Getting distracted, annoyed, and disheartened by constant mental chatter? Watch Lama Lena’s 2-part public teaching on how to work with troublesome thoughts!
Good morning, welcome to “Working with thoughts”, the key to Dzogchen.
Chuku kundu zong bo gompa yi
Dorje Sempa Garab Dorje dang
Shere Singhi bardu shinlap de
De dang mab zong tata tu sum chi
Dzogchen ju pe lama la solwa deb
Urgen pema juney la solwa deb
Dorje Chang, Che, Tilo, Naro dang
Marpa Mila Gompo tsa tsa pa
Na ha Pu pa dang palden drugpa so
Kagyu lama nam la sol wa deb
O chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Drub chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Chak chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Yong drun dang nyen lo lam la sol wa deb
Pal kon du zong dang yer me pa
Gon garab dorje zhin trag pa
Je ti dang nyi su me pa’i
Pa lama nom che ten ter chong
02:28
As I began, thoughts are the key to Dzogchen; fortunately you have some, you have lots of them. You have so many, you don’t even notice them. Thinking continuously, believing each thought as you think it, barely even noticing that this is happen. So, we’re gonna start with a very simple exercise. You all are going to mute yourself if you have a microphone going, and for the next couple of minutes I want you to say everything you think, softy out-loud to yourself. I will do it too with you; Nyondo, can we mute this microphone.
Is there a little switch on it somewhere.
09:06
We seem to have experienced a technical difficulty, which perhaps I now fixed. [Lama Lena referring to technical difficulty with the streaming on Youtube and Facebook]
How did that exercise go for you. Dis you hear my bell ring, or did we loose that. We found the technical place, which cord was placing the problems, and fixed it, so let’s see if we are here again. Hi.
It appears we are online on something here, am I on both or do we need to reinitiate YouTube.
When you overheard me for a little while, it was extremely mondain. Anybody think profound thoughts out there. See, that is their nature, they are extremely ordinary and totally mondain. Not very interesting and yet you base your entire life on them. You access the sensation of your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, touch and feeling, and you interpret them by thinking. As a reality. And you take that reality as really real. Even though you know perfectly well that another cup of coffee will change your mood and change the way you think, as will a joint, a glass of scotch, or your favorite psychedelic substance. It all change the pattern of your thought. And yet, one of the ways people get into trouble with psychedelics is they forget that they have then a substance, and so they think the things they see with the substance are really real. And they walk out the window on to the staircase that was never there before but looks with the sensation of their eyeball really real. Shadaksmeal, throat of the camel 12:01 [?phonetic] is the worst one for that. Boy, do the things you see look solid. Don’t start experimenting with that, it is dicy, overdosing you bleed to death through the pores of your skin. Don’t mess with it unless your are working with a trained shaman. Pharmaceutical version is a little safer, because at least you know the dose; and your dose on the wild plant depends on where it grew, how healthy the plant was, if it got enough water this year; they like to grow in well drained soil near a river so that they can send their roots nice and deep and drink. They also like to grow in peoples yards, you might even have one if I told you what they look like. Don’t play with it, I am not telling you what they look like.
But they change the way you think, they change even the sensations that are coming in through your eyes, nose and mouth. Acid mostly doesn’t change the sensations, but you may think that you can fly. Which can be a problem if you are in a high place. Just trying to do it by jumping on the ground, is not so dangerous, but out a window…not such a good idea.
So, you know that your thoughts can change. Why do you think these ones are real. I think the thought ” it is Saturday, the flee-market might be open. I wonder if it is improved since Covid took it down”. See those thoughts about a mondain matter. How I think it really is Saturday. Have you ever been wrong about what day of the week it is. Made a bunch of plans on the thought that it was Tuesday or Saturday or Sunday; thought Monday was Sunday and slept in.
So often in your own experience, in our own experience, we have found our thoughts to have been inaccurate. How many of you can see about a past endeavor “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time”. Yes, that is a common refrain.
What I am trying to point out to you that automatically taking them as real does not serve you well. Automatically thinking at them “that is not real, that is not real, that is not real”, trying to lay a thought on a thought on a thought on a thought on a thought; thoughts can’t support thoughts, you’re gonna forget about it. That won’t work either.
15:26
What are thoughts, you’ve noticed them, you’ve said them out loud. But what are they made of. Well, the good point is, you’ve got lots of them. Go look at one of them, catch one. What is it made of.
Have you found any matter or substance, such as molecules, atoms, quarks and gluons involved. Have you found any duration, how long does a thought last. Pick a thought, any thought. Here is a thought. [Lama Lena showing a Dorje] Think about this. Look at it with your eyes, think about it with your mind; do you see how in each moment you notice something different about it – I got to hold it closer – you might notice that one of the things is uneven, that it is not very shiny, cause I fished it out of a cupboard where it has been for ever yesterday, it is not the one I usually use. nice one though, nice and small, fits my itty bitty short persons hands. See all those thoughts about it, those were all different thoughts. When you try to think about something and hold a single thought, if you examine what is actually happening. “see how it is captive one angle at the top, definite handmade, actually it is sandblast I believe and then polished”.
All those thoughts, see if you can catch a single nam [rnam;Wylie] of the nam-tog [rnam rtog;Wylie]. Tog is the nam, being connected to each other, called nam-tog, discursive thoughts. The little thought particles are nams. Catch one and hold it still. Go on, give it a try.
Cannot do it, can you.
We say of thoughts that they lack both substance and duration. Please examine your own thoughts; try and not do it by thinking over much about them. Or you can examine your thoughts about your thoughts, cause those thoughts where you think about your thoughts, where you think or not whether your thoughts have substance or durations are also thoughts, you can examine those. Have a look.
18:56
Find out whether or not your thoughts have substance or duration. Substance as in, you know, molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, Klingons, anything,
It is extremely important that you not take my word for this.
Go look.
Questions coming up so far?
[Nyondo][Lama Lena] [Nyondo] Oh yes, [Lama Lena] Give me a few on this topic. [Nyondo] Let me take a look at what we have. [Lama Lena] I like these teachings to be more interactive then is traditional for say the last thousand years. Previous before then, they were much more interactive. But with the beginning of monasteries and the need to educate many, many people at once, but pre-internet, they became less and less interactive. [Nyondo] Can you talk about the momentum thoughts seem to have. [Lama Lena] Momentum. I am to much of a physicist, momentum is a function of mass and movement, and since I find no mass, my thoughts seem to have any momentum. So, I am not sure what you’re finding there. Would you please describe further your sensation of your thoughts, having momentum. I mean, mine will be going in one direction, all of the sudden they are over there! I have been accused of having a flee brain. It could be my personality, and yours may on a track and go in a straight line. But that has not been my experience, is it really yours? [Nyondo] A related question is; thoughts are energy and energy has mass. [Lama Lena] How do you know thoughts are energy. Have you ben able to measure the amount of energy in a single one. How do you know that. Get back to me on, add to that.
Another person, we’re making this interactive, to it is gonna be conversational, can we handle that. [Nyondo] Sure. What if a thought is based on a physical sensation, for example feeling hot and uncomfortable. The sensation is real enough. [Lama Lena] There…you are experiencing a sensation, but naming it hot and uncomfortable rather then something else…My Khandro and I are very different in our relation to temperature. I would label the sensation I feel in eighty degree to eighty-five degree weather is hot and uncomfortable. She would feel the same sensation of the temperature, and say “Oh, that feels so good!”. But we can dump her in a hot tub for hours, and she doesn’t overheat. She sleeps with a hot-pad in the summer. I have to get my feet sticking out, use them as cooling fans. So, we’re very different in how we interpret the same sensation. How much of your hot and uncomfortable is your sensation. I think the most extreme example of this is kinky sex, with sm, where some person getting beat-up is extremely uncomfortable and painful and they want nothing to do with it, and another person thinks it is just the cat’s miaou, and it makes them terribly horny and leads to orgasm and they like it.
These are different interpretations of the same physical sensations. I think the way we interpret our sensations are fairly idiosincretic and can be changed by drinking a glass of whisky. When my back hurst, and I drink a glass of whisky, I still feel the pain in my back, but I am much happier about it.
24:59
When you go in for surgery and they give you an opiate, if you’re having major surgery, it doesn’t stop the incision form hurting, it stops you from interpreting that sensation negatively.
Some people who live with a lot of sensations that they perpetually interpret negatively, like thinking “I am afraid” than rather “I am excited” – feels the same – thinking “I am terrible” rather than “I am okay”; lot of mental and physical sensations, if they are regularly interpreted negatively people are easily addicted to substances that change that interpretation, so that the pain doesn’t hurt. Most junkies are just trying to get it to stop hurting. Not necessarily physical, it might be ‘yi’ pain, emotional pain. Opiate kill fear if you are continually in stress by being terrified of life because in the past it has been bad and you expect it to get no better. Anything that will change that thinking is gonna make you feel better. And if that thing is not readily accessible you may go to a great deal of trouble to acquire it. And so because may of these things have unpleasant side affects, such as being addictive, or making you bleed to death through your pores, people tend to overdo it. Making your teeth fall out crack. They’re just trying to feel better. And the thing with feeling better is, it comes and goes; no matter how much substance you take to feel better, it wears off and then you feel worse.
