Go through the whole process and stay alert. The Chakravartans, they're really great, but they do think that they're doing something for people. They do sort of think, and that's another thing, did you read that this morning? About it's not only done for you, but also for me. Bodhisattvas know that. They get a kick out of helping people. Chakravartans kind of thing. They're a little bit condescending. After all, they are kings. They're a little bit condescending. Whereas bodhisattvas don't exactly know which direction they're handing it. It's sort of down, but it's also sort of up, you know. They kind of feel like little kids helping out big brothers and big sisters a little bit. But sometimes they also kind of feel tall because everybody's saying, gee, you're up so high. So they don't exactly know high or low. Chakravartans kind of think they're helping the people. Bodhisattvas think, yes, I'm helping the people, but there's no people to help. and there's no bodhisattva helping them.

[01:05]

So they don't get caught in that dualistic thing of I'm doing the help for them and they're being helped by me and that kind of thing. That's what starts tossing you around. So you take birth in order to help beings, you create something, and if you get caught by it, then you're all over it. Just like when you create a great work of art, if you think you made it, you get sick afterwards. But if you just make it and say, oh, so what? I don't know what happened, now you do another one. And a lot of artists, like Picasso artists, he had to keep going on to the next painting really quick before he, because if he stopped, he'd look at what he just made and he'd go, ooh, God, that's neat, and he'd be done. You know? His only hope was to go on to another one really quickly before he was, would sort of get, you know, caught enough on what he was, and what was happening, and think that maybe he was doing it. So, you have to keep going all the time, otherwise... curtains. That's what's called giving away merit, you know. If you stop and look at it, you might take a hold of it and start thinking about who did it, and then it's dangerous stuff.

[02:13]

And the better it is, the more dangerous it is. So give it away right away and go on. What's next? That kind of feeling. Chakravartans hold on to it a little bit too long. They get their fingers burned. And then they say, well, it's the last time I'm going to be born for beings. I mean, I just came down here just to help out and look what happened to me, my God. I didn't have to do this anyway. So the intermediate realm is what happens just prior to this conceptual activity. Some schools, as I said, do not recognize this intermediate being. And that's why Vasa Bandhu went to some trouble in Chapter 3 of the Abhidharma Kosha to prove that there is such a thing as intermediate being because the Theravadans say that there isn't. So some schools of Buddhism say, no, it really isn't.

[03:19]

There's just death. And if you're straight to death, you immediately produce birth consciousness. There's no separation. And I think it'd be good if you could think of that, you know, it'd be good if you could conceive that option too. Because actually that option does happen where? Yeah, in the Arupadatu, you give death consciousness, if you're in the Kamadatu, you move into that dot, and from there you just conceive of the idea of where you're going, and that immediately... makes it happen. Because you're going into a conceptual realm. So the conceptual force, which would ordinarily hit something, hit material, is not going to hit material. So it's just, usually you come out of death with a conceptual warp.

[04:21]

And that warp is now going to hit material in the intermediate realm. Or in the next birth. Either way. Either you're dying now, You're dying. You're closing down on this material involvement. And now you're coming out with this conceptual warp or conceptual bias. And if there's an intermediate realm, you hit the material of the intermediate realm. And you make a being of that shape. Intermediate realm does not have sperm and egg in it, so you don't make a human body or whatever. Then at the intermediate realm you scout around for a while and at a certain point when passions get heavy and you get troubled you're attracted to sexual activity and then you that same projection which has now changed a little bit probably and was not all that clear to begin now chooses some particular event some particular parents and now that choice whatever however foggy or clear it was that will now bend uh

[05:31]

or articulate and bend into a full-fledged body. But if you're going in, if there wasn't an intermediate realm, then you'd be saying, you come out of death, and right away this projection hits blood and sperm, or egg and sperm, right away. And there's no point to discuss in between. And if you're going into the Aripadatu, and you're still alive, so to speak, but you're changing realms, You come out of the, you're in the, you're doing rupadhatu meditation, but now your rupadhatu meditation is now basically a conceptual type which enters you into the arupadhatu. So as soon as you stop being in the arupadhatu, you go into the rupadhatu. I mean, as soon as you stop being in the rupadhatu, you go into the arupadhatu. And it's just that concept. There's no form to hit. You don't have to hit the form of the intermediate realm and then hit the form of the, of the, Because there's no need, because you're not going to hit any form.

[06:35]

So right away, it's just a thought that counts, as they say. They didn't know when they made that expression up that they were talking about the rupadatu. Yes? Are you talking about... Our rupadatu. Both. If you go on the rupadatu, it's entirely determined by thought. But also, if you die... and are reborn in the arupadatu. You don't go through the intermediate realm. You can be born in the arupadatu. Yes. is, they exist in Kamadhatu and Rupadhatu also.

