Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful. Some good friends 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 Dal Lamas cultural center in America. All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 1 00:00:27 This is episode number 19, titled the danger of just meditate.
Speaker 0 00:00:37 There's a great thing going around in America. Now, a big thing, a big panacea thing, like just meditate. You just meditate. You can be like, you know, working for Grumman, making like attack helicopters. And, but you meditate. You'll be cool. And it's really not the case. It's not, at least it's not Buddhism. You can palliate some of your anxiety by just meditating with a, with a empty mind, with not think trying, not to think, or with a, with an ordinary misunderstanding of reality that we ordinarily grow up with and are educated in. But if you just meditate that way, you only palliate your anxiety, you will never overcome it. You will not come to enlightenment, which means an understanding of the nature of reality. You will just temporarily dampen down your worries. And because we worry so much, we think by when they dampen down for a little while, we think that we're enlightenment, the danger is we will think they're enlightened, cuz we know we can retreat back into that dampen down state.
Speaker 0 00:01:37 And then we, then, then that removes from us the motive to make the non dampen down state a little less worrisome, a little more jolly, a little more cheerful and happy. And if you just imagine a little bit disappearing into a vast space, you can imagine that some of you may have genuinely had that experience. And therefore may somehow secretly not really telling your spouse that she probably wouldn't serve you dinner or he wouldn't dig, give you car or whatever, but thinking secretly, maybe I a little bit got enlightened, cause that disappeared. That must have been enlightened. <laugh> secretly thinking. And then we can, we can point to some examples in history of yogis and people and teachers who claim enlightenment because they experienced disappearance. And then they go around saying I experienced emptiness. So I'm enlightened, but that's very, very mistaken. They did not experience a case.
Speaker 0 00:02:40 What is the famous pregnant part? The thing which you all know, although I consider it a mist bad style and also mistranslated, you know, emptiness is form and form is emptiness. Emptiness is not other than form and form is not than, but that's a MIS translation. It voidness is matter and matter is voidness form means matter. Not form. It's a mistranslation from ancient diamond, bud, a circle from Plato, maybe the forms, you know, and, and also the word Rupa in Sanskrit, which is what the translated can mean a visual object for which they pick form. And it's defined in, in Indian Buddhist thought or science as form and color, shape and color, but they just take form in general. So there it's strictly translated as form, but as an aggregate, you know, which is one of the five aggregates that is meant here in president parer it's matter.
Speaker 0 00:03:40 And that's, what's shocking about it. If you think vague form or you have witnesses form form go. You sure that, yeah, that's cool. I'm good with that. No go is matter. That means that this solid, supposed thing hand and an arm chair that is voices, not some space inside it or not, when it blows up or disappears it itself as matter is voices you following that's where the shock is really, or that is empty. So where this is all empty. So we are in empty and we can't really realize emptiness in that kind of grasping way because the realiz is just as empty wait. Emptiness is realizing emptiness big deal. Thanks, emptiness. Good for you. I didn't do it. You don't realize emptiness. You melt into emptiness actually. But the shock of that is you melt into emptiness and you don't disappear. You're sting around with a bunch of unmelted entities who are like looking at you, like what are we gonna do now?
Speaker 0 00:04:47 Okay. So now the way of that, that, however, that illusion like after Matt Samati is a really important thing. And I mean, and the space like point Soma is a really important thing and it's very, very valuable. And I want to read a little passage. One of my favorite passages from, from the L where song about totally blew my mind many years ago, still blowing. And every time I read it, it's one, those paragraph, uh, Zi, they need <inaudible> long labor labor, ju check. I'm sorry to do it. It's just such an amazing thing. I know. I, I know you guys all know to bad it's at English in regard to things such as a sprout, they always talk about sprouts was agriculture in the ancient India was agricultural society, these sprouts or everything. You know, when they talk about causatory, there are three perceptual habits, one holding it to be objectively existent, one, holding it to be objectively inexistent and one holding it without qualifying it in either way.