Once you’ve noticed that, you sometimes go looking for something that might last; everything wears off, except that which is unborn-undying.
This is basic impermanence one-o-one, the basic lam-rim that you all who are serious abbot study of Dharma – of you just wandered in here, don’t worry about it – but if you serious about your interest in Dharma, you should basically at least read one of the lam-rim books; Words of My Precious Teacher, in the Kagyu system, or is that Nyingma. Longchenpa, Nyingma. Or any of the lam-rim tex available out there in the Gelug system. And they’re everywhere; “the four turning minds”. The thing about impermanence is that everything that comes is a “gonna-go”. Have you noticed this in your own life.
Even diamonds wear out, wear down, go. Even the galaxy ends, the stars, our sun will die. You will die. Impermanence.
29:30
[Lama Lena] Anybody get back to me on the previous questions? [Nyondo] Yes, the clarification on the momentum; they’re talking about the momentum of their continuation, they don’t seem to stop, they just go and go. [Lama Lena] Oh, that’s habit. Even bugs think. You’ve been doing it a long time, beginning less time. You have a habit, not only of continuously thinking bt of continuously paying attention to your thoughts. You do. That is where you keep your attention. You pay attention to your thoughts as you interpret your sensations and call that reality. And it is a very narrow focus of attention, very close in. Butterflies in Borneo don’t enter it.And the other question. The question about thoughts being energy, did he ever get back to us where that came from. [Nyondo] There was a clarification, here we go; When we think, there is something measurable on a EEG. There is neuronic activity that can be measured, isn’t that some kind of energy? [Lama Lena]The neuronic activity is energy, but thoughts are not made of the neuronic energy. Because that energy, which is basically electrical in nature, when it is not in a living entity, doesn’t think. We have not yet managed to create to of electricity a living entity, a.i. it is called; we’re trying. The problem is how to give it that spark of awareness. So, yes the way neurotransmitters work, which signal the impulses between the neurons as they move electrons. They may investigate this further in a medical text on neurology. Moving electrons is electric current. That is what electric current is, the flow of electrons. But electrons don’t have mass. You can take the apart, they are not entities. You don’t find any substance in there. Also, although you can interpret what you see on a machine, on its screen, as a measurement of neuronal activity. You are doing that with thought, you are interpreting that. It might be something else. Our world is full of hear-say.
People telling you things. How do you decide which of what you read on the internet to believe. Only that which already agrees with you? How nice, the searcher engines [?] encourages that. 33:35
With our thought we create our environment, we define our environment; pretty color – ugly color, its dirty – its fine, look at the mess – oh that is a still live, are the flowers messy or tidy; interpretations, thoughts.
Energy, you say has mass. Energy is a symbol of matter. I don’t believe that energy itself has mass. I don’t think they found any actual mass even in electrons, even when they took them apart. If you go into quantum physics, and you take everything apart, there is no mass in there. And energy is just movement. Thought change; many, many thoughts without duration stuck together, might appear to have energy because they are moving. A single through without duration and without matter to transfers any space, how can that have any kind of independent existence.
But, with all the hear-say that we have been taught, from what other people said, what you read on the internet I guess if you are young, what you read in books if you are older, what you just saw on the tv. How many out there believe Trump won the last elections.
How many out there believe he didn’t. You believe that either way, because of what you saw and read. You didn’t count the votes yourself, you didn’t stand there and ask every single person eligible to vote who they voted for. You listen to others opinions and you choose to listen to more others opinions according to whether or not they agree with the opinions you already hold. You are not that different from the search engines.
And your opinions are made of thought. Lacking substance and duration.
You may believe your thoughts are in your neurons, but I believe you saw that on tv, someone told you that. Hear-say. Or you read it in a book, or you saw a graphic illustration, means somebody drew a picture of a neuron. Maybe you’ve seen an electron microscope, image of a dead neuron, or maybe you just heard of it. And anyway, how do you know that was a real image, and not something made. One of those lovely fake that everybody can make these days.
The only thing you can know is your own experience. Your thoughts. Feel them. Mondain as they are, feel whether they have substance or duration. Feel it for yourself where they occur. If you think in your brain, exactly where in your brain. Your brain is big. Left or right hemisphere. Somebody has probably told you that this kind of thought happens in the right hemisphere, and that kind of thought happens in the left hemisphere. And that word thoughts happen over here, and the visuals determine back. Put that down, that is hear-say. Somebody told you that.
You, feel around for a thought.
Just so we are all on the same page, think of this flower [Lama Lena showing a flower]
39:42
Where is the thought. Sure we’re all thinking about the same thing. Find the thought of the flower, where is it. Is it in the flower, is it in your eyeball that you see the flower. Where do you feel it to be. Not somebody said back in the visual cortex, that is hear-say. Where does it feel like it is to you. Spent a little while looking for that though, you can still think of the flower when I am not holding it. I’ll hold it for you. Where is it.
Which neuron, if you believe in neurons. What is coming from the flower to you. Does the thought arise in the flower. Examine with great care and see for yourself.
You may notice, we have w word that is not located in Tibetan. Sem [sems;Wylie] , translates as mind, does not refer to brain, or heart or liver. Does nor refer to an organ. Bur rather to the consciousness, the thinker of the thoughts, the awareness that is aware of being. That is aware of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, and feeling. The one who experiences this, we call it mind.
And mind, unlike solid objects, such as [Lama Lena ticking the bell] something made of metal, or my coffee, there is no there to the where of it. Placeness is a thought. Mind, the thinker of thought, therefor thoughts arise in mind. All thoughts are being thought by mind, all thoughts arise in mind; sem.
This mind, thinker, feeler, perceiver, this -er, chooser of choices, where is it.
This mind can imagine, visualize, the entire spinning galaxy of the milky-way. Sit on this ball of earth, imagine yourself sitting in a spot on the ball of earth, the planet, as it orbits the sun with the other planets worrying around, visualize the milky-way surrounding you. Below the world, above the world, there is no above, there is no below; above and below are only relevant to a very small area, called the planet involving gravity. Without gravity above, below have no meaning.
46:07
If you can imagine, visualize something that big, and you can, how could you limit mind, the visualize-er, to a single location. When it can perceive itself, imagine itself, in the highest heaven or the deepest hell, in a herd of unicorns and other imaginary places, this is truly amazing. Is it not? The natural and innate creativity of mind.
Oh it usually thinks mundane thoughts, but you can decide to think about dragons and unicorns; what color is a dragon’s tongue.
Imagination, the creativity of mind; what is it that allows the mind to be so creative.
The fact that it’s aware and can think and feel and perceive; don’t think of it as an organ in the body, that’s not the meaning of sem, or of mind or of consciousness. Oh, the brain is, the heart is, the liver is, the kidneys are. Mind. Where’s yours.
Go find it. Find it by following your thoughts home. And looking to see where they occur.
Awareness itself is infinite and open. Or the thoughts it can think are infinite and open. The feelings it can feel and the perceptions it can perceive.
When you sleep and dream, you may well dream in other realms and planets. Mind can do that. Little bitty bits of meat, not so much. Notice your mind.
It is by the very act of seeing mind as mind. Seeing, not with the eyes; perceiving, noticing that you free yourself from the tyranny of your thoughts. Your thoughts make you do everything. Both those things that are pleasant and unpleasant.
When you fight with your spouse, your thoughts bring that to occur. When you don’t get your stuff done, that is a thought. Not a reality.
By always believing your thoughts you always follow the same deluded path from beginningless time; never seeing beyond.
51:31
The mind if noticed, mind in its entirety, its infinite vast openness, inseparate from its awakeness, awareness and creativity; in the perception of that thoughts lose their power to make you perform according to the old patterns. How to? Looking at thoughts with thoughts; looking, feeling, finding, feeling the thinker
Recognizing, perceiving the thoughts as they arise and vanish in mind – sem – lacking in both substance and duration.
Transcending perception which comes and goes to innate recognition of mind by mind. And in that timeless awareness, which is neither limited by here and now or there and then, but has always been as it is.
Karma unravels. Karma plays. When the mind is purified in self liberation by recognizing itself while thinking. First the thoughts recognize the nature of mind and thoughts, you think about it, but you’re gonna forget that. Then you feel around for it. Feeling.
That-ness [?54:27 ] mind, infinite open awareness, Longchen Rabjam.
Not a big death old nothing. Intrinsically aware, awake, alive.
And that intrinsic awake awareness, manifesting continuously within time and space is creativity, imagination; let it free your creativity, your imagination; don’t bind it by is-es and isn’t-s, which aren’t.
55:49
Shimmer of the clear light; chö ku rol pa [chos sku rol pa;Wylie], the play of the Dharmakaya. All these words point to the same thing: infinite, open, awake, aware; you. Who you really are, not who you think you are. When you stop listening to your thoughts and look where they be happening; notice the nature of thought while thinking.
No substance. Look for yourself.
Allow the thoughts to arise and dissolve. Just as they do and always did and always will; don’t stop, them don’t grab.
Like a flight of birds across the sky, leaving no footprints.
When thoughts are seen in their moment of arising, which is the same as their moment of dissolution, as they lack duration which we pointed out earlier, no thing. In the where without ‘there’ there. No where, no there to that there – where either, even though we state it as a where. Look where the thoughts be happening. But we know it hasn’t a there, or a here, or even a ‘now and then’. Energy is a symbol of this. Just as matter as a symbol of energy.
