We've been talking about the creation of life or the creation of a body, of a living body. We've also been talking about the withdrawal from creation. the withdrawal from a particular created form, created body, which we call death. The creation of a new life, the creation of a new body we call rebirth or reincarnation, and then we've been talking about this the space in between the withdrawal of consciousness from its material support, a particularized material support which is called a body, living body, and the creation of a new or choice of a new material, a matrix for consciousness to work with.

[01:26]

So now we're depending upon the meditation of connecting this Abhidharma Kosha chapter 3 with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead are directly from the Abhidharma Kosha. Other parts of the Tibetan Book of the Dead are oral teachings are in addition to the oral buddhist oral teachings which are in addition to the chapter three of the abhidharma kosha not in disagreement but in addition and probably some on top of that although i really don't know probably some additional shamanic uh lore is mixed into indian shamanic and tibetan shamanic lore and so

[02:30]

I want to be able to keep in mind the relationship of this text to the more basic Buddhist teachings as we proceed. So you can interrelate what you've learned in Abhidharma and Buddhist teaching in general to this particular teaching. So we have said, that um body, which I'm now saying, and I've never really heard this before specifically, but I'm saying that the body, which is individual cetana, individual cetana means

[03:59]

individual consciousness's overall patterning, individual consciousness's overall patterning produces a body. And the body which it produces, which are retribution from individual karma, is the what? we individually create in terms of material so what do we solely create in terms of material the capacity so call them the receptive capacity or the scent organ produced by individual karma.

[05:12]

Are these observable? Are they sense objects themselves? No. They're not observable as external objects. External sense objects. are they composed of what they are refined matter these are these are refined matter or subtle rupa okay they are subtle rupa and what is gross rupa what no subtle rupa in the center Subtle rupa is sense organs. Subtle rupa is the receptive capacity, is the material receptive capacity, are called the sense organs.

[06:28]

Okay? They are subtle rupa. What is the gross rupa? The object. Objects of what? comment on that? What are the gross lupa lengths? I'm being technical about this. What is the gross lupa lengths? objects what do you think of that objects of consciousness objects of consciousness you said they are the objects of the sense organs they are the objects of consciousness they are called external gross rupa gross rupa is external to consciousness according to adjana kosha is not the object of the organ it is the field of the organ

[07:42]

is the object of consciousness. Object of the jnana, which is called what? Is that good? Alambana. Alambana. They are the field of the organ. The field of the endria. What? Vishaya. Okay. These vishaya, or external alambana, material alambana, are the gross rupa. The subtle rupa is the organ. What's a lumbina?

[08:49]

A lumbina means, literally means, that which you could hook onto. An object. What's that? Can you read that? What's the difference between a lumbina and your son? What does it say? It says two different things. It says object that is . What? It says object that is . Right. The field of the unreal. What do you think? What's the difference between these two? Anybody? Those are the same thing. What's the difference between the same thing? The same point of view. The same thing. Life, for example. light is the field of a receptive capacity and it's the object of the vinyana the receptive capacity is the means by which the vinyana relates to the material object

[10:10]

learn these new ways of thinking about this. You should be able to say this backwards, forwards, and sideways. That's the only way you get it into your system. Drill. Write it out. Ask each other questions, like I'm doing right now. Yes? The objects of manas aren't necessarily... The objects of manas are not rupa. The objects of manas are in the dharmadapti. They are alambana. Also they aren't objects of manas. Manas is a receptive capacity also. But manas' receptive capacity is over here. Manas is a receptive capacity which relates to the field of mental objects, which are in the dharmadapti, or in the dharmayatana. That's why I said these are the material objects.

[11:37]

They are the material field of objects of consciousness. how if they're not objects of consciousness how can they be known they can be hit and they can be known by their function what are they hit by right yes and by their function that's right you can know by their function so how do you know by their function you know by their effect so they are not

[12:41]

objects of consciousness. But you can tell that there is an effect of this function. Namely, sensation. Namely, a body. Which you create. And you can create it, but you can't see it as an object. Not as a material object. This is what we're talking about. This is the essence of what we're talking about. How do you create this thing not really the object of consciousness and yet is made by consciousness now this this body is what kind of karma

[13:42]

this body or this material is what kind of karma what this is what kind of karma this is what kind of karma okay what kind of neutral karma is this this is undefiled and well what more can you say about it there's more than one kind of undefiled Do you know a technical term for that? Deepakapala. Deepakapala. What about this? No. What kind? Anybody? Janet gave up. What is it called? but it's atipatipala atipatipala is the fruit of all beings karma this is the this we make this body this internal body of the receptive capacity which is not the object of

[15:16]

observation. You cannot see it, hear it, smell it, taste it. It is the ability to do those things. It is part of the ability to do those types of thinking called sense consciousness. Alright? You cannot observe it though. You cannot grasp it as material object. Now, the external world is the world where We interrelate with each other. That's the world of social life. That's the world how we look at each other and try to figure out what each other are doing, what each other want of us, and whether we're being understood. This is the world we share. This is where communication occurs. No one knows the body I create. No one knows the mind I create but me.

[16:18]

But we do share in the creation of this, and it's in this realm of the external objects where social life occurs. Do you have something of a problem with that? I would have thought that would become somehow emerging in the receptive capacity. I was thinking of this then. What? Not human interaction? Well, what I'm saying is that there's this, here's a human mind, here's a human mind, or here's consciousness, here's consciousness. This consciousness makes a human body. This consciousness makes a human body. And when all these consciousnesses all over the place make a human body, okay? In a sense, you can put form maybe at the center of the universe, okay? Gross form.

[17:20]

at the center of the universe in this sense or anyway some place in the universe that we all can contact because what's happening is that there's consciousness and then there's this receptive capacity which is not this body there's this receptive capacity of consciousness with the material world and all the different beings are are cooked on to this material world by the receptive capacities so we create the receptive capacities the receptive capacities plug into the material the gross material and everybody plugs into the same gross material from a different point okay and we keep and it keeps changing we keep plugging in again changes and we plug in plug in okay so this is what we all make this we share in this and by sharing in this we have what we call communication but we totally make our own life and we have communicate with other forms of life this this is all included in a big bubble of consciousness but the way we plug in and the part of the material world we plug into and the way we plug in is the style of life we choose the form of the body we choose and the place we plug in too it will be determined by that so it's the material world that we overlap in that we share in we share making it we share experiencing it

[18:47]

That's where communication, so-called communication, occurs. But this communication is entirely by referring to this consciousness and then reflecting it out into the body, which will determine what part of the blob we're communicating with and what way we'll communicate with it and how we'll understand what material things are out there and therefore what people are telling us and what we should say back. This does not have location. This is located. So the subtle rupa is rupa. I asked before, what is it composed of? Now I ask again. Gibbs said, refined matter. I said, yes, this is refined matter, but it's not composed of refined matter, what they're composed of. what's this composed of five skandas what skandas is it composed of rupa any comments on that besides that it's composed of rupa skanda is it composed of all of rupa skanda is there any part of rupa skanda that's not included under it

[20:22]

What else? Brenda, do you know what part of rupascanda is not composed under the receptive capacities? Do you know? What part of rupascanda is not included under here? What? What? Right. So both of these together are the rupascanda. This plus this. in sarvastavadhan by bhashaka abhidharma it doesn't include subtle uh the abhijñapti rupa where's abhijñapti rupa it's in dharmadasa so dharma the subtlety on the non-cognizable uh there's a kind of material in this system that you can't that also cannot be seen by the sense capacities it can only be seen by mamas be received by manus that's material and there's the receivers which are material and the field of the material now these are located because they're material all materials located and they're also located because what why they're located because they always plug in someplace

[21:55]

they always when as soon as you these are located and as soon as you relate to these you plug into some spot so the the receptive capacities are always located because they relate to it because they get hit by material events the part so this and this are located so location or committing yourself to a place in space is the origin of consciousness is the support of consciousness consciousness itself is not located but it arises out of locatable events i'll ask another time what are these locatable events composed of four grade elements okay these are composed of four grade elements these receptive capacities are composed of four grade elements and the field of the capacities are composed of four grade elements Four-grade elements have been called the four essential qualities of material events.

