really is that availability to be anything. But it's also the availability to be anything better than what this is. And what could be better? Are we thinking worldly better? Or are we thinking ultimately better? Right? Hopefully at this level practice, we've got our goal set on Buddhahood for everybody. Whether we believe we can reach that two and a half years from now, Roshna's timeframe, right? Or I don't know, Geshehla just said six more lifetimes for him. I know that leaves me a little bit discouraged personally. But it doesn't matter the timeframe really, does it? Because we could wake up tomorrow and that time has all passed. And boom, it's happened. But it isn't going to happen without planting the seeds for it to happen. And neither is waking up tomorrow morning in Tucson Estates without planting the seeds for it to happen. But am I consciously replanting seeds for Tucson Estates as I use up my seeds of Tuesday in Tucson Estates? I would have to have some like idea of it, replanting Tucson Estates. It is happening with every replanting. But if I want to do it more consciously, that takes some concerted effort. And even to think that we might need to do that is scary. And we want to use our past experience, which is I've woken up every morning for 71 years still being me, I think I can rely upon that for 25 more years. And that's a mistake. Right? It's a holding on to my belief in self existent me is a thing that has a lifetime of its own. It's a big mistake, says Lobsang Chukigaltsang. And the reason we keep clinging to it, even as we understand it's a mistake, is that to let go of that is so unfamiliar, and out of our, what we think is our control, that it's hard to get ourselves to go there. When we do it in meditation, I hope it's getting a little bit easier. But Lobsang Chukigaltsang points out that as we are getting closer and closer to our own empty nature, don't be surprised if you hit a wall of fear, a wall of I can't go there. Because we really are stepping into that admitting that everything I ever thought about me and my world was mistaken, not just mistaken, but wrong. Like it was never there the way I thought. All of it mistaken. And we don't want to go there. There's a part of us that doesn't want to go there. And that part of us is what we want to find and convince that that uncertainty, that blankness, that I don't know what's going to come next is not dangerous. But how can we get to that not being dangerous until we are so hmm, cleaned of our negative seeds, and so convinced of accumulating kindness seeds, that the fear of bad stuff happening, lessons enough that we can walk through that door into the being the availability of anything, the willingness, the willingness to go into that uncertainty of what's next. Do you see what blocks? It's like we know that there's the possibility of really awful stuff happening to people. And when we say anything's possible for me, I yeah, it could be that stuff. Unless we don't have seeds for that stuff. Well, how do we know if we don't or do have seeds for that stuff? And that's the beauty of the practices that were taught to set our intention clearly, at least at the beginning of our day. Better six times a day, remind yourself of what our motivation is. Remind ourselves, karmic emptiness, nothing but ripening seeds, opportunity to plant. What can I plant now? What can I plant now? Using our four powers, using our offering practices to gather goodness. Mm hmm. We have the tools. And they seem like ritual and they seem like religion and they seem weird. Like when we need something good to happen, do we make special extra offerings before we go, right? To experience that. I mean, technically, you remember Lobsang Chukwigal said, he tries to stop a war, it doesn't work. So he goes, hmm. So he buys groceries for the monastery and feeds everybody lunch. He goes and repairs an old stupa. He did a third thing he taught, right? My guess is he taught karmic emptiness. And then sometime later, I don't know how long later, he gets called to stop another war. And this time it worked. Right? So it's like he didn't go, Oh man, I'm so bad. I couldn't stop that war. He just said, I didn't have the seeds that time. I need more goodness. And his, his method, you know, is feed people, repair, repair something holy and share the Dharma. So I know you have a big meeting with the boss. We prepare in our worldly way, but maybe, right, go feed people, you know, repair something holy, teach somebody the pen, and then go to your meeting. And then I don't know, we get the result from the meeting, was the result driven by what you planned? To some extent? Was it driven by the goodness that you did to some extent? Right? Everything we do now and now and now and now impacts what happens now and now and now and now, not direct cause and effect, because it takes time. But for every seed we plant, we've changed, haven't we? We've changed. We've changed the seeds that are left that are in us, are influenced by every seed we plant. So, so that's why