Episode Transcript
Speaker 2 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful. Some good friend enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. Tibet house is the Lamas cultural center in America. All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 This is episode 289. The art of dying and living in exploration of life, death, and the afterlife.
Speaker 2 00:01:16 Hi everybody. How are you? I hope you've been enjoying our discussions of the art of do, which is, is intended to help you live better, actually not, it's not urging you to die, but be clear about that. One time I was giving a conference in this very room here at Menlo mountain retreat, the Tibet house, USS, uh, you know, Tibetan healing center. Let's call it up into Catskill mountains. And one lady who was present as I was talking about the book of the dead, she said, oh, Bob, you mark that you make dying sound like so much fun. I can't wait to try it. <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:01:59 And I urge her not to think like that, cuz there's no rush it's going to happen. Of course, as all of you who are here know, and you are looking into the art of it, but there's no need to rush. And Tibetans also have lots of methods of longevity and they cherish human life above all. It must be clear about that. When we talk about the Tibetan art of dying, we have to be aware that it's not to rush the job to prolong life as much as possible because this human life that we have is so incredibly precious and valuable. And it's the kind of life in which we have the intelligence of a de, but we have the vulnerability of an animal. And therefore we are very concerned about dying and death and the quality of life. And so this is the best kind of life within which to discover an understanding that enables us to have a very high quality of life.
Speaker 2 00:02:54 And in a way that's what the art of dying is about. Really it's the art of living as well is the Tibetan book of the Tibetan book of the dying, which it has was wrongly entitled is actually the true title of it is the book of natural liberation through hearing in the, between states and actually the dying state is not the only between states. There are many other between states. And so that's what we're talking about this morning now, uh, what I wanted to say about it and my piece in this movement, I am so happy by the way that there are so many wonderful experts on the art of dying in so many D coming from so many different traditions in this wonderful conference that we have put together. And I'm very delighted to have Roshi Joan Halifax and Frank Otaki and many other and, and Alberto Vido and many other wonderful people who have, have a great experience of helping people pass and how to do it well and so on.
Speaker 2 00:03:57 And, um, which I don't claim who have had myself, but in a way indirectly I have, because the book that I did has reached a lot of millions actually of people because I made it as user friendly as possible, uh, which was the book that was wrongly been translated for some time, but was wrong, entitled book of the dead, but there, but it isn't, that's the wrong title because the whole book is based on the idea that there are no dead people, nobody stays dead. Death is nothing but a quick transition. You know, it's like if you had the book of the doorway, you know, in a way, what, what's a doorway between two spaces, <affirmative>, you know, actually you're either in one space or another, if you really think of what a doorway is, there's the doorway like a line has no width to be exact, right?
Speaker 2 00:04:51 So the doorway means you're either in this room and then you're suddenly in that room and the doorway itself is not a place. It's a, it's just an arbitrary line that we draw, right? And it isn't even a rectangular line where there's a space in, on the width of the line. A perfect line has no width, you know that, okay, it's one of these paradoxes of life. So it's the book of natural liberation being liberated within nature is through hearing and learning about the nature of life, which you can understand in the, between that's what really the title is. And then when you say in the, between in the Bardo, remember there's even a book it's so well known in English, the Tibetan term, Bardo that you have this novel Lincoln in the Bardo. I love which I was so pleased to see. It means that the Tibet knowledge is becoming part of the culture.
Speaker 2 00:05:45 Okay. But, but I did my translation only because I don't like people saying intermediate state. I never liked that. The, between Baro just means a gap between, you know, between two things. Baro. So between is the English word and it could be the name of a dance program or a song the, between, you know, I'm in the, between, you know, meanwhile, the only between is not the after death between or the death point. There's a death point between there's an after death between, and there's a come to rebirth between those are the three that happen between birth, death, and rebirth. However, we are, there are other betweens. We are right now, together here in the life, between and within the life between there are further between namely there is the dream between. So in other words, when you, you fall deeply asleep and you rise in a dream, then you're in a, between state between having been unconscious in the dream, which is like being dead.
Speaker 2 00:06:46 It's like, it's like the death transition because you have no self-awareness so there's no time in it. And then you rise in the dream where you begin to have experiences and you have an environment that actually your own mind creates itself. And then you raise rise from the dream and you wake up into your waking consciousness and that's like being reborn. So the dream between is like the, between time between, and then, so it's called the dream between, and then the last between the six, between in the, between, um, the, between teaching is the meditation between, and that means you go into meditation, you leave your habitual sense of self presence and self identity. If you become a little more expert at it, but in a way you do no matter who you are, you sort of leave your sort of normal way. You face the world, run around and do things based on a certain inner now narrative, you start to question your inner narrative and you go into, um, self exploration or exploration of a topic about the nature of the world.
Speaker 2 00:07:48 Like a scientist does in the lab seeking to know the reality of something. If there, those are the two kinds of things you do in what are called the meditation between. So there are six between, and I, I thought I would comment on that, but before I do that, I wanna put it in context. So I said that now, Frank, I, the chefs ski and a large movement in America and, and RO Joan Halifax and others have worked a lot with people in the hospice situation. And the hospice situation is a sign of, of the maturity. That's gradual maturing of our culture because the, basically the immaturity of our culture is where people live in denial, that they're going to die. They act like they're always gonna be there. They're always gonna be driving their Cadillac. They're always gonna be owning their house or their houses.
Speaker 2 00:08:37 They're always gonna be owning their face actually, which they keep patching up as they get older and whatever, you know, they seek like some elixir imortality or something to sort of save the same identity that they think they have an unchanging identity, which we don't have. We have a growing or decaying identity one or the other, you know, in reality. But anyway, our culture was based on just getting rid of somebody. Don't tell children that uncle Joe died say he went to, he went to Paris or something. You know, it's like denial of death. And therefore death is made into a big boogeyman and everybody's scared of it. And therefore they're scared to live. They only half alive in a way you become the living dead. When all you are obsessed about is avoiding the idea that you're gonna change dramatically, which is all that death is, is a moment of dramatic change.
