A Talk on Impermanence & Death In Celebration of Rimpoche’s Life

(Note: This transcript may contain errors)

[Lama Lena] 

Okay, lets let her come in and get settled. Brief introduction; I am Lama Lena, I have been a student of Wangdor Rinpoche for about forty-five years now. The first seven or eight years up here in the caves, where I had a little cave up behind, and the traveling with him as his translator in different places around the world. Wangdor Rinpoche has dispersed his form at this time. Which gave me the idea to speak a bit about impermanence. And what isn’t impermanent. What transcends birth and death, coming and going. To do that… Come, I am just nattering. [laughter] 

To do that, I am just gonna start at the beginning.

Now understand this ‘once upon a time’ is not long, long ago and far, far away. It’s once upon all time, in every moment, freshly occurring. Each moment as it begins, moment to moment, throughout the infinite circles of the four directions. In the beginning was Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo; in the beginning means in the beginning of each moment. Kuntuzangmo, Kuntuzangpo means the primordial essence of Buddha nature, the primordial essence of the infinitely vast and innate vitality of the universe. Its primordial potential, undifferentiated. It is primordial potential which is the union of infinite openness, and infinite great-hearted love and compassion. 

This union, this infinite open awake awareness, before the manifestation of stuff, between each moment manifestation of stuff; primordial Buddhahood. To talk about it with using less words we give it a name. Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo, the yin and yang aspects of the primordial vitality of the infinite, vast openness of the entire universe. So, in the beginning Kuntuzangpo simply was beyond thought, beyond birth and death, simple being. But due to the innate vitality, the aliveness, the awareness, the lucidity of this open awareness which we have named Kuntuzangpo, due to that innate vitality, which is inherent in it, rainbow colored light shown forth. Just like the infinite, open, spacious vastness of the universe; its innate luminosity encounters the imprison of aliveness. Of vitality, of awareness. And so gives birth to infinite rainbow forms. Now Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo, in this moment recognized those rainbow colors as emanating from himself as himself without separation of himself. And so enjoyed them with contentment.

We sentient beings however, the animals, the birds, the bugs, the people, the ‘us-sen’, we had a little ‘oops’. Not a sin, not an evil deed; a tiny little misperception, a little ‘oops’. We thought seeing the rainbows that they were outside of ourselves. And so like a baby when you show it a prism in the sunlight and it reaches for the pretty colors, like a kitten who chase the focus of the laser-pointer, we reached out to the pretty colors. Oops.

We mis-perceived them, they were innate in us, they were in no way separate from ourselves. But we thought ‘ooh’ and other thing, ‘aah’ and we grabbed at it. This action of reaching of course created reactions of the colors dividing, multiplying, moving. Which created further actions of us of pursuing them in many directions. Which created further karma of reaction to that, of more things forming to be pursued, including things we choose to run from. And so the entire gammed of the perception of samsara occurs. Oops.

We don’t have a primordial sin, guys. We have a primordial ‘oops’. [laughter]

And it did not happen long, long ago and far, far away. You actually do that again and again, repeatedly in each moment you live. You misperceive what you experience through your sense organs, as being outside of yourself. You don’t recognize the ringing in your ears, you think somebody is talking about you. And get all upset. You don’t recognize the modes of dust on your eyeballs and think ‘ooh, look at that thing! I want that thing!, ‘ooh, look at that thing, it wants to eat me.’. And so we begin the cycle of desire and aversion, grabbing and running, that keeps us in the wheel going round and round like a hamster.

See your problem? How do you stop having that ‘oops’. 

There are, in Buddhism, now don’t take my divisions between things as real; categories are made up by people. We make them up so we can talk about it. So we, us people have categories the path in Buddhism, into three aspects. Vajrayana, Mahayana, I am blanking on the name. No, Theravada. 

And all of these are categories of method for not having that ‘oops’ again and again and again we have all the time. In Theravada tie your hands behind your back with a vow and stop grabbing. Very simple, not very easy. It is a path of renunciation. By simplifying your live with less things to stimulate your ‘grab and run away reflex’, you might be able to, if you are suited for that method, stop having that ‘oops’ every moment.  And as soon as you stop ‘oopsing’, you are there recognizing your own innate nature of Kuntuzangpo, your buddha nature. Which has always been there, which has never been lost. Ka-dak [ka dag;wylie], primordial purity, your own innate -un-fuckup-able-ness’. Which has always been there. This innate buddha nature, when you stop ‘oopsing’, becomes obvious. 

Now in Mahayana, we have a little different method to avoid ‘oopsing’. You’ll ‘oops’ until you don’t. And then you wonder why you ever misperceived it. Because it is so obvious. In Mahayana, instead of focusing on personally not grabbing, personally not running, when faced with hopes and fears; instead of the intense practice of personal renunciation, we get a little tricky. We stop focusing inward on ourselves. And focus outward on other sentient beings. Instead of trying to suppress our grab and run reflex, for those of us who simply can’t do that, because there is so many things to want, there is so many that want to eat you; or in other meth..I don’t take that ‘eat you’ literally, although some things, bacteria loves to do that. 

So, instead what we do is leave the self be, ignore it, leave it be, take care of others. The essence of what we call Bodhicitta arises; other-cherishing. The recognition that we’re all in this together, that is why it is called the big boat. Mahayana, or the big vehicle. Because we’re all pulling together and our actions are done in mutual harmony. Out of love and compassion, out of loving kindness. 

So instead of fighting  with yourself every time you want to grab something, ‘yeah whatever’, but what would you like. Instead of ‘I want this’, what do you want, what can I give you? It takes your attention of your grabbiness.  Ans slowly over time as innate bodhicitta arrives, the grabbiness dissipates.  It is a method. And then we have Vajrayana, which is pretty much designed to work with sorthweeding barbarians, us Khampas.

And aside to you in the west, the tv-show Startrek, the Klingong culture [laughter]  was based on us eastern Tibetan compass. So what kind of dharma you’re gonna give compass. Vajrayana! Vajrayana, you don’t have to make your intellect do anything. You don’t have to make yourself stop grabbing, yeah grab! Go ahead. If you really can’t totally love others more than yourself; if you can’t do this, you can try but if you know you’re not succeeding: ah, tomorrow is another day, I’ll try to do better.  