you can't say there's such a thing as fate, because fate would mean you have this seed, it's going to ripen in that way, and it has to. But this seed planted is influenced by this one and this one and this one and this one and this one. And it gives us a glimpse into this amazing, I don't know the word, potentiality or variety of possibility that we are at any moment. We're constantly shapeshifting. And then the consistency of our shapeshifting that we find to be a security, it's a good thing. We actually used to call it the glue that holds things together, so that you see your house in the same way every time you look at it. That's a good thing. And Lobsangchuky Gyaltsen was saying, and it's a mistake, and so it's holding us back, and so it will block us from being able to go into emptiness directly. Our attachment to our house being the same every single day is what blocks us. Not our awareness that, well, it's the goodness in my seeds making it that apparently the same every single day. In which case, that's rejoicable. And when we understand that if our eyes open in the morning and there's our beautiful, amazing partner again, we'd like go, wow, my goodness, how can I perpetuate it? Feed me cookies. Feed you cookies. Right. How do we perpetuate a holy, perfect partner? Yeah, we appreciate them. We pay attention to them. We praise them. But we need to be a holy, perfect partner, don't we? To somebody in order to replant the seeds to keep them around. So any goodness we are experiencing, we are using up those seeds. Any goodness we try to do to others, no matter whether they appear to like it or not, our attempt to be kind, plant seeds for future goodness of some kind. We understand the punchline, and we have this deep emotional attachment to the me as I know myself to be that's so strong that it blocks our ability to change our behavior choices. And yet it's truth is liberating, not terrifying when we understand its ramifications. That uncertainty of our empty nature is the availability to create paradise for everyone. So when we relate to our emptiness in that way, as we're getting closer and closer to it in our conceptual understanding, the feeling of it will not be resistance, it'll be eagerness. I notice when I'm getting close to it, I get this overwhelming feeling of laughter. I want to laugh because the wrong way is just gets to look so absurd, so absurd. And I'm laughing at myself for having fallen for it. And then of course, that kicks me out of the deep meditation. I get there and then it's like, wow, this is so stupid. I'm out. But at least I got that far. Because it used to be, I'd get to the, wow, scary. Because the scary is from misunderstanding. Based on this sense of shino, the me that I am familiar with, I need to cling to it because without that me, what? Right. Okay. So we want to use our daily practices, our motivation, our seven limb meditation sequence, even if we're not sitting down to meditate, because the seeds of those, just to even mentally think them are so off automatic pilot that they help us replant our daily seeds in a way that will help keep us on the path. Because in the same way that we don't know where we could be when we wake up tomorrow, we don't know that our seeds aren't going to shift, that we completely lose contact with what we call the Dharma and the teachings. No, and it doesn't even have to happen that something goes sour, guessless says something and it hurts my feelings. And now I'm not interested, not even like that. Just wake up one day and the seeds have shifted. And like, why, why would I go out to Arizona to that place at Diamond Mountain? That's so dusty and dirty and harsh and always too hot, too cold, too windy to something or other. They are seats could just shift. And all of this is off our radar screen. That is scary. And it's possible.Unless we're replanting our seeds, which we replant by way of the seeds planted with our admiration and aspiration to our holy teachers. It's built into the seven limb meditation preliminaries. That practice is so full, so complete. And then as an advertisement, that's what the thousand angels of bliss practice is all about. Using the preliminaries to meditation as a whole practice. Okay. And so that's why we teach it coming up soon to a place near you. Okay. So, so we're trying to, in meditation, penetrate through this resistance to letting go of our belief in a self existent me. And then, and then he says, he reminds us that when we come out of meditation, if we let ourselves just go back to ordinary me in my ordinary life, we'll spend 23 hours in wrong view and one hour trying to reach correct view. And no wonder we can't reach correct view because we're shooting ourselves in the foot all day long. And then trying to heal it up in one hour. It won't work. We want to be shifting our viewpoint in our off cushion time so that our on cushion time is supported by that. And then our onto cushion time supports our ability to hold our worldview in our off cushion time. So it doesn't mean meditate