Pass the symbols, pass the words, pass the pointing fingers. Rest in mind as mind without suppressing thinking in any way, without suppressing feeling in any way. Allow the infinite dance of moving with no thing which moves to occur. Without ceasing or trying to stop it.
There is no need to stop thinking to free yourself from the tyranny of your thoughts. Simply see them for what they are as they occur and un-occur.
59:49
[Lama Lena holding a crystal]Look. You can see right through it. You can see my mouth move. Transparent. Don’t try to look around the thoughts, look through them. For that which has neither substance nor duration, how can it block your perception
In the beginning, as you begin to rest your attention openly in an onned-mind itself, you will feel as if sometimes you’re looking at thoughts and sometimes you’re looking at mind. You will feel like it’s moving, like it has duration.
Practice; in the middle it will feel like not looking back and forth but simply a change of depth perception.
Hold your fingers in front of your face. spread. Look through them at the image on your computer screen. Now change your focus without moving, and look at the lines on your fingers. Computer screen is still there, you’re just not focused on it, can’t see it as clearly. Now look between your fingers, at the computer screen, can’t see the lines on the fingers clearly.
That’s in the middle, how it feels. A flick, a change of depth perception. What Lama Candice calls “short moments”, brief glimpses. What I say is: “check and see if your mind is still there, frequently”.
In the end, there is no separation whatsoever between the thinking and the infinite open awareness beyond time and space. And that’s where you reach completion stage Dzogchen.
1:02:48
If you cannot see the nature of mind while thinking, you cannot purify the mind in self liberation, you cannot release. By purify we mean release the patterns. You got patterns. It’s like having the lice; annoying and somewhat embarrassing. What are your patterns? Well, I can’t really say what yours are, but I can talk about some of mine. Stress eating; a tendency if I can get them, which is why I don’t, to eat an entire giant bag of potato chips without noticing; which annoys me insanely, because then I have a tummy ache. Patterns.
Think of one of yours that annoys you no end.
I won’t buy potato chips, because there’s no such thing for me as ” a little bag of potato chips”, so I don’t bring them home, it’s the only way.
What else. Since COVID I’ve been drinking more than I should; I drink the better part of a bottle of wine with supper last night, of course supper was excellent, and the wine was good too. I’m not sure how my liver likes it. Patterns.
By not co-ing your patterns, which is only possible from a perspective of resting in mind. Otherwise you’re gonna co them, you co them by shoving them away, by trying to not do it; you start thinking about “not eating”. “I’m going to go out today and get potato chips, because I’m thinking so much about not eating potato chips, right. So of course, I’ve got to have some potato chips”. That’s how you co a pattern, you focus on it by either shoving it or grabbing it. If I don’t want to have that pattern, all I have to do is…
It’s not made of anything, there is nothing to stick to me. No problem. I have to see through it. I have to see mind while thinking those thoughts. Clearly. Without flipping back and forth, it’s got to be simultaneous or it won’t work.
Before I knew the word simultaneous in Tibetan, Rinpoche was trying to teach it to me.
Tu nyam [dus mnyam;Wylie] I didn’t know tu-nyam. His example was in the hot weather, walking along and carrying a big sack up to the caves, and you stop to rest. And some of the people have oranges. And some of the people don’t. And they peel the oranges and you smell the oranges. And you drool, and the smelling of the oranges and the drooling of the mouth occurs simultaneously. That was his way of teaching me the new word; I’ve always liked that analogy, you always used to get lots of laughs for it.
You have to be able to see the thought and nature of mind at the same time. Or it won’t unravel.
1:07:31
The thoughts have to be self liberating, which they are, but you have to see them do it. Otherwise, you’ll never be sure that they really did that. You have to watch each and every one of them rise and vanish without duration. This unhooks the talk,[?]1:08:00 breaks the chain.
You cannot bring about a discontinuity in the delusory activities by merely recognizing thoughts and thinking: “that’s a thought, “that’s a thought, that’s a thought, that’s just another thought”. It won’t work. You will at the same time need to see the naked true identity. Mind itself.
Recognize mind as it has been pointed out to you and stay there. Not by grabbing that idea. Notice and relax, notice and relax, notice and relax.
It is by that, by resting time and time in the state of non grabbing, of not hooking the thoughts together and making thought chains, of leaving them in their natural state. Arising and vanishing. simultaneously, being no thing and nowhere, allows the patterns to uncoil.
By recognizing what is liberated in Dharmakaya.
It is said that a yogi, who sits for a single session and direct recognition of mind, creates more ge-wa than if a monk were to read, recite and copy out the scriptures for an entire long life.
This is more powerful, if you can do it then Vajrasattva or any other practice. Consider what is ge-wa, what are you tossing into the universe as ge-wa, what are you gifting to life. Openness, relaxation, ease; and there is more ease, more openness and more relaxation in this practice than any other. Therefore, I highly recommend that you do it.
There’s homework. This is a retreat for those of you who wish to take it as a retreat. It’s not required; it plants the seed, you’ll notice a bit if you don’t do the practice. But if you do, it works. And you will feel your pag-chas, those pattern thingies, also another word for demon, unravelling and loosening around your throat or wherever else you have them.
Frequently, for the amount of time you can, between now and tomorrow, sit in noticement, sit as open awareness; in noticement of the infinite vast nature of mind in which the thoughts play, arising and vanishing quite simultaneously.
Sit like that. You will find it easiest with your channels in alignment, in one of the proper meditation positions I’ve taught you in the past; that just makes it easier. But you can do it while walking and talking. While getting up and sitting down. It is the noticing of the already known Dharmakaya nature of mind, the infinite vastness by the Sambhogakaya nature of mind, you. Your awareness, your vitality, your aliveness, which is continuously manifesting as thoughts, feelings and perceptions, it be happening. In all of this. They are not separate.
We say the clear light of the Dharmakaya. The clear light is a symbol. It refers to this awake, aware, alive, vitality, which by its nature is creative. And we call the creativity, which is the manifesting thoughts, feelings and perceptions, the shimmer of the clear light, sparkle of the clear light.
1:15:04
You are the clear light. Don’t be the sparkle trying to grab on to the emptiness. That doesn’t work. You are the awareness; aware of infinite openness in all its sparkle.
Sit like that, frequently. And when you’re done sitting like that, get up and go about. Flick your attention back to that again and again as it wanders off. Don’t try to grab it and hold it tight. Stress, tightness, constriction, grabbing, is counterproductive here. You want to relax into noticing this. Relax into noticing this. And when your attention is distracted, it notices something else, that’s fine. Relax again into noticing this.
It’s the repetition, not the maintenance. Don’t make a session longer than is relaxing. Don’t stiffen, don’t hold it tight.
And I want you to experiment this evening with your substance of choice. Whatever you usually use: booze, a joint, CBD gummies, I don’t know what you normally use. But whatever your favorite recreational substance is, I want you to try it on that as well. Do it sober. Do it not sober. Currently, I’m doing it on caffeine. Because otherwise I might not even be managing a conversation with you. Coffee addict here.
Actually hold off. Let’s see if there’s a question.
[Nyondo] Oh, there’s many questions. [Lama Lena] Give me a question. [Nyondo] Um, we’ve had several questions asking for you to talk about the relationship between thoughts and emotions. For example: a thought of say resentment towards somebody, or being angry or sad or whatever, and how that emotion can continue the thought of being resentful or angry toward someone. For example. [Lama Lena] Well, first of all, to talk about that I need to talk about your six sense organs. The usual five: [Lama Lena pointing the six sense organs] one, two, three, four, five, and six, it’s called yi. If you were to look, if you want the Western medical explanation, there’s this mass of neural tissue surrounding your gut. And it is exceptionally sensitive to neurotransmitters. If you want the Tibetan explanation, there’s this really big chakra here, right in the solar plexus, which contains, which functions as a sense organ; it senses feelings, emotions. So, with all the feelings as they occur – YEAH!!! [Lama Lena suddenly flinging fast a cloth towards the camera and yelling out-loud ‘YEAH’]Did I startle you?
Feel it, if I managed to startle you with a yell and a fling of a bit of cloth.
Feel that in your yi, that sensation of startle-ment. This particular sensation startle-ment can cause it. You can interpret it as fear or excitement. Did I excite you, get the adrenaline going. Those of you who interpret it as excitement probably like rollercoasters. Those of you who interpreted as fear and want to duck it, probably don’t like rollercoasters. Because it’s not …if you call it fear you don’t like it, if you call it excitement you do like it. Same sensation.
Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions; sensations are an entire interwoven bil-bla. Bil-bla is what a ball of yarn looks like after the kittens have been at it, or a skein of yarn, it’s Tibetan word.
1:20:58
Sometimes the feeling comes first, or seems to; you’re gonna grouch, you wake up in a grouch, there’s no coffee, grouch, grouch grouch, you decide you’re grouchy because there’s no coffee. Those are thoughts. You go look, you’re out of coffee, grouch, grouch, grouch, who was supposed to buy the coffee, grouch, grouch, grouch, and nah, nah, gah, gah, bla, bla, bla bla bla, bla. You woke up in a bad mood. You hung that on no coffee, maybe you normally wake up in a bad mood.
Sometimes the sensation, not of the yi, where the grouch is felt, but say a sensation of the ears comes first. You hear people behind you talking about you.
