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Note: Upasaka Nandaka is using a tool called Descript to create machine-generated transcriptions of some of the talks on the TMI Archive (at a pace of up to 30 hours of audio a month). The following is one such transcript. If you’d like to help edit them for accuracy and readability, please see this Google Doc for detailed instructions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YxweiCr1N4YXY3Bn1mTzPBp811hTGolKroJS_RCMqo0/edit. Any editing contribution, no matter how small, is appreciated. Please remove this notice when the transcript has been fully edited.
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[This seems like a particularly unintelligible recording... -Nandaka]
Student: [00:00:00] Good
Culadasa: willing to engage that
last lost.
Yes,
how I ain't gone where you are. And.
Student: I really don't
Culadasa: like talking about myself too much. Marion's pretend,
figure that out. It's time to actually do if a doctor, yeas of help reproduction waiting for seven 30 to come, but figuring that this is, uh, there's, there's no better
Student: time than, than now.
Culadasa: Uh, many of us had the privilege of having listened to Dr. Yang left there in the past, and we're really fortunate that, uh, he has graciously, graciously accepted our invitation to come back.
Student: And, um, Dr. John Jay, who is a PhD and
Culadasa: theology and retired 10 years ago from an academic
Student: career and keeping UL
Culadasa: sciences in Canada,
Student: he's been practicing Buddhist
Culadasa: meditation for 35.
Student: And 32 years ago, took
Culadasa: ordination as a dedicated lane practitioner
Student: taking the name of possibly
Culadasa: Chula. DASA is principled to get through.
I've been with pasta because FEMA Nundah and who work themselves paint and both the
Student: Parabon and the 10
Culadasa: Carmack conduits produce them as part of the lineage of the . The pair of orange speaker was also recognized by a 16 year Karmapa as the Toku of general, who possibly to a thousand now leads a contemplation of life and semis the collusion and a remote area and analysis of Southern Arizona and conduct weekly meditation Donilon class in Tucson, and especially pertinent to our perfect light.
Um, during
Student: happy to now, is that a
Culadasa: true Dr. Yates about other patients who
Student: are seriously considering. Um, the possibility of conducting, uh,
Culadasa: maybe we can repeat, uh, solely for the purpose of painting our
Student: chaplains linens barriers and in fact .
Culadasa: And so that, uh, is at least my sincere hope that we'll see
Student: more of you, you know, and then, you know, you'll be bringing more of your activities to Southern California.
Thank you.
Culadasa: Need to update the numbers on that one.
Student: 37 years
Culadasa: retired called years ago, but I'm not a day old. It
Student: you've got this very
Culadasa: lovely bending practice. Um, I ended up completely blind, surrounded by mountains in a very secluded area, uh, where many people to, um, uh, extended me for them. If you're interested.
Student: I wonder if you can tell us if that person, uh, pat, the cell is dental management is
is the more your content to become more happy, but then probably doing the right thing. People ask for your pocket. You'll become more aggressive.
I wanted to do. I wanted to sound like everything, you know that, uh .
Culadasa: I mean, you become that kind
Student: of as in your head, you're not an old time.
Culadasa: I really agree with that. Also a, a strong desire for, um, life and a strong [00:05:00] motivation to practice. Uh, those are, those are a good thing, but at some point,
Student: uh,
Culadasa: at some point they can stand in your way and actually at the path, the culminating point of the practice, you have to let go. You you'd have to get, let go of the last vestige, um, uh, grasping to the concept of yourself as, um, somebody who is going to be enlightened sometime or somebody who is going to see that to make the reality thing.
You have to create all the conditions for it to happen. And then you have to go on.
Student: How do I give
Culadasa: up hope to get a good job?
Student: yeah,
Culadasa: actually what, uh, your comments? Uh, something that I, I really want to stress is that
Student: the whole
Culadasa: practice of Buddhism,
Student: I very
Culadasa: definitely, uh, as a culmination
Student: point. All right.
Culadasa: But the entire practice, without exception, every part of it is valuable. It's good in the beginning.
It's good in the middle and it's good in the end, and it will only improve the quality of a person's, uh,
Student: life, uh, and
Culadasa: more, more than one might think. So you really made no more reason than that to practice.
Student: Um, if you, if you
Culadasa: keep preset, if you become a virtuous
Student: person, if you become
Culadasa: a person who doesn't engage them, all speak art, the devices, the, uh, doctor, then idle talk, your life will be dramatically
Student: improved
Culadasa: the way that other people regard you and the stories of circumstances that you find yourself and are going to be drastically different than they would be otherwise.
And the same thing is true, uh, right back then, if you,
Student: if you, uh, refrain
Culadasa: from taking anything that is not yours. Or causing harm to others. And I'm going to be known as recommend recognized as that kind of person you're going to your life is going to enormously improvement. So every aspect of the practice of gratitude yields, it's pretty words immediately and in many ways.
And, um, I think anybody can see that, but if you ask somebody who's practiced in that way, I think you'll get a fairly consistent answer that, uh, the degree to which it positively impacted their life was greater than they would have predicted this just on the basis that, uh, uh, what they would expect in from making that kind of thing.
Student: The
Culadasa: other perfections.
It could be the perfection of generosity was kind of help to help enormously, to make a person aware of their own desire and their own attachments and the things that they're attached to
Student: and
Culadasa: practice properly, helping a person to recognize the arising of grieve in their mind, and to see if they can let go of that.