on Mahamudra while you're driving your car, you will crash. But this understanding, seeds ripening, seeds ripening, right? Seeds planting, seeds planting, nothing but. We can hold that. We can hold it when we're doing things that don't involve interacting with other people. We can train our minds to be thinking of it as we wash the dishes, you know, as we are in between actual tasks. And as we get more and more familiar with turning our mind to this, wow, ripenings and nothing but ripenings and nothing but we, we push our ability to do that in the presence of someone else, which is extraordinarily difficult. I find because I'm focused on them. How am I, how am I, what's my impact on them? Right? Am I, how am I going to say what I need to say? What, what my, my awareness is so focused on how I'm planting my seeds with them. I can't be at the same time thinking this is all coming out of my mind. Like that would take me back and I'd be uninvolved with what's going on with them. And I went through that for a while. And it was like, no, this doesn't feel right because I'm not engaging with other people. And yet that was just a limitation in my own practice. I couldn't interact with someone. And at the same time, be aware that this whole thing is my seeds ripening. I still can't quite do that. That's why we call it a practice. We work with it. We practice it. And our effort to do that off cushion, even when we fail, plants are seeds in such a way that our effort to do it on our cushion, when we aren't distracted by our worldly habits or less so, we can penetrate more deeply. And then that will help us in our off cushion as we understand. So this idea is that we're getting more and more aware that there's always this layer of appearances. And in order for appearances to be the appearances that they are, they must have their emptiness. They must lack their own identities. We're trying to get to that automatic necessity, the negative necessity of the emptiness of any appearance. When we experience an appearance, we would automatically know it's emptiness. Like when we hold up a coin you see the face of the coin, you know, it has a backside. We're still toggling appearance. Oh, emptiness. As opposed to at the same time, Mahamudra practice is helping us get to, oh, it's, it's this, could I say the same thing? Ripening, the ripening happening is appearances and emptiness. Nang tong, remember that term? Nang is the appearance. Tong is the emptiness. Nang tong is what's happening. Profound dependence is the word that I like. The profound means the emptiness. The dependence means the appearance and the, they, they, we would say they depend upon each other, but they don't depend upon each other. They arise together. Simultaneous arising of appearances and the emptiness of that appearance, which tells us the emptiness of that appearance does not mean the non-existence of the appearance because otherwise they couldn't arise together. There isn't an emptiness there first that the appearance lands onto.There's anytime there's an appearance, there is the emptiness of the appearance and technically the emptiness of the appearance and the one who it's a, the one who's experiencing that appearance and the emptiness of the experience of it, the three spheres. And then it's like, well, are those three different emptinesses or is that three different ripenings or is that all one ripening with one emptiness, different story, different classes, right? More Nagarjuna-ish to investigate at that level to, to get more and more familiar with the process happening is where Mahamudra is taking us to be able to identify as that process happening. You still have your subject side, but rather than identifying as the subject that's having all of these experiences, our identity is growing into all of it with a subject object interaction between. So we're getting more and more familiar with things as projections. And again, our chen yul are clinging to our belief in things having their own natures and me having my own nature out of safety blocks us from being able to relate to this word. Things are projection only in a more accurate way. When I say, look at this pen, it's nothing but a projection. Does your mind go, Oh, that's what makes it real. Or does your mind go, Oh, it's all pretend, or it's all like a movie, or it's all like a dream. And then we get this negative connotation, a wrong connotation that when we say, Oh, it's by projection, Oh, it's not as real as the one we thought is there. But come on, which one's more real? The one in it from it. It's not only not real, it is non-existent. That's still so slippery to me. Am I holding a pen? Yes. Am I holding a self-existent pen? No, because no such thing. Do I think I'm holding a self-existent pen? Yes. Does it feel real? Yes. What kind of pen am I holding? A projected pen. No, I'm not. I'm holding a real pen. This is ignorant mind clinging to it can't just be a projection because my mind hears projection and thinks not real.We're trying to use our Mahamudra practice