[23:08]

Things that can be hit grossly, things that are locatable, and the things upon which consciousness arises, the foundations of conscious life, arise out of these four-grade elements in some combination. They are derived rupa. Yes? Did you say that they're signers and dharmas? They're not dharmas. The four-grade elements? They're not dharmas because they are not directly experienced ever by themselves. In some sense, they're not exactly finer, but they're more fundamental maybe than dharmas. Dharmas are from the point of view of experience, from the point of view of meditation. The four-grade elements, we do have meditations in order to get a feeling for them. And if you get a feeling for the four-grade elements by meditating on them, that will help you meditate on rupa. But you don't exactly meditate on them directly. You meditate on them indirectly through thinking about them, and that will help you tune into what rupa is.

[24:11]

So you go back to rupa through the mind. You go back to rupa through the mind thinking about the four-grade elements, and you arrive at rupa, and then you can sort of have a sense of where rupa comes from. since they're mutually supporting each other, mutually creating each other, so mind creates rupa by means of the four great elements. And then the four great elements, when they come together to create rupa, support the mind. So, from the yogic point of view, the whole universe, the material universe, does not exist before consciousness, and yet consciousness doesn't exist before rupa either. they arise simultaneously and but we put we want to put the emphasis on the fact that mind arises from a material base material also arises from the mind they go back and forth with each other back and forth back and forth you can't say which is happening first or second it's a kind of flashing a sparkling quality a luminous event it's flashing back and forth between the two so in a sense

[25:25]

mind gets into these four qualities it creates rupa and rupa is the basis of mind and these four great qualities they must be located in order to interact just water over here and earth over here and fire over there and air over there that's great they're great ideas but when they come together and meet if you can bring those four together You'll make yourself some mud. That's how God did it. If you can take your mind and take those four like that, bring them together. As soon as you do that, you get water, or you'll get earth, or you'll get fire, actual earth or fire. You'll get a material event. You'll get color. You'll get a sound. And this is what we're talking about.

[26:26]

This is creation. It's to bring things together like that. It's to bring thoughts together. If something happens, something is created. Yes? One of them cannot be touched? One of the three elements? We're not talking about three elements. We're talking about four. Maybe you have a different That's really good. their interest in it because uh interest or consciousness or whatever is inseparable from them coming together when they come together they form the base of consciousness so consciousness when consciousness brings these four great elements together

[28:01]

material the material world is created now the consciousness that brings the four great elements together is already supported by the material world and when the consciousness brings together these four it creates the material world which then supports it it's like don quixote and poncho sambas vomiting back and forth in each other's faces So you can't say which is more, you know, you could also say, you say why, what's the interest of thinking the four great elements or bringing them together into form? You could also say what's the interest of consciousness of arising out of form in the first place? Well, it's kind of like saying why, it's sort of saying, you're basically saying why is the world the way it is?

[29:05]

Which is a good question. Could it be any other way? Could reality be any other way than consciousness arises out of material and material is created by consciousness? Could it be any other way? Why is reality interested in being the way it is? Perfectly good question. Let's look at it. That's what we're doing. Trying to find out why is it this way? Is there any other way? Can somebody provide another method, another way things can be? People have been providing other ways, but most of the other ways people are thinking of will cause a lot of trouble. called delusion this particular way of reality being seems to be the way that's recommended for it to be namely because it is that way so what's the interest in it being this way it just is what's the interest in just being that way it loves to be itself and on we can go it doesn't like to be other things from itself as a matter of fact that's what's called not liking to be called suffering being some other way than this anyway if you can see

[30:07]

how you take these four great elements and put them together into form, you are in touch with rebirth. You are in touch with creation. You are looking at emptiness. That's why I'm reviewing this material with you, this Abhidharma, because this is what the Tibetan Book of the Dead is about. If you can do this, you'll understand the Tibetan Book of the Dead. If you can understand this, this is what's happening in this more colorful language, this more colorful oral teaching. or shamanistic style of speech and pictures. The Tibetan Book of the Dead will work if someone learns that they don't have to learn so much Abhidharma, but if you understand Abhidharma, you'll understand that. So we will be able to, if we carefully study our Abhidharma, we will be able to concoct an oral teaching like this. But we won't need, if we don't want to, we won't have to have these people with these headdresses. We can have them wear suits. and dresses or fat pants and uh and uh Seiko watches now we might have Seiko watches on both wrists something would change we might have Seiko watches up around the arm too but anyway we can create our own lore about what visions we see okay but unless you understand this it's sort of hard

[31:36]

not you know it'd be easier for you to understand this if you understand the basics this is where it's coming from this is the stylized uh what's called streamlined version it's in the abhidharma kosha already this book is a is a skillful adaptation of these teachings okay so this is what we make and we make this with the four great elements mind takes the four-grade element and makes it into material makes it into a body a personal body it also makes an external world but there we share when we take the forget elements and make a color there we share when i make when i take the when my consciousness watches those four great elements come together and to color that's not only my mind coming together

[32:38]

but all of our minds coming together for all of time to make a color. But the capacity to see the color is my mind watching the four great elements come together. So that's where you first catch on. It's easiest to catch on in the area where you are most responsible. So you start with the creation of your own body. Well, we call it gross. Why do we call it gross? Located. That's gross.

[33:39]

It's limited. It can be hidden. It can be pushed around. lower to change uh anyway the description we have of it is that it's gross that's what we're describing we're describing the gross heavy aspect of the consciousness or the universe we want that side of things we like tanks also besides the way you the way you receive it is is uh the the sensory event is a combination of that thing which we all make and uh

[34:52]

your sense organ, which you make. So you will have, plus your consciousness, or the consciousness. So the sense consciousness is individual. We do anyway have a sense of other being. And the consciousness which we want to understand, which we want to really master, is a consciousness which surrounds this material the shared material area non-dual consciousness is not just this individual section plugging into this material space here that's why this is important to us the conscious we want to know is conscious that completely envelops the material world which is why we want to study others Now, what else about this?

[35:56]

So, the material organs are the interface between the internal and the external. They are not observable from the outside. They're composed of four-grade elements. And in terms of ayatanas, how many ayatanas are here? Huh? Any other comments? How many Athens are here? Seven. Seven. Any other? Do I hear eight? Eight. Eight. Any others? Twelve. Twelve. How are you thinking? Anybody thinking here? I think somebody is. What? Six, we already have another six. Do I hear five? I'm not angry, but it's five.

[37:02]

How come nobody said five? There's a whole bunch of people being quiet that knew it was five. Why don't you know it's five? What are the five ayatanas that are here? the five receptive capacities of the material is five right those are what you create by yourself how many dhatus are here yes five dhatus See, you have to know this stuff. If you know this stuff, you'll, believe it or not, you'll understand yourself much better.

[38:04]

How many dot twos, how many iophanins are out here? Huh? What? Five dot twos. Five iophanins. five sense fields the five sense objects how many I often is over here what one so there's 11 off so far where's the other one Two ayatana. Manayasana. Okay.