Speaker 0 00:06:45 There are these three perceptual habits in regard to any object and they just mentioned it's proud. But any object, if the distinction is clearly understood that all three of these habit patterns exist in the mental process of one in whom the realistic view is generated, which doesn't mean full enlightenment, but it means am I doing that? I am yep. Exploding him five one. Cause I'm looking down one in whom the realistic view is generated all three. That is objective that that pillar is objectively existent. It's also objectively inexistent. And also it's sort of neither one, all three of those perceptual habits exist in the person who has realized the realistic worldview, the first of the eightfold first branch of the eightfold path, right? Which means they have analyzed and become to a level of wisdom. That means they're not fully enlightened, but they have a level of wisdom of non-verbal wisdom that do a wisdom.
Speaker 0 00:07:52 And, uh, and only the first and the last, but that only the first and the last are present in the mental process of one in whom no realistic view has been generated. Then one will put a stop to the following false views. Okay. Now just think about this for a minute. Before we go to the false use, the more enlightened person has the perception has has in their mental process, the perceptual habit that that really exists with intrinsic reality, that that really doesn't exist with intrinsic reality. It's intrinsic reality. It really doesn't exist. And some sort of way of seeing it without any kind of qualification as to really existing or not existing, just sort of relating to it without kind of investing it with either intrinsic existence or intrinsic in existence. You follow now it's, you can sort of get it because that means that me who haven't really gotten realistic worldview still as much as I've studied after all these years, no, I have a little, but not really deeply, but still that means that I always see everything as realistically existing, as intrinsically real having self nature or all these different ways.
Speaker 0 00:09:11 We try intrinsically objective, intrinsically identifiable, having intrinsic identity. You know, the pillar's really a pillar. I see that I feel myself like that. And then I can sometimes perceive the pillar when I'm looking over there. And I see a pillar personally, and I don't think about what status is, right, but I've never seen it disappear under analysis. So I have no perceptual habit that sees through it kind of true follow that knows that it's, elusory seeming to be intrinsically real. But if you have a changed space, like echo point, Samati in a true experience by looking if you've experienced some degree of selflessness. In other words, by looking for the self, that first step of the experience of selflessness, where everything seems to disappear, including the self, then I have at least some seed of that perception of it as intrinsically non-existence. If you follow everything that I see.
Speaker 0 00:10:09 So I see it as a losery. So I'm balancing my, investing it with a tremendous solidity with, with, uh, I'm balancing that with an investment that it will disappear under analysis with the seemingly as if I had an intrinsically real experience of emptiness or void, which when I experience, it seems intrinsically real. That seems like that's the deeper reality. That's where I land. But although you never know that you've landed there cuz when you disappear, it's like that disappointing thing that happens in the dentist chair. You get that sodium penal in case you ever had a tooth pulled and that dentist's used that. And you're, you know, you've been wearing all day and all week, all month and all year and tax time came and went and all this stuff paid, all those tickets did know whatever you did. And you're about to like be really obliterated for a short time. And, and then, then they'd say get up and get outta here and stop bleeding in the chair. <laugh> and it's an hour and a half later and there's no sense of time in the obliterated state. There's just a threshold buzz. And then they throw you out. Cause obviously when you're completely unconscious, there's no sense of time. Similarly it's sleep, even sleep. You know, if you were enlightened by disappearing, everybody's enlightened. Cause everybody disappears every night.
Speaker 0 00:11:36 They have some time of deep dreamless sleep, which there's no sense of timing in cuz there's no subject object register. So it'd all be like we could all run out. Say I experienced internet. Sometimes I know you pay my parking ticket. <laugh> okay. So, so that's so the point then is that the stage of disappearance is not it now in another plane, the dualistic Buddhist Teboda Maha Sanka, and the ti Buddhist are TETA, Buddhist want monks and even lay people. The monks vow of the Buddhist. You know, we go on about vees VI Buddhism. That is really a little bit wrong because all the monks have TETA Buddhist vows. There are no Maha Buddhi monk, clouds, monks, and nuns are caravans. They are it's cause the monk and the monk and the layperson thing and Mendi and layperson thing is a dualism, right? And some, sorry, Nirvana is a dualism. And by becoming a Mendi, they're heading for Nirvana to get out of some sor. So they even have a theory that the disappearing is Nirvana.