to shift those seeds so that when we hear projection, it's like, poof, real. Solidification of the thing in its function. But that's a wrong word too, because solidification makes it sound to me like it's going to be the same then, because that's what it is to be solid, right? It stays the same for a while. Projections don't make things solid, they make them appear to be solid. So I can hold it. So I can use it.But that holding it, using it is simply seeds, seeds, seeds, seeds, seeds, seeds, seeds, seeds and emptiness, seeds and emptiness, seeds and emptiness at any minute. No pen. So now we can say, is there no self-existent pen there? Yeah, of course, because there's no pen at all. Is there no self-existent pen there? Ow, right? Still no self-existent pen, projected pen. Projections make things real. Do projections make things real when we finally understand that projections make them real, but before they didn't make them real? No.Everything we've ever experienced has been nothing but projection since forever. It's not like all of a sudden things are projections. All of a sudden things are empty, because now we know it. They've always been and always will be. Even once we are Buddha, me and Buddha paradise emanating, we are still empty of self-existence. If we think our Buddha, me is going to be a self-existent Buddha, me, we are never going to make one, because there'll be no such thing, non-existent, self-existent Buddhas. All right, so our task is growing this awareness that our moment-by-moment wisdom understanding that then colors our actions is our protection. The protection from the fear of at any moment seeds could shift, and my experience of me and my world is completely different than what's familiar now. Our protection comes from understanding seeds ripening and nothing but and so my planting is where my power lies. That's called refuge. That's called refuge in the three jewels. It's not the way it's explained at first until we understand karmin emptiness really well. When we understand about planting seeds, is there anything to fear? Scary thought, right? So the mugger's mugging me. Does my understanding of emptiness and mental seeds make them stop mugging me? No. Does my reaction to the mugging change? Ideally, yes. Does that change the experience of the mugging? But yes or no, right? Yes, I'm still getting mugged, but does it have to be an unpleasant experience? Like there's this awful story about one of the advanced lady practitioners in ancient times. I don't remember which one, I'm so sorry, but she's traveling by herself, which is unheard of, and she comes across this band of mean guys and they decide to rape her. She's this high holy being. She knows the danger and the bad seeds of them doing that, and all the while they're doing that, she's teaching them. She's talking to them about emptiness and karma, however, and by the time they're all done, they are all her disciples, you know, and they're doing four powers and it's like, oh my gosh, that story just still twists my heart in so many ways because it's hard to conceive. It's hard to conceive. You know, the idea is, at some point, one's spiritual practice is such that how you react in the moment of unpleasant experience doesn't make us need to resist the unpleasant experience, but rather use it. And I'm not saying we're obligated to do that until our level of wisdom and compassion is strong enough for it to be our automatic response. And to have that thought that, whoa, that would be so amazing to be able to do that someday is a powerful seed planted. You know, hope it never has to happen to anybody, but if so, may it be me and may I be able to react in this way. And it's like understanding karma and emptiness is the only protection because then it doesn't matter good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant happening. It's ripening seeds. Get them out sooner than they otherwise would have and use the situation to plant some kind of wisdom, kindness. Then what do we have to be worried about? What do we have to be scared about? What do we have? It's an ideal and it's beautiful. And may we all get there before the situation ripens that we need to get there, because it doesn't mean it ever necessarily has to happen when we use our practices well. All right, I still have 15 minutes. I've actually just finished the book, GYMPA 17, class one, although we did the class two meditation today. So let's start into class two, which is about going a little deeper into how we shift from the toggle between appearances that have to be emptiness and emptiness that has to have appearances to be there. All right, we're like, how do I, how do I land on one or the other? If it takes both to have either, how do we have the direct perception of emptiness? If in order to have emptiness, there has to be an appearance that lacks self-existence. When they say in the direct perception of emptiness, there's no awareness of self experiencing something because we can't because in ultimate reality, there's only emptiness, but