I replace desire with the desire listener, but then take the further step of arousing, uh, generosity,
Student: uh, loving kindness.
Culadasa: Likewise, the practice practices, patience. The practice of past-tense is an opportunity for a person to discover the root of ill will and a. In their mind to recognize that those, those mental states and those emotional states do not serve them in any way,
Student: uh, and
Culadasa: learn to let go of perversion and [00:10:00] ill will, and then perhaps not only let go of it, but to replace it with loving kindness, with compassionate,
this is as far as anybody, God, on the Buddhist path, big would enjoy a wonderful fruit.
Student: So, um,
Culadasa: you know, it's right from the beginning, it's a, it's a wind situation all the way, even with the practice of meditation. Uh, initially it can be challenging. You know, you sit and meditate and you experienced bodily pain.
You experienced the restlessness of the mind you experience, uh, or the rising of desire. Uh, you experience all the various kinds of self judgements and frustrating, but if you allow yourself to get beyond that initial state and again, to enjoy the preacher, that even if you don't achieve the wakening to have a, a mind that has developed those characteristics of a concentrate and in mindful awareness, it's a wonderful thing.
It contributes to the quality of your life in every
Student: way, but nevertheless, they all
Culadasa: go
Student: VOA. Can I?
Culadasa: And some people, I think, unfortunately,
Student: Uh,
Culadasa: it's difficult for them to imagine that that ultimate goal is really attainable for themselves. Spend a
Student: lot of, uh,
Culadasa: a lot of things that have happened since the time of the Buddha.
Student: And, um,
Culadasa: it's kind of to be a lot of doubt whether, you know, uh, it's still, it's still possible to have our hotspot in the world and whether people can still achieve enlightenment.
Student: Um, uh,
Culadasa: that's very unfortunate because I think everyone and I think everyone should try.
And I think it's far more attainable than, uh, you're, you're likely to be live to believe
Student: and, uh,
Culadasa: go, go for the final, go, go, go for it with. Which means practice, you know, that he is wonderful. He's wonderful. But data practice.
Student: Anyway, maybe we'll
Culadasa: talk a little bit about what I think the answer to the question is, what is the cracks I've alluded to the loss of
Student: it's interesting. Uh,
Culadasa: the Buddhist, very first thing
Student: he taught the, uh,
Culadasa: uh, he taught the, uh,
it's called a, it's called the, uh, seeker on the, uh, earning of the karma wheel. He talked to four noble throughs and the eightfold path. So his very first teaching was entirely past them that I don't know if that's occurred to you or not. It's hard to find anything in that suit that he would regard as a philosophy
Student: pretty straight, partly
Culadasa: really just bad facts, but I understand that you have to understand that. So you have to understand the meaning of the word Duca, which, uh, has a much, much broader meaning grand just stuck. Right? And so it incompetence,
incompetence, all of the things that make human existence, the imperfect experience that it is. And he taught the, uh, the cause of that was craving. And he taught this test eight and of that was the best day for him. And he talks to the path leading to the basement. So he started out, it was all path and method.
Student: It's very indexed. The chain was on, uh,
Culadasa: not spelled. And this is what I would identify as the practice of Buddhist philosophy as a concept. But on that top,
Student: not cell
at the time of the Buddha [00:15:00]
Culadasa: and the present time, the well
Student: people
Culadasa: turn to this question, let's tell, and it tends to be posed. Is the cell,
Student: uh, permanent eternal?
Culadasa: Is that the idea of this.
Student: Or
Culadasa: is the cell tapping that, uh, due to an isolation,
Student: the, uh,
Culadasa: philosophical tool at the time, how does Buddha we're dealing with this question related questions? You know, there's the universe eternal, the universe created
Student: will the universe have in hand?
Culadasa: These are all philosophical question, not a physical question.
Student: The interesting thing
Culadasa: about the teaching of IFA
Student: is the
Culadasa: way that it completely and pans both of the. These ideas that tend to compete with each other, that we have some kind of empty Colonel abiding soul, whether it's always been there or whether it's created and that it will survive the death of the body
Student: or
Culadasa: that when the body dies, that whatever self soul that we
Student: have will die and be
Culadasa: destroyed with it, this is the way that this is appears to be the only alternative is either survives or investment.
Student: And then there's all
Culadasa: sorts of complicated questions that you can ask. Well, if it's their vibe, then how does it provide if it's the eternal. Does it have its own self nature. It has its own self nature. And, uh, that means that it can't Andrew react with anything else. So, you know, he didn't get lovely stuff that fills Phil's book.
Uh, Bill's parents, current papers, um, Phil's classrooms and all that, but
Student: is that, and of
Culadasa: course it has all sorts of, uh, moral implications because, uh, uh, know if there's a permanent inviting soul, then let you do, uh, has been really big long-term
Student: consequences.
Culadasa: The other, the, the other alternative is, uh, um, it's all ordered with when you die.
And that lends itself very much to an amoral interpretation. If this is all there is,
Student: I
Culadasa: might as well get everything I can out of it right now. Not
Student: wasted.
Culadasa: Both of these views have moral implications. Both of these views are really inherent problems with them.
Student: And the Buddha is first
Culadasa: philosophical was first
Student: time was the self
Culadasa: is going to leave him.