What you do instead, because you’re not capable of Theravada, of stopping grabbing and you’re not capable of really open hearted loving kindness, nying-je [snying rje;Wylie] , great heartedness.  Instead using symbols and sounds, you trick subconscious into entering into a state of loving kindness. The symbol of Vajrayana is the peacock. The peacock feathers. Vajrayana is about transformation. Just as Theravada is renunciation, Mahayana is bodhicitta, Vajrayana is transformation. It is said, and we used to have wild peacocks here on the mountains. And yes it is true, I saw them eat plants that I know for a fact as an herbalist, are poisonous to humans. That the peacock eats poisonous plants and by the poison in that is able metabolically  to transform that poisons into the incredibly brilliant colors of its feathers. And other birds can’t eat poison, nor can they produce these brilliant colors.

So the peacock and the peacock feather is the symbol of Vajrayana. The transformation. In Theravada you renounce the five poisons. In Mahayana you antidote the five poisons with bodhicitta. The five poisons are anger, avarice and greed, anger and fear, avarice and greed, lust and jealousy, and sometimes depression, overthinking; ‘wrawrawruwhawru’[Lama Lena making murmuring sounds], we can’t turn it off. Which generally is part of depression. So these are called the five poisons. 

In Mahayana you take your attention off your own problems and you try to help others. In Theravada you try to just let go, stop doing that. In Vajrayana you transform them by certain practices of meditation. So that the fear and anger transforms into the mirror-like wisdom of equanimity, symbolized by the beautiful white light that comes from Vajrasattva, yab and yum. Your greed, your avarice, instead of trying to refuse it or trying to focus on others needs to take your mind of your own which is, you transform it. By certain specific methods, symbolically used into the wishful filling jewel; the magic that arises as everything every sentient being might want. 

You take your lust and you transform into nying-je [snying rje;Wylie], greathearted, openhearted loving kindness.  Where your lust and desire to be loved is transformed in the love for all live. And where you urge to merge, your urge to mate with another is transformed into the mating of form and space. The daka’s and dakini’s come together in the forever dance. 

Jealousy, competitiveness, is transformed into the all accomplishing wisdom, where without effort things slips smoothly into place. You ever have a day like that or hour like that? Where everything just fload perfectly. Come on, we’ve all had that occasionally. Doesn’t last but we know what it is. Like that. That is the all accomplishing wisdom and it is effortless. It, you don’t think how to make it do that, it just does that.

And you’re sloth and depression, transforms into the infinite, open spaciousness of the universe. That’s Vajrayana. 

Now understand the dividing line between these three is not real or cut and sharp. We have categorized the path into three. We! We did it, we humans. So, there is things in Theravada that merge with Mahayana. Things in Mahayana that sort of slight over a bit into Vajrayana. Things in Vajrayana work with symbols that slight over a bit into Theravada. It is not a cut and dried categorization. Non the less, it is useful as an understanding. Not real, useful.

Are there questions so far on these subjects?

To continue, in practicing dharma of whatever sort; practice the sort you love, please. If you do not love it, you won’t do it, will you. What vegetable do you not like? For me it is canned asparagus. [laughter] However hungry I get, I will not eat it. If you are walking a dharma path that is unsuitable to you, you will know because you don’t want to do the practice. Oh, not occasionally ‘I rather you out to a movie’, but continuously ‘I don’t want to do that, I really don’t like that, I don’t want to do that’. If you start experiencing that check out some of the other paths. Because you want to do the one that you can do with joyful enthusiasm. Gonzo. That is the one that will work for you. And the one that you cannot do with joyful enthusiasm, you won’t do it just because somebody told you, you should be doing it.

I am gonna [inaudible because of sound of wooden desk/table sliding over the floor] forward, just a little so that I can see everybody. There you go. Now I see it! I realize I was cut off from you, Giny. 

Now in Vajrayana, a combination of nying-je [snying rje;Wylie], openhearted great hearted ness and Guru yoga of lineage is imperative. In order to work properly with the symbols and the transformation, you need this. You see, all Buddhas of the four times; the past, the present, the future Buddhas and those beyond time, beyond space Buddhas. All Buddhas of the four times, where do they come from? How do they arise? They arise out of sentient beings, do they not? For there is a time, a moment of enlightenment, to every bug, every bird, every fish, every bacteria. In this world and any other world, for time is infinite. 

And at that time of enlightenment, in the future, at those bugs who has previously been bugs and after centuries became Buddhas. And the moment of enlightenment, time is no longer a linear thing you are trapped, go in a certain direction at a certain rating. 

It is much more like a wormy squirmy ball of timey wimey stuff. A quote which you British may recognize. But really it is more or like that. From the aspect of the fourth time, all times are possible. So, when you take refuge in the teachers of your lineage, going back to the beginning of this eon or back to the beginning of the eon before, thirty thousand years ago, name sherab tong pa niwo, he is the buddha before Shakyamuni; the lineage from the previous Buddha thirty thousand years ago is still going. It is not that different from the lineage of guru Shakyamuni, some differences. So, in all of these lineages, your personal heart teacher, their teacher and the teacher before them and the one before that, and the one before that, and so on back; all the Buddhas of the four times, they arise out of all sentient beings of the three realms. Obviously, how can you love your teacher and lineage without loving all living beings. They are the same. Guru yoga and Bodhicitta actually are the same. This infinite open loving awareness, aliveness, vitality that loves the vitality of the universe, in infinite open spaciousness; creative, shining, sparkling, shimmering. with phenomena, which is nothing but the innate creativity of all Buddhas of the four times, Kuntuzangpo.

You see how it comes together here. In this, there is one thing, most important thing that you must understand. You are not going to achieve enlightenment. 

You are not going to acquire enlightenment. You are not going to get enlightenment. Impermanence, where we started, everything that’s born dies. Everything that begins ends. Can anyone of you think of a single thing that is born but does not die, that comes but does not go, that arises but does not dissolve. Seriously, open challenge. 

Don’t be scared of me just because I am loud and funky [laughing]. 

[NN] Space

[Lama Lena] Space. Is space a thing? Did it have a beginning? You see, if we examine, and you spent a few study, an aspect of the dharma called either lam-rim or even a more complex aspect called ….

[Onalayah] Amitabha..

[Lama Lena] No, it’s, give it a moment. I hate this nominal aphasia, it comes with being an old lady. I loose words. 

[Onalayah] Arbith..

[Lama Lena] Abhidharma. You will find references to this. One spends a good bit of time examining and really looking throughout the universe,  multiverse, all nine dimensions. To try to see if there is anything that comes but does not go, that arises but does not dissolve or disperse. 0:28:58:3, that is born, but does not die. And after searching, one becomes convinced by ones own experience, that there is not. 