[39:07]

Manayasana. And what? Dharmayasana. And Dharmayasana. Okay. Manayasana and Dharmayasana. Manayasana is the receptive capacity Manayatana is the receptive capacity of consciousness. Dharmayatana are the alambana, the objects of consciousness, as a mental event. Okay? How many dattu are over here? One. What? One. One dattu. So you say there's 11 dattus. other comments about how many doctors there yes eight thousand what are the eight thousand five cents

[40:17]

What's it like in terms of history? What? It's a receptive capacity. Any other ones called what? by the structure here. This is called mano-vijnana-datus. This is called, these are called like chakshir-vijnana-datus, you know, eye-vijnana-datus, ear-vijnana-datus. So this is mind-consciousness element. This is mind-element. So, this side is composed of eight datus or two hyatenas.

[41:41]

Eight datus are the five sense-consciousnesses, one mind the five sense consciousness the one mind sense consciousness and uh the uh the subject capacity of mind which corresponds to these over here except for mind okay these these things what are you trying to read What's the difference? What's the difference? What's the difference in the point of view?

[42:41]

One is looking at an intuitive uh grouping of things i think that's how i don't know exactly which is which oh the doctor was the second one you didn't know how to say it okay the first one you're looking at this dharmadatu and dharmayatana are the same thing in one case you're looking at it from one spot it's called dharmayatana a dharmayatana happens to be eight spots when you look at it from from that dharmayatana is one like one thing you're looking at it from when you break it down into doctors you realize there's eight aspects of this relationship okay so the dharma dharma doctor and dharma happen the same thing but actually manayatana is composed of seven kinds of uh seven kinds of consciousness or rather seven kinds of things six consciousnesses

[43:49]

in this thing. This thing is also called manas, or accepted capacity. And in Pabhidharma of the Yogacara, how manas is working is very important, because if manas is looking to the outside, or looking to the inside, or the way it looks, the way it checks from outside and inside, and the way it works, is very important in determining ego. In fact, I've done people just plain called it ego. The way this thing works is the way ego is. now the way this thing works the way all this stuff works or is working at a particular point in time okay that creates this at a particular point in time because the way this is working is called karma

[44:53]

The way this is working is called chetanā. The overall statement about all these, whether Manas is sort of looking at the live jñāna or looking at external objects or whether Manas is mapping onto something that's owned or not. All this stuff produces a body. That's what does produce a body when a body is produced. is the basic very basic avidharma background for this process of creation of a body sometime during this class perhaps at the end meredith meredith is going to bring in a little piece of paper that's a xerox book that just came out it's a book about biological a biological theory book

[45:56]

called autopoiesis. Poiesis is Greek for to make or to create. Self-creating. subtitle or the subtitle is the realization of living actually the realization of the living and this is uh this is blue verb at the beginning saying that what they've done here now is they've taken a radical radically new or a radical shift in their viewpoint biological viewpoint usually by biology viewed from the outside people watching the outside they're watching the cells and so on, they're doing it from the point of view of the inside or from the point of view that what's created is consciousness, a cognitive process of referring to itself and creating itself.

[47:14]

The production of life is a cognitive process. And life as a process, or in other words, life changing or transmigration of life is a transformation of cognition. This book comes at a very good time for us because of talking about this very thing. It also comes at a very good time for the other class that I'm working with, the class on Zazen in terms of practicing with the body. Because you actually practice with the body that you create, not this body, the external body. We all make this. That's the next step. Okay, now I think we may be ready to start to talk about the Tibetan Book of the Day, which is called Bardo, I think it's pronounced Thertral. Anybody know better?

[48:18]

Bardo Thertral. So how do you pronounce it?

[49:26]

So how do you say it, anybody? That's a Tibetan way of writing it, though. That's not how to pronounce it. Well, Thodol is, I think, just leaving out the umlauts. The way with the S is the Tibetan way, and you don't pronounce the S. Anyway, Thodol Thodol. Something like that. Tibetan Book of the Dead. As I said, it's fairly close to Abhidharma Kosha, but it has other things in it. Now, let's see, where do we start? First, we talked about before the process of death, the withdrawing of consciousness from this base which it has created.

[50:33]

withdrawing from the organs as a base or withdrawing from the location there to a simpler location, a location that's going through less changes until finally withdraws to a spot. And then from the spot, it withdraws successively from each of the four great elements. finally it's withdrawn from all the four great elements that have come to create this particular spot and then it even withdraws from various kinds of consciousness until it arrives at a state which is called luminosity or clear light not even a color um it's

[52:07]

letting go of the earth, all right? That's what I was talking about. First you let go, first you withdraw to the spot, okay? You withdraw from organs into the more subtle aspects of body, and then withdraw into the central aspect of body, and then withdraw into one spot rather than lying. At that point, first you let go of the earth contribution to that material event then to the water contribution and the fire contribution and the wind contribution or you can say in terms of first essential sense of eye yoga and sense of fear and sense of nose and sense of tongue and body well in other words when mind creates it uses four aspects and as you take away the aspects you stop having regular you know the same material so the body is deteriorating as you let go of that when we say that that the earth element goes away another way to put that is that the mind withdraws from the earth element

[53:50]

So in one sense, the earth element is support, the earth element is a support for mind consciousness, for mind. Earth element is a quality upon which mind can base itself. And when mind is based on earth element, or earth quality, fire quality, water quality, air quality, and then it joins those, then mind is based on a regular material phenomenon and you can have a sense of experience. before you have all four together before mind is based on all four and they are related to as a unity you do not have sense experience so as mind deteriorates it goes back then and it starts with this some material event and it takes away part of the contribution that mind needs to have a sense experience so when it removes one of the elements you lose part of sense experience when it removes the other and

[54:55]

on you drop away elements and you drop away the ability to have sense experience but can you if you lose your eyesight here can you still put you still here or you don't lose your you can still hear you however uh already the hearing will be radically different well you know i just uh in a sense you lose all but at the same time you think about that about what it means that as soon as you lose one perhaps you could say another way to get around this would be that one deteriorates to such an extent that uh and another one predominates or makes up as one deteriorates another one starts to predominate and so one of the sense capacity is impossible but the other one is very

[55:59]

still some little bit of contribution yeah that's not maybe that's a good way to talk about it so that it it it deteriorates to such an extent that it it goes into it it is immersed in the next one yeah that that that's maybe one way to say that it doesn't disappear so we're withdrawing you know withdrawing then from from a certain kind of consciousness basically until finally you arrive at the state of consciousness which is called luminosity Now, I would relate this then to what we read in the pancha, okay?

[57:08]

Luminosity, I would suggest, is like when we were talking about... For he does not apprehend of any dharma whatsoever singleness or manifoldness or even separateness. and she arrived with such an armor, oh, and she is armored with such an armor that she does not actually appear in the world of sense, desire, form, or formlessness, neither the condition or the unconditioned. He liberates beings from the triple world and yet apprehends no being or concept of a being. Where beings are not conceived, dot, dot, dot, no differentiation between places of rebirth can therefore be conceived. In the absence of differentiation between places of rebirth, there is also no karma. How can there be karma result by which selves and beings could actually appear in samsara with its five places of rebirth?

[58:17]

This no differentiation among the places of rebirth This non-apprehension of the differentiation between the different kinds of rebirth means that you can't make the comparisons by which you could judge a certain state of being. Without these differentiations and comparisons, you cannot have a particular state of being. And that's luminousness. Or meditation on emptiness. But this particular meditation on emptiness that we're talking about now, we're sort of emphasizing it as, I mean, you're actually, your body, you actually have now abandoned your body in the process of arriving at this particular form of luminousness. This is really meditation on emptiness with your body. You've actually let go of the body in order to do this. This luminousness happens actually every time you change realms.