It's not a question of whether he is permanent and abiding and devise academic. It's not a question of whether the self is something that is, uh, that exit now. And, but there's going to be destroyed at the time of death. All of the, all of the questions, both of them. And now the modern views on same question, same thing.
They don't question the existence of the stuff doesn't occur usually.
Student: And
Culadasa: that's why I'm fortunate because when you don't consider that as a possibility. You don't discover the really incredible, uh, answer to that can come.
Student: What is a cell?
The cell is out of the
Culadasa: totality of what is it just part of that? So Tallahassee that is separated out the spell is a line or boundary that separates reality into two parts and
Student: not the,[00:20:00]
Culadasa: and we're concerned about it because we have offensive and we'd have ideas.
Student: You all have
Culadasa: an idea, a concept then yourself, there is a self as a personality and as a personality construct, the ideas of who you are, what you are, you're at all the different, all the different attributes that make up your identity.
Student: Uh,
Culadasa: it's something that you can look at and examine. Uh, but actually when you start trying to describe yourself, uh, you might find that it's not as easy as you thought, but you go through your life with this pen. Uh, I am a filler and there's this whole collection of attributes that make up this.
Uh, you react very strongly when those attributes to the way you see them are challenged by someone
Student: else.
Culadasa: Part of that sense with fel expand, uh, to property.
Student: Yeah. In addition
Culadasa: to the concept you have of who you are, the kind of person you are, the things you like, and don't like, and everything else, there are things that belong to you and you react when something happens to
Student: those things.
Culadasa: And there's this professional note, then this is mine and it's important to me. And if I lose it, I'll leave. And if you interfered with it, I'll get mad at you.
Student: We have
Culadasa: a, as a part of that whole thing, we have a chance to have a kind of personal faith would feel so violated if we can call them and find there's nobody broken into our house, our face has been bottled,
Student: or if our person
Culadasa: is violating in
Student: some way.
So
Culadasa: the point is there is something that we can look at that we, that we all experienced or something that we can look at that we can examine. Um, we can recognize that it has the nature of being a construct. I collected on ideas, the concepts, uh, intimate being a little bit, a lot of different, uh, emotional content feeling.
Student: Um,
Culadasa: and if we don't look too closely, that's probably our. I spent in the south
Student: as children,
Culadasa: somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we probably stop viewing the body
Student: by much Val,
but we really keep
Culadasa: on regarding our mind as self. And our line is where this whole collection of ideas we'll do. We are, yes. We start examining that more closely. We'll find that,
Student: um,
Culadasa: the mind doesn't even generate the same cell, uh, from one time of date for the next it's very much situationally dependent.
You have different cells that emerge in different situations can be different. I am that prospect is Belle. Taser is going to be different 10 years from now than it is now is different than it was 10 years ago.
Student: It's just a fabrication.
Culadasa: That's not that difficult to come to understand that and to see you as a patient.
So if we just tell you this business, a mental construct and restate it. Yeah. The mind acid mechanism that it assembled an idea fell, you call it, the ego has here useful. It's
Student: very important. It's
Culadasa: very difficult to function in the
Student: world
Culadasa: without, with, with a mind that's not capable of reading these times because they are.
But if we start looking for this bell, we might redraw the boundary, recognizing those darts for what they are and saying that they're not really as Dell. [00:25:00] And so we'll add them to not sell, but we're still left with something that's Bearfield like darling, they put feeling as though
Student: feeling of film
most
Culadasa: apparent when there is an experience of pain or
Student: pleasure. We experienced though,
just,
Culadasa: just re just reflect for
Student: a moment just when, when
Culadasa: you are experiencing pain, you have very clear
Student: answers. Still.
Culadasa: Here's another interesting.
Probably distinctive Phil that arises in your
Student: mind
Culadasa: and response to the experience of pain is absolutely indistinguishable from what arises in anybody else's
Student: mind.
Culadasa: Does that not an interesting thought that
Student: examine your own
Culadasa: there's potential itself that we're talking about. And if the sense is to, there really is devoid of all of these attributes that we've already examined and the collection of attributes that made up those that cause this bell, uh, we've seen that, uh, all of that collection of attributes could be moved into the category of Knoxville.
And once we have this sense itself, the blend put out all the attributes. There's not really anything to distinguish it, the way you experience it from the way anybody else. I mean, this is not something that we can easily go do an experiment and verified, right. If he has as a thought experiment, can you not imagine that probably that sense of belts that arises and the experience of pain is probably pretty much the same
Student: for everyone.
What do you think?
I guess
Culadasa: my mind immediately goes to the neurons and brain structures then, um, for a finite, uh, constructions, there has to be some limitations and boundaries in that. And I mean, if I was to poke my hand and then if Dr. Through is to focus in, I imagine that the same similar part of the brain is going to light up.
And then there's the gap between experience and that physical effect. I'm not sure how to bridge that. We the brain seems to be firing up that's right. And this is where this is where the science and, uh,
Student: and
Culadasa: the thought experiments, uh, tend to produce the same result. Like has
same neurotransmitters are really saying parts of the brain are activated. And if we examine that experience ourselves, um, and I'm just, you know, uh, something that you can meditate on, but, uh, I'm not just saying, uh, the experience of pain is to experience itself. Let's just pose gated with a feeling of what the experience of pain.
It's the feeling of Belle and I, or I am experiencing this pain. Anything with pleasure.
Student: My pleasure
Culadasa: have now here, if we get to the really
Student: important. The way your mind reacts to that.