If the chemical component of low blood sugar is involved in this, so you have a yeast sensation, and then you interpret the people behind you talking into Gallo, as talking about you in English, you mis-hear; you misinterpret your audial sensations. So, now you have thoughts interpreting. Now you’re going to base your action on the thoughts. Are you gonna turn around and confront them? Are you gonna move away from them and give them a dirty look? Nothing happened! You had a bil-bla; your interpretation of your audial sensation was affected by your blood sugar.
Or sometimes someone else’s interpretation. Let’s say you’re walking along behind someone talking with your friend into Gallo, or Hindi; I don’t speak Gallo, I speak Hindi.
So, I’m walking along, talking in Hindi to a friend. And unknown to, me the person in front of me, has low blood sugar, and misinterprets that as me talking to them in English and they turn around and yell at me. Now I’ve had a sensation, and I’m startled. So, I’m having a sensation here as well as in my ears of being scolded, I’m feeling startlement here, unexpected. And now I’m going to interpret the sensation in my ears and the sensation here. So, I’m gonna make up a story as to why this person is yelling at me like: “they’re nuts, they’re paranoid”. And then I’m gonna add, depending on the size of the person, whether I think they’re dangerous or not. And whether I’m preparing to actually have fisticuffs, or whether I’d say: “they’re little, it is gonna be easy to knock them down.
And we all go that way. Now, the fact that I would be preparing to have fisticuffs, whereas someone else might be preparing to run away, is the way it’s gotten into our old patterns. I’m an old brawler. I’m probably much too arthritic now to win, and stiff. But I would probably forget that in the sudden situation, go: “Yeah, bring it on”, and, you know, get my nose broke or something. One of those old reflexes that no longer serves me, but it would affect my interpretation.
Do see this mess, this bil-bla of sensations, thoughts interpreting the sensations and feelings being also a sensation, but being something that comes according to the interpretation. And that my interpretation is based on past experience that may no longer be valid. Yeah, I was pretty feisty when I had youth and strength; tended to win my fisticuffs. Mostly because I’m a Berserker.
1:25:39
Does this answer the question. They’re all mix-mix. We call them all mix-mix phenomena. And some people try to divide phenomena into inner, which is your thoughts and your feelings, and outer, which is stuff out there. But you don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know what the people behind you are really saying. Which you will hear a cord into your blood sugar. And maybe there’s a word in their language that sounds like your name, or close enough: Lela, Lila, it’s common word in many languages, my blood sugar was low, I could misinterpret it as my name. Bil bla.
And this happens all the time. You’re always interpreting things. According to your hormones. Day before your period you got one interpretation, when the hormones are hitting; different interpretations when you’re pregnant.
Gentlemen, different in…you also have monthly cycles, they’re just not as clearly marked as a woman’s. But in Chinese medicine, if you stick a finger in a guy’s ears, and it’s damp he’s on the rag and you should be rather gentle with him. Go ahead married couples, check it out and see if it’s true. Something I learned in school, hear – say.
Next question.
1:27:31
[Nyondo] Uhm, a related question is: can this practice be done in an intense emotional safe state, such as sadness. [Lama Lena] This practice is best done at all times in any intense emotional state. And without one. Sadness, depression. But in this practice, we are working with thoughts. So what you want to do is notice how the thoughts are orbiting your sensation of sadness. And then look through them, for they are by their nature transparent, and allow your attention to relax into the natural open state of awareness.Next question.
[Nyondo] There’s a similar question asking for more details on the relationship between thoughts and language? Is it possible to have thoughts without language? Do thoughts only exist with or through language? [Lama Lena] No, it’s perfectly possible to have a rather complex series of thoughts without language. I remember learning to speak English. And I remember many complex things that I could not communicate until I got to be about a year old. I remember the frustration of not knowing how to say that. All about the monster under the rocking chair, which was a wolf, fox, little thing furry thing, and about how it was always trying to catch me and eat me. And whenever my mom would rock forward, it would try to grab my butt. And it just kept doing that. And then I would climb up my mom and get higher and higher as best I could. She could never figure out why the baby was always going up. And it would still be able to grab my butt. And then I had this explanation about how it didn’t realize I was higher so its motivation was the same and it didn’t believe it could really get my butt. But it could almost get my butt, because it believed that that was the way it could do, and if it ever figured out that when she put me back down by the tit because I’d gone up and wasn’t eating well, because there was a monster after my butt. That it didn’t realize that I was down farther so it just tried with this kind of the same, like if it remembered the effort… all this is without thought. I mean without words, because I didn’t speak enough English to anyway near express this; I was a nursing baby in arms, this is first six months of life where mum used to rock forward and pad my butt, and rock back in rock forward and pad my butt. And I had, I didn’t understand that, I didn’t know. I had all these explanations. Boy, did I have explanations for things as a little kid.Bugs think. Nothing is complex as that, that kind of complex stuff is pretty human realm. Your dog thinks. Your cat thinks it’s time for supper and will inform you of that, determinedly. They don’t have language the way we have language, but they certainly think.
Your language or your thinking may, by habit, be limited to things you can say in your language. You kind of have to think in feelings and pictures to escape your language and even then it is very hard to get past languages you have known or do know.
Our “what we can think” is constrained by our individual karma and the group karma of our culture, and the species karma of our species. I’ve met people who are very western culturized who can’t believe two opposite things at the same time. Whereas most anyone I know who grew up speaking Mandarin has no problem with that. Either – or is not an of course, it’s a possibility.
So yes, you’re going to be limited by language, culture, species, and your own patterns. One more question and then I think we may finish for today.
Notice this. Don’t think this, it won’t help. Notice it again and again and again. When you notice it, relax. Notice – relax.
Notice – relax.
Try it sitting with your channels in alignment and while going about or doing other things, try it both ways. Try it sober and under the influence. Try it when lively and when tired. Try it while out among much stimulation and well at home in a quiet place. Okay? Different circumstances. I want you to see how they don’t actually change anything except the phenomenas dance; how fast it dance, seems to dance. They don’t change what it’s made of. Sparkle of infinite openness, infinite emptiness. I want you to notice that of your own accord and not take my word for it. That’s tonight’s homework should you wish to do it. It does lead to freedom from those patterns which get in your way.
1:36:49
And did you find a question, Nyondo?
[Nyondo] Oh, I did. What does it mean if I don’t have an internal monologue? [Lama Lena] Nothing much. You’re still thinking. You just may not be thinking in words, some people don’t. You probably have an internal pictulogue, or something, because you’re still thinking, you’re human. Just might not be in words, might be in pictures, sensations, feelings.One more. [Nyondo] Okay, I’m looking for it because it was…why does the experience of – quote – no thought – end of quote – have a sense of pleasure or relief? [Lama Lena] Because they’re boring, thoughts. Do you not feel how boring they can be. Continuously. Why? Because it’s your natural state. Being obsessed by your thoughts is most irritating and uncomfortable. And that’s the state we live in, almost all the time. It’s much more pleasant to relax. Lots are stressful. Are they not?
Anyway, I think we’re complete for today, I got a pee. You may have to also. That was a thought on a sensation.
ge wa di nyur du dag
de yi sa la go par shog
May all beings find, recognize their natural state of freedom. We are complete for today. Stay tuned tomorrow for the second part of working with thoughts. They’re your key to freedom.
[Lama Lena] Good morning. Today we have the continuation of working with thoughts.
[lineage prayer]Chuku kundu zong bo gompa yiDorje Sempa Garab Dorje dang
Shere Singhi bardu shinlap de
De dang mab zong tata tu sum chi
Dzogchen ju pe lama la solwa deb
Urgen pema juney la solwa deb
Dorje Chang, Che, Tilo, Naro dang
Marpa Mila Gompo tsa tsa pa
Na ha Pu pa dang palden drugpa so
Kagyu lama nam la sol wa deb
O chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Drub chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Chak chen lama nam la sol wa deb
Yong drun dang nyen lo lam la sol wa deb
Pal kon du zong dang yer me pa
Gon garab dorje zhin trag pa
Je ti dang nyi su me pa’i
Pa lama nom che ten ter chong
02:50
To recognize your own nature is the first vital point; infinite open awareness. You, just as you are. Not your personality, that’s a come and go, it’s changing, you can’t count on it. Yeah, you think you’re one kind of person, and then some shit happens and oops, no, you weren’t. Personality isn’t trustworthy. Anyway, you think your intelligence is something you’re gonna to base your trust on? Hello, senility. Either you get old or you die young.
And there that goes.
Only that indescribable openness beyond, containing the space time continuum; bigger, bigger than the idea of place, longer than the entire span of time.
Your mind, sem. Sem-nyi, your real mind. Not the thoughts you think in it, although they are not made of something other than that. But the infinite openness in which the awareness plays by thinking, feeling, and perceiving. Ta-wa [lta ba;Wylie].
To recognize your own true nature is the first vital point. To become sure of it is the second. To develop absolute certainty – quote from Garab Dorje – is the second vital point. How do you get sure? By checking it out again and again until you are sure. It’s very simple.
When you pick something up and put it down again…come on, do that simple action; pick something up and put it down again. When you do that, you are not thinking about the law of gravity. But you are absolutely sure of the law of gravity. None of you are fretting about the chance of drifting off into space while you sit there, now are you? That certainty.