Speaker 2 00:09:27 At least in the scientific worldview, coming from ancient India, which may be a preferable scientific worldview. We all see sooner or later when we figure things out. But at the moment we are being mature. And so that we have thing called a hospice. And the reason I say that's a maturity is it means that doctors, instead of going absolutely crazy and keeping someone in a hospital and tubing them and doing whatever they can and trying to make Frankensteins out of them, they do finally realize in some cases we should just back it. And then the question is the quality of the dying, the quality of leaving the body. But of course they don't think you're leaving the body. They just think you become, because they have the materialist idea that you automatically just go into an anesthetic state and you become nothing. And that is, of course, that's not a bad thing to do in a way.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 I kind of liked that they came up with that a few hundred years ago. Actually, there was someone saying that even in Buddhas day, 2,500 years ago, and they've always been a few people who bravely assert that I'm, I don't have this soul that God can send to hell and therefore I'm gonna just be nothing. Therefore I'm gonna live in a free way. I'm not gonna be scared of God or of the high priest or of whoever the king is or the authorities, you know, and it's kind of brave of a person to do that, even though it's also, unfortunately, a little unrealistic since there's never been anybody who actually verified whether or not it's possible to be nothing.
Speaker 4 00:11:02 <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:11:04 All we've done to verify. It is we fall asleep every night and we go unconscious or we get hit on the head and we faint and then we have no consciousness and it feels like nothing in terms of our awakeness and our awareness. Okay. So that's maybe a verification, but the problem with that is we keep on waking up And we dream even when we sleep. So there's no way that we verify, okay, now I'm nothing. Then we come back to something and report on it. Like what I finally did after 30 years of debating with my materialist colleagues in university, the natural science types and all of those who groveled to them and cater to them because they get paid better. <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:11:49 And
Speaker 2 00:11:50 I never challenged them in the proper way. It took me 35 years, probably about of my 50 years of teaching official professor professor to finally ask them, okay guys, you are empirical scientists. You don't go for dog mus and for theories, right? You look at the data, right? Okay. Which one of you got the noble prize for discovering nothing and reported back. And they got the noble prize for this momentous discovery. Then therefore having a scientific basis on which to assure yourselves and everyone else that they're gonna be nothing just by their heart. So, and their brain going flatline, which one of you got to no God prize for that. And actually they go like this, like, you know, roll their eyes. Like when someone is trying to think of like, who did get it, maybe a mathematician who looked at zero <laugh> no, nobody got it.
Speaker 2 00:12:49 And why even your common sense will tell you nobody's ever going to discover nothing because nothing isn't there. And there's no, there, there, and there's no one who could go there because it isn't a place. So every something becomes something else. Now they know that. And they say that with their second law of thermodynamics, no energy's ever destroyed. It can be diffused in entropy, but it never, it can be destroyed. So they agree with that when they, when there's something already that they agree is there, but there's mind and the soul of the being, they won't agree it's there. So therefore they can get rid of it and say, it's nothing right. But actually they have no data. And there's no evidence for that. It's a key point to know. So therefore people who think they're gonna be nothing, they should worry a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:13:39 But on the other hand, it's better than being scared of hell and scared of a mean, God, who's gonna throw you there in because you didn't have the right credit card or didn't belong to the right club or in the right religion or whatever it is. That's better than being crazy and scared in that way or right. So there are three things I think that people do. The hospice is very important. And as I said, and someone who thinks things are they're going into nothing and they think that's a safe place, actually nobody should start a philosophical argument with them or a scientific argument at that stage. Pretty usually just get them to relax is key. And that's what these people do really well. And I, I, I admire that and I haven't really held hands and done that sort of thing much myself. And I think it's very, very precious thing.
Speaker 2 00:14:28 And the people who do it are heroes and heroes, both heroes and shees, and I deeply admire them. Really. I do. I don't agree with the philosophical view, but I ha we percent admire people who help people without challenging that view in that final crisis and transition because at least if someone's expecting something not painful and is relaxing, they're safer than people who are frightened and terrified and fighting madly, scrambling to try to hold onto their body and hold onto their senses and hold onto to their weakness. It's like a person who is so scared to fall asleep, they're going, it's gonna be terrible. They're gonna have nightmare. It's awful. So I really think that's a useful old view. Modernity based on materialism is a useful thing. And there is a danger in it, which, which it's not the topic at the moment, but it's not the danger of those who are actually dying necessarily.
Speaker 2 00:15:23 Not at all. On the other hand, for others of us, it's better to be. It's like, remember Pascal's famous wage, which was made with himself in relation to Christian faith, where he said, if, you know, thinking that you have to believe in God or not, you know, that's wager is, so his thing was, if there is no God, and I'm just gonna be nothing as his scientific friends were telling him in France, in his era, he said, then if I prepare for there being God, and then I just become nothing like everybody else, I won't regret it cuz I won't be there to regret it. So it's a no lose situation to make that preparation. If there is such a thing as a God and I don't prepare, then I could really be in trouble because I wouldn't know what to expect. And some big thing would be there and I'd be scared of it or something, whatever.
Speaker 2 00:16:18 But, and so I might as well prepare in other words, cuz you don't have to prepare to be nothing cuz it does. It happens automatically. So, so it's, you can do that about continuity if it comes to you at a stage prior to the time when you've hit at the hospice. So the first thing that needs to be done about death and dying is to strengthen the hospice thing, to get doctors, to understand they have to let go people and families to understand they have to let go. There definitely are situations. You can find document in many cases where a person whose body is very broken, they are in deep pain. They will want to leave actually either because they think there'll be nothing or because they think they'll go to heaven, doesn't matter, which in a way in that context and they don't leave because their family doesn't want them to leave.