That's what's called craving.
Raving
Culadasa: is dependent upon this cause dome
Student: and the
Culadasa: arising of craving and response, but pain is very much related to this pesticide. And then what happens when vaping arises craving either in the form of wanting to paint more of the pleasure or wanting to bring it into or avoid the pain, it leads to another mental prospect.
You've already reified. Your senses. Bell is experiencing the pain and then you reapply.
Student: Yeah, reapply.
Culadasa: I mean, you make real, you reify the perceived object, which you identify as the court has applied for at night.
Student: So
Culadasa: pretty sure here. Okay. Let's, let's continue to look at the, the, at the stamp itself, just to understand that a lot more,[00:30:00]
Student: if you
Culadasa: penetrate a little more deeply into your subjective experience, answer this bench, this bell you'll find there
Student: is,
Culadasa: there is a layer at which it exists, uh, that is independent of the experience of a Pfizer. Pleasure pain are really easy ways of bringing, uh, bringing about this, uh, uh,
Student: cell. But
Culadasa: if you examine very, very closely, you'll find that you have this sense of separate existence of being the experience, or even, even when it's not involving pleasure
Student: and pain.
So we
Culadasa: can tell you that
Student: itself, the
Culadasa: fact that we experienced it as human beings has, first of all, this constructed level with the easiest one to understand, but it also has this feeling level, this belt
Student: that
Culadasa: tends to be quite pervasive.
Student: If we go over.
Culadasa: To the question of awakening, uh, and
Student: to suffering. Yeah.
Culadasa: Awakening is related to this statement. The suffering and suffering is caused by paving in the face of back. Burning is related to this based in craving
Student: than
what
Culadasa: you find is that it's very, very difficult
Student: to overcome
Culadasa: craving as long as there is this sense of yourself, whenever you experience pleasure and pain, it's going to be this strong sense of self, which is going to lead to actions and actions that are unloved constantly. Some of the most important actions that take place though is the reification of the cell.
Cause the reification of the objects. And here we get into the philosophical
Student: domain.
If you take
Culadasa: reality and you've partitioned at emphas dolphin, Nolensville, and then you began penetrating deeper and deeper and taking, uh, what you had regarded as self before and putting it into the category of non sell so that the category has self gets smaller and smaller and
Student: smaller.
Culadasa: What's going to happen when the category itself gets those politics and things.
Nothing.
I thought the answer that was obvious you ended up with. Undifferentiated everything was removed our fundamental division. And whether you really want to call it business
Student: experience,
Culadasa: this text message undifferentiated totality, uh, all you have to do is get rid of this mind, created division, this feeling that that distinguishes itself from Lonzo and watch the self disappears. Then you've got oneness is the end of the kind of duality, the duality of
Student: it's when we
Culadasa: examine carefully. And we discovered that the spill is a
Student: contract
that, uh,
Culadasa: It is against to raise a number of interesting possibilities. First, let me tell you how, how that comes about now. How, how is it that you discovered itself as a concept?
Student: Well, first of all, it's easy
Culadasa: to see that, uh, you know, that the fabricated conceptual construct of style, the personality, that's pretty easy to see through.
You can intellectually examine that. And then through the practice of mindful awareness of self observation, uh, you can, you can pretty quickly, they kind of [00:35:00] satisfies it. It indeed is not something that exists from its own guide that it is indeed produced by the mind. It's flexible. It's constantly rearranging itself.
It doesn't have, that's the nature of.
Student: Then also
Culadasa: through meditation practice,
Student: you can
Culadasa: discover that this
Student: sense of bell
Culadasa: is not always there. Well, you can even discover that in ordinary daily lives you've had experiences. Sometimes you're so engrossed in watching a movie or some other activity, but there was absolutely no, the rareness, how this Deborah itself, the sense of self was not there and meditation, and you'll find, you'll find it coming and going.
It's not there. And then here it is again, that's, it's not there. And what becomes really clear is that
Student: that
Culadasa: it's not, it's not essential. It doesn't always have to be there. It comes and goes, but other times even more expensive. Yes, it's pretty invasive is the word that I've used. It's a feeling. It's a statement.
Just like any other feeling that has been produced by your mind. Anchors is a feeling for your spot. Your mind, badness is a feeling produced by your mind. There are a lot of different feelings produced by your mind. You can come to recognize them for what they are even lost them arise. Amen. We need healthy pains and you've been watched and passed away.
You can come to know their causes and you can come to clearly understand what they are. It's just, it's just a feeling. It's just something that mind fabricate known to conscious awareness through directly through the mind, the mind span, but functioning the same way you needed a physical defense. So it's just the test object and its particular time.
This kind of object. It's one that actually produced by.
So in the United States, you can, Tom, I understand more and more that even the sense of cell, although it vividly when it's there, it seems just as real as anything could possibly do this, the pollen, but you can answer recognize through direct experience.
Student: You want screen age. There is,
Culadasa: and you can see that when the attacked by that match itself, not to mention that construct of ideas that causes the move to me when we think of it as tough. But when you can overcome the belief and the attachment, it was not developed, you will be
Student: profoundly different.
You'll be
Culadasa: liberated from the compulsive need to act and to a craving. And instead of just the craving that is impermanent, totally driven by the most, much, uh, sensations of pain and
Student: pleasure. So
Culadasa: it's a pack deliberation also, though it goes beyond that. When you start to discover
Student: that
Culadasa: things or fabrications of the mind, you might also start to discover that this is true of all things.