How do you get sure? You sat in your high chair, you picked up things: spoons, peas, toys, glasses of milk, anything to hand and you reached out and you let go. Parents, you’ll all be familiar with this stage. And it… all of it went down. None of it went up. And you did that often enough, until you were sure. You probably tried to fly. We’ve all jumped off something. And flapped our arms as a little kid in hope; “well, if I can fly in my dreams, I should be able to do it now”. And discovered after a few dings and bruises, hopefully you did not jump off the roof, hopefully you jumped off the bed or flung yourself forward over the bed, not being sure it was going to work. You eventually became absolutely certain of gravity. Long before you intellectually understood how gravity works, if you even do.
07:46
We really worked on these two points yesterday. There is a third point I want to explore with you today. And I’m going to include a bit of a text from Patrul Rinpoche, which is a commentary on the three words of Garab Dorje. Because Patrul Rinpoche was always really good at saying things simply; he did not up to suffocate as some scholars tend to do. So if you get a good translation of anything of Patrul Rinpoche’s, it will be written in simple terms in Tibetan, and will be pretty understandable. I like people who don’t up to suffocate; I also like that word.
08:58
What we’re talking about here is the third word of Garab Dorje, so-pa. Which I’m not going to translate. I have seen it translated as action or conduct. But conduct sounds as if it’s talking about a way you should behave and it’s not. Action is talking about, or sound as if it’s talking about something you should do, and it’s not.
Here in it’s talking about the spontaneous occurrence in non action. The way it does that, just as around large clumps of matter, energy; large clumps of matter energy attract each other. They roll into each other’s dents in the space time continuum. They’re now finding, now that they’ve got ways of measuring tiny, teeny things, they’re finding that it’s not just space, that dense or warps causing the phenomena of gravity. It is also time and that time is different in a strong gravity field, such as a black hole, or even a planet slightly different.
What I am trying to get at here is that nobody makes it be that way. It doesn’t have a reason why is gravity? Why is gravity? No reason. There’s a way it works, a how. Which is true in this particular dimensional set, and probably not in others, because they’re all different with different physical laws. For example, gravity does work differently in dream time, as you may have noticed. Dream time is simply another dimension.
Some call it the fifth, with time being the fourth.
But don’t look for why. There isn’t even a word for “why” in Tibetan. Oh, you can say: “for what reason”. But this little word “why” that the little kids ask all the time: “Why is the sky blue”, no little word like that. You have to say a longer phrase.
So you’re not going to find a why; to all of those who asked “why” last night. There aren’t “why’s”, because it isn’t on purpose. And “why” pertains to “Why did you do that”.
There are, I’ll call them physical and para-physical, laws that govern how things function. That’s “how”. How does it do that. But we’re not going to find a why, because ain’t nobody’s steering the ship. You need a god for a why? If you need a “why”‘ then go make up a God and ask Him or Her for it. I prefer the great Spaghetti Monster actually.
If there is not the vital significance of the practice of arising liberation, so-pa, liberated upon arising practice – we’re still talking about so-pa – then whatever arises, all the mental outflows, your description of things, your interpretation of your six senses, sensations, your feelings about that interpretation, these are all mental outflows, mental arisings.
Thoughts, which are continuously moving through mind, whether noticed or unnoticed – we have a word for the thoughts that are not noticed, the little tiny ones, they’re called ungawa [?14:07 ]; under mutter, you’d call it in English – those and the main thoughts, such as I’m thinking what words to use with you here, I’m using thought to do that, and a text, somebody else’s thoughts that they wrote down, it’s all thoughts.
If you do not recognize this arising practice innately and always was there, then the under mutter of thoughts will nonetheless create karma. They will create cause. If you think a thought many times, you’re more likely to think it again; karma, action, causes you to repeat it. That’s why being a professional butcher is not recommended.
To sustain now that’s – I don’t like this translation – to recognize the innate sustention of the practice of liberation on arising, whatever thought arises, whether gross or subtle, whether under mutter or regular thoughts [No, English is not very clear on any of this, Martin] that’s the crucial point. All suddenly arising thoughts, whatever you are thinking, they all without exception, lack substance and duration. They dissolve as they arise, the arising and dissolving is simultaneous. This is the point we’re making.
16:30
Whatever thoughts arise, do not let your attention be diffused by them, following them off here and following them off there. Remember when we did the exercise yesterday of saying all of our thoughts out loud for a while, how we would follow them into a topic; for instance, a thought occurred about what I would do in the afternoon, and I followed that thought into a whole topic of a plan, none of which happened exactly the way I planned it of course. When you… there’s the individual thoughts, and then there’s the stream of topic, topic stream; the topic stream is made by you, you hook the thoughts together and follow them through time to make a topic stream, a thought chain.
You don’t have to do that. To cease doing that is not a forceful stopping. It’s not like stopping drinking or stopping smoking that you put effort into not doing something. It is a relaxation into not bothering.
You don’t bother to connect them. If you try to do this forcefully, you will end up making a mess; applying thoughts on top of thoughts and making a thought-chain about how you’re not making a thought-chain. Don’t even bother.
The trick to it, and yes there’s a trick, is to sit with your awareness wide open into sem-nyi, natural mind, chö-nyi, nameless, George.
Without suppressing the thoughts, without following them either. Relax. Don’t try to stop thinking. Allow your attention to merge with natural mind, sem-nyi, big mind, real mind, the totality of yourself; that which is beyond the idea of self or other or here or there or then or now, those are thoughts, they are not bad.
Leave them be in their own nature. They, by themselves, dissolve in the moment of arising. You don’t have to make them do that. This is not doing. It is, once again, a noticing. You can only notice when you’ve expanded your awareness, when you are not paying point focused attention to the individual thoughts, but are allowing them to dance freely as the sparkle of the clear light nature of infinite openness.
I can only give you words that are symbols; don’t grab the words, they’re thoughts, look where they point.
Vital, alive, awareness; infinite vast beyond description, dancing with the shimmer of creativity. Don’t be sitting here looking at that, sit as that! It’s not outside of you. It’s not limited by inside either.
22:44
Whatever thoughts arise, do not leave them as unnoticed diffusion, or do not make them as unnoticed diffusion by ignoring them; do not make them as attention grabbing by following them. Neither of these, don’t ignore, don’t follow. Don’t stare at, don’t look away from. Relax. No thought of itself has duration. When you think simulataneously with opening your awareness into the natural state, your thoughts pass like writing on water, no residue is left. In recognition there is no continuity, no nam-tog [rnam rtog;Wylie]. Plenty of nam, no tog.
The thoughts still arise. But when you don’t do anything with them, they dissolve in the moment of arising. Notice this. Not by thinking about it. But by just sitting there in a relaxed way and being with it. Difference.
Recognize the thoughts in their arising as they’re arising by remaining unseparated from the state of natural awareness, natural recollection.
Don’t stick the thoughts together and make a succession of thoughts. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, that’s a succession of thoughts, that’s a chain. Each one leads to the next. When you rest in natural awareness, they…you will notice that they are not actually connected to each other. Connecting them to each other is a doing that you do.
To refrain from doing it is a tension/attention [?26:15 ], pulling your hand back, don’t do that. Don’t follow, don’t refrain, middle way. Relax into the natural state.
If you can not recognize the innate purity of this self-liberation, not created, not destroyed, then you will have a great difficulty in bringing about a discontinuity in delusory activities. You will keep believing your thoughts as real, describing a real situation, you will act upon those stories and dig yourself deeper into your holes.
Just saying, as thoughts arise, “that’s a thought, that’s a thought, I don’t have to follow it, that’s a thought” doesn’t work. You can’t antidote thoughts with another layer of thoughts.
I had a friend who practiced an interesting practice for about forty years, where…it’s a working with emotions practice from Sutrayana, possibly even from Theravada system… where if you feel angry you antidote it with patience by contemplating, thinking about patience; and if you feel afraid, you antidote it with thinking about refuge; and if you feel jealousy, you antidote it by thinking about generosity and sharing. He thought maybe after forty years, it was working maybe a little. That his angers and jealousies and other arising things weren’t maybe quite as strong as they had been. So, it may be that that practice works, but it’s slow. Tantra is a lot faster, you transform things. This is instantaneous. The moment you see it, as it really is.
By recognizing thoughts at the same time you will see the naked true identity, exactly that. Recognize the previously shown wisdom; chöku rigpa, Dharmakaya’s awareness, which is not other than your awareness. Recognize your true nature is the first vital point. Remember the recognition and re-enter it again and again without suppressing the thoughts and without following them either. This will allow the thoughts to remain in their natural state, which is unconnected without you performing the eventual action of connecting them. Do you understand?
I think it’s time for a few questions if we have any.