Speaker 2 00:17:05 There's, you know, there's some, the doctors pumping them and doing things to their physical body. That's painful to them and, and they're kind of, you know, completely crazed with maybe anesthetics and things, but they won't let go of that type of thing. So there's a maturity about letting go. So that's the first major thing. And I think some of people in our conference are dealing with that and that's very important to our society because there's a lot of wasted effort, energy, fear, and terror, and extra a storm and drawing going on about, about not letting go second, when you let go, there are people who help them let go peacefully and nicely. And these are the people who work in the hospices. And I think then Buddhism can claim great credit for having helped many people because many Zen practitioners who've had different levels of sat through their deep and arduous practice and courageous practice that they do in Zen wonderful tradition of all different kinds of Zen.
Speaker 2 00:18:06 Of course there are, but they're all good. They, they have, they're very good because they can super calm their mind. They can create a field to embrace a person who's slipping away. And in that field, that person feels calm because of the presence of the, of the helper, the friend of the handholding, you know, blessed, uh, Zen hospice worker. And I mean, there are people from other traditions who help them too, but, and they also get great credit, but there's quite a lot, I think, in the movement from the Zen tradition. And it's really wonderful what they do. I, I love, you know, Cho do combo and those folks Roshi, Joan, Frank OTA, chef cetera, et cetera, starting in San Francisco. And so on. A lot of people really wonderful right now the third thing perhaps then is what my piece and what you know, I'm speaking about here.
Speaker 2 00:18:56 And that's coming from the Tibetan misnamed book of the dead actually called book of natural liberation by, uh, by learning in the, between by hearing, by really's sitting really hearing in the between. And I thought, you know, I have a translation written book of the dead that's available and there's an e-book for people who, you know, want to have it on their phone. And um, but I thought I would then give a little commentary on what is called the root verses of the six betweens. And actually there's a, and even there's a sub division in this third category of person whom I'm representing a little bit and Dr. N is representing in another event that we're having here. And that is that, um, the two things are, one is getting people to feel there will be between and getting them to prepare in life for it and getting them to be folk cuz when they actually go on moving toward the bright light, moving towards the thing that is dazzling and sort of really relaxing and really letting go and not fearing something bright and dazzling.
Speaker 2 00:20:06 And you know, I think the training there for people is go to a disco tech and just stare at the flashing light light at the stroboscope. And I would, if I had a hospital hospice, I would create a hospice where there'd, Bero draining, where you just kind of let your mind go. And this flash light flashes and I would ask Steven Spielberg and other and George Lucas and other great movie directors and special effects makers, industrial light and magic people to, to make like film of like 30 minutes of special effects, like, uh, contact that movie and others where you have or 2001, 2010, where you have just lights and rays streaming at you made by film and you learn to let go and don't get tense when this visual strong visual thing that's practically UN unwatchable, cuz it's so dazzling and uh, that very good training because in the, between, according to the tur book of the, between, it is the bright light coming from the heart of the Buddhas and the Buddhi and it's, it doesn't matter if you're not a Buddhist, you might see it coming from the heart of a Jesus figure or a mother Mary figure.
Speaker 2 00:21:13 If you're a Christian, it might be in the form of some mystic Sufi. If you were in the Muslim tradition, it might be in the form of Krishna or mother goddess. If you're someone of the Indian Hindu traditions or the Dow, one of the Jade Empress or, or, or LASU, if it's in the Dallas tradition or whatever shamanistic tradition, it might be your totem animal, but it'll be bright and it'll be a little bit scary. And therefore you should learn to let go. Even not to only let go of the view that you're gonna be nothing. That's a level of courage. That's good. The next level of courage is let go. Even if it seems like something a little bit dangerous or dazzling, so you just let yourself go into that and just give it up kind of don't defend your open anyway. And then you'll find, instead of being eaten by the dragon that's charging at you, you go right through the Dragon's mouth into a field of roses, know it changes totally.
Speaker 2 00:22:09 It's like a dream where you can change from negative to positive. If you don't give into fear, that's the key thing, you know? So, so that's the first thing of this last third category of helping people to cope with the after death possible experiences. And it's just to go to the bright, go to the brilliant, go to the being that you think of as safe and let yourself go. Even if it seems a little powerful to you or scary or whatever, never go, don't be seduced in other words, by some little hideout and don't run away and don't and let go of fear, try, let, let go of fear. And actually if you've been going even into nothing in a, in a regular hospice without the Tibetan science to help you. But if you, you know, which is a majority of these things going into being nothing is also a courageous thing just to let go and let that take a hold of you.
Speaker 2 00:23:01 It's not nothing that you see, but it's kind of giving up, seeing things that's also courageous. So you're in the right vein if you, if you're being helped to do that. But then if there happens to be a big, bright, explosive, if you think like you're floating into the sun or something, just float in there and it won't burn you, it's the key point. Nothing can harm you. It's like in a dream, you can dream being burned in a fire, but then you wake up and there's no blister. So it's a, it's a training and dreams is very important as you'll see. But anyway, so then the third thing is now what we're gonna do in the rest of this talk. And that is how do you use time in life to become more fully aware of things. And, and that, and there are two things that I do there.
Speaker 2 00:23:48 And the first is to introduce you to the six betweens so that you begin to realize that right now in life, you're in a, between you're in a, between when you're having an argument with your loved one and you are right and, and he, or she thinks she's right, or he's right, were having a fight and you were getting angry, et cetera. And the, between there is you, okay, you let go being right. You give it up. You like to say in the hip hop world, you know, give it up, meaning slap for the other one. Just let go. Don't try to hold your place hard. Just let go. That's great training. You know, let go, your anger. Don't act it out. Don't act out your righteousness even you're right. Let go, you, that doesn't change. You're being right. If you're confident, really confident you can let go.