So if enlightenment is permanent, how could you achieve is at some point in the future. How could you acquire it at some point in the future. If you did you would lose it. And what is the point of that? Start over? In this moment, tight now guys, in this very now your complete, fully enlightened nature is already there. It is infinite. It pervades time and space and it is beyond time and space. Indescribable, unthinkable but it is here right now. You don’t have to get enlightened. You have to realize that you are enlightened. But you cant fake it. You have to really realize that you are enlightened, not pretend that you realize that you are enlightened. There is a difference. You occasionally see somebody  trying to fake it for a while. [laughter]

Sometimes they even fool themselves. How many of you have made long retreats?  Anybody. So, you come out of your long retreat and you think you’ve got it. You got it in retreat. And then you get back to your family, your wife, your stuff and the sucker wears off. That wasn’t it guys. You fooled yourself to think it was. That was just a pretty nyam [nyams; wylie] A nyam, which the Japanese call ‘come-and go-zes’. These are meditative experiences that look like a sort of reflection of enlightenment in a mud puddle; you know ou can see your face in a mud puddle kind of sort of but not exact. And there is a pebble right here.[laughter].

So kind of like that. But they are really beautiful; you get bliss-nyams, you get clarity-nyams, you get these absolutely beautiful thought-free states that last for hours. They start and they end. So they’re called ‘comes and goes’. Nyam for short. Don’t mind them. Don’t grab them. If they get stuck there are methods of getting rid of them. But usually they are just passing through; leave them alone, they’ll be gone in a little while. You got a real good intelligently nyam: do your taxes. [laughter]. 

At least make use of the damn thing, it is not gonna last. Your own Buddha-nature is innate to you. It has always been there, you can’t lose it , you can’t harm it. Even Trump has one. The problem is: ignorance, ma-rig-pa[ ma rig pa;wylie]

Ignorance is not a very good translation for ma-rig-pa. A better translation is obscuration. The smudge on your glasses if you don’t wipe them all day. You can’t see clearly through it. We think ignorance is lack of knowledge, that something needs to be added to resolve it. Ma-rig-pa, obscuration, needs to be removed to resolve it. In tantra we have many, fancy symbolic ways of visualization, of images and making of sounds that actually sneak past your conscious mind and sort of get it from the inside. So that any conscious resistance you have is futile. In vajrayana, Dzogchen, we use a method of meditation: direct mind-mind looking. We actually go looking for our Buddha-nature.  and instead of finding it (since it is not a thing, if you find something you got the wrong thing)we relax into the not finding.

Can we move this just forward just slightly? [sound of something being moved], yeah, won’t tip it over, that is why we move it slow.

So in that not finding there is an innate and exact letting go, which is not forced, like the letting go in Theravada. Which is not done by giving it to another; generosity in Mahayana. But is done by relaxing into it. Three words t remember: relax, let go, leave it be. These are three very important words. Traditionally when we begin to teach someone how to find their own Buddha nature so that they actually see it, we call it sem-nyi [sems nyid; wylie].

Big mind. Not little mind; ngagnugnnagrumgnrmnsnunmnurumyeshdAAHdubedlelego-uuu

[lama lena making sounds like mumbling fast]

Big mind, inconceivably big, vast beyond knowing mind. Not even inside  or outside mind: sem-nyi. There are, in the approach, instructions of the body, instructions of the speech and instructions of the mind. The instructions of the body involve your energy channels. You need to find a way to sit that works for your body so that your back and your neck are straight. Your teeth don’t clinch. You see; holding them open at the edges a little bit my tongue. This matters. Your lips are a little bit open. Is all teachings of the body. There is the Maitreya position in a chair, there is the Shakyamuni position, which is the full-lotus; the half lotus and the Japanese kneeling on a kneeling-seat position, all of these are known to work. Are there any other positions used in Thailand, besides this? [Lama Lena asking a Thai monk who is attending this teaching][answer is not audible]

Okay, somewhere there probably is, but these are the ones I know about. You, it is not cheating to use cushions and ropes to help you. What is important is that your body be relaxed and comfortable, with your back fixed. This is a meditation rope, meditation sash, this is traditional. If that knee hurts, I am just gonna put it there [Lama Lena showing how to use the meditation rope] It will hold up my knee, there we go! It is tied a little long for me at the moment, I have to re-tie it. We are making these in town, you are still making them? [Lama Lena asking the student who is making them] [answer is inaudible, If anyone wants….]

She’s been  making them, what are they about, five hundred? About five hundred rupees. There are raw silk, blend. I don’t think they are pure raw silk, they have synthetics that strengthens them. And they are stitched and they are twice your height. So they get measured to you. And at the width at you your palm. So please see her, stand up if you can, or wave, stick your hands up, wave around. If you want one, order form her.

But you have to pick it up here, she is not mailing it, that is to difficult. Or you have to get somebody else who is  here to, mail it to you, good luck! [laughter] Not me. 

These are incredibly useful. Do what you need to, you know your body, you know what it needs to be comfortable. 

The channel which runs from your crown where the line from the tips from your ears intersects the line up your nose, right there, crown chakra, and goes in front of your spine, straight down and ends approximately where your cervix is. 

[Onalaya] For those of you who have cervixes

[Lama Lena] Guys you know probably where those are [laughter]

And this is the Uma, the central channel. There are two side-channels that go down and join it at the bottom and bring air into it, ah…lung, chi into it at the bottom. So when your mind, no, when the chi on which your thoughts ride, is all gathered in the central channel, this is tsa-lung, enlightenment occurs spontaneously. There are tsa-lung practices, which are beyond the scope of this teaching, that accelerate that occurring and work simply with the physical body. I am not a big expert in that. There is a wonderful lama here, Lama Jigme, Jigme Rinpoche; who is a…he and his wife together make a single expert in tsa-lung. So I refer that out. Like I am a GP(general practitioner) and I refer out the neurology to a neurologist, especially if they need brain surgery. 

So if you are truly interested in more details of this, let me refer you to Jigme Rinpoche. The detail you need to know is how to keep the damn thing straight. This is your throttle, how fast the chi moves. So you find the position of the chin, about like this. Of your thoughts are moving to fast, thoughts ride the chi, then bring it down a little. If you are falling asleep, and to sluggish, bring it up a little. 

Feel free to adjust in each session differently. Depending on how much coffee you’ve had, and other influences. Once your body is in the correct position, you need to position your eyeballs. This may be the most important point. Your attention follows the gaze of your eyes. You cannot look at this altar without paying attention to it. Try!  Go on, try to look up there without your attention going there. Can’t do it, can ya?