30:24
[Nyondo] One question is: What is the text that you are basing these teachings on?[Lama Lena] Three words of Garab Dorje, and the commentary by Patrul Rinpoche.[Nyondo] Okay. And we’ve had a couple of questions, let me find them, here we go: The thought disappears as soon as I look at it, every time another one comes up, am I doing it right?[Lama Lena] Yes! The thought disappears, you have to look at it so that it… all thoughts disappear, whether you look at them or not, right. It’s not you making them disappear the moment you look at them. Thoughts disappear in the moment they arise without exceptions. You’re looking at thoughts, while resting in awareness of natural mind. These two things as one are allowing you to perceive the natural state of thoughts.Next question,[Nyondo] Will you please talk more about bil. You spoke about it yesterday and I keep thinking about it, but I’m not sure I truly understand it.[Lama Lena] You ever have kittens and yarn? After some time, what you get is a bil-bla; yarn that has been played with by kittens. We got up one morning when we had a pair of young kittens, and found that someone had taken a ball of yarn and run up and down the stairs and all through the house and around the furniture while batting it; and it was an entire web. The dog was stuck at a corner, he couldn’t figure out how to get past the cat web. Bil-bla, something which is seriously an entanglement, so that you really can’t unravel it, and you just need to cut. The way your thoughts, feelings and sensory sensations interact together is a bil-bla; you can’t really unravel it, you just got to cut it.
Trek-chö, cutting through, cuts it. I am showing you how to cut the thoughts in this teaching. There are… because I broken it down into bite size. So cutting the thoughts.
The next teaching is cutting the feelings, and the one after that is cutting the perceptions. Actually, simply from the teachings of tsik sum né deg [tshig gsum gnad brdegs;Wylie] [Three words of Garab Dorje/ Hitting the essences in three words, trans.], if your mind is ready and ripe – a ripe fruit fruit falls from the tree into your hand if you just even look at it, if it’s fully ripe, if the breeze blows, that’s why under your fruit trees they’re all over the ground, the right ones – if you are ripe, just hearing the words cuts through all three simultaneously. But if you’re not quite ripe, it’s still a little green, then we cut it into bite sized pieces so you can swallow it.
Next question
34:36
[Nyondo] How do you know that you believe or do not believe your thoughts? Simply following one thought out of current necessity, as an example “I forgot to take my vitamins”; does not grabbing mean you also don’t believe it.[Lama Lena] To not believe it the way you’re describing is to think about not believing it. That’s not what I mean. That’s building a thought edifice, chaining other thoughts together. For example: “I forgot to take my vitamins, I’m sitting here looking right at them, they’re over there in that corner”. That’s a thought chain. I neither grasp it as being real.Actually, what’s going on is: I see a certain color and shape with my eyeballs. I interpret that color and shape as my vitamins. They’re in a place that makes me think they’re not in my stomach, since they appear to my eyes to be outside of me. Therefore, I theorize – this is all the thoughts going really fast – that I have forgotten to take my vitamins. Then I decide “well, I should go get them and take them”. Then I decide not right now. I don’t feel like it. I will do it later.
That whole thing isn’t real. Those are thoughts. They are describing a sensation in my eyeballs. I’ve taken enough drugs to have had a lot of sensations in my eyeballs that other people in the room weren’t having. And seen other people, who’ve taken those drugs when I haven’t, oh, having a long conversation with an upside down mop. That was high school. He thought it was the director, his history teacher. His history teacher was sitting in a chair nearby in the living room. And the kid is having this incredibly good conversation about history and his term-project with the mob. Well, the mop had these white dreads and so did the history teacher. I could see the resemblance. When the kid was done and satisfied with the conversation, went off to his room. I remember the history teacher getting up and looking at the mop from one side and looking at it from the other side and looking at the rest of the people in the room and saying: “do I really resemble that?”
So many things have happened, that I tend to take my sensory input with a grain of salt; or rather my interpretation of it. How do you know you’re not dreaming and I’m not trying to give you a teaching in dreamtime. And because it’s your habit of seeing me on a computer- screen, you’re dreaming you’re seeing me on a computer-screen. You don’t know. You have no idea what’s real from what is not. None of us do. We just interpret our sensations according to our habits and patterns, channel patterns and imprints, and then perform actions according to our story that we told ourselves; usually because we have a feeling like “I’m feeling about my vitamins, that I should take them”. “Shoulds” are a feeling, it’s an emotion. Should, and then you get the guilt: “I didn’t, I should, I didn’t”. Really? Let go.
It is the play and you don’t have to cease to be playful. You can play with form. Goodness, you can’t not. You at least have to eat, sleep, and shit. More than that, you’re just entertaining yourself.
Next question.
39:40
[Nyondo] It’s easy for me to rest in sem-nyi when sitting. What can I do to make it easier when I am off the cushion?[Lama Lena] Acquire an annoying object: a bracelet with dangles that get in your way, an earring that taps you periodically. If it’s something you always wear, it won’t work. So switch them up when you get used to them. Or, xerox a bunch of double Dorje’s, little ones on stickers, and stick them everywhere in your environment, your car, your house, your office, your computer. Use them as mnemonics. Every time you see a little double Dorje, check and see if your mind is still there, and don’t grab it. Don’t try to maintain it.The effort of trying to maintain sem-nyi while going about is going to be counterproductive. Go for frequency rather than extended length of time. Notice it, relax, let go. Again, notice sit, relax, let go. That’s the second word of Garab Dorje, that’s how you develop the certainty; to develop absolute certainty is the point.
Gom, which is what this method is often called – although gom is a word that can have many meanings in different contexts – is simply what Lama Candice of Denver calls “short moments”. What Rinpoche calls sem sem ta.
Check and see if your mind still there or if you’ve lost it. Since it’s you that’s checking and you’re your mind. Just periodically while doing all sorts of things.
Notice the infinite open awareness in all its vital playfulness. Don’t think about it, notice it, and then go on with whatever it is you were doing.
Next question.[Nyondo] Are thoughts and emotions the same? What’s the relationship between thoughts and emotions?[Lama Lena] They both arise in mind and dissolve in mind. They both have a perhaps physical component in the energy channels.
The difference is that emotions tend to leave a residue in the body. Although they also arise and vanish and rearise, instantaneously, spontaneously; because they leave a hormonal residue affecting the yi, they leave a sensation.
You can’t really separate emotions from thoughts, from sensory input. You see, or you hear, or you read something. You feel something about it. You think something about it. It’s all a single bil-bla. You can’t really separate them.
We do separate them out in the beginning, only for purposes of introducing them more slowly, to those who want piece by piece. The separation we make is not real. It’s useful at the moment, but not real. There are certain things that I am teaching you in the beginning as true that are really not quite exactly that by the end.
But you can’t really talk about the difference in the beginning, because there’s no context. So we use terms like inner and outer phenomena. Thoughts and Feelings being inner, and stuff being outer; mountains, trees, buildings, cars. Even though we know that there really is no separation between the two. But we might introduce working with them separately because it’s a little easier to get your teeth into.
Next question.
45:49
[Nyondo] Yesterday, you explained the concept for patterns. You said demons were another name for them. Are these the same demons in Chöd ?[Lama Lena] Yep. Well, there’s lots of kinds of demons: dooms, düd [bdud;Wylie], dree [‘dre;Wylie], gegs and parchees, pag-cha is kind of par-chi; par-chi is an instance of pag-cha manifesting. So these are all translated into English as demons. But they’re all really different.Next question,
[Nyondo] Do we need a lot of merit from previous lives? And do we need to do a lot of purification in order to successfully do this practice?[Lama Lena] Well, you need a lot of merit. Merit….yep, so-nam [bsod-nams;Wylie] yes, you need a lot of so-nam in your vicinity to even encounter this practice, otherwise you’d be somewhere else, doing something else. Do you need to do a lot of purification? Some of you, not all. You all have created… so, the way karma works: the most recent and the most intense, manifest first.So yes, you’ve been a mass murderer, but if that was a long time ago, it’s not likely to manifest right now, unless there’s other karmas that are in…that’s the pattern, it’s not individual.
For example, if you have the karma to have prostate cancer, if that is your karma in this life, but you’re female, so you don’t have a prostate, cis-female, then it can’t actualize now. Oh, it’s waiting in the wings. But it can’t happen until the circumstances, the group karma, the entire karmic manifestation of the locale is in accord with it manifesting.
So, we’ve all got all the karma. We have all done all the terrible things, and all the wonderful things. And we’ve probably all practiced if not this Dharma, some developmental dharma, in the past. You know, this lineage, which is happens to be Nyingma that I’m working with is not the only valid lineage. Back before the white man, there were valid lineages among the Native Americans. Many of them died out because so many were killed. The yaki seem to have maintained a few down south in the Mexican deserts, seem to. The Bön certainly have an ancient valid lineage, out of Zhang Zhung.
50:03
I’m lookin at [?]… well druids had a lot. Whether or not they had Dzogchen, I’m not sure. But that lineage is nearly entirely died out. And I don’t know what the Wiccans had; none of the Wiccan studies I did lead to anything like Dzogchen. Although it may have been there. I just didn’t go that far. What I’m saying is: don’t be so-ri [phyogs ris;Wylie], thinking that the lineage you’re practicing is the only one that goes all the way. There may be others. We don’t know. I sure as heck hope there’s others on other planets, because there’s a heck of a lot of other planets, and it would be the height of hubris to think we’re the only ones that got lot’s of them[?].51:02 Wouldn’t it.
Nonetheless, pick one and follow it, because otherwise you just gonna split yourself into many pieces.
Point here is that you don’t know what pattern you’re holding. You might have spent the past three-hundred and ninety-nine lives practicing purification, and be so ripe that you’ll fall with a touch. Or maybe not.