Speaker 2 00:24:35 So those are all betweens kind of between that ex between skill comes from that kind of life. When you're generous, you give a gift, something, you value $10. You give it away. You let it go. That is subliminal training for letting go for either into, into nothing in case that's the reality or into the glorious light road, the yellow brick road into heaven, into the heart of, of, and beings into the heart of savior, your beings, whatever your religion may be or whatever your world view, whatever your nature view is. Okay. So now first between we are right here together in it. Hey, now when I'm reading the root verses of the six betweens, which is preparatory kind of prayer air of the, of the book of the book of natural liberation, not the book of the dead book of the living. Hey, now when the life between dawns upon me, it's dawned upon us, cuz we're changing all the time.
Speaker 2 00:25:42 We're in the life between we we've been born and then we adopted this and that personality. And then we learned this and that. And then we had this and that experience and then we change and change and change. And we saw this in that movie and it changed us. We saw that work of art. It changed us. We had that relationship. It changed us. We were always changing cuz we're in the life between I will abandon laziness as life has no more time. And that we get from meditating on the imminence of death in the sense that look, we drive down highways at 75 miles an hour, whoop 65 miles an hour. And we're only three feet from an oncoming rushing truck that could leap over the dividing line. Or we could have a moment of carelessness and bang we'd be finished. So is that fragile?
Speaker 2 00:26:32 So there's no more time. So live every moment. If you really understand, this is the life between you live every moment as if it was the last. That means you want quality moments. You want to be in the moment. You want to be loving in that moment. You want to be loved in that moment. You want to be know that your loved one knows that you loved them. In that moment, you wanna have quality living. You don't wanna just be living on a production line, being somebody else's robot, you know, and then later you go home and have a moment with the quality time. But by that time you'd be so exhausted. You'll anesthetize yourself with three beers and the commercials and the news. And you'll be terrified and dissatisfied <laugh>, which are the meditations of the TV, frightened and dissatisfied and greedy. Those are what to, to states.
Speaker 2 00:27:22 They try to C you the TV people on the TV broadcasting. So I will abandon laziness as life has no more time unwavering. I will enter the path of learning, thinking and meditating. I will try to develop the knowledge of the real meaning of the moment, which is joy, bliss, love. That's what it is. That's what the moment means. That's how you want to be in the moment. If it's your last, for sure you don't wanna be frightened. You don't wanna be angry. You don't wanna be dissatisfied. You want to give everything to that moment. That's what you wanna do. And taking perceptions and mind as the path, I will realize the three bodies of enlightenment as to say, I don't realize my oneness with the greatest beings in the universe, the Buddhas, the gods, the, the saviors, the savior ES the goddesses, you know the Budds.
Speaker 2 00:28:17 I want to be one with all of them and they have three bodies. That's our theory. You don't need to worry about it. We don't have time. This ones that I have obtained the precious and body is not the time to stay on the path of distractions of just diverting myself and distracting myself. It's not the time. Okay? So that is now you are living as a, between and we are living in the life between, and once we live in the life between, we will be much more fully alive. It's like, we'll become, I love the slogan of mine. Actually. We will become the dying live no longer the living dead. How's that by letting yourself die each moment, the previous letting go of the previous moment. No, I'm not pissed off anymore. No, I'm not dissatisfied anymore. If everything I want is right here.
Speaker 2 00:29:06 If I only can see it, if I have the wisdom to know it, and I'm therefore going to devote myself to knowing that and knowing that my beloved, my love for him, her it, they planet earth itself is the meaning of this moment. That's what I, that's what it is. Hey, now when, so that's the first between. Okay. Hey. Now when the dream between dawns upon me, I will give up corpse like sleeping in delusion and mindfully enter unwavering. The experience of reality, the dream is very important. If you wanna be conscious in li in awake, when you're awake, if you wanna be lucidly awake, that is to say, live your moment. By moment in full energy and full BLIS, full joy, then full freedom. Then you will train yourself and educate yourself by I trying to remember your dream and become a lucid dreamer.
Speaker 2 00:30:04 So you will, every night when you fall asleep, the last thing you do is you think, okay, in case I dream and actually you pretty much do every night, but we just don't remember. So even when I dream, I'm gonna know I'm dreaming and I'm gonna lose the dream to figure something new out. I'm gonna discover things. I'm gonna learn about life by learning what, what to be El lucid, to be awake, to be aware in the dream, without jumping back to being awake, but I'll stay in the dream, but I'll then learn whatever message my deep mind is telling me in the dream and others, maybe deep minds are, or vibes are coming to me. I'll learn in the dream. So to become a lucid, dreamer is very, it's a skill. Anyone can develop. You don't have to be a psychic or a yoga, but it is a kind of yoga that a life yoga, a life between yoga, the living between yoga, the life between to use the dream between as a very deep place to learn is very important.
Speaker 2 00:31:03 So, and that it cultivate mindfulness in the dream conscious of dreaming. I will enjoy the changes as clear light and clear light of course is a wonderful concept of Buddhist science. That the reality of the world is an infinite energy. And there's no problem. If we know how to draw on it, it is an exhaustible infinite energy where there's no shortage of energy in the world. We don't have to buy in the form of gas and oil. We just have to live it as what's called clear light, which is pure transparency. It's an amazing kind of, we live in a diamond world of diamond actually, but it it's hard to explain it short tell I don't not sleeping mindlessly like an animal. I will cherish the practice merging, sleep and realization.
Speaker 2 00:31:54 So that's the second between third. Hey, now when the meditation between dawns upon me, I, and this is when you're awake, but if you call to meditation, you go into a change of your mind, more self-conscious self purposeful change of your mind through meditation. And you can learn to do that through inner self-awareness. I will abandon the host of distracting errors, focus in extreme free experience that is cultivate open mindedness without releasing or controlling and achieve stability in the creation and perfection stages. Those are very advanced stages of meditation, but always just puts it there. But with you, don't have to push it that far, just observing your own thinking and not being imprisoned by your own inner impulses, because you notice that that they are not the whole of you. You have an impulse have to do this, but actually you could also do without doing that, you begin to develop more inner freedom when you practice mindfulness and people are doing that vastly and wildly widely, and it has comes from all kinds of other traditions.