[07:55]

They exist in the same space as we do. For example, today, if you live in the Kamadhatu, you will go through, according to this book, you will go through intermediate realm. So, you'll be here. But the way you relate to intermediate realm is quite different than you relate to it when you're just in a plain old destiny. For example, what is the quality of the intermediate realm? Is there big discrepancies or little discrepancies in the comparative thinking? Is it pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? Is it nauseating, hellish, insatiable, blissful? What is it like in the intermediate realm? During the day, what they're saying, there's two kinds of birth and death. One kind is of the body. whole body. The other ones, it kind of happens many times during a day. In the intermediate realm, what's it like? What kind of emotional activity is going on there?

[09:00]

Does anybody know? Not much? What's it like? Boring? Is it that strong? Is it strong enough to be called boring? Boring is characteristic of humans, isn't it? is it content what is it content is it content maybe it is a little joyous maybe it is a little content yeah that's part of it isn't it so what do you think anyway so what do we think about the intermediate realm now is that it's boring that it's not much that it's hordes of beings are chasing you that it's that you that you you don't know that

[10:22]

It's maybe you have some fun because you can fly and you're not so much problem. What do you think? Are all these things true? That's right. There's a wide variety of possible things in the intermediate realm. That's the thing about intermediate realm is one sense, it's got a little of all of them, maybe. In another sense, you don't know what it's like. We don't know what it's like in a way. We can't say it because Intermediate realm is the switching station for all the other realms. So if it's a switching station for all the realms, then there must be some kind of blurry version of all the realms in intermediate realm, but you can't necessarily say that they're all there, because then you can say what it was like, too, because they're not all there. In some cases, intermediate realm does not only have hell in it. In some cases, it only has heaven. Because in some cases, people are coming with a pretty clear heavenly bent. Other people are coming in there with a pretty clear hellish bent. Other people are coming in with a pretty clear human bent.

[11:22]

Some people are coming in there with luminous understanding. Just bright light. They're coming from human and they're going to hell. They can go wherever they want. So they're turning in. Okay, where should I go next, boss? Go to hell. Okay, see you later. Back, you know, 10 million culprits later, they're back. Okay, where should I go now? Go to human. Okay. This is bodhisattvas. They don't care how long. They just go. It's all the same. They don't grasp anything. It's all the same practice wherever they are. So we can't actually say what's in the intermediate realm except by looking at what particular thought projections get you there. Then you can say exactly what's going on there. But in general, we can't say because you can come from any of the states into the intermediate realm and you can go to any of the states from the intermediate realm. So we can't actually say. general but we can say exactly in specific telling you can say just tell me just tell me where this guy's coming from and I'll tell you what intermediate realms like just tell me about all this person thinks this person has thought and I'll tell you what they think is happening now and given and given what they can see and the possibilities of rebirth out there because you know you don't have all possibilities of rebirth all the time you may want to be Ronald Reagan's son but in fact

[12:49]

not possible these days what's available now is a bunch of people who are in their reproductive years available to you if you die and want to be reborn soon only those people so given your opportunities of where you can be born as a human you look around and you do and you do what you do so you can't that's why it's not a set system because when you decide to die you don't necessarily have checked out some people do though some people wait and they die when they see somebody else in a fertile you know time they see some people getting married and then they wait and they die because they want to be born with those two people as their parents what consciously consciously these are rather advanced yogis If you tell me that somebody's dying, if you could tell me, who can tell me, all the things they think they've thought, then we could say what kind of intermediate being they would be.

[14:06]

And then if we knew the people who were fertile, we could tell you what kind of person they'd become. Because we could say who they would choose for their parents, given the people who are fertile at the time that they get fed up with being intermediate. Yeah, well, the body accumulates the effects of unwholesomeness in a sense, but once it's not animated by the consciousness anymore, a lot of the stuff is just, it's just a body. If it's got a number here showing what, you know, they're in prison, that number's there.

[15:10]

But aside from those kinds of things, or scars or whatever, aside from those kind of things, once that perverted consciousness has left, a lot of the postures itself, all those tensions are gone. aside from muscular development and so on it's pretty much just compost material maybe it was i don't know okay well uh i think uh next time we'll start talking about tibetan book of the dead all right and we'll also be talking about uh but with the abhidarmakoshi in mind we'll start to spend a little bit more time thinking about what's it like given your background what's it like in this realm where anything can happen actually we say anything can happen but actually only certain things can happen given the way you think so what happens when you think this way and what happens if you think that way and so we'll so start to you know getting ready for that discussion next week

[16:15]

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