Student: So on a top
Culadasa: being the absence of order, the negation of the. The bell, just thing
Student: fell right
Culadasa: on upon the knives down on top. It was the recognition that that is an illusion, but it extends beyond that. We easily experienced the world as made up of the screen independently, existing hops or objects that seem to have a sort of quality of temporarily enduring from their own side.
Student: But as we
Culadasa: penetrate more deeply and to examining these things, we find that there's not really a basis for that.[00:40:00]
We find that if, when we examine this stance booth, All of the senses ever delivered to it
Student: is
Culadasa: a constant block, constant pain,
Student: never
Culadasa: too instant, the same.
Student: And
Culadasa: yet what our minds do is extract from that constant block of data patterns. And then our minds create an idea of reality, a model of reality, to explain those Ben statements, those patterns with containment, and to predict 10 stations in the Pittsburgh answer, draw relationship between actions or intentions and
And so the very idea
Student: on a top
Culadasa: extends beyond. The independently is good thing. Uh, nature of the spelt that we perceive ourselves to be, but a little bit of practice and a little bit of careful examination. And we begin to discover it and discover that exactly the same process generates the appearance of a world, the way we experienced it,
Student: that our mind generates
Culadasa: eye contact a reality, which we believe.
Yeah. And if we expect it as selfish, distantly real in the same way that we expect ourselves, and we're
Student: really trapped here, am I, and
here's
Culadasa: this world a thing, and they exist from their own side and I exist the miles.
Student: If
Culadasa: I don't like what's happening, I'm just really outlet. That has no matter how hard I cry. I'm never going to manipulate this whole world of self existing objects to completely meet my days. And worse than that, I realized that my body is part of this uncontrollable unmanageable world of self existent object.
And it's going to experience pain, get sick age and die. So I didn't really, I didn't really, I didn't in a really bad situation. On the other hand, if I can come to understand that hot, it created this whole situation in my mind that I should, I couldn't say I've created it. That's where we're falling into the same illusion.
When you use language like that. Ordinary everyday language aren't blind has created this whole situation. My mind has created self and my mind has created this world of objects. And, uh, so,
Student: uh,
once I
Culadasa: recognize that if I can figure it out, how my mind goes about the ADF, I have hope I have chance. Well, maybe it's rather than the way that happens is, is all verbal or non now what this, isn't it as philosophical view, this isn't a solipsism. This isn't the idea that the whole universe is created in my mind.
And it's really nothing outside my mind. That's not like this.
And there's really good reasons which I'm 30. You can go into with, uh, Dr. Chu about why those kinds of notions don't hold. But the Thursday is, uh,
Student: our
Culadasa: previous experiences.
Student: The
Culadasa: all of the concepts that we have generated and carry around in our mind, based on those previous experiences,
Student: all of
Culadasa: our dahlias and value Douglas
Student: power, mental states, and our
Culadasa: medical predisposition are going to permit moment to moment. What kinds of reality our minds generate and what kind of stealth is going to explain the results of that.
Student: And,
Culadasa: uh, these are all alterable go back there and talking about practicing the, uh, practicing the perfect perfectionism. If you can come to realize that when you experienced mental states that are designed for. That it determines what [00:45:00] you plea and what you ignore, what you hear and what you ignore, what you feel and what you ignore.
You determines how you react to that. What does the answer you're processing? It determines the actions that you engage in as a result of that
Student: experience.
Culadasa: And it perpetuates Netflix faith and, uh, event that contributes to your perspective of reality or their death. Same thing you are then Andy kind of state of
Student: yeah. Will,
Culadasa: it's got a department. What you see and how you see it.
Student: You take,
Culadasa: you take different people with them in different, and then in the same situation and they have completely different experiences.
That's the empty. Uh, experience the deeper we go. You know, initially it can be simple. Like to me, this is beautiful. You think it's the ugliest thing in the world. So this is the empty of any intrinsic property of the year. Ugliness.
Student: Um,
Culadasa: they're standing on the beach together, watching the sunset and, um, your mother died yesterday morning and, uh, uh,
Student: they
Culadasa: really woman I then spoke fascinated with, for the last six months, told me that he was going to marry me at the same time your mother died.
Are we going to have the same experience? No. And are they completely there they go into it more deeply than that. And the difference in the way you perceive. Any situation, any object, any person in any circumstances and the way I perceive it is there this whole collection of top, in our mind that we bring to the fitspiration and all of our predisposition.
So you can see the reality, he was empty and very important ways of being sort of self-consistent matrix being the way we perceive her equal, keep pushing the limits more and more and more all the way down to the point of everybody in this room will agree that this was a solid object, except somebody who's done a course in physics and says, well, actually it's not it's 99.9, 9% of it state.
Student: Um,
Culadasa: so this is why I would put.
I'll just summarize this. I would put on a avatar as the crack, a Buddhist philosophy is that first of all, as soon as you try to bring understanding to the workings of the path that the Buddha taught, which I do believe will work just as well, because you never philosophize, but is there any attempt to bring organized on the damage to that?
You're going to see the nature of the relationship between craving and the expensive
Student: stuff.
Culadasa: Um, and then of course, if you want to understand the higher stages of the path is going to give you the answer there, there at the first stage of the path of a planning,
Student: renter,
Culadasa: you have that experience of a non.