Speaker 2 00:32:57 It's not only a buds thing. Doesn't mean you have to be a Buddhist and achieve giving up busyness. Now, one point in meditation, I won't surrender to the power of erroneous addictive emotions. Okay. You know, MIS MIS misguided emotions like hatred, terror, fear, greed, obsess, you know, this kind of fanatic being a fanatic ideology person, I won't con succumb to them. So those are the three living betweens that we use when we understand about what death really is, which is only bigger life. That's what death is. And when we understand that we realize we have to learn to be in this life and then we'll be able to best deal with the, and use the opportunity of the, between the death, between transition. We'll be able to use that. And now, now I'm going to the fourth between in this verse. And then I will elaborate a little bit more on that in conclusion.
Speaker 2 00:33:58 Hey, now when the death point between dawns upon me, that's the moment, the real definition of death called the death point between when you have an inner experience, that's when you know, it's real death. It's like that line. It has no time. It there's a, it's a, it's like a line in a way it's not there. It's just when you go to bigger life, but it's when and you leave this particular body, that's really when real, and there's a scientific definition of it. But anyway, Hey, now when the death point between dawns upon me, I will give up the preoccupations of the old desiring greedy mind enter unwavering, the experience of the clarity of the teachings and trans migrate into the birthless space of inner awareness, about to lose this created body of flesh and blood. I will realize it to be in permanent illusion. So in other words, when I hit the death point between that's when I must best let go, I of the, of, of like inhabiting my body and do so willingly. And, um, and here is where in the, in the death point between instruction, I just wanna read it to you.
Speaker 2 00:35:17 Hey, noble one, this is what you say to a person with they're dying. This is what you say to yourself. When you admit, imagine the moment in the future where you will die and what real death is. It's when you have completely lost traction in this body and these senses, you can't see anymore with the eyes can't hear with, you cannot hear with the ears, you cannot smell with the nose. You cannot taste with the tongue. You cannot feel texture with the skin, with any membrane of the skin and, and, and you, but you still have up to, it's a point where you still have an inner mental awareness. And you, you still feel like you're sort of inside your central nervous system, according to their scientific report of those who have lucidly died, like a person who knows how to lucidly dream, they sort of know they're unconscious.
Speaker 2 00:36:11 And then they know they're dreaming. You know, by knowing that they're unconscious, if it seems impossible, if you're unconscious your unconscious, but actually there's a way at the super subtle level, you can know it. And they hit that. They have achieved that. So, and this, so this say, Hey, Hey, noble one. And you call someone noble because at the deepest level, everyone is noble. Everyone is friendly. Everyone is altruistic and loving. So when you're loving, you're noble, because take care of the other, you know, like no bliss or bleach about others, you know? So, Hey, Nobel one, Hey, my friend, you could just say you named Soandso. You named Tom Paul, Dick Canary. <laugh> Joan Jane Elizabeth, whichever what it is, you know, now the time has come. You still can hear your name from within your dream. Say, cuz you're, you're like someone who's becoming awake in a dream.
Speaker 2 00:37:09 You don't know it through, you're hearing your through your ears, but you know it through your inner dream ear, you could say, cuz you still have like kind of dream like awareness until you've actually reached the death point. Now the time has come for you to seek the way just as your breath stops, the objective clear light of the first between or Dawn as previously described to you by your teacher, because you had the help of someone preparing you, your outer breath stops and you its reality, stark and void like space, your imaculate naked awareness, dawning clear and void without horizon or center at that instant, you yourself must recognize it as yourself. You must stay with that experience. I will describe it again to you at that moment. And so this is Pinel, but you haven't died yet. When you say that or when you think that to yourself, cause you're prepared that way.
Speaker 2 00:38:09 But here's what you say at the very moment. Now you see a Mirage. So what it means is in your inner minds eye, you can't quite recognize whatever visionary things occur and you're not through the eye consciousness, but through an inner simulated eye consciousness. And so you say, you see everything's like a Mirage. You can't quite make out what it is, but they're different things flipping through your, you know, that place in your super subtle dream brain. There you're flipping through different visions, but you can't quite recognize any of them. So you're naming thing is happening, but it's not attaching to anything until you're hallucinating or having and see a Mirage. That's the sign of earth dissolving in water at the same time, your body feels like it's going to sleep. Like, you know, if you know, when you sit uncomfortably and your body, your leg tingles.
Speaker 2 00:39:07 And then if you keep staying in that, because you can't move. For some reason, you know, you, you, when you get up, you have to kind of rub your leg to get sensation and back and the skin cuz your leg went to sleep. You know what I'm saying? Well, now you feel a whole body goes to sleep. Then you feel you're in a field of smokey, Misty, cloudy, reality. That's water dissolving into fire cuz there's a little warmth associated with it. So they say smoke rather than mist. Then you swirling of little flashing lights, which they call, they call swarm of fireflies. So that's the sign of the fire dissolving into wind, which is cause everything in motion. And it's where you feel like you've just completely come apart, but you still are not completely dead. The candle flame is the sign of wind dissolving into consciousness.
Speaker 2 00:39:58 Now that's pure. And that consciousness is a consciousness like pure space. So everything is space and it's like, you're like, it's not like your body is floating in space. You no longer feel you have a body. You are the space. And you shouldn't think that because you are the space. That you're nothing. But in a way, if you greet being in space as a space of nothing, that's that's okay too. That's fine. Just know that the nothing, this is you. So don't think you've just lost everything and be frightened or be frightened that there, that you are something other than this space, just be the space. That's very cool. Then suddenly the space becomes brightened up. It's no longer it doesn't, it doesn't kind of obscure space. It becomes like white space, Moonlight. Everything is some nice Moonlight and you kind of relax in the Moonlight.