All your life, all of your infinite life’s, you’ve been paying attention to stuff. What did you think about all day; stuff. We divide stuff into two categories: inner stuff or inner phenomena and outer phenomena. Outer phenomena is normal stuff-stuff. Inner phenomena is our thoughts and feelings. There is still things, there is still moving, coming and going. All of our attention, all day is on what we are perceiving, what we are feeling about what we are perceiving, and what we are thinking about what we are perceiving and we are feeling about what we thought about what we perceived. Not only today, you’ve been doing that for infinite eons of life upon life. Well, no wonder you can’t find your Buddha-nature. It is not a stuff. It is not a thing. Nyams are things, they come, they go. They are like moods. Feelings, thoughts. Your own innate Buddha-nature, Kuntuzangpo, Kuntuzangmo, sem nyi [sems nyid;wylie], it is not a thingy, it is no-thingy. With your attention focused on things like thoughts, things like feelings, moving things, coming and going things. Nam pheb nam phet di ne pheb sho, ji tsub ke reh[Lama Lena talking Tibetan]. Pilgrims. 

If your attention is focused on these things, you will not be able to see your own Buddha-nature, to perceive it, to recognize it; too busy chasing stuff. And what is all our grabbing at. Those rainbow lights that ‘oops’ us sentient beings misperceived as stuff and grabbed at. It is really hard to stop grabbing at it when you’re paying attention to it. Oooh, look at the pretty. Ooh, I don’t like that thing. So what we are gonna do, the way our attention follows our eyes. So,  we’re gonna do a tricky thing with our eyes to  open the orifice of our attention so it is not point-focused on thingies.

We’re gonna leave our eyes half closed; those of you who are wearing glasses have a big advantage: you can take them off. I suggest doing so. Now your vision is already a bit blurry. With your body in position let your eyes remain half open, you know what your vision does, probably the only skill you learned in college worth keeping; sleeping worth your eyes open. You know how your eyes sort of, your vision sort of blurs out and you are not looking at a thing. Right before dreamtime, right before you start seeing the professor floating away and turning purple. Let them do that, unfocus your eyeballs, expand the focus of your eyes so it is no longer one pointed.  By doing this you will expand, you will open the orifice of your attention. And expand your awareness past thingness. This is the teaching of the body. With the what you do with your eyeballs probably the most important.

The teaching of the speech is much simpler: shut up. [laughter] 

Stop talking to yourself, you know that little voice that is describing everything. Let go of that! Instead of trying to shove  it away, part of grabbing and shoving, release it. Put your thinker in neutral gear, so that thoughts arise but they don’t make a coherent story or sentence. Almost like free association. Now, don’t pay any attention further to the thoughts. Look past the thoughts, with your attention, with your awareness, at where your thoughts are happening. 

Thoughts occur in the mind. Find your mind with your mind. If you find it in a place, your focus of attention is to narrow. Beyond here and there, beyond is-es and isn’ts’. Beyond ideas, thoughts and descriptions. Beyond concept of center, of edge. There in infinite openness, Longchen Rabjam [klong chen rab ‘byams;Wylie]. Infinite vast expanse, the name of a teacher of the lineage, the name of your own innate Dharmakaya nature. Great mother ocean of awareness. Chö ku rig pa [chos sku rig pa;Wylie]

Beyond knowing, beyond thinking. Where is-es and isn’ts’ aren’t, beyond coming and going. That innate openness, spaciousness, vastness has always been there. It’s where your thoughts be happening. Where your feelings be happening. Where your perceptions be happening. Always was, always will be. Just as you cannot hang a piece of garbage on the sky. So you cannot sully your distort, this infinite open emptiness. But it is not just a big, dead, old, dark void. It is bright with vitality. With the innate clear light of the ability to perceive, to be aware, to be lucid. This lucid luminous awareness, sambhogakaya, nature of mind. This is where all the archetypes are born, where all magic arises. Innate, vital and alive. Not the aliveness of having a heartbeat of being born and dying. The infinite aware awake vitality that has always been pervading the entire gomed of samsara and nirvana.   

The perceiver of the perceived, big you. Not little you, the personality that is born, will change and die. Big you, the infinite vast open vital awareness, in all its natural shimmering sparkling liveliness. Creating in itself as itself all phenomena. All of the moving; the arising and dispersing, form, shape, sound, color, arises in the infinite open awareness. Dissolves in the  infinite open awareness. Does not leave the infinite open awareness. Does not enter the infinite open awareness. Is simply the liveliness, nirmanakaya, the innate liveliness, luminous, shimmery sparkly creativity of the vital luminosity of awareness of infinite vast openness.

This is your own big mind. But you do not own it! Al live is this, but we are not all one because multiplicity is obvious. Each snowflake, each leaf, its oneself, each bit of awareness, each alive bit of awareness is the infinite vast timeless awareness of natural mind.

And you are that and always have been. This is ta-wa [lta ba;wylie], first word of Garab Dorje, the view. To return your attention to exactly this again and again at all times and at all occasions, while walking and talking, while eating and sleeping, while taking a dump, while fighting with your wife, check and see if your big mind is still there. This will be easier if every morning before  you engage your chakra of speech, chakra of intent, chakra of grabbing, chakra of shuffling, before you start-up, talking to yourself,  sit on your cushion for a little while. That makes quick glances easier that the may be at no-thingness. Otherwise we’ll simply quickly glance at the idea of open awareness; that is a thought! At the feeling of open awareness; that is a feeling. At the name of open awareness, sem-nyi. Going around all day going ‘sem-nyi, sem-nyi, sem-nyi’, sounds like a weird case of hick-ups. Now you actually have to look, and it is not a ‘where’ there. 

After you’ve done this a while, you will find that lifting up your glasses and relaxing your eyeballs will be your mnemonic to lead you, to each one of these short glances being accurate. But you gotta do that, you gotta, that’s is what we call the second word of Garab Dorje: gom [sgom;Wylie]. Three phrases to recognize your own nature is the first vital point, that is ta-wa, what I just showed you. I don’t like the word view, because view implies somebody in here looking at a window at that. A this and a that. And this ta-wa ain’t out there. It ain’t in here. It is beyond the idea of in and out. You are not looking at it. You are relaxing in it as it. Not look at ta-wa, you are ta-wa. Not quick glances looking. Quick moments of relaxing into and being. Don’t create duality by looking at the view. Me at that. Subject verb object; don’t do that with your meditation practice.do that with your shopping at the bazar, keep it where it belongs. 

With your meditation practice, don’t look at your own Buddha-nature. Relax as your own Buddha-nature. don’t fight it for a moment. Don’t resist it by keeping your attention narrow focused on ‘this-es and thats’ for a moment. Relax again and again for a moment, of open awareness. To decide on one single thing and just go for it. That is the second vital point; gom. To decide to do the practice. Because you like the practice, it feels right at this time in my life. That is the second vital point. And you keep doing it till you’re absolutely sure that it is always there, doesn’t come and go. We have doubts now. We’ve heard it’s always there, we kind of know it is always there. But uhm, oop, aah; sometimes it sure hell feels like it isn’t and I am just grouchy and fucked up.