[59:20]

Every time you abandon anything, you enter into luminousness. Or rather, you really don't even abandon anything. So in this life, with this body, without dying, if you meditate on emptiness, true emptiness, you enter into luminousness. And at that point, you die of whatever incarnation, whatever destiny you have previously been in. You die of it. You don't really do a thing, but you die. You let go of any destiny, any particular incarnation you're in. Because you let go of the attachment or the apprehension of the means by which you determine that state, which was basically differentiation and comparison. But it turns out that each being will eventually do this.

[60:22]

Because each being who maps, each consciousness that maps itself onto a body, eventually will relieve itself of that body, will withdraw consciousness from the attachment to that body, and will actually let go for a moment. In this sense, everyone attains nirvana, or everyone meditates on emptiness at the moment of death. In the Lotus Sutra it actually says, that that when people die this is pari nirvana that's right they don't there's no other pari nirvana a yogic or it's a yogi you do realize it by dying you realize it what you're saying is that if a person you take this person this illusory being okay

[62:31]

and this being has spent a good share of their life meditating on emptiness as a Buddhist practitioner or whatever, when they come to that moment of luminousness at the end of this incarnation, the likelihood of them feeling at home, what feels at home? There's nobody there to feel at home. There's no yogi there, no yogic or anything. This is yoga. This luminousness is yoga. I mean, in other words, not just an idea your body is really into it your body's into this luminousness in other words you actually have let go of your body you're not just talking about it anymore you've actually just tossed the body away that's yoga okay this is what a yogi does and everybody the yogi when they die everybody no matter how stiff they are no matter how fat they are no matter how much they smoke Everybody at that moment is a perfect yogi.

[63:36]

But in fact, if you look at this particular consciousness that's doing this particular job and being located on this particular clump of flesh, if that clump of flesh had been connected with a consciousness that had been tossing away that clump of flesh again and again, again and again, just dropping it and tossing it and realizing that it's changing all the time. In fact, What happens after that luminous mistake will be different in the two cases. In the case of one who thought that whole life there was never any change and they never let go of the body one moment, that person you will expect, perhaps they will expect actually, that after that things will go differently than the one who has been practicing yoga all the time before. But the way they go is the Buddhist truth too. Either way they go, it's still the truth. And at that point, luminousness is luminousness. That's it. If you're holding on to your body a little bit still, it's what's going to happen to it.

[64:38]

Nobody actually is ever not... There's only one kind of luminousness. It's really what's happening. And it does happen to everybody at that moment. Everybody lets go of their body and goes and gets a new one. They don't hang on to a little bit of it. But yet, we do talk about... there is some point to it all in some sense. Some skill can be accrued somehow. That's why we, if it weren't so, we wouldn't recommend that we practice this process now. Okay? That we become yogi, that we realize our yogic abilities prior to changing bodies. Now, we are actually changing bodies all the time. And that's why we should realize the yogic nature of changing bodies within an incarnation or changing incarnations within the big incarnations.

[65:39]

So we've talked about this before. There are nested incarnations. There are incarnations within incarnations. But not every kind of incarnation do you actually go through somebody's womb and weigh two pounds or seven pounds when you and 150 when you end. Within those, you make these little changes in a material way, but still it's constantly changing. That's a big question.

[67:08]

In the midst of luminosity, why does one descend into the material? If you're able to accept this complete freedom where you're in touch with the total picture, no leaning, no bias, no particularity, no defilement, why does one now become particularized? lean a little bit. Why? Why? What? Karma. That's one reason. Vow. Vow is another reason. Yes? Excuse me, but before you ask, can you remember your question? Can you remember what you're going to ask? Okay. The vow, what's the vow? Is the vow something other than the way things are? Bodhisattva vows are just vowing to be the way things are.

[68:10]

And what are the way things are? What are the vows? The forms of life, the forms of living which we can create are innumerable. I vow to enter every single type of it. So consciousness, when it reaches a state of luminosity, it naturally, because of the vows, or rather the vows... tell you that actually what luminosity wants to do is it wants to plunge again into particularity. It wants to test itself out in some biased incarnation. It likes to do that. That's why it takes vows to remind itself to do that. So it doesn't think that it's just karma. So is it karma or is it vow? That's the point, you see. So if you come into this luminosity having practiced bodhisattva vows for some innumerable moments then you then it's like then this karmic power is vow if you come in without having practice vows you think you're getting pushed around so one case you see is just the way enlightenment has to work in the other case you feel like it could be some other way one's suffering one's liberation it's the same thing seeing from two sides that's why we say samsara and nirvana are this are one and yet there is samsara and there is nirvana

[69:32]

I forgot which was which. So, luminosity naturally does take form. It does let itself be defiled, naturally. This is what we call the Mahayana miracle. The miracle that a being that is apprehending no being, apprehending no concepts, no differentiation, and no comparative thinking by which different states of rebirth could be arrived at, now enacts comparative thinking, enacts discrimination. And by this enactment, by this ceremony, the being comes into a particular form. And this... is a bodhisattva's activity, but it's also everyone's activity in some way.

[70:37]

And the way you think will determine which direction you go. It would be the same. If the bodhisattva thinks this way, they'll go that way. If the common person thinks this way, they'll go that way. What's the difference? One is conscious all the way through. The other is conscious not at all or part of the way through. Conscious of what? Conscious of what? conscious of how it is that if you think that way it will produce this kind of incarnation yes um what in terms of what we've been talking about today you say that uh transition spaces are during the day like when you have a transition space uh how would you describe that get an example it's a uh like a state of mind where you're not you're not yet doing something and you just finished doing something and you're not it's not quite accurate transition going from one activity to another or one uh move to another well let's say you're

[72:03]

You're sitting in your chair, some chair someplace, and someone's sitting across the table from you, and you're not saying anything. some point you notice that you're not saying anything this is the this is the begin this is a little bit of a flutter okay something you notice something particular you notice then you may notice that the person is wiggling a little bit and you may notice that you're they're wiggling and you're sitting there and you're not saying anything to them

[73:05]

At some point, you feel kind of, you might say, instead of just noticing that this person is sitting there and wiggling and you're not saying anything, you become kind of, you kind of get into that way of being. Rather than that just one possibility and now you're going on to other things, you sort of start doing that. You're getting a little bit more entrenched into this thing of not talking to them. Not that they want you to talk to them or not, but anyway, you're not talking to them. You're not angry at them or anything, and yet you start getting into not talking to them. You start to become... more and more something you're doing and pretty soon you're really not talking to them and pretty soon it's almost you can't tell anymore whether at first at first it wasn't you know they were just it was just silence but now it's getting to be this thing where you're not talking and they maybe they would like you to but even and you're not sure that they would like you to but even if they do want you to you're not going to now and from there

[74:45]

You're really not going to. And for now, maybe it's even embarrassing to now give up your position, because at first it didn't matter, but now you're really committed to not talking to them. The distance between you two starts getting greater. The walls get solider. The withdrawal is getting more intense. At first it was just silence, two people sitting there. Now it's an intense confrontation, an intense separation. A great discrimination is being set up. A great comparison is arising, and you're staying in it. You stay in it, you stay in it, and you're heading for where? Cold hell, we call it. Cold hell. Once again, you have this characteristic of hell, great separation between you and other beings. The comparison between you and other beings is very great. And this is instead of attacking each other, you're withdrawing.