Speaker 2 00:40:50 Then you get again, your habitual nervousness or I'm used to being a boundary being. And there's some things outside my skin that I'd scared of that might hurt me. And, and even though you're now an awareness in a white space, which is just an awareness of white space, you wanna sort of go everywhere in the white space. You want to be aware in all of it. So your awareness expands and it brights and it turns orange like sunshine, like Dawn red and orange. And you're like, and, but there's no heat, but it's so even the brightness almost feels like heat, but it doesn't, there's no sense of texture. So you don't feel hot. Okay. And it's now sunlight and it's like, you're in the sun. You are the sun. You will feel it's kind of cool. You not cool. Kind of feel kind of hot <laugh> but then it becomes a little too hot soup, bright and you think of darkness and you don't mind that.
Speaker 2 00:41:45 And then you see like black light, it's like a light almost. And you let go into it cuz you're unafraid. You, you, you feel a little fear, but you just control it. You it's not, it can't be nothing, but there is no nothing. You remember that. And you, there are all these bright colors happening in what you were in a space like nothing. So you deal with that. And then finally you come into a predo TWI sky and this is where you are suddenly aware that you are all of it and you completely give yourself to it. And if you can do that, you become a Budha actually, because you are everything and everything is in that, that transparency. It's like you're in a world of pure crystal or diamond, but everything is made of it and you are made of its. So it's not like there's anything other than yourself, it's all the one thing and all the other, all your loved ones and all everyone is there and they look like Juul beings.
Speaker 2 00:42:43 And you can see through one to see the next one. And it's like, it's indescribable actually. So therefore I should not waste too much time. Describe it. This is the realm realm of clear light or total transparency and total security and total BLIS. It's like a giant orgasm, also a diamond orgasm. If you could imagine it, which you can't <laugh> but the describing is good because it means you give up whatever you are holding onto it, any point and the more you give up, the more you are and the more you have, you try to think that. So that's, that's what you do at the point. And that is death. And really what that is is you have become the complete and total life force rather than become nothing but that, nothing that you become, you've sort of go through the field of nothing and you become everything and it's all you and you even think you're everybody else.
Speaker 2 00:43:37 You see them all there and you are them and you are them as pure love and they're fine. But then you notice also they don't, you see from their expressions or you feel their expressions from within themselves because you are way you have, you have infinite empathy actually. And you realize they don't think they're fine. They're somehow mixed up. They don't realize they're also this diamond joy, you know, that you feel that you are and that you realize is the real real it is. And it, but it doesn't crush the unreal real either. So it's a, it's it's pure freedom actually. It's we? And it's inexplicable. I can't, you can't, there's no word. There's no one simple formula. There's no even saying, oh, something or ah, man or something. You might say these in greeting a feeling of letting go into the BLIS, but the word is not the bliss, but it it's part of it, but not it.
Speaker 2 00:44:39 So now they, now they say, um, Hey, no one. So, so now they, if you're reading it to someone, but now you already know everything and that's the definition of death. So it's nothing to be afraid of. The only thing to be afraid of is fear itself. Who said that Roosevelt our real boa president, you know, among our Mo opera presidents, he said that, and that's true. Fear is the only thing to fear. Therefore, don't be afraid. And then if you, if you really free of fear, you'll be good at, but actually most of us normally will be a bit afraid of the full level of being everybody else and we'll clamp down. And so at that time, the instructor tells us, we tell ourselves the way of staying as closest possible to that vast diamond orgasmic, loving, joyous blissful, en infinite and infinite energy.
Speaker 2 00:45:43 Nothing can stop that love energy of being that. And all other beings have, who have been Buddhas are there and that all other beings, even the suffering ones are going to be Buddhist, know that completely at that time. So it's, there's a future in the past or here in the infinite moment of that awareness, which is that, which is death. That's what death is. So it's in infinite life actually. That's what it is. And, but we can't bear the infinity unless we really have cultivated the ability of it. You know, usually we can't, you know, so we, so then no matter how do we tone it down to be one of many in that field with a, with a dim unremembered memory of it that we sort of are spending our human next human life, human human right is the best we could go and become a heaven being in a God, but that would not be as good as being another human because we need the vulnerability to make our compassion, move us, to get strong enough to, to overwhelm that whatever trace of fear might be residually left instinctually left in us in another human life is where we really want to go.
Speaker 2 00:46:56 But, but then we to be in a better neighborhood, then we wanna be with better teachers. Then we want to be in a better culture at a better time. We wanna be in Shah on planet earth, not in pre Shah oils, soaked, you know, decaying, overheated earth. We don't wanna be that time. We wanna be in a time of fulfillment and joy, which in a way is already here, cuz we're going to conquer this oil disease. For sure. We are. We're about to do it. We're on the brink of it. Every instant that we're certain that we're gonna do it. We are doing to do it, but we have to be, we have to see it. Certainly every single one of us has to become the poet that sees it in the middle of the seeming not being there. Hey noble one. So now we say to these beings, now you have arrived at so cold death.
Speaker 2 00:47:50 So you and I'm translating ancient writing here from ancient scientists, not wish fulfilling pre-modern superstitious weirdos. Although they may have elements of that. Like we all do like no 13th floor in your apartment building, you know, or no 11th floor. If you're in France, Hey, no one now arrived at so-called death. So you should conduct yourself. According to your conception of the spirit of enlightenment, the spirit of enlightenment means the determination to be a Buddha to stick with that vastness of life, where you are a self that is open to being simultaneously a one else and is therefore we then for everyone else in absolute, most loving and wise and competent and powerful possible way that yet is not Omni imposing anything on any of them, but is helping them bring out their own same Buddhahood that they have and their own oneness with the blisful awesome reality, which is all good, which is what reality is.