This is why, at least among my teachers, we always teach the highest teachings first. If you get it, great! If you don’t, okay, go back one. Teach an easier version. If you get it, great! So we don’t start at the beginning, although we do recommend you read the books. Go read a Lam-rim, go read Words of my Perfect Teacher, get your basic grounding. Read some sutras, get your basic grounding.
But that is not where we start to teach, considering impermanence; anyone of us might die at any moment, self included. So I just assume give you the best of what I know of, now rather than later. Capice?
Next question.
52:59
[Nyondo] Can you please explain how to capture simultaneity? In the case of intuitive thoughts. You talked about simultaneous.[Lama Lena] But all thoughts are simultaneous; intuitive is not more so than anything else or less so. There’s no difference between an intuitive thought and a non-intuitive thought.Next.
All thoughts without exception. It’s not like some of them are right. They’re all the same.
Next.[Nyondo] Related to that: How to cut through subtle thoughts like – quote “I am a meditator sitting here meditating, or I am the one relaxing to realize rigpa”[Lama Lena] Same way you cut through any thought. Relax. Don’t shove it away, and don’t follow it; leave it be.
You don’t have…there isn’t one method for one kind of thought and another method for another kind of thought. All thoughts are made of the same “not stuff”, and have the same lack of duration, and arise in the same “not-place”, and dissolve in the moment of their arising; they’re in that same “not-place”. There is no difference.
God, trying to find the right thought, I got so tangled in that. Rinpoche was so kind, not nice, kind, to knock me out of that one; got me into a situation where I simply could not think my way out of it, and sat there giggling as I flailed. I had to find the right thought. But what was really happening. It’s all stories, it’s all creativity. You make up all your stories. They didn’t happen the way you think they did. Ask someone else who was there.
Hey, you got a partner? Ask them what the last fight you had with them was about, and I bet you they’re gonna think it was about something different than you thought it was about.
If it was about anything at all.
All thoughts without exception arise in mind and dissolve in mind. Notice this for yourself, don’t take my word for it. Watch them do that. Until you’re sure.
Next question.
56:31
[Nyondo] How should we deal with fatigue, dullness, or spaciness with this practice?[Lama Lena] Those are feelings, you are interpreting them. Those are actually sensations. Fatigue is a physical sensation, spaciness is an emotional mental sensation. What was the other one? Dullness is an emotional sensation. So, these are all part of the same big-bla, their names are thoughts. So you have a sensation of sort of tingling in your muscles, or sleepiness and desire to go back to bed. But you have this sensation in your body, touch, physical sensation; you interpret it as fatigue rather than trying to see if you’re sitting on a electric battery or if somebody connected a couple of electrodes from the acupuncture machine at low amp to your cushion just for a joke. You could interpret it that way too; feel about the same, really low amp on a couple of pads. About the same way that fatigue feels in muscle. Fatigue is your interpretation. Spaciness, you’ve walked into the bedroom three times to get something and not been able to remember what it was each time you got there. Although each time you’ve seen something that needed doing and you’ve done it. Is that spaciness? You labeled it. Let it flow. Maybe it’s spaciness, maybe it spontaneity action beyond thought. If it was important, you’ll go back in there and get it again.Dullness. Is it dullness or is it relaxation? Does it feel like heavy eyelids and sleepiness. You’re naming it sleepiness. You might be having an allergic reaction in your eyes, you could name it that too. Do you not see how you take a sensation and interpret it here with a thought. And then you like or don’t like what you’ve chosen to call it.
I can take a pain in my body, and if I remember to do this – and this is just a joke thing, this is a plaything, not something that I’m trying to teach you as a Dharma thing – but let’s say I have been weeding a lot, and I have a pain in my shoulder because of something I’ve been doing with my right arm a lot and it’s like it’s achy the next day. Oh, I can make up a wonderful story about why that’s there that I like very much better than weeding my garden. Something involving heroism and rescuing damsels from dragons and…and then… oh, well, it’s kind of cool that it hurts. Stories. Yes, you can play with it like that. But even better: soon as you get as far as “hurt”, you’ve changed a sensation into a perception. Perception is sensation with an overlay of assessment, story, an overlay of story. I can also just take the story off, which includes the name “hurt”, and then I just have a sensation in my arm and so what.
Next question; tell me if we’re looking to run out of questions, because I do have some more text.
[Nyondo] Okay. There’s maybe a couple more.[Lama Lena] Let me take them before I go to text.1:01:46
[Nyondo] Is there just one mind, sem, or many.[Lama Lena] One is a mathematical concept. It’s a thought. Many… I could take my shoes off and wiggle my toes for you too, is a mathematical concept, it’s a thought.I believe zero was created by the Arabs; one is really old, long before then. So those are thoughts.
Mind is beyond the concepts which arise in it, and dissolve in it, made of it, without ever leaving it.
One, many, center, edge, now, then, here, there, up, down, big, little, log, short, space, sky, nam-kha[nam mkha; Wylie], is beyond those. Is there one sky or many skies, from all the different planets. Depends on how you look at it. Sky – space, same word, nam-kha, like Namkha Norbu, sky jewel.
What’s Joe on about, he’s having trouble with something here.
[Nyondo] Joe?
[Lama Lena] Yeah.
[Nyondo] Somebody in the comments?
[Lama Lena] Yeah.
[Nyondo] Let me take a look here.
[Lama Lena] Having trouble following beyond concept. I’m wanna see where he’s stuck. If he’s been at all specific about where he’s stuck.
[Nyondo] Checking through comments.
Next question if you didn’t find what Joe’s got himself stuck on.[Nyondo] Yeah, I couldn’t find it. One question is: Could we say that this practice is about reversing our habit of certainty; certainty in the reality of thoughts in uncertainty of the context they arise.[Lama Lena] Yes, you could say that for this practice here very much; good wording, I like it.
Next question.[Nyondo] When in Shamatha meditation, I have been able to witness thoughts arising and ceasing without my interaction.[Lama Lena] Mm hmm, good![Nyondo] Can Lama elaborate on this?[Lama Lena] In shyi-né, Tibetan word for shamatha, one rests first in shyi-né with an object; and you take a flame or a pebble or a statue is your object, or a point on the wall or a point in space, it varies.
But with shyi né without an object, which is what I think you’re talking about, you rest in the stillness of natural mind, without narrowing the focus of your attention onto any “thing”. From that point it is possible to notice the moving, which is the thoughts that arise and dissolve in their moments, and the stillness, which is the infinite ground, the context in which those thoughts arise, mind itself; but not an object that your attention rests in.
Your first step at this point is to become absolutely sure in shyi-né, resting in stillness, resting in peace, sitting still, sitting peaceful – these are all possible translations for the root shyi-né. In that state you begin to notice but not label, but notice until you are very clear what is that infinite, ineffable, non ground open, awake, aware, indescribable, non object in which your attention rests; which we call stillness because it don’t move and never has and never will.
The “without an object” that you sit as/in, and the moving, which is everything else, everything that comes and goes, everything that is impermanent, including your attention is open focus; because sometimes you’re in shyi-né and sometimes the aren’t. So, your attention and your perception of that infinite open ground of mind are both part of the moving. Become clear on this, become certain.
Once you are absolutely sure what is moving and what is stillness, your teacher will point out to you, at that point, the dancing stillness; and the next practice is trul-tra-näl-jor. Clear?
Next, if we have a next
[Nyondo] Is the space between thoughts significant in this practice?[Lama Lena] Yes, if you are one of those people who is capable of slowing your thoughts down a bit by relaxing your mind and moving your chi and breath slowly, and tipping your chin down a little bit with your gaze slightly lowered – these are all methods of slowing it down – then you will find mind, ground of mind, Dharmakaya nature of mind, infinite openness, vast expanse, all these things words we use to point at it, between the thoughts.So, it’s an excellent method for those who can use that. I did not do well with that method, early on. Now I can catch it, but it wasn’t until after I’ve learned other methods that I could. So I sometimes forget to teach it. Just because it didn’t work for me, which is really a stupid reason to forget to teach something. Mea culpa.
Try it. Look between the thoughts. It’s right there, always was, always will be.
Next question. If there is one,[Nyondo] They’re starting to go a bit off topic.
1:11:43
[Lama Lena]Okay, I’m gonna go back to the text for a while then.1:11:47
The traditional analogy is writing on water, writing with your finger on a puddle. No line is formed. The dent made by your finger in the surface of the water, and the dent filling in. Making and filling in is simultaneous. That’s your traditional analogy. For example, drawing on water.
It is crucially important to take what so ever thought arises as the path for recognizing their absolute nature. Not this kind of thought, but not that kind of thought. Don’t do that. Don’t separate them into categories. What ever thoughts arise. Take all of them as the path, every kind.
This way, no discontinuity in the self arising and self liberating. As long as you don’t take any thought, as they march through, rising and vanishing, not even stuck together, so long as you don’t grab one, there is no discontinuity in practice and not practicing, cushion and not cushion.
It’s always the case that thoughts arise and vanish simultaneously. You create the story, illusion that they make sense and say something important; that’s you making that up.
By training the thoughts as the procession of awareness – how to say this – in the beginning, yes, the thoughts recognize themselves. So, in the beginning, you come to know and understand this. You hear it in words. Then you go check it out. Not just over a day, you check it out over quite a while. It takes time to be sure. Check out the way the thoughts arise and dissolve by watching them do that; while watching mind itself, infinite open awareness, Great Mother Dharmakaya, ocean ground of mind, all of these euphemisms may be used to point.
