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

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.”

*************

Meditation

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.

*************

Lecture

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.” 

*************

Meditation

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.

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.

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.”

*************

Meditation

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***

*************

Lecture

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.