Speaker 2 00:48:58 That's all this that, that we are trying to everyone is trying to be introduced to from all the religions of the world, from all the ideologies of the world, they're trying to reduce, introduce them to the goodness of the world. But if few people trapped in delusion, keep trying to convince them that it's horrible so that they'll, they can exploit them and, and terrorize them. That's the problem. So this person you're telling, don't forget your conception of the spirit of alight, which means I'm gonna be like that. I'm gonna be the all good because that's what reality is. I'm gonna be real. In other words, that's the conception of the spirit. I'm gonna be really real. So I'm just gonna live love and be joy and be bliss. That's it. Halas. I have arrived at the time of what people call death from there, which means that my human life, when I'm trying to open, I cut short my progress.
Speaker 2 00:49:54 It seems like I cut short cuz I lose this embodiment in which I made the S but actually if more I can embrace the freedom even from this body and the ability to give this, even away this life away, the more I'll be the infinite party from now on relying on this death, using it as an opportunity for a quantum leap, I will develop my spirit only by contemplating the conception of the spirit, enlightenment of love and compassion for all life intolerance of anybody's suffering because that they suffer. And of course willing to remove it. I take it upon myself and love that they try to share with them any BLIS that I discover for the sake of the whole space full of beings. I Mustain perfect, but all beings, not just humans, all of them, I must all my, all the microbiome bacterias and even the viruses, which I think are somewhat alive, as we've all noticed, then while it came over there from the bat, cave it and giving us a problem in it, cuz it wants to be living in more of us.
Speaker 2 00:50:56 But that's why it's being nice. Now becoming only mild symptoms, cuz it doesn't want to kill us actually. And I will accomplish the purposes of all. I will obtain the Supreme accomplishment of the great seal. The great seal means the orgasmic loving embrace of all animated, inanimate reality and us. That's what it means. A giant, vast joy bubble. That's the great seal it's called like its ceiling. You know, the goodness seal and I will accomplish the purposes of all beings. If I don't detain that, then at the time of the, between, I will recognize it as the between. That means after the next time I lose the next body, I will realize that between as the great seal body of communion of all life and I will accomplish the purposes of all the infinite space full of beings by manifesting whatsoever is needed to educate the chain and calm whomsoever, thus, never losing the willpower of that spiritual conception.
Speaker 2 00:51:58 You should remember the experience of whatever instructions you have previously practiced. Hey, no one you named Tom, listen here. Now the pure clear lie of the reality between dawns upon you recognize it. Hey, noble one, this your present conscious natural clear, free void awareness. This presence in clear void freedom without any objectivity, other than your self of substance sign or color, just, this is the reality. The mother Buddha all around. Goodness, your ultimate beloved. If you think of yourself as male or your ultimate father, if you think of yourself as female and this your conscious awareness, natural void freedom, not succumbing to a false denial, their voidness not a nothing. That's here at this point. Just your own conscious awareness, unceasing, bright, distinct, and vibrant. Just this awareness is the father Budha all around. Goodness. You're the, the, if you're thinking of yourself as a male, the mother all around goodness, if you're thinking of yourself as a female.
Speaker 2 00:53:18 So consciousness, subjectivity and consciousness as objectivity are male, female union, infinite union. That's what it is. Justice present, which is the life force. Infinite life justice presence of the invisibility of your awareness is naturally in substantial freedom. And the vibrant by presence of your conscious awareness. Justice is the bud body of reality, which is your Budha body of reality. Buddha's body is not his and not yours. It's yours. Your awareness that abides in this vast mass of light of clarity, freedom, indivisible, you are free of birth or death justice. There's no birth or no death. Justice is, and you are the of birth and death of all beings. And you want them to find freedom from birth and death in their birth and death. So it becomes simply a blissful play. Just, this is the Budha changeless light. It's where you realize that everything is pure light and it's you.
Speaker 2 00:54:21 And there are, you can focus down and just be a particular light. You can be all light. It's no different to you in a way, and you're not. You can share that all light with all others too. That's no problem because that's why it's inconceivable awareness. Your own conscious awareness is purity nature. As the Budha, you recognize this your own conscious awareness is purity nature as Budha, as enlightenment, as awakeness view yourself, beholding your own awareness. That is to dwell in the inner realization of old Buddhas. So good. So this is sort of the deepest level. This is what real, this is what you can look forward to in death. And in a way, you know, the, the, the neoism ideology of the secular humanness is not a bad add steering line for that because actually the experience of overcoming fear of nothingness in other's fear of seemingly to be obliterated, which can be controlled by the Eureka news flash that I gave you earlier in this talk book of the late natural liberation, natural liberation to learning and between this is the biggest thing to learn.
Speaker 2 00:55:36 There is no nothing. So that's what, when you know that there's no nothing, but it seems to be nothing. Your fear of nothing. You can, you can overcome that. That's what that knowledge overcomes it. So it sort of penetrate through the idea that nothing is gonna be a trap where you you'll always be stuck. Yeah, you'll be unconscious. You'll be asleep forever in a way, even you might even crave the trap, but then you, but your subliminal awareness is more practical and you know, it would be a trap if that's all you hire and have. So then you can do a second fear, which is a fear of everything. Fear of anything, where you can be everyone and yourself among everyone as a living bud up BLIS, Sping. And that's a second level of fear to overcome. But the first level of fear, if you really get it by knowing there's no nothing, when it seems like nothing can catapult you into the second one.
Speaker 2 00:56:39 So it's not bad, it can spiritual. That's why dollar LA can sitters the secular humanist scientist, which unfortunately most of the scientists are. She considers them another world religion. And in any meeting at Assisi, in the spirit of St. Francis of the meeting, that the Pope also go to that and Francis will go. I think Ben and Dick was a little scared of it, but he did go, but he was a little scared, but Francis will not be scared and go, and all religions, everybody, Jesus is allowed to be everybody's friend without them having to join their organization, whether they join it or not, he's gonna be their a friend, whether you join the Budha organization or not. Budha is your friend, whether you join the shamanic organization of the totem of the great Naga, the great Python, whatever the Python is gonna be your friend. Anyway, you follow me. Whether you, whatever it is, you know, ALA is your friend. He's not gonna obliterate you or burn you to a CDER. He loves you.