Seamless reality by which every last is cell has been removed. And so when the sense of self returned
Student: as it will,
Culadasa: you know, better, you'll still have it, but you know, better, you still have all conditioning that goes with that because it tends to sell is still there. It will still, when you encountered circumstances by during paint produced
Student: craving,
Culadasa: but there is a wisdom understanding that this the cell is not the reality that it seems to be.
Student: And then as, as the RDN
Culadasa: practices, the discipline has progressed through the higher David.
The fence, because bell not the belief that's already gone. Let's see the rising of the stem cell as a raid related or rising of craving [00:50:00] become greatly diminished. And the
Student: lot's returner
that
Culadasa: is bell that arises and really that's very experience, particularly pain and
Student: pleasure is abolished
Culadasa: and the
Student: non returner.
Culadasa: And so at that at coinciding, with
Student: that
Culadasa: is the disappearance of the craving or all, all central credit paving or things of offensive. And they go together,
Student: they
Culadasa: support each other and to remove the one, the other has to be.
Student: But, uh,
Culadasa: the noble person who has eliminated essential craving is also free be that is dependent upon experienced applied pain. And likewise one who has eliminated that, uh, thanks to self that arises in associated somewhere. Central experience is pretty reclaiming. What is left at this stage is that
Student: other
Culadasa: inherent stands out being a separate bill.
That's the pill, but it's that most refined with bell and all the craving that it gives rise to is the craving or continued. As long as there's that sense that being a circuit leaves it, there will be some cleaning that contained the right of that. And it is in the final removal of both of these, the non-return or the Comstar.
Student: So,
Culadasa: okay. So this role with the role that a in the path, and then therefore in understanding that that makes it the qualifies there in my mind, as the cracks to Buddhist philosophy. But the other is, as we continue to play the philosophical game, as we continue to finish, pay it into questions of apology, what actually exists and what does not exist, what is self existence and what is only dependently, what is absolutely existence and what is relatively existence?
Of that aspect of philosophy is coming. There's ultimately coming out of this tiny illogically what can be known and what is only a projection of the
Student: mind.
Culadasa: The Buddhist epistemology comes out of that.
Student: Most remarkably, I would
Culadasa: pause it that Buddhist ethics and morality comes out of that because you've seen
Student: as
Culadasa: long as there exists, then just think for him as long
Student: as the
Culadasa: entirety of what his assessment is divided and Purcell and non. There remains a certain rationale by which this bell can be advantaged by accidents that just advantage the non
Student: the Knoxville.
Culadasa: But once that distinction is removed, there there's absolutely no purpose any longer.
There's absolutely no value function or purpose
Student: in an unwholesome act.
It
Culadasa: makes no more sense than if you were to get a finger off of your right hand so that you could add it onto
Student: your left.
And
Culadasa: if we look at Buddhist morality, what's the simplest. Of, um, a touch Tommy got
Student: Louis morality cause no harm
and acts that caused harm. The
Culadasa: only possible [00:55:00] justification and rationalization requires a division of specimens and through the belt and the Knoxville, the protein itself is done out of pain and advantage apples. Not so once that is eliminated, then there's absolutely no purpose man anymore. Yeah.
Immediately. What comes to mind is the kind of response, honesty and ethics, which is if you were in Nazi Germany, and you have Jewish people in your bathtub, then Nazi comes through the door and just food, a smog. Do you lie to them? You perform that, that. Non-virtuous act to prevent a
and then whatever answer I give to the content, it either release it to, uh, a relative morality or a kind of absolutism that leads to, uh, contradictory
Student: results.
Culadasa: Do I have to answer the phone?
Student: Yeah,
Culadasa: there are all, all of those kinds of questions. One thing about my understanding of the practice of birds to keeping up and the cultivation of morality as a Buddha is that.
Student: It's not
Culadasa: a question of following rules and it's not a question of refining our understanding of the rules so that we can answer every possible situation.
It is a, uh, an unending process, continual,
Student: uh, perfect. Then
Culadasa: we department our own standards. Um, and if we're doing the practice properly, those standards continue to grow and evolve and the direction in which they grow is always in the same direction. So keeping the pre-step of not taking what is not really given you start off.
And it's really obvious. I haven't asked your hand, you know, I couldn't really flip it in my pocket before we leave.
Student: Um, but it.
Culadasa: As, as we cultivate that as we practice that as we in our interactions with, uh, uh, material world and our experience of, uh, uh, I mean wine and a respect for, uh, basically your, your high name.
I, if I learned and I deepened my understanding of that, I may, at some point decide
Student: the, um,
Culadasa: taking a larger patient takes in you is just not the case in my own personal morality and not eating as a pre-sale as would be taking your pants. And as I continue to cultivate this high night, come to the point where I feel like protecting your property is as much a matter of beeping a freaked up as, as not taking risk that.
Student: So
Culadasa: it's a process of continual refinement. I don't believe it requires generalized absolute answers to hypothetical questions. It requires each individual to confront real situations, one after another, in conflict, the best answer, what they can
Student: have the time. And the what's
Culadasa: truly important is not what you did, but why you did it and what you learned
Student: from it.
Um, because
Culadasa: the intention behind your accident makes an imprint on your
Student: mind.
Culadasa: And it's going to determine whether in obvious ways or very. It's going to determine your reaction to feet per situation. So if your practice pain is precepted, your practice being a perfect view, what you're really doing is you're breaking out the process of continually refining your psyche.