[75:45]

You're not communicating at all. You're not talking. This will project hellbirth in daily life. You will be tormented soon by this state. You will be withdrawn into a tiny, lifeless, isolated spot. And you'll be cut off not only from that person, but from the walls, the ceiling, the sky, everything. This is hell. That's how it can happen in day to life. Now, if you notice this happening, if you notice, hmm, I'm not talking, and that's just, I'm not doing that, and they're just sitting there, and they're wiggling, and you notice that if you keep, and if you notice that if you keep this up, that it's going to produce this, if you really stay in touch with it, you can stay quiet for quite a while because you won't really get into doing it.

[76:50]

You won't really take it seriously. And if it ever comes the time to change, you can change. You can go, hi. I love you. You can do that just like that. There's no commitment to this thing. If you can do that, you do not go to hell and it's not taking that birth. It's luminosity. but if you get into it if it isn't just like if it doesn't stay like oh just the first moment of doing it when you sort of say we're not talking oh we're not talking again oh god it happened again oh it happened again if you don't get totally surprised by it and it's not completely fresh each time if you get committed to that root then you go to hell you go to this terrible tortured isolation but if you keep saying it just keeps happening but you're not committed to it at all you do not you stay in the luminous state and if you know also that if you did get committed to that you would get projected into that hell and that's one of the reasons why you're not going to be committed to it and why you're going to be ready to switch out of it at any moment the slightest hint you'll do the other then you also it will stay luminous and you won't go to hell however it's pretty it's much more difficult to

[78:12]

It turns out it's much more difficult in daily life to keep your mind on that than it is just to go over and hug the person. It's much easier to actually realize it by doing the opposite than to keep in mind as you do this, because the more you do it, the more susceptible you are to switching and getting in the rut and go down the tube to hell. So just to make sure to protect yourself, because sometimes you get lulled, you know, you get lulled by the similarity. you might just go over and do the opposite just to just to check yourself to make sure you can still do it because you make it it's like uh the time i was boxing i was boxing this little tiny guy and uh because in the place i used to box there was only one other heavyweight and he was a really huge guy who um uh he only kept falling down he just he was useless to work out with anyway i used to work out with these little teeny guys 132 pounds. And they hit very softly.

[79:13]

So I used to let them hit me, just to let them get practice. And I'd try to hit them occasionally, too. But I didn't hit them very hard because they were little. 60 extra pounds or whatever, you know, makes a big difference. So I just hit them once in a while. And they'd hit me, and they'd just hit me. And I'd say, gee, they didn't hurt at all. Gee. soon i'd start saying hmm i don't know it doesn't hurt but am i getting dizzy pretty soon i started leaning on the ropes maybe you should stop that for a second but then sometimes i i go stay away what is clarity again oh yeah oh hey you got me dizzy so if you unless you occasionally sort of hit back or something or not in this case not hit but be loving or talkative in that situation communicate after a while you sort of lose track of it and you you sort of lull yourself into thinking that you still could still could do it if you wanted to but actually you can't because you get caught by the thinking that you're doing the same thing again and again you even that

[80:37]

very subtle between thinking you're doing the same thing and knowing that you just think you do. Oh, I just think I'm doing that, but I'm really not committed to it. Oh, I just think I'm doing that, but I'm not really committed. Oh, isn't that interesting? Oh, it's the same thing. Oh, it's the same thing. You're in the rut. So just to protect yourself, don't be too arrogant and switch over to the other side occasionally with your body. That will help. Then you will stay in luminosity. So it's about time to end now, so I might read this. To me, this is very encouraging to hear scientists arriving at Abhidharma. Francisco Varela, by the way, has studied the Abhidharma Kosha, but I think he studied it after he wrote this. Well, I mean, he and Maturana... arrived at this theory of working on this before he started studying albedarmic kosha but he he did start studying albedarmic kosha and they're biologists they're chilean uh biologists um so we'll continue uh we'll get hopefully more into the tibetan book of the dead next week try to

[82:06]

review what we did today so you don't lose track of this ground here. I don't want to review again, but I didn't feel like you are so familiar with this. Please get this stuff straight. This is basic Abhidharma you should know. thing is a mind that is concentrated

[85:41]

contemplating the total causal the total causation moment by moment. with that, and you read Chapter 3 of the Abhidharmakosha, or you read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you will be educated about the very things

[87:11]

that you're looking at. If you're concentrated on emptiness, these two different books will reiterate your concentration. If you lose sight of that, these books will reiterate the fact that you've lost sight of it. If you spin off from emptiness, these books will help you spin off and will take you all over the place. Abhidarmakosha apparently assumes a concentration on causation already and doesn't speak of it as it talks about death.

[88:37]

intermediate realm and rebirth. It just takes you on a tour of these transformations. The bardo turtle constantly reminds you you're supposed to be meditating on while the tour is being conducted. is actually how things are created.

[90:01]

Created. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the word that's being used instead of emptiness. We often have the word luminousness. in this book to keep attentive to luminousness.

[91:02]

In this way, the Tibetan Book of the Dead seems to be, at certain moments, seems to be leaning somewhat towards the Vijnanavadana or Chitta Matran, mind only, in the sense of the luminousness of mind. But actually, I think at other points it actually unites emptiness with this somewhat conditioned emptiness, which is luminousness of mind. In that case, mind is some adjective or some modification on emptiness. long as you remember that the luminousness of mind is really not committed to anything, not even mind, then it's okay.

[92:28]

It's not necessarily Yogacara or Mahajamaka, which is best. It's not really stuck to either school of Mahayana Buddhism. Luminousness, if you see luminousness, you see how you can see mind, just pure mental formations, karma. You can see it through this thing called transforming into a body. How it actually happens that mind produces a body. you're actually doing mindfulness of your body fully, at some point you'll notice a mind is creating this body and what body it is that it's creating.

[93:46]

This complete story of the mind projecting into a body or creating a body is this emptiness. And this emptiness which is the story of how the mind transforms into the body and the body transforms into the mind. This emptiness is not anything other than the body and the mind. So the story is nothing in addition to what it's telling about. So it's a story like this. It's that kind of story. It's not a story that says, now this is a fist and this is an open hand. It's a story like this. So the emptiness is inseparable from the creation.

[94:51]

But when you see this, when you understand how this happens, when you see that this is a causal event, completely how you understand how it happens, then you understand that this, or this, or this, the happening of this, I change from this to this, to just this, because I don't want you to have the idea of a process yet. It's just this, and then this. This is a story. When you see that this is a story and understand that this is a causal explanation, rather than a thing, then you see emptiness. So this is a story of the whole universe. This is a story of the whole universe. And every state of being, hell being, animal being, human being, God being, each one of these states of being, how they occur, is also luminousness.

[96:03]

if you see them as things like if you see this as a thing and you don't see it as an explanation of its causation or rather that it's not an explanation of its causation but it's just simply explanation of causation it's not explanation of its causation but just explanation of causation it's not there's nothing other than explanation of causation here that's emptiness but it's exactly the same as this form you see a state of being as form rather than an explanation then you are what you call you're in that state of being and if it's hell you're in hell but if you see hell just as a causal just as a story just as a causal description then it's a certain story and that's all it is and it's completely luminous and it's not stuck in any form or any feeling or any perception

[97:07]

or any emotion, or any idea, or any consciousness. It's just how it happened. Not how it happened, but how it happened. How it happens includes how it happened and how it will happen. That's part of the emptiness. This is what we should keep in mind all the time. And in particular, we should keep it in mind when we're talking about this business here, Chapter 3 and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, because in one sense, they're to help you do that. In another sense, they'll spin you off. Just like birth, ordinary life,

[98:08]

intermediate realm and death, in one sense, are there in order to demonstrate emptiness. We take this opportunity to demonstrate emptiness. On the other hand, it seems to be an opportunity to forget emptiness. So every form, every feeling, every impulse is an opportunity to see emptiness demonstrated or to take one-sided view of it and see it as the result or a thing and then be pushed around by feeling. or states of being. So now we are studying death, intermediate realm, and rebirth.