Speaker 0 00:12:58 And of course they get like Shari PRA and the Lotus suture that they get a big fat disappointment and they think they're gonna disappear. But then they're standing around and SHA moon says like, bring me, go get me a cup of coffee. And uh, Anna died, you know, they, they say that they had a disappearance and then they appear. Then they have a theory that, well, that disappearance was near Anna, but there's a momentum. I have a, some Saric momentum of my body and my conventional mind. And therefore I'm gonna hang out like a, our hat for some while to hang, cuz it's so much fun. Hang out with Shaul because it's so confused and, and I'm gonna do that. And then, but luckily then when I die, I'll revert since I'm not afraid of that disillusion state, I'll revert to that disillusioned state and I won't be reborn and I won't have to hang out anywhere else anymore.
Speaker 0 00:13:53 And you know, you can read it, all those sutures. This is my last birth and no more to be done and blah, blah, blah, you know, goodbye. And then when she communi die, they say he's done power Nirvana, which means he's also died and gone. And the, in the ancient arguments, which were not as OUS as you think in ancient India, because most of the Mah people were T amongst like in Tibet and mostly the glory and magnificence of the Mayana worldview, they loved it and they embraced it. But there were some holdouts which then were called Heina, which was, was not all terrible. Amongs it was only those who he noted themself Heena means deprived. It doesn't mean smaller. It means deprived. And they deprived themselves of that magnificent view of the bud averse. You know, the Budha land, the Mayan, the land filled the jewels, you know, like incredible marvelous vision of the Maan filled with Buddhas like bud in every incredible view.
Speaker 0 00:14:51 And they deprived themselves. That's why they were both in only those who refused that. But those who did did so on the basis that Buddha doesn't have a body attaining Buddhahood means you realize you don't need a body. You just dissolve into this fast infinity. Now Budha himself in the Teboda scriptures, which were orals from many centuries. He told them, for example, there are four formless states or four immaterial states as it should properly be translated. These are states beyond the speed of light. Einstein thought everything was ended at speed of light because he thought everything was only material, but beyond speed of light, it's a super subtle energies are there. And there are these four states and the first of them is called infinite space.
Speaker 0 00:15:40 The second one is called infinite consciousness. It sort of fills the space, but there's no no sense of duality of the person who reaches those four states in the sense that their Constance is just everything. But somehow without thinking consciousness, cuz they're not doing any verbalization, they don't have bodies, ordinary bodies. They're in a vast consciousness. Then being in a vast Constance seems a little bit disturbing to them or too busy to be a consciousness with no object, just like a spreading con an infinite consciousness. So then they go into a state known as the state of absolute nothingness. But it's the state of, it's not absolute. There is no such thing as absolute nothingness, but there's a state that seems like absolute nothingness. That's the third one. And that seems peaceful to them. You know that it's more peaceful than being an infinite consciousness too.
Speaker 0 00:16:27 DIY I consciousness is really boring cause there's nothing to be conscious of. Cause all there is, is my consciousness much better to count out. And then the fourth one is most subtle to state beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. Now that those four states the, when the Buddha went left in palace, remember in his life, in all versions, his first guru in the first Aron, his first Hindu or VA, there was no Hindus at that time, there were VA his first Vaus guru had a yogis who reached the state of absolute nothingness. And they thought that was the ultimate. And that was, that was ultimate reality. And they say that Buddha reached that stage himself in one day, cuz he was like a quick step. And then he said, that's not absolute. That's just the state of, OBL not the absolute. So he said, thanks a lot.