Student: What are the roots
Culadasa: of your act and terms of desire and reverted them, and [01:00:00] what are the, what are the consequences of the
Student: accident?
Culadasa: And one of those, one of those consequences is going to be the,
Student: that
Culadasa: whatever the roots and whatever, the degree of mindful awareness you brought for the pasta are going to carry over and repeat and produce a, what we can call a permanent
Student: result.
Culadasa: And so, uh, the practice of virtue, perfection of generosity. Perfect. Okay. These are all the conscious, mindful, uh, creation of karma and most important time to karma, not, not the karma that is going to determine what it is that happens to you in some future life. It's the karma that conditions your mind, and especially the condition of your mind in a sexual way that it pray for pears or the propound awakening.
Anytime you have even a separateness and a .
Student: So
Culadasa: what's important is not what you do decide what you tried to do about the Nazis at the door and the Jews and the backpack, the motivations,
Student: how
Culadasa: consciously, where you became of the motivations and, uh, the consequences. The role that your mindful awareness play, because you see in all of the things that we do
Student: on,
we haven't
Culadasa: experienced the
Student: version.
Culadasa: And, uh, if we are, uh, I think the experience is there and the aversion is there. The causes are there, the aversion is there, but what do you do
Student: about it?
If you
Culadasa: recognize it, make sure you identify that this is something that is not beneficial to the order. They're just the pan. This is something that is not this rising or this diversion does not contribute to my alt low latency. And then if you can clearly see the ASTA clients is there will be a very benefit, the version as new for you.
Well, that's simple arithmetic for your mind. Let's quit doing all the things don't make us feel great. So we experienced a lot of aversion. We don't build it, but if you don't pay attention, that data doesn't get incorporated. So the end and all of the things that you do, if you bring mindful awareness to God, and if you can discriminate to the intentions and the actions that produce positive benefit for results or yourself or others from the, the, uh, rights from whether or not being angry is something that feels good.
It feels bad to use all the various consequences that has on other people.
Student: If
Culadasa: you just aren't mindfully aware about and wisdom spontaneously arises, the wisdom that will modify your future reactant.
Student: That was a digression. I
Culadasa: realize now long ways permanent role with the concept of honest and getting rise player. Hey, moral philosophy. But I always get drawn back into a path to practice Preston. So anything that makes me think that path back, this brings a new dissertation on that.
Student: Anyway,
Culadasa: I think I said enough for now. So anything anyone else would like to say or have
Student: comments? Yeah. Um, as
Culadasa: a doctor physiology, what would you say enlightened experience that you do the body and along with that topic today,
Student: What'd you say that,
Culadasa: what would you say about those around or outside the body as well?
So you
as a physiology and everything theologists. I believe that all of the practice, but especially, uh, the, uh, the path attainment produce, produce changes, structure and the function of the nervous system, your brain functions in a [01:05:00] different,
I can't tell you what that is, but I hope that somebody will research that and figure that out. But I have total confidence. Um, I, there has been a, you're probably familiar with a book change your mind, change your brain. So there has been some, uh, collected research that shows that, uh, meditation practice and, uh, things like that can, uh, can change the director of the brain.
And I believe they do. I believe that the, all of these practices that we talked about, our respect putting our brain and they're as a result, they're also respecting our lives or maybe it's the other way around. They respect in our minds prep for our mind. And as a result, our mind respect as I bring it doesn't really matter.
But I think perspective is the brain is modified and something rather dramatic does happen with a path of pain that I experienced, um, love to know exactly what it is, but I'm sure that it does have a neurological correlate by how B I'll be stoked. The prize. You know, everybody's examined everything, every little thing every now and then the one thing that doesn't have a neurological form that I'll be,
Student: I think that would be your job,
Culadasa: right.
Station
a legit medical perspective.
Thank you. Yeah,
Student: that had the question. How would you describe the role of
story making and
well,
Culadasa: the. This conceptually constructed self of ours really is the story. We're always telling ourselves a story of who we are that plays a really important role in that. And,
Student: um,
Culadasa: and the journey towards Knoxville, uh, the nature of the narrative, the nature of the stories we make up ourselves, uh, changes quite a bit as our understanding grows.
Student: Uh,
Culadasa: I don't know. Did that answer your question?
What are the, what are your thoughts on the pages of this?
Student: The
Culadasa: implications of
Student: realizing
Culadasa: that we're making that a Coke, ah, there, we're making up our personal realities.
Student: Well,
Culadasa: I think what I'd really, I think it has a potential to produce a really dramatic pains in our collected
Student: narrative on our
Culadasa: collective narrative up to now is very much based on the idea that
Student: there is a
Culadasa: world of independently existing objects out there, and that each of us is, uh, uh, independently fill.
And
Student: that,
Culadasa: um, the, our, our, our prime directive is equally as much pleasure and avoid as much pain as possible, but the only way for us to do that, being the social beings that we are is to restrain ourselves to a certain degree and practice a lot of cooperation. That's the existing near. And so out of that narrative, we come as soon as any individual or group of individuals, um, as the power who, uh, I came here late, a lot of pleasure and avoid a lot of pain.