How many of you can look at a street sign with your eyes without reading it?

[someone saying that he/she can]

Highly unusual. I am gonna test you later, Ösal. 

How did you get able to read so well that you can’t not read. Practice, wasn’t it? How long did it take, five years. First grade to fifth grade. Six years, something like that. Guess what, putt the same amount of time and attention that you put into learning to read  for the same amount of years and you’ll become sure of your Buddha-nature. And you won’t be able to have a thought without recognizing it for what it is. The sparkle of the vitality if the vital luminosity of infinite open awareness, nothing more, nothing less. And you can’t even sit on them. So what are you doing fighting over thoughts and ideas. And feelings. 

Once up here, oh forty years ago, there was a fine old board. Long and thick and wide, and the possession whose old board this was, was in question. Arguments arose, factions formed, we were here, before all that extension it ended here. Because I used to sit on the edge and get wet when it rained, cause I was the new guy. And we were all in the cave part. Cause we haven’t built this yet. But in those days a faction arose, and we were here at some ceremony the whole twelve or thirteen of us that lived up here. And they looked like they were gonna come to blows, get a fisticuff going. 

So me, I am, you know, dharma-practitioner, wise Angrez/Ingraj; I am a fucking little twenty-four, twenty-five year old; I not know nothing. But I speak the language by then, I’ve been there a year or two. So I go up to Dorje and I am like: ‘Dorje, you guys are great yogis here on the mountain. Everyone respects, makes offerings to you. What the hell are you doing fighting over an old board’. And Dorje turns to me: ‘You, Angrez/ Ingraj, means westerner, I know your people. Your people fight over ideas and theories and feelings about the theories. And you can’t even sit on them!’  I’ll tell ya, that shut me up! And then they went back to arguing about the old board. 

Right now the problem we have that messes up our live, that causes our suffering, is we believe everything we think. Oops! However telling yourself ‘it is a thought, it is not real, it is a thought, it is not real’, that is a thought. A thought won’t antidote the problem of believe in thought, now you just believe in a different thought. That is not gonna work. You have to actually see, perceive  directly what the thoughts are made of while they happen. Not after you think them, not an overlay later, not a confession later. Right in the moment that you think this thought you have to see that thought arising in infinite luminous open awareness, as infinite luminous open awareness, lasting for not even the duration of a single instant. Thoughts have no substance and they have no duration, there is just a lot of them stuck together quickly. Making ideas and feelings and all of that stuff. We call thoughts all stuck together nam-tog[rnam rtog;Wylie], discursive thoughts 

Thoughts that make sense and say things. The stuck together part is ‘tog’. The little particle of thought that has neither duration, nor substance is a ‘nam’. When you stop sticking the ‘nam’ together, they are freed of the ‘tog’. We say one of the differences between Buddhas and sentient beings is whether they have ‘nam’ or ‘nam-tog’. Inevitably we end up believing our nam-tog, our discursive thoughts, thoughts that make sense. But if you sit here in what is called free association: cup, bowl, teapot, bat, boat, there is nothing to believe. However you can’t go buy your lunch at the bazar without thinking thoughts that make logic; I will go here, do I have enough money for this place or that place. 

Again in Theravada we don’t buy our lunch in the bazar. We eliminate the need to think. We simplify, simplify, simplify. In Mahayana we simply get rid of the self-focused-ness of the thoughts. In Vajrayana we use sneaky symbols to get around the thoughts, in Dzogchen we look right at it and see what it is made of. Are there questions? Yes.

[Audience] Thank you very much for this teaching, I feel like you gave [inaudible] the three words that describe the heart essence…

[Lama Lena] Without my text, of the cuff bit.

[Audience]….Lama Candice…

[Lama Lena] And what would Patrul Rinpoche say also: find where these three points triangulate the absolute center and there it is. 

[Audience]  I’d love to hear, there is  also a bit of ….[inaudible] and you shared…caves …..so if your time here with your Lama, Wangdor Rinpoche. I’d love to hear …context of the last few days, the cremation, anything you’d have to share about the three words and your practice of those over the last which sounds like forty years, quit a lot to ask, you know. In one question. Some …you could share with us..

[Lama Lena] It is, in infinite open awareness, sem nyi, nothing is lost. There is nothing to grab. The last of his holiness, the sixteenth  Karmapa, as he was dying were: nothing happens. This is so obviously true, no ‘thing’ happens. The play of the dharmakaya, the shimmer of its clear light nature arising and dispersing as phenomena, no ‘thing’ happens. So that’s what the last few days have been like for me. I have lost nothing, because nothing was ever gained. It was all as it is always is. What was the other part of your question. About my time here or something.  When I was a kid. 

[Audience] Yeah, [inaudible]

[Lama Lena] So remember I talked about how greed transforms into the wish fulfilling jewel. So I’d been studying with the Hindu sadhus, I’ve been a sadhu.  Living in the forest above Rishikesh, way up there, up the Ganges. You know, you go to the Ganges from Rishikesh and you walk up river for a day or two. Living just wild, sleeping in the forest, it is hot there. For quite a while. And I found a teacher, I did not speak Hindi then, and I found a teacher who had been silent for thirty years and did not use words. So the language as not a problem, old Indian Sadhu. Living in a cave up there. And I sat with him for some time and he thought me that transformation. And I developed a magic power of being able to manifest anything I wanted. Material stuff. Did not really notice it at first. However apparently the other sadhus did because they used to follow me around through the forest and talk about what they wanted to eat and then we’d come around a bent and there’d be leaved plates on a rock laid out with all the things they’d talked about. I said ’well I wish you’d had that since you want it’.  And there we were. So they realized I had this thing going long before I did. Who wasn’t paying much attention. To that. I was in this, it is a different state of mind. And I liked to be alone in the forest, so I was always trying to ditch them and they were always trying to find 

me again because I produced anything one wanted. And they had a lot of ‘wants’. I did not have any ‘wants’ at the time. So then one day I happened to as we wandered, I’d lost them somewhere, and I wandered into Rishikesh.