Speaker 2 00:57:59 So, so then this is, and then the book of the dead begins a whole series of, well, if you miss this one and you go that one down to went, well, here's a womb. And this room in that room, don't get stuck in the, in, uh, in the wrong home. And then you get into where you're cruising up and down fifth avenue or sunset Boulevard, or Sean Dee or Piccadilly. And you, you see through everything in as between being you're like Superman or a woman, and you can see through all walls. So you see all these couples getting it on. So pick a good room, zoom, join them. Join a good couple. Don't join some article Brexit, couple, join a, a, a re exit couple exit Brexit, couple a re three couple, okay. Join them who are ready to love everyone, not just the English. All right, join a, join a couple that will introduce you to great Lama who can teach you how to navigate in the between, or, or a great psychologist who, who may not be a Lama, but they may be a great psychologist who can teach you, lose their dreaming in an REM lab where they'd help you learn lucid dreaming, cuz everybody can be a psychic. Everybody can be a lucid dreamer. You, you don't have to be a special psychic or a weird hippie or stoned out. Everyone can do it.
Speaker 2 00:59:38 So you want to be born in a womb of a couple that will allow you this kind of full level. You inner as well as outer education. And that doesn't necessarily mean very religious cuz you can have religious who just insist on you believe this outer thing and don't look inside, cuz it's too scary. And their say will get you. If you look inside, you can have religious. They're stupid like that, which is against their founder cuz they were the ultimate inside. Look. That's why their teachings lasted for so long. And the spiritual humanist who allows you to look inside is the one, not the spiritual who demands that you just take this pill, you know, to keep taking the blue pill only and fall and buy their product. That's not the one you want. That's not the materialist that you want. Okay. So I don't time to do more.
Speaker 2 01:00:28 So this is the thing. So to resummarize, which those who teach the hospice teachers and prepare us before we get to the hospice to be ready for the hospice teachers. And even if we're doctors prepare us is the first level of hero or she who are helping our culture grow up by introducing us to the imediacy of death. Meaning living in the face of death, living with death on our shoulder, which means be really alive here. And now the power of now at Carola, he's not a Buddhist. He's not saying you have to be a Buddhist. He's saying just watch me on Oprah <laugh> and do it. And that's all you need. You don't need to join in a religion. You'll just be open to now be in the now that's what death will tell you live every moment as if it were your last.
Speaker 2 01:01:33 So that's the first ones preparing us for that and developing the institutions to help us die consciously and die, peacefully and die happily. And, and to, and tell the people who are, who are attached to us to let us go generously. And don't of course urge us ahead. Get on outta here and nasty you. But no we it's right. Uncle Joe, we, we can we'll we'll cook the Turkey without you and Jane and we'll think of you and we'll offer you a plateful, you know your memory and we'll know that you're still there with us. Some heaven. We'll send you to heaven on the journey. You know, you know, we love, we eat the PEs, love China. They do. They love the Chinese for thousand years, 2000 years, Chinese honored the spiritual beings in Tibet was source of the river flow that keeps their life alive.
Speaker 2 01:02:29 The Indians honored the Persians, everybody honors somebody who's up near heaven like that. Who, who is somehow breathing, there's less oxygen and, and, and spinning the wheel of prayer. Everyone loves them. They don't, no one likes the olive guard. The, the, the dictators that that's a crazy idea that some dictator going to let go, never, they don't be dictator to start with, but once they are let them let go, then let's see them. It allow democracy, allow multiparty system. Okay. And not let their security apparatus like KGB, like regress back to having a dictatorship. Okay. That's what we need now. And we shouldn't be owned by our security apparatus and free countries either.
Speaker 2 01:03:25 Okay. So love to everyone. And oh yeah, I was summarizing, I apologize. It's old age. Okay. So that's the maturity of the culture. Then the wonderful people, helping those who have the main ideology of the country, the high church of the country is scientific materialism. And in enabling them to find that nothingness and make it humanized and to never mind and not be scared and to die peacefully and calmly. So they can then see the light. Even if it looks dark to start with <laugh> and then third, the people who then can give some advice to the few who are open to hedging their beds, about how to handle the post death experience, which is to go to the light, be faithful to the light. Nevermind, whichever form people say, it's gonna appear to you in that doesn't matter, whatever you're used to. And you think of as good go to that.
Speaker 2 01:04:24 If it's Marilyn Monroe, rather than the goddess mother Mary, then either one nevermind flow into her embrace. If it's, you know, Keanu res and not, not, not the Sufi master Kitter, then go there, nevermind embrace them. Whoever know secular Buddhas, you know, the celebrities, if it's the great owl or the bear, my Mo my motto, my, my totem is the bear. Cause I live in Bearsville. I have a bear totem. That's my totem. There he is. Looks at me. Okay. Bear, not gonna be, I am scared of you, but I'm not gonna be scared of being scared of you. Okay. That's what I do. And, uh, uh, and then those finally, the fourth level where those who really get the idea then really live without the denial of death and really want to be in the moment and therefore realize that they're already in the Bardo while being alive. And they live as the dying live in the moment. And they become the noted nodes of the bliss and the love and the, the awareness and the calmness and the peacefulness and the nonviolence and the non harmfulness and those, and they and who break out their yoga. All right,
Speaker 3 01:06:09 This episode of the Bob Thurman podcast was originally streamed live from Menlo mountain retreat in the heart of the Catskills in New York. And to enjoy the full video version of this talk, please visit our website@bobthurman.com. Interstitial music provided by tensing Cho to learn more about his music and his work. Please visit his website@tensingshowgail.com. The Bob Thurman podcast is produced under a creative, common, no derivatives license. Please feel free to share like, and repost on your favorite social media platform, Tashi. And thanks for tuning in.