Speaker 0 00:17:18 I don't want to inherit because the guy, the teacher said, you can now lead the group, you know, gonna be my successor. He said, do that. That's not the ultimate goodbye. He went to the next guy who then reached beyond that to the state beyond consciousness and unconsciousness, which the Hindus called Illa even still today. And they think that's near her and budh said, no, those form rooms are not near one. There are states you can attain. And actually they're rather dangerous states because when you reach them, if you have not learned ahead of time, the reason of relativity, the teaching of selflessness, you will ratify your condition in those states as the, as the absolute. And then you will not bother with your human body any longer. If you came from there from being a human Yogi, it will seem much too boring for you with all the real problem, all the medical issues.
Speaker 0 00:18:11 And you will become a deity of the formula rep and you'll stay in there for many Aons and then you'll suddenly have a big shock and you'll land back on west Broadway. If you're lucky and you won't, where am I? What am I doing here? And you wasted all that time and you didn't achieve enlightenment and you didn't become a motor. You didn't help. And you just got stuck in this rarefied, absolute state. That's why Budo was careful to tell. There are those four states and actually it's good yoga to develop the stability of concentration, to be able to go into them. If you know that any state that has a barrier between it and an ordinary state is a kind of extraordinary state, but is still a relative state because an absolute, there's no such thing as an absolute state that a relative being can enter.
Speaker 0 00:19:01 If it has an entry point, it's relative, it's just logical. So since it's, since it's a relative state seeming absolute relative state, you enter it by a causal process, namely of meditative expertise and stability and extreme stability of mine. And then that cause will exhaust its force and you will leave it later if you follow. Whereas Nirvana is defined as the uncreate having existed primarily from the beginning and therefore they UN destroyed. So actually it's always been here or it's worthless and, and in a way it's not here because here's a relational word. So then they become, then they say, we can't talk. You know, like they, I know that kind of thing, but then they talk for, but, but, but Nirvana and all terms like avoidance, Nirvana, selflessness, they're all negational terms. That's a key point. And the negation is not a positive thing. The non elephant in this room is simply the failure to find the elephant. It is not a thing in this room it's evolved. And similarly in the, in poly, when the Budha attains party Niana, he gives them a big fat hint, which the dualist people don't get.
Speaker 0 00:20:24 Where if you go read that Suah, you will see his mind goes up out of the desire realm, which is human plain into the realm of pure matter. And up to the denying nine Plains of pure matter, no 16 Plains of pure matter, you know, 3, 3, 3, and seven, but four measurables, right? Loved compassion, joy and equanimity, and then goes up through the four formal states just to sort of hone the one pointedness then does not go to partner on out of the top. Most formal state of beyond consciousness and consequences comes all the way back down to the base of the realm of cure matter between the material realm and the pure material realm and the desire of material realm. And then goes back up again to the boundary between the highest part of the realm of pure matter, which is called ATA or bra, which is where the highest Braa dwells.
Speaker 0 00:21:26 Although there's two branches of ATA, that's where the higher Braa dwells the world gone. And then there's the plane on the event, horizon of infinite space where all the bud lands exist, actually in my it's that plane where ABAs pure land is and where all the sort of celestial Buda versus are, whatever verses are, and, and then disappears into per body from there. So very cleverly given the hint is that the disappear, the disappearance from his physical ordinary body human body or not is not very unordinary <inaudible> body, but still it's pro close to an ordinary body, but he disappears from that in a plane between the material and the immaterial to indicate that it's something other than just the AB abolition of materiality. It's not in other words, an oblation and I have a new meaning for the word power IANA, actually myself, which is that recently came to me, which I enjoy sort of non-dual definition of para Nirvana, cuz Patty means thorough or total. So party Nirvana, total Irvana means totalizing Nirvana by leaving the appearance of a separate body. That being sort of relate to you. Like Buddha's over there. Buddha joins with Nirvana, which is all beings and everything everywhere the D time. So he totalize his Nirvana, but when he leaves this one, he's like Nirvana in all of us. That's fine.