emptiness isn't a thing that we can experience. There has to be an emptiness of something. So how is it really possible to have the direct perception of emptiness if there's no appearance? And it makes for a long debate apparently. And where it goes is that there's two things happening in the direct experience of emptiness. There's the experience happening and there is the emptiness that's being experienced. So they're saying that the experience happening is the appearance, but you're unaware of it. But does that mean it's not happening just because you're unaware of it? And it's like, there are a lot of times I'm unaware and there are things happening like deep sleep, like anesthesia and surgery. But then if you go into surgery, you come out of surgery. They say in surgery, we did this, this, this, and this. But I have no awareness of it. I take it on faith that that's what they did.And you have the scar to prove something, that something happened. But technically, do you think, well, you know, all I have is this blank in a time span, an apparent time span. Like deep sleep, go to sleep, 10 p.m., wake up 4 a.m. If there were no dreams or no getting up to go to the toilet, there is like, what just happened? Because there's no awareness. Are we still planting seeds in deep sleep? Technically, yes. Are we still planting seeds when we're under anesthesia? Technically, yes. You know, what kind of seeds? I don't know. But similarly, indirect perception of emptiness, there has to be an appearance of something of which its emptiness is what is being directly experienced. And then the apparent side just goes out of the awareness. And Geshehla said his words this time were, for me, the first emptiness I saw, he keeps using the word see, was the emptiness of myself. And scripture says that too. It's going to be our own emptiness that triggers, that is the emptiness that we go into. And that kind of makes sense because we have this, every seed planted has a subject-object interaction, which means every seed ripening has a subject-object interaction, which means the subject is this really consistent piece. The objects are always different. We have the perception that the subject side is always the same. It's not, of course, but it's never some other subject side. That's what it means to be subject side. So it makes sense that the most subtle thing that would still be present, even when we're not aware that it's present, is that the subject side part of the seed ripening has to still be there. So somehow that relates to becoming aware of the empty nature of my subject side as being the piece that puts us into ultimate reality. And I think hidden in there somewhere is how it is that we can have that experience free of that apparent dichotomy of appearance and the appearances emptiness that we call ultimate reality. So we say that when we are at the appearing side of reality, we are in the illusion. And when we don't know that we're in the illusion, we react to things as if their pleasantness or unpleasantness is in them from them. And so we react to get them or push them away. And we perpetuate that mistaken cycle of me versus my world. And then we learn about the pen thing. And we learn that those appearances with their natures in them from them, they aren't really like that. And so as I experienced them, as if they're like that, I'm actually experiencing things in an illusory way, because really, they are projections. But I'm experiencing them as with their own natures. And I'm mistaken in that way. Like the mirage. You look out in the desert, and there's water. And then your mind goes, water. How can water be there? And then your mind goes, ah, it's a mirage. And then the water we still see, right? We hold in a different way. Wow, look, water in the desert. That's so cool. A mirage is such a magical thing. Whereas when we first encountered the water, it was water in it from it. And then it became water, the mirage. Do you feel the difference? Self-existent other is like the water. Illusory other is the water of the mirage. Not just saying the mirage, but the water of the mirage that I thought was real water, but it's just mirage water. But wait, mirage water, you can't drink. Real water, you can drink. What's wrong with that picture? You can't drink real water either. If real water means self-existent water, because there's no such thing as self-existent water. Mirage water, you can drink. When we understand mirage water being water that comes from my projections. So now if we're aware of water coming from my projection, whether it's the mirage water or the water out of the tap, are we in the illusion? If we know it's our seeds ripening, are we in the illusion? Yeah, it's a hard one, isn't it? Geshehla talked about it a little bit. Until we're hot, we still perceive things as having their natures in them, but we don't believe it. So is Arya still in the illusion? Yeah, but they know it. So in the mirage analogy, if you're driving along and you look out in the desert and you go, wow, look