And I remember there was a lamppost and I was leaning on t thinking: ‘my god, I’ve got this power, this magic, I can have anything I want. What the fuck do I want. Mmm? Do I want a Mercedes? No, I ‘d have to look after it. Do I want money? I don’t need any money, I am doing fine in the jungle, there is food. And I stood there for the longest time trying to think of something I wanted. Until I must have been there long enough to start getting hungry or thirsty. And then I thought ‘you know, I’d like a bowl of yogurt’.  Immediately this beautiful Japanese man, hippy, with long flowing hair down below his butt, dressed in purple silks and carrying a golden horn, gorgeous man, walks up to me and says to me: ‘I am on my way to the curd shop. Would you care to join me’.

‘Oh yeah, I want a yoghurt!’ [laughter]

So I go to the curd shop with him, this is the way it works, this wish fulfilling jewel thing. And we each have a yoghurt, and then I, … I am watching the omens and a fly flies around and drowns in the yoghurt. And I am thinking ‘okay, there is the omen, you’re gonna get into trouble with this. Aah, screw it, he is pretty. I want that man’.  And as we eat our yoghurt he turns to me and says ’where are you staying’.

‘I sleep in the forests’.    

He says’ would you come to stay with me for a bit’.   [I think Lama is nodding] [laughter]

So we go to this beautiful fancy hotel with a great veranda, apparently he’s got money, and we go to his room and the sex is good; I mean not amazing, but good. And it’s been a while. And so I stay with him for a day or two. And then I notice, I am in rags completely. You know sun bleached used to be sadhu color, now kind of no colored with holes in them, probably don’t smell that good, except I bade in the river a lot so maybe they smell okay. And I think ‘you know, I am just not dressed right for this place’. [laughter] I need a wardrobe.

At which point the next morning we’re sitting on the veranda drinking tea and one of the women comes up me and saying ‘ I just joined an Ashram and I have to give away everything. You look about my size. Would you like my clothes’. She has exactly my taste[laughter]. And she is exactly my size. Silk, all these dry cleanable stuff wardrobe. Okay, now I fit the hotel a little bit better. Anyway, this goes on and on. All the different things that happen I don’t need to tell you. But finally it, of course, wears of. By that time I got two men, lovers, they don’t fight to much, a mansion, this is, I am up in Nepal. A mansion, a sho..everything. and the powers worn off, so I am working three jobs to support all this stuff like the dry clean-bills for the clothes and the two men who don’t have anything, who are depended on me, but very beautiful and sexy. And the mansion and someone to clean the mansion; because if you have a mansion it is too much to clean yourself and in don’t wanna. I am working in the daytime as an engineer designing a highway through the teraï.  Am working in the evenings managing a restaurant which is a cover for the forgery business I am doing at night in order to support this thing I magiced up.  So one morning I am one my way to my day-job and I am waiting to cross the street and there is a herd of buffalos going to the slaughterhouse. And they’re passing,  so I am waiting for them to pass and I look across the street and there is a one eyed old woman with one tooth, laughing and pointing at me with a red dog by her side with its tongue hanging out, looking like it its laughing too. I look at her and she is pointing her finger at me and like ’hahahahahahahahahahaaa!’ [laughter]

I think to myself ‘I don’t know from Ekadzati yet at that  point, never seen it, never did any Tibetan stuff, only Hindu’. But I look at her and I think ’ you know, she’s got a point. What the fuck am I doing!’. [laughter]

So I leave my bicycle and start walking out into the field towards the mountains. I don’t go to work. And I keep walking and keep walking and I go walk up a hill and I come to a garden and there is a Tibetan monk in the garden. ….a round guy. I say ‘ you’re  Tibetan’ and I say good morning. He says good morning in English, I think maybe he speaks English. I said ‘you know, do you Tibetan guys have something that doesn’t wear off and that doesn’t have to be maintained? And he said ‘yeah, actually we do.’ And I said ‘ will you teach it to me’. He says ‘ yes, stick around’. So I did for the next three years. That was Kopan, Lama Thubten Yeshe. Now called, the organization is called ‘fpmt’. And I studied with him for three years and many times I said ‘will you be my teacher?’ and he said ‘no, I am your babysitter, not your mama’. I felt like the little ducky, walking around going ‘are you my mama?’ ‘Are you my mama?’, to the giraffe and to the this and the that. And so I was really desperate to find a teacher, because I knew that without guru yoga and a root-guru I would understand but I would never transcend understanding. And I kept going to Lama Yeshe ‘ are you my mama?’. ‘No dear, I am not you mama, I am your babysitter, you’ll find your mama, but it is not me’.

So then I went traveling to all the lamas around north India; Khamtrul Rinpoche and Dursang Rinpoche and all over the place, ‘are you my mama?’ ‘No, go away!’ 

‘Where have you been studying?’

‘With Lama Yeshe.’ 

‘Go back to Lama Yeshe.’

‘But he says no!’ 

‘Get out of here, kid’, ‘No I am not teaching you’.

Everybody refused me. I finally became so desperate, I was in Dharamshala. In the forest above Dharamshala I stuck my phurba in the ground under a tree and said ‘live or die, I am not leaving here until I find my teacher.’

And I sat down under the tree, until something comes by to tell me where my teacher is, until this blockage breaks, I am not moving. I can out-stubborn it. And I was there for quite a few days getting hungry and thirsty when an old friend who three years before I had asked to be my teacher, a nun, very wonderful nun named Ani Jampa, who currently really big in Brazil; if any of you go down to Brazil, she is easy to find in the north. I am like ‘are you my teacher, come on, you just came out of three year retreat. You are a lama. You could do it.’

‘No.’

But she asked me why I was sitting under the three and I told her. And she said ‘god, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard’. I you knew Jampa, that is how she talks.

Very direct, not an easy teacher to have. But I would have done it. 

She is like” I am sick, I wanna go see my teacher, who is up above Manali. I need someone to carry my luggage, I cant carry my luggage, I am to sick, I have some neurological problem. You take me up there, to see my teacher, you create the cause of finding a teacher. And after we’re done, if you don’t find your teacher on the road to Manali, I’ll put you back under the tree and you haven’t broken your vow cause you’re doing this for all sentient beings’.

She talked me into it. [laughter] It took a while, like a day or so, but I finally agreed ‘Yes, I’ll carry your luggage instead of sitting under this tree getting weak and thirsty and out trying out-stubborn the universe. So I carried her luggage and we traveled all over Manali and we saw her teacher and we met many fine teachers and I asked each one of them ‘will you teach me, will you take me?’   

‘Get out of here kid, you’re not mine.’ ‘Nah, don’t have time.’ 