Uh, they do. So I do so right up to the point where the collector puts a stop on it. Um, I mean, and what do we see? We see a world, uh, Fernandez, um, inequities and report that just to give him and, uh, pain and selected. We paid, who I agreed has led to the collapse of the economy in this country, which is kind of a karmic result of what has been driving this whole through for a long time.
Um, the same thing, ill will, uh, resentment, [01:10:00] uh, hatred. We, the war we have, we have a world in which. The percent of individual gratification as law has led us through a drastic situation in terms of exhaustion, a report and,
Student: um,
Culadasa: over overextending, the, uh, the, uh, overextending, the population and parents, it has to find a big thing.
Uh,
Student: and we turn all
Culadasa: of our intellectual resources, towards least pain goals, the deck mining, uh, go towards, uh, uh, finding a better way to, uh, accumulate more of the endless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain at the expense of whoever you've been affording according to ignore or,
Student: or exploited.
I think if the.
I don't think we
Culadasa: have any choice, but for a whole lot of people to, uh, start achieving enlightenment because, uh, you know, it's the next stage in evolution as, uh, in terms of biological evolution, the thesis is incredibly, uh, successful. Um, there's no, no further to go in that direction. Uh, not only that in terms of the problems that exist now, uh, evolution moves
absolutely incredibly through slope. So, uh, our, our collective narrative really has to start proceeding along the same lines as the way our individual narrative does when we take up practices like that. Uh,
Student: And
Culadasa: I, I see us taking up individual practices as being the means by which that collective narrative and we change.
Student: You're welcome.
I
Culadasa: guess everybody's bored. And
I stopped. I'm always told that I talk too much and elderly people, you know, I was hoping to get all kinds of exciting how that's been correcting kind of you, your, your temporary
you said about
Student: the census itself, Justin, I'm not sure. I agree with the part really interesting. When I look at it, as it works in the cord, the body is a cell phone. He elaborated and perceptual, constant that contracts, offices, things from the mental imagery we throw in there and the perception of the model.
And it seems to ask to kind of improve internally in terms of perception of the line, but that the cell is
You know what else?
I mean , I mean, they're essentially moving one solid
Culadasa: block every
Student: moment. And somehow it's an amazing way. Our mind has blocked out most of that and only recognizes that area either. They're ready
Culadasa: to identify people are useful for functional
Student: perception. And, um, I guess you could call it function ignorance, but
that's all that unconscious and then like one area of
Culadasa: sensitivity.
Well, I, I, you know, you said Justin, I understand. Yeah.[01:15:00]
Not Jackson noted because it plays a really, really important role in our being to provide them content, you know, so ugly arrange these forms or some sort of hierarchy or order of intrinsic importance to our functional ability. I think that's the reason that is so pervasive and that is so hard to recognize for its nature
Student: as
Culadasa: only a product of the mind he has ready to go important.
Yes, we come into existence as he was being hardwired. So
Student: what
Culadasa: let's ask yourself is it definitely, you know, it is so important that it can be. I know not to park them
Student: when we need it on
Culadasa: justice, perhaps the right word for many years. But of course, what I meant to say it was that, uh, it is that as opposed to being that self exert existence reality, that we are so likely to think that it is, and then worry about what's going to happen to it after
Student: we die.
I didn't make a very quick, um,
Culadasa: advertisement, if you will, uh, documented, uh, incredibly profound insights and eloquent is not intending, I think truly signs in the area of two people. And so for those of you who are interested, uh, foreseeably, uh, I'm pretty Gainesville. Maybe patient replete individ things.
And so please do sign up quickly because they almost always filled up almost immediately. Right? And two days after a thousand, I was talking about that thing that makes you have to come more frequently, come back, even more V3
on behalf of everyone present. I want you to express very deep gratitude on bridges, sharing these beautiful experiences with us.
Student: Um,
Culadasa: I also sincerely hope that you will continue to play a very active role in the consumer in growth, but the name Buddhists will be later programs on campus,
Student: uh, for those people who are interested, uh, and as
Culadasa: part of, uh, ongoing lecture theory on Ms.
Patient, uh, Mr. Daniel, which, I mean, he's the one who's asked that fear to the box. Uh, we'll be returning to us again tomorrow night and he will
Student: be
Culadasa: giving a talk on.
not. Okay. So it be primarily about formal chat,
right. And, uh, of course there's people present here greatly. It goes through my training was founded investing, uh, around the same time tomorrow. So just so that, you know, uh, since, um, gang goes visit five-year-old mayor until I've decided to, um, having beep to the people like me, I think I should make this announcement and trying to do since not most of the people who go there.
Um, VR criminality, Chinese speakers
because, uh, it was outside so we can buy something. kind of plate now.
Uh,
well, then I can move, uh, uh, the top will be conducted in English. So it's different problem. A usual
and harvest conversation will be offered upon request. So if you feel like there are certain parts of on Daniels, um, lecture preventation, then you find particularly difficult to understand. And I was a patient one time. It has to be like
Student: thanks for
Culadasa: And they're responsible and
I'm chair and doing gear store. Uh, okay. And I'm talking to, that
Student: would be a third teacher, uh,
Culadasa: sharing these with, with, with [01:20:00] asthma on Thursday, Sergeant , uh,
Student: his name is Alan Cook, so hopefully, uh, that'd be welcome. All right then I guess,
Culadasa: around
Student: the box .
| Added at | Sept. 26, 2020 |
| Audio length | 0 minutes |
| Original file name | UWest-Lecture-01-19-09.mp3 |