at the mirage, that would be like Arya. Still seeing water in the desert that's not real water because it's mirage water. Not actually seeing it as a projection, but knowing it is a projection. Versus Arhat, who somehow is perceiving everything as projected reality always. I don't know how to describe that, but there's definitely a difference. So then now we've got three differences. For ordinary being to perceive something and not even know it's illusion, and to perceive something as in it, from it, and know we're wrong, even intellectually know, now we're aware of the illusion, the discrepancy. To being Arya, who deeply knows that truth, but can't see it that way directly, experience it directly again. To Arhat, who's experiencing in that way, but still doesn't perceive the empty nature simultaneously. That takes fully enlightened to be. So at what level does the illusion stop being the illusion? Or at what level do we become so aware of the illusion that the illusion becomes more real than the self-existent thing? Can we get to that in our meditation, so that we can try to get to it outside of our meditation, so that we can get to it closer in our meditation. And it's allowing those appearances to rise, getting more and more subtly aware on what level they get their identity. We get beyond beneath words, and that alone should reveal to us the illusory nature of our experiences outside of our cushion, because if we can have that beyond word experience of ripenings on our cushion, we can at least say, well, that same process is happening as I look at my ficus tree. The same process is happening as I look outside the window and just intellectually turn it on when it occurs to us to do so. And every time we do, the seeds planted are like little earthquakes for all the rest of the seeds when we haven't done that, which is most of the time for me. So it's worth the effort to try to remind ourselves, wow, my seed's ripening nothing but, and then offer, right? Offer whatever's happening next, because that too will plant these seeds to be able to reach a more clear insight into this marriage of dependent origination and emptiness, this marriage of appearances and emptiness, right? This idea, nang tom, arise together, not one than the other or the other than one, not dependent upon each other, but lotus mudra. I just love that mudra happening, happening, happening, happening. Let me, I have got three minutes. I'm going to use it. Those aren't cheeky galson quotes from Milarepa. And so let me read it to you. And then we'll close class with that. We'll pick it up next time, which will be in January, right? Not till January. Milarepa says, in the reality of ultimate truth, free of any obstacles, there does not even exist such a thing as enlightenment. There is no meditator and nothing to meditate upon. There are no levels to be reached, no signs to mark the path. There's no such thing as the result, no perfect angels body and no such thing as wisdom. As such, there could never be any passing beyond grief. All the worlds in the three realms and every being upon them are nothing but projected images and names. Since the very beginning, nothing has ever happened. Since the very beginning, there has never been anything born. There is no place where we've started from and no simultaneous state, no such thing as karma, not it's ripening. Thus, even the term cycle of pain couldn't ever be. This is how it will appear immersed within the ultimate. So a little dangerous to leave you with that. If I didn't know, you know, I wouldn't. He's talking about in the direct perception of emptiness and it's giving us a clue as to the empty nature of all of these things, our goal, our practice, our samsara. And until we deeply understand their empty natures, we won't really believe that they're changeable. We won't really know that they're changeable. As long as we keep clinging to our own identity, suffering being in a suffering world, there's a part of us that is reinforcing that it's always going to be like that. So remember that person that we wanted to be able to help. Everything we talked about will be used to help them in that deep and ultimate way someday. And that's a great, great 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 being. See how happy they are with you. Feel your gratitude to them, your reliance upon 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 they carry it with them right back into your heart. See them there, feel them there, their love, their compassion, their wisdom. It feels so good. We want to keep it forever. 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 may. 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 loving kindness, filled with happiness, filled with wisdom, and may it be so. All right. Thank you so much again for the opportunity to share this. Mahamudra. So for the recording, we don't meet in class until January again, but I know everybody here is going to be on Bok Jinpa tomorrow, so I'll see you tomorrow. Okay. Thanks so much. Have a lovely day.