Finally we were done, we were on our way back to Dharamshala from Manali, and you have to change busses from Mandi in those days.  We missed the last bus for Dharamshala from Mandi. We thought we had it but we missed it, so we were gonna have to spend the night in Mandi. We didn’t have any money, we were broke kids. So we found this fleabag of a basement room; oh god, it was bad! Damped and full of bugs and under, over by the bus-stand, the old bus-stand. So we’re gonna.., it is just one night, we’re gonna spend the night there. In the middle of the night a had a dream. And in the dream I was walking in a place full of wild flowers and tall grasses and big grey rocks, covered with carved mantra. And I walked through what looked like a tunnel, almost like a vagina, a triangular tunnel, down and around and around and into this cave. And in cave in the back was a gom-tri [sgom khri;Wylie], a meditation box.  And this is all in my dream, and in this box sat a Lama, who was tall and skinny and had great long matted hair like yours. But he had square eyeglasses, heavy framed black square eyeglasses, crooked, cattywampus. And eyes like Guru Rinpoche. And in the dream I said to him ‘will you be my teacher, do you know how to show me the way to bring my mind through to full enlightenment. Can you do that?’

He said ‘yeah, I can do that.’ 

I am like ‘will you’.

‘Yes, stick around’.

Then I woke up. ‘Jampa, Jampa, I just had this dream!’. I woke her up and I described the dream. And she said ‘Well, I know a Lama that looks like that, but he is not in a place that looks like that, I’ve never seen such a place. Go back to sleep’.

Then I woke up, that had been a dream. ‘Jampa, Jampa, I just had a dream within a dream!’. And I again described the whole thing. She said ‘well I know that place, but I don’t know any Lama that looks like that there.’[laughter] So, okay now I am……..[laughter]  ‘Nyi!..’

She is ‘Go back to sleep, we’ll go..I’ll take you there in the morning, I know the place. Go back to sleep’. Well obviously I am not going back to sleep. I was quite willing to die if I didn’t find my teacher. And now something just happened, but damned if I know what it was. So the next morning we go to a different bus and we go to the end of the road. And we get off and there is just a little teashop there and then we walk through a tiny little village with a lake and up a wild mountain, we come up; no teashops there, there is a cinnamon tree growing down there, and rust a bit and then come up. And there is all tall grasses and wild flowers and if you look carefully as we go out you’ll see all the rocks covered with weathered mantra, they where fresher then.  And we go through that little tunnel thing and down to the cave that you have been in, exactly, now it is built up, it wasn’t then. And in there, there is a little round guy, with a round smiley face with square heavy black glasses, crooked like this, sitting in a gom-tri [sgom khri;Wylie]. And I am like, you can’t fool me, that is the guy,  I know those eyes, I know those glasses. Clothes change, don’t care. So Jampa speaks two or three words of Tibetan, I don’t speak anything. I picked up Hindi and Nepali by then but not Tibetan. So, and he doesn’t, the Lama doesn’t speak Hindi, all he knows how to say is ‘atcha’.

So Jampa asks him in broken Tibetan for me translating ‘ will you teach me.’ He says ‘sure, why not’. That’s as much as we know how to say and then okay, we have a cup of tea and take our leave. So I go over here in this area and there is a rock, I’ll show it to you later. And I just dig out a little dirt under it so it is a bit of a shelter and pile up some stones and stay there. That is how I met my teacher; you wanted a story. [laughter and happy sounds]

It is a long story and I don’t often tell the whole thing. But that’s how I met him. It was fall, autumn, it was just this time, grass-cut time, so coming in for fall. And he was worried about me in this open under a rock with just some piles of stone and you know, three stones to cook, I was doing fine, somebody gave me a pot. I know what to eat in the forest. So I wasn’t, I was fine. But he was worried about me so there was a cave that he’d been doing some retreats in over there. And so he lend me that cave for a couple of years, it was a nice little cave. And I practiced there for a couple of years and then; it was like really near a bunch of other caves, we were no longer, when I first came we were like twelve people. We did not even have like drums or anything. We had biscuit, those old tins you see them carrying water in, this biscuit-tins you call them; we had a stick with a rag around it: pong, pong, pong. 

But damn the energy of the puja’s that those yogi’s could do. With nothing. Even now we have somethings, but not a lot. These are all by gratitude of Rinpoche, the few things we have. I build another cave further up, that was smaller so that it didn’t have room inside for anybody but me. Cause that way that would keep people out politely, there was no room if I was sitting in the  gom-tri [sgom khri;Wylie] for anyone to get their ass in. It was just the size of my gom-tri [sgom khri;Wylie]. Now I’ve given up, people will visit me, I have a big cave. I have Lama Kunsangs’ old cave. In those days Rinpoche didn’t have a lot of students, only two. Most of the people on the mountain were students of Lama Kunsang, who lived where I live now. But I knew those eyes. So forty-five years later I am still here. Are there other questions.

[NN] The Kunsang that you are talking about, was that Kunsang Dorje?

[Lama Lena] Yeah, Karma Gyalpo, Kunsang Dorje Rinpoche. An old friend, drinking buddy, all those things. He is wonderful. I think there is some people who hold his lineage in England, so I’ve heard. 

[NN] …[inaudible]?

[Lama Lena] Maybe yeah, I don’t know them, I just heard so. I have his teachers ‘zen’. No, my student now has it, Winna, you met Winna. She has been her, just left today. Silver hair, bouncy, giggly. Oh well. He gave me his tattered old ‘zen’, it was my first ‘zen’. One of these; because he had a new one. And his’ had been his teachers, so that was really nice, blessing of the Nagpa lineage. Cause I wasn’t monk or nun ‘material’. [laughter]

I tried it for a year. With Lama Yeshe. Cause I asked him to ordain me and he said ‘no! You are not non-material’. And is said’ oh please, please’. He said ‘keep the vows for a year and then we’ll talk’. So I did. I got no freaking practice done that whole year. All I could think about was sex, jewelry, fancy clothes, fantasies, and in the afternoon, because you don’t eat in the afternoon, all I could think about was food. [laughter] No practice, no Dharma. Doesn’t work for me. However, we have young monk here for whom it may work very well.

[Thai monk] Not really..      [loud laughter]

[Lama Lena] For some people it is incredibly helpful to be ordained. For other people they just aren’t able to renounce in that way and it is just like wearing an underwear bra. It just bugs you. So, again don’t follow my path, follow your path. How will you know it is your path? You’ll like it. At least in the beginning. There will be periods as you go over the bumps that you won’t like. But by choosing in the beginning it will be the one you like. But then don’t leave just because it get’s bumpy. There be bumps. Are there other questions.

1:33:40 

[NN] Yes, I very much enjoyed the ‘mind-mind looking’. Would you share with us ‘what is mind’.