[99:16]

Death, when you're on the death, intermediate, rebirth section of the cycle, when you're not part of the cycle, you have three kinds of bardo existence. three kinds of bardo experience. The bardo of death, the bardo of luminousness or truth, and the bardo of becoming. During our daily life, we have the possibility of six bardos. So purvakalabhava, the life between birth and death, has six possibilities, and the life between or just before death and just before rebirth has only three possibilities of bardo-type of experiences.

[100:35]

Another reason for why we take a body, because when you have a body, when you become reborn, you get six types of exercises to do. Whereas if you float between birth and death, between death and birth, you'd only have three. So the bardos of the other three are what? What are the other three types of bardo? What? No, the other three besides those three. The bardo of sleep, the bardo of samadhi, and the bardo of daily life. daily waking consciousness. But the Tibetan Book of the Dead is primarily addressed to a, it seems to be addressed to a certain section of the cycle.

[102:04]

In Chapter 3 of the Abhidharma Kosha is also addressed, it seems at first, to that section of the cycle, the part between just before death and before rebirth. Those kinds of bardos. So we're studying, yes? Luminousness in samadhi. Samadhi is a The type of exercise, particular type of exercise, within which you'll find luminousness. Luminousness is also found in other exercises of consciousness that aren't what we call samadhi exercises.

[103:08]

So samadhi is a special state of concentration, a cultivated concentration. There's two kinds of samadhi. One is always present, and the other kind that's cultivated as a karmic exercise. Okay? But luminousness is before, during, and after. That's samadhi, bardo. Always luminousness. It's just a question of what are the chances of recognizing it? Or in what circumstances do you recognize it? What are the... material available to recognize it. And how did that material come to be there? How that material came to be there is luminousness. So luminousness always comes out of the particularities. The luminousness within the situation in which you can go to hell

[104:21]

different luminousness from the causal situation in which you go to human birth. They're both identical in luminousness or emptiness, exactly the same, because the luminousness is just how this happens and how this happens, but this is not the same as this. hell that's true because if you don't understand the luminousness here, one thing happens to you, and if you don't understand the luminousness here, another thing happens to you. But that's the luminousness too. The fact that this situation is different from this, and if you cling to this as something other than an ungraspable causal net, something you wish to go to hell, and if you cling to this, you go to human. So samadhi, too. If you cling to samadhi, it has a certain effect.

[105:23]

If you see its causal arising as luminousness, it has no effect. But seeing luminousness, all these situations don't project. And every situation is an opportunity for liberation. By liberation I mean that there's just emptiness. And the forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness are not different from it. And it is not different from them. Consciousness is emptiness. The consciousness is emptiness.

[106:28]

In other words, There is consciousness of emptiness. Not consciousness of hell, not consciousness of human, but consciousness of emptiness. This is liberation. The mind is at one with emptiness. The mind is not erased. The mind is inseparable. from emptiness. Feelings are inseparable from emptiness. Perceptions are inseparable from emptiness. This is liberation. And it can happen any place in the big ocean of existence that we're studying here. So the bardo is important because the bardo is the state before you decide that a thing is a thing and not its causation. If you think

[107:28]

a thing is that, then you think it's that, so you go there. Because you make it real, you make it real. I mean, because you make it a thing, you make it a thing. When you see the causal material for hell as a thing, then you go to hell. When you see the causal materials for hell as the causal materials for hell, you become liberated. So this book, Tibetan Book of the Dead and Abhidharma Kosha, show the causal materials for various forms of being, various forms of rebirth. If you take them as things, you go there. If you just see how they do make that state, if you take them as such, you don't go there. The bodhisattva can enter freely into the cognitive transformations by which birth in various realms occurs freely.

[109:04]

And does so freely because they want to see all the different kinds of emptiness. And to take on the cognitive equipment or the cognitive formation by which a birth in a certain situation occurs, is not birth in the situation and yet it's also not someplace else either so you can actually come into a human body come into an animal body it's possible to actually take the birth but that happens after liberation has already occurred or it can happen after liberation has already occurred the bodhisattva has seen the causal prerequisites for birth in a realm as just that they are liberated and if they wish they can go there because they have thought exactly the same thought as the people as the beings who go to that realm if they thought a different kind of thought from the beings who go to hell or go to human then that would be the causal arising

[110:24]

a different state of being and they would think the same way as the beings of that destiny so if they think of if they think in a way that causes a birth when this thinking is taken as a thing that's exactly the the way that the person who takes birth thinks it's no different exactly the same, but they see it as emptiness, as luminousness. And this then can take them into that birth. But they are free of it. And you might say, well, can they not go there? Yes, they cannot go there. But not go there just simply means that you can think another thought.

[111:30]

But there's no point to not go there because they don't even attach to going there. It's only if you attach to that side do they go there. So if you attach to a side, If you looked at bodhisattva from the point of view of attaching to the thing, then that's what you would see. Yes? Emptiness is the causation of particulars. So in that sense, it comes from them. So it's not like there's particulars over here causing emptiness over here. The emptiness is already in the particulars that it comes from. Yes?

[112:37]

What? Could you speak up, please? You only have to think a thought that causes and conscious that [...] thought is its causation or is causation not only causation of some birth but itself is it has a causation right at that moment mainly it's caused by what it is it's emptiness right then too are they called they're not called bodhisattvas in any room

[113:45]

be they wouldn't know that they exist as a bodhisattva not as a human they would know that they exist as a human in this way but this way is luminousness and that's in the bodhisattva but they wouldn't say i'm a bodhisattva not a human You can say right now, I'm a bodhisattva, not a human, if you want. That's okay, that's a thing a human being can say. And that's fine. But to see that as emptiness, that kind of silly talk... Non-being? I don't know what you mean by non-being. it's not the no we're not we're not into that stuff we're not into being and not being causation is not not being and causation is also not being it's not it's not caught in being not being neither of both

[115:33]

we think about them. That's causation. How am I thinking? That's causation. How am I thinking is turning towards emptiness. Not, I'm thinking this way, but how am I thinking? What is this? Before there's an answer, There's an answer. Okay. But what does that answer mean? Not even what does that answer mean. What is this? Okay. Okay, so the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a book written by whom?

[116:50]

Who wrote it? Anybody? Padmasambhava wrote it. And it's one of what? One of six what? Program learning course. One of the six, not books of liberation, but one of the six liberations in Tantric Buddhism. The other five are what? Liberation. It's liberation by hearing, right? Bardo means antarabhava, or intermediate realm. hearing in Tibetan.

[118:03]

And this means liberation. Umbardo. Antirabobo. means hearing, and dole means liberation. So, for example, liberation while wearing is pardon dole. Liberation by wearing, for example, on dead people, they sometimes lay a mantra, I mean a yantra, you know, a mandala over their bodies.

[119:10]

That would be liberation by wearing. And Buddhist priests wear a robe. That's liberation by wearing. But the robe we wear is the Dharmakaya robe. It doesn't have that. The robe, for example, if you look in here, this drawing here, This drawing here is a mandala that you put that foot over the dead person's body and this is liberation by wearing, to put this on. Does someone have a question? No, there's six kinds of antarabhova in Purva-Karlabhova.