1:15:34 [?] Thoughts as the procession of awareness whatsoever thoughts arise; it will all be a training in the manifesting faculty of awareness, rig-pa’i-säl [rig pa’i gsal;Wylie]
Säl is shining, rig-pa’i belonging to awareness; the shine of awareness; all thoughts, no exceptions. And even the jewel ornament of the Dharma is no more real than any of these; Saraha.
All the thoughts whatever arises remains a training in the manifesting faculty of awareness. That’s the translation they’re giving in this translation of rig-pa’i-säl.
In the shine of awareness, I’d rather say.
How strong and coarse the thoughts of the five poisons which arise to that extent. But tsäl shines brighter; intensity isn’t lost in liberation.
What my teacher always said is: “If you have a little pile of wood, you get a little dinky fire; you can barely heat a cup of tea. But if you have a big pile of wood, you can do a whole big bonfire and roast lots of tsampa”.
The intensity of your poisons and passions in liberation shine with the same brightness. Therefore do not think you’re bad for having intensity, don’t try to squish it. There’s a key here. Whatever arises is food for the naked awareness.
Chö-ku. [Lama Lena reading part of Tibetan text]; let it shine. Don’t suppress yourself. Don’t feel the need to act out your thoughts and emotions either. Liberate them into their own nature. Food for the naked awareness, the infinite luminosity and all its sparkle. When thoughts have occurred, observe them as tsäl.
Procession shine from the unobstructed identity of awareness, rig-pa, and maintain the orbservation without accepting and rejecting them. Do you see, don’t shove away the bad ones, don’t grab the good ones, don’t do that, don’t do anything at all.
The moving, friend who’s following shyi-né, the moving is the shine, the shimmer of the stillness; you cannot take the shine out of the light or the shimmer out of the crystal.
Maintain, relax, rest, observe without accepting and rejecting. See that they are all liberated at the time of their arising. They never leave the chö-ku; chö-ku, infinite vast expanse, Longchen Rabjam, mind itself. Your thoughts never leave your mind and go somewhere. Really, you think they do? Ooooh.
Go down, send your mind, your thoughts down to the local pub. You can see what it looks like in your mind’s eye. What it looked like last time you were there, that’s a memory. But you’re not really there, your thoughts didn’t go there. And the pub didn’t come from there to here, or you’d see it too. Nothing went, nothing came.
Whatever happens, it is all the procession of the supreme Dharmakaya; chö-ku rig-pa säl wa.
Thoughts, which are the forms of deluded ignorance, are pure in the state of awareness, wisdom, absolute reality, whatever you want to call it. Rig-pa, ye-she, chö-ku-säl, the awareness of the Dharmakaya, its primordial wisdom shines forth. Without imprint or trace and self purifying, ALaLa.
And this is how you work with thoughts. Do you understand? Questions? See if anything’s come up
1:23:36
[Nyondo] I find it gets tricky when moving back into talking or engaging in conversation again. When outside a thought chain, any tips there?[Lama Lena]Yes, while talking and engaging in a conversation, flash your attention to nature of mind and let go. Flash let go, repeatedly; gom, while talking and walking. This is the trick. Don’t try to extend it, your awareness of infinite open awareness, your attentions opening into infinite open awareness, let’s say it that way. Don’t try to make that last. That’s grabbing. Won’t work. Instead, do it frequency; it’s a flash, a quick, quick glance. Do it also while talking, while reading a book, while watching the movie. Whatever you do, while you’re doing it. That’s the key to this, gom.Next[Nyondo] Are ta-wa and rig-pa two words for the same thing?[Lama Lena] First of all, they’re not a thing, either one of them. They point at the same
“not-thing” from different directions. Ta-wa points at it usually from the direction of it’s
not- being, not-substance, infinite openness. Whereas rig-pa points at it from the direction of its vitality and aliveness. However, what is infinitely open? It is the vitality and aliveness, the rigpa open awareness. What is aware? It is Longchen Rabjam, infinite vast expanse, nowhere, no-thing, mind itself, Dharmakaya.
So, yes, but they’re pointing from two different angles. Words only point, they never go all the way.[Nyondo] It is said that a swift method for realizing rig-pa is to pray to the tsa-wa Lama. But what is the tsa-wa lama? Is it a person or principle?[Lama Lena]Tsa-wa’i Lama [rtsa ba’i la ma;Wylie]. The Tsa-wa’i Lama is whosoever has showed you the nature of your mind in such a way that you see it. Everybody gets to try. I am trying, everybody tries. At some point, it goes in. One tries a lot of times. My teacher tried with me for years before anything went in, he was so patience; as I ran this way, and that way and the other way. So your tsa-wa’i lama is whosoever succeeds? Even if you only meet them once; say you go to a Karmapa Blackhat ceremony, and he puts on the hat and you see nature of mind, Karmapa is your tsa-wa’i lama. But whoever is teaching you how to stabilize that – hint: it’s not a doing – is going to be your heart teacher. See, you get one tsa-wa’i lama because you’re only a virgin once. Once you’ve seen your mind as it really is, whoever showed it to you is your tsa-wa’i lama.
After that all those who strongly come close with you and assist you on the path become your heart teachers and your spiritual friends. That’s the meaning of tsa-wa’i lama.
And yes you pray; generally, you set the intent by talking to yourself about it out loud. Asking the blessing of that, of their heart, their mind which lives there, to come into your mind and share it with you again. Or you pray that whoever will become your tsa-wa’i lama gets here soon, because you haven’t seen it yet. And there’s methods of binding a tsa-wa’s lama, and they’re different in different lineages.
Next question
or Swedish, he’s Scandinavian. One of Karmapas strong, strong students, from the 16th Karmapa, very close to him. And now a teacher in his own right, just as I am; different, he still pretty intense. I knew of him back in our criminal days, since I was running in some of the same circles. But I did not know him well. Until after.
Next question, if there is one
[Nyondo] There was one: Sometimes the Dharma ocean feels like one material, then a solidity appears for example, a sense of time or place or self; do I just follow these home?[Lama Lena] Those are arising thoughts. They arose in…thoughts don’t have to be words, they can be a sense, a feeling …so, those are feelings like a sense of self or a sense of time. That’s the moving. That arises in the stillness as the stillness, if we’re speaking Mahamudra and shyi-né terms. If we’re speaking in Dzogchen terms, that’s just the shimmer. It’s not really there, it’s not really not there. The shimmer of the light, the shine of the light, the play of the Dharmakaya.Last bit of text for you, unless there’s anything pressing.
1:32:41
When you have done this meditation practice for a long time, thoughts will arise as meditation in meditation in the form of meditation, and then dwelling, sitting on your cushion, and flashing, checking to see if your mind is still there.
Join hands so that no harm is done to the indwelling. The näs-pa [gnas pa;Wylie];
shyi-né [zhi gnas;Wylie], näs, the indwelling, the seat, natural mind, the awareness dwelling, the awareness place; all of these could be näs-pa.
So, the way of arising is the same as before, you still have thoughts that come up.
But happiness and sorrow, hope and doubt, have the same taste. They arise as they do for ordinary people, but ordinary people take them as real and solid; non meditators, non experienced meditators. Whereas meditators at this point see how the arising is no separate from where it arise, how the shine never leaves the light.
And so ordinary people either abandon or grasp things, states emotions, thoughts; believe – disbelieve, shove – grab. At this point you don’t have to do that. You can relax.
So, your thoughts, your feelings, your perceptions, don’t cease. They don’t stop arising. They simply are recognized as they arise, arising in Dharmakaya as Dharmakaya; actually not chö-ku but chö-nyi, arising in chö-nyi as chö-nyi. Never been other than chö-nyi. And in that recognition they have neither benefit nor harm. And how does that happen. When you have done this meditation practice for a long time it happens. So, the key: the last thing Milarepa said to Gampopa was to lift up his robes and show him his callused ass: practice is the key.
Any questions
[Nyondo] There was one. Is it rig-pa when mind recognizes itself?[Lama Lena] Yes, rig-pa is the recognizer and the recognized; because there is no separation between the two.Next.[Nyondo] Can you give a few short words to summarize ta-wa, gom and so-pa?[Lama Lena] Ta-wa, Longchen Rabjam – in, the view is vast expanse – just gonna turn back to the page –
gom-pa khyentse özer yin, rays of light, Bodhicitta;
so-pa gyal wa’i nyu gu in, manifestation of the Bodhisattva,
ta-wa, infinite vast, undefinable, indescribable, unthinkable, beyond thought, feeling and perception;
gom-pa, the vitality of that, the aliveness the awareness; that is the nature of infinite open awareness;
so-pa, the manifestation of that, as thoughts, feelings and perceptions; no – thing in nowhere.
Like that.
Anything really important waiting there for me.
[Nyondo] Just a quick definition of I think it’s “chö-nyi” they’re asking about, they spelled it phonetically.[Lama Lena] [chös nyid;Wylie] Dharmata; the union of Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya.Chö: Dharma. Nyi: the real pointed at, the pointed at. They sometimes translate sem-nyi as real mind or big mind. More words are not going to clarify this. Only more practice can do so, practice.
ge wa di nyur du dag
de yi sa la go par shog
We are complete for today.
1:41:10
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