[Lama Lena] For me to answer that would be futile. Go find our own and see. Mind is where the thoughts happen, the thinker of the thoughts, the feeler of the feelings. In its true reality it is undefinable. But quite unmistakable when you notice it. Keep looking until you find it, my words are hollow. Your perception must be direct. Other question. Yes.

[NN]  Thank you so much Lama Lena. I heard you had an incredible magical translation talent and I wondered if you could share your experience of translating for venerable Wangdor Rinpoche and anything you’d like to share with us. 

[Lama Lena] He had me translating before my Tibetan was very good, because nobody else knew any English at all. We didn’t know how to do anything. I mean, he is this little old cave-yogi. With an old man and a young boy that follows him and some crazy Angrez/Ingraj that is staying and won’t leave. And seems to be like you know…and he is like….okay…[Lama Lena pulling a ‘crazy face’][laughter]

So you know how most Tibetan translators, the Tibetan Lama speaks for some period of time and then they stop and then the translator speaks. Well, the only time I’d ever heard a translation done was on a child’s fieldtrip to the UN. Where they do simultaneous translation. So I figured that is how you do it, the way I’d seen it done, once. So when someone came and he want, he’d talk to them in English, I did simultaneous translation, so the only way you can do that is with something like a vulced/vulcan mindmelt. So we used to do that and so his words would go in my ears and just come out my mouth and I didn’t really clean up the grammar that much, like to western grammar. Cause the sentence structure is often opposite. So I just put it out in the sentence structure and be following it along in Tibetan sentence structure; people didn’t seem to mind.  You know, at real time, simultaneous. There is stuff I’ve translated for him, some video tapes of translations on the website. The first time we did that mind-merge we made a mistake. We did it in the personality. We personality merged. Don’t do that. He got my hotflashes. [laughter]. 

I couldn’t enjoy seafood, they looked like bugs to me, cause he calls them bugs. We were both very irritated by each other’s personality, because we are vastly different personalities. So, oops. The next time we went into the lineage up there and then down and that is the proper way to do it. The danger when we are young and full of passion is that we fixate on the teachers person, rather than the teachers teachings. That’s, you respect the teachers person, you are kind and you assist the teachers person. But don’t fixate on it, that is not our mama. It is the lineage and the teachings you want. If you are given a choice, between being with your teacher and understanding their teachings, consider. Go for the teachings. You’ll probably end up with them anyway a lot. Does that answer? 

[NN] Yes, thank you so much.

[Lama Lena] Yes..

[NN2] How can you relate, like you said you went out[?] to the lineage and connected somehow through that and brought down[?], how can you come more into relationship to the lineage and conversation [inaudible] cause there are many …beings

[Lama Lena] Yes, come to know them. I use, as Rinpoche taught me, a particular song. For many years, now it is just a moment and I can do it. But we used a song. When we were together, he would sing it and we  would know this was the time to reach. And meet there, join there. Now, the way I am describing these things, that’s not what really happened. Those are my thoughts about what I felt was happening at the time. That is at least twice removed from any reality. All memories are like that. Don’t believe my thoughts any more than your thoughts. Unless I am teaching you a method that is useful, my thoughts are made of the same thing as your thoughts. Nothing at all. 1:40:36 

And you can’t even sit on them. So I’ll tell you funny stories to illustrate the point, but I don’t guarantee that is the way it really happened. Who knows what really happened, I sure don’t. I know how I now remember having felt and I can tell you about that. But if you catch me before coffee I remember it quite differently. Warning, don’t do that!

Other questions? Are we satisfied? Are we complete. Onalayah, would you check and see if they are making us Tibetan tea? 

[Onalayah] Yes

[Lama Lena] The last piece I will tell you is how to enjoy Tibetan tea. I promised you that teaching, that piece of magic. Remember, thoughts aren’t real. Guess what, you have a choice what to think. So when someone hands you a cup, don’t think: ‘tea’. If you think the word tea, you will not like it. I want you to think a creamy broth, a creamy vegan, vegetar… or not vegan, a creamy vegetarian broth, made with fine herbs, different fine herbs.  Local Tibetan herbs made into a lovely broth with cream. Can you think like that, it’s a soup, a light soup. If you think: this is a lovely light vegetarian soup to warm me in the cold, you will love the flavor of it, it is delicious. But if you think tea, it will offend you, because it is not what you think tea is. And once you successfully do this with a cup of Tibetan broth, you can do it with other things too. Not just Tibetan broth. Check out your problems. Some of them are probably due to being what you think they are. And you believing that thought. You know, the ‘he loves me, he doesn’t love me problems’. Or ‘she loves me, she doesn’t love me problems’. That we all get from time to time, those are thoughts. They are not real. They are just thoughts. You got to learn to meditate while thinking. Anyone can meditate without thinking, shyiné [zhi gnas;Wylie].  Not vipashyana, the other one. Shamatha, is shyiné, resting in peace, resting in stillness. Anyone can learn that. 1:44:10

But you see, the key is to meditate while thinking, not instead of thinking. While feeling, not instead of feeling, while perceiving, not instead perceiving. This is where samsara and nirvana are two sides of the same piece of paper. The samsara side has writing on it, the nirvana side is blank, but you cannot separate two sides of a piece of paper. This is where samsara and nirvana come together as the same thing. It is the absolute key to an effective practice, meditate while thinking, not instead of thinking. So they made Tibetan tea, yes?

[Onalayah]  They made Tibetan tea and some tea.

[Lama Lena] No, we just want Tibetan tea! [laughter]. It is part of the teaching.

We call meditating while thinking lhak-tong [lhag mthong:Wylie]. It comes after shyiné [zhi gnas;Wylie]. It is similar to vipashyana. It is where you are able to see, to be, to rest as ta-wa [lta ba;Wylie] while buying an apple in town. Or drinking, or making and drinking a cup of tea. Because there is no separation there between the moving: stuff, phenomena, inner phenomena, outer phenomena, thoughts and feelings being inner phenomena, objects being outer phenomena; there is no separation between phenomena and the source of phenomena. The infinite open vast indescribable empty awake aware lucid luminous creative sparkling and shimmering awareness…….is itself phenomena, the moving. Is itself the stillness of emptiness. Without separation. Have a look. This is mind-mind looking while doing. These are your quick glances, merging together without separation. 

Oh, bö cha [bod ja;Wylie] ri? Oh, thu je che[thugs rje che:Wylie], ga ro che. Cho ga so ted pu ja ten na. Go song pu ja hag o gu gun du. [Lama Lena talking Tibetan]

Mmm, a lovely soup. Yes, very nice, light soup broth. Pure vegetarian. You will like. Just be sure you think properly at it.