[120:36]

That space? It's called... and above also. But, strictly speaking, the space under and above is after death and before rebirth. Okay? So, there's a bardo before you die. That's also there. So, before you die, there's a bardo. Then, after you die, there's a bardo. And then, before you're reborn, there's a bardo. act when you die you go from the you have the deterioration of the four great elements and deterioration of consciousness up to luminosity okay in that bardo you can attain liberation then you come in then you go down you go down from luminosity into the four great elements come back and you're born

[121:53]

as what's called intermediate being. And then when you become reborn, you again go up deterioration of the four great elements, up to deterioration of consciousness, enter luminosity again, and then come down into form again. So death, you toss away a body, and then you take a body, that's intermediate realm. Then death in the intermediate realm. Give up and then take a body. That's rebirth. There's a bardo before the first death. There's a bardo before the second death. There's a bardo before the third death. The bardo that's often spoken of as the main one is the middle one. The whole thing is spoken of as bardo. What? A what name?

[122:58]

A Bhava name. It's called Antara Bhava. But Antara Bhava exists in Purva Kala Bhava. All six Antara Bhavas exist in a thing called Purva Kala Bhava. The, strictly speaking, the intermediate, the bardo before death exists in Purva Kala Bhava. And the bardo between death and rebirth also exists in Purva Kala Bhava, but not in a sense of taking a new body. But there's a kind of death experience in Purva Kala Bhava, but not taking a new body. So in everyday life you have death, rebirth, sleeping, samadhi, truth, and waking. or antarabhava.

[124:01]

The special antarabhava is the antarabhava that's nested between so-called death and rebirth, giving up a body and taking a new body. There's something about the way the universe works that that one has. We're tuned into that particular scale. before death? I think it exists before the

[125:11]

the ascension and the deterioration. Before the ascension or deterioration of the body. Before that happens. That's what it seems to say. Also, so does death. So I think a good way to read the Tibetan Book of the Dead is to start at the end, after it's over. Not at the end, but at the end of this, the way it's laid out in this book. And read these... I say, I think so, but actually what it says, in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it says to read these first.

[126:27]

Okay? inspiration prayer calling the bodhisattvas the buddhas and bodhisattvas for rescue the main verses of the six bardos and the inspiration prayer for deliverance from the dangerous pathway of bardo it says to read these at the beginning okay the beginning of the liberation this book is called liberation through hearing in the intermediate realm okay so The first thing you do is... Well, actually... Actually, the first thing you do before you even read the verses... In other words, it's always...

[127:30]

The first thing to do is just to do it right now, okay? The first instruction of the Bardo-Toldal of the liberation in the Bardo by hearing is just do it right now. Be liberated right now. it right now and it's instruction while you're in the bardo because bardo means that you haven't yet decided what well that's not quite yes okay

[128:34]

What? Pardon? You haven't decided to recognize emptiness, or? That's the same thing, or? That's the same thing, or? What? You haven't decided what? You haven't decided consciousness? Well, There's an alternative here. There's a decision, all right? Three people said the same thing in a row. Dad said, he said, you haven't decided to recognize emptiness. Somebody else said you haven't decided whether to be liberated. Someone else said you haven't decided something else. Anyway, three synonyms. Now you say you haven't decided consciousness. That begs the question. Deciding consciousness means consciousness hasn't decided. So what's the alternative besides these three that have been given? Well, no. That's a little later.

[129:40]

Your things were later. You haven't decided that it's a thing. You haven't decided whether it's emptiness or a form or a feeling. In a bardo, you haven't yet decided. Once you decide, then you decide what you want. Then you decide, then you take birth. But first of all, you haven't... So in a bardo, you haven't decided yet. You haven't gone towards emptiness. and you haven't gone towards thingness or existence, you see. Thingness, existence, the same thing. If you go towards emptiness, transmigration stops. You're liberated on the spot. If you go towards thingness or existence, that these exist, that this causal net exists rather than Each thing depends on all the others and so on. None of them can exist by themselves.

[130:41]

All of it can't exist without all the others. You haven't gone either way in the Bargo. Yes. Yes. No, that's not what emptiness is. Okay. If you decided on the emptiness that wasn't formed, that would be what she said. That would be non-being. Emptiness does not flake a little chip off emptiness. Emptiness doesn't make feelings a slight bit soggy. Emptiness doesn't do anything to emotions. Emptiness completely leaves everything exactly as it is. Because exactly as it is, really how it is, is emptiness. Things aren't things. Things aren't things. things are emptiness but you can't say things are emptiness if you take away the things take away the things there's no things then that's not what emptiness is emptiness is these things the way they really are namely that are not things they are their causation they are causation what does it mean what do you think it means what stops

[132:05]

Yeah, what stops? What stops? That's what it means. So what doesn't it mean? If you don't know what it means, what doesn't it mean when you say transmigration stops? What wouldn't it mean? You know, you're talking too much. No, but you're asking more questions. Just be quiet. You're asking too many questions. Really. You're dominating the class. That's right. Why don't you abide in that for a while. That's what you'd be dominating the class. I answered it. Let what dominate this class, okay? try to find out what would what wouldn't be stopping death so it wouldn't be that that death doesn't happen that's not what it is it wouldn't interfere with anything death in the usual sense wouldn't happen but it death in usual senses is subtle kind of clean to things as being solid as not recognizing their interrelationships which can never be dropped

[133:46]

So that's not what's meant by stopping death. Stopping death means stopping death as a thing. Stopping death as an event that doesn't recognize its causation. Stopping death as a state of bondage. That's what it means. And stopping intermediate realm and rebirth in that way too. So As we talk about this, the mind naturally wants to sort of, when you watch, when you see your mind flipping over to, when you hear stopping death and you see your mind going over to try to figure out what that is, that's the kind of thinking that is stopped. But not stopped in the sense that you don't, the mind doesn't reach over to grasp it, but stopped in the sense that you don't see, look, you see, oh, there goes my mind. It's doing that again. See how it does that? And that's exactly why it does it. Whenever anything like that happens, the mind naturally responds to it.

[134:52]

So many of these things are, when you present luminousness, the mind always has a particular reflex to that. So there's luminousness, all these different kinds of luminousness. There's first the basic luminousness, and then there's these secondary kinds of luminousness. Each one of them has a reflex, which wants to know, what does that mean? would it mean to stop here what would it mean to stop here that trying to grasp what it is is a familiar mode of mind in each case it will be different in each case it will project a different rebirth but that also is not like it's not like we say well that doesn't happen we get rid of that that reflex is also part of the causation too so maybe this will become clear if we look at which is all this mentioned. The first state is the luminousness of Vairachana. On the first day in the bardo, you see a pure, radiant blue light.

[136:02]

This is completely uncommitted wisdom. Totally all-embracing, unconditioned luminousness. In association with this is a soft white light. The soft white light is a light typifying the reaction of the mind to this state. state of uncommittedness, there's a reaction to that. To something. What? In this case, a softer light. A light that's soft enough so you can get a hold of it. So that you can reify it.

[137:11]

That leads to the birth as a god. So the brilliance is there. The brilliance is right there, and you say, well, you know, what does it mean? And then you try to make it into something, and that's seeing, for example, oh, it's a white light. The brilliant blue light is not, I mean, this brilliant blue light is not exactly, it's not blue, you know. You can't look at it. the other light you can look at you can say it's a white light and you can experience it and therefore you take birth the luminousness is not to not it's not to push away the the dimmer light at all but just to know that the dimmer light

[138:31]

you take a hold of it leads to a certain state that also is the luminousness that particular that that will happen is the luminousness too but go back one step because it's important to understand before you get into the to the uh description of the different kinds of buddha that you understand that before any of this happens, you can just tell a person to see it right now. You can do it anytime, anyplace. So this whole book does not need to be read. You can do it before you even start, which is sort of reading the book. If you feel that you can't quite do that, if you try to not do it, then you read the verses.

[139:56]

And the verses, at the end, are basically, they may be enough in themselves. Again, just reading these verses may be enough. And basically these verses are what the whole book's about, is these verses. The rest of the book goes into more detail, specifically delineating the ground, the landscape of what happens to you as you experience. These, for example, the verse... the inspiration prayer for deliverance from this dangerous bardos, they are pulled out and placed in this translation.

[141:12]

So for example, When you first meet the Vairacana Buddha, you want to be able to stay with the luminous light path, the luminous white light of the Vairacana Buddha. So here in these deliverance from the dangerous pathways, There's a verse here specifically directed to encourage you to stay with the luminousness, which is in the text on the section for Vairachana Buddha. And then so on for Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, Amogasiddhi, and the states where the Vidyadharas So they're in the text.

[142:18]

So they encourage you to stay with the luminousness rather than the dim psychological reaction to the luminousness. The dim psychological reaction is, you know, when you said, what know what does it mean to stop death okay that's not really the dim psychological reaction yet all right that's more like the bardo okay the dim psychological reaction was is when you actually decide what we mean by stop death okay you fix on the meaning of to stop death even if you even if you say something fancy like to stop death is to is to uh merge with emptiness okay the mind goes to stop death is to merge with emptiness and it clips onto that word okay that phrase that would be to take to the dim light so if you ask me what does it mean to stop death i'm saying that's more like the bardo okay and

[143:39]

If I tell you some phrase about what it would be like, what it really is to stop death, the question is like the bardo. What does it mean to stop death? If I give some nice Buddhist term or phrase about what it means to stop death, and you say, oh, that's it, and your mind clips onto that, okay, that's a dim light. Now, that dim light may take you to a nice place called heaven, okay? It's a nice dim light. It's a nice soft white. to turn towards the emptiness is not to clip onto that thing i say when you ask me what is it to stop death okay you stay in the bardo which is asking what is it to stop death and then you turn not towards the answer but towards the question itself the question itself is the barter and if you look at that right there that's where the luminousness is in the causation of the question yes that's that's part of it that's but this is also uh yeah that's the bar of daylight but the luminousness is the same luminousness and that's also that question that kind of that kind of bardo

[145:04]

And that kind of luminousness is a luminousness that you can do before you even start reading the book. And if you do it then, you still go through all the experiences in the book, or not all the experiences, but you still will take some path through the book. You will take some path that's in this book. However, you're liberated before you start. So you'll never go towards the clip-on version of what's happening. you'll always go towards a luminous version of the events that occur. Yes? Yes, there is. And why is that? Persons are attained liberation before we start reading this book, okay? They're not even feeling sick.

[146:07]

Maybe they're in a room with a bunch of sick people, where the person is dying, and they see the people rumbling around the room, mumbling and getting ready to read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and in the preparations for the ceremony, the person is liberated. Then 50 years later, when they die... Oh, by the way, why do they have to die? Then, what's the answer to that? Yes? The karma's run down. The karma's run down. Yeah, etc. We talked about the various causes of death. Then they die. They observe the body deteriorate. They go into the luminousness. Then what happens? Do they just stay in the luminousness? Could they stay in the luminousness?

[147:11]

They could. They're in the luminousness before they even went to the luminousness. The way they see the world is exactly, fundamentally the same as the luminousness that everyone attains at the end of death. Can they stay there for a million years, for ten minutes? How long can they stay? care to hazard a guess how long they can stay yes okay they haven't yet taken birth in but in the [...] bardo yet you know you talked about the bardo okay these people the bird being the little scenario i just dreamed up they haven't even gone into the bardo they've just died they have not taken

[148:18]

birth in the bardo yet how long can they wait there before they take birth in the bardo what i think that's what the way they would do it just like everybody else now which everybody else are they going to do it like would suggest you that they're directed to which everybody else they'll do it like by their vows that the beings who actually conceive who actually entertain absorption on emptiness before death during their life and who are able to stay with it during the death process and during illnesses which lead up to it those beings for them the whole process is

[149:23]

fundamentally the same thing and they're looking in the same direction all the time namely to the whole direction the whole picture and all the interrelationships when they reach that luminousness at the end isn't for them there's no need to wait there and not wait there they can go right into hunter above or they could wait what difference does it make the difference it makes is only the difference that it makes i mean it's to them it's the same so why not continue what's the point of waiting would they do anything other than that well if somebody was if somebody was could be helped by them staying in that state longer they would stay but their vow says plunge back in why not and it's nothing to be afraid of for them there's nothing to be afraid of they can go right back down down the ladder now from luminousness two various states of consciousness, now recreate four great elements and get an intermediate realm birth.

[150:26]

Now the body is not committed. The body is now, the unt or above a body that they get is a body that actually realizes this uncommittedness. Not committed towards emptiness, not committed towards, not committed to to luminousness, not committed to a particular birth. But they're already liberated. If they weren't liberated, they could start, now they get various chances to be liberated. Just like that moment of luminousness at death, they could have been liberated there if they hadn't been liberated before. But they're constantly getting re-liberated all the time, too. It's not like they get liberated once and that's it. Each one of these times that somebody else could be liberated, they get liberated. That's why they're going through this thing, to get more and more chances to do it, more and more kinds of wisdom. Yes?

[151:37]

they haven't taken the bodhisattva vows and they've attained some luminousness okay then when they go into that state then what will happen to them that's the question what will happen to them when they give luminousness will they think i should stay in this luminousness because to come down the ladder again into birth would be troublesome would they think that if they do then that's what we call their understanding namely it's not really luminousness it's maybe pratyekabuddha understanding or a shravaka understanding. And if they think that coming back down again would be trouble, then that's exactly what we're saying, is that they did attain luminousness, true, but if it's a luminousness that's afraid to come back down again, that would be interfered with by that, then that's exactly the point of all this, is that we're talking about a practice where you can come back down again and there's no problem. One of the ways to define a bodhisattva, bodhisattva would come back down again with no problem.

[152:44]

And if they would have a problem, if they would say, I'm going to have a problem with this, they still say, I should go back down and I will have a problem because I want to be able to someday go up and down this ladder and take these bodies and go in these realms without getting hassled by it. I want to be able to stay with luminousness through this thing. Other people say, I'd like to just stay with luminous now. I don't want to go back down and try that. Not that one, please. I got it in this body with this mind. but I don't want to this one that's coming up I don't want that's a that's not a real understanding but you know there really isn't a such thing because in fact as soon as they're afraid they start coming down it's that's the point here as soon as you get afraid of this light the luminousness that moment of fear that moment of doubt of the luminousness is exactly what takes you down The fear is the birth.

[153:48]

That's right. So next time we'll go on a little further with this and we'll get more into the up and down round and round, and what are the different kinds of reactions to different kinds of wisdom, and how do they project us into various realms. And I also will discuss, I think, the form of the esoteric stupa, like, you know, that wooden pole behind Suzuki Roshi's rock, that tasaha. Let's discuss that. that shape and the different kinds of wisdoms that are on it and so on. But when you're reading this material, you have to keep, you have to keep this luminousness in mind.

[155:04]

Otherwise, it's really not much point. You might as well just stop reading until you can tune into emptiness and then read Otherwise, if you're reading a horrible story, you are the story, and your head's going to get very hot. So you really have to enter into samadhi before you read this material so that it actually doesn't become your own horror story. And it's not good to read unless you have this intention, which you do. And remember that, and then when you run into something that you don't know, It means you're running into something that bothers you or confuses you. It means that your mind is trying to grasp something. Don't get caught by that. That's not any more real than when your mind was grasping something or you did understand.

[156:00]

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