Student questions

Ken: What I’d like to do is to hear from you, based on either our morning’s experience together or, more generally, some of the questions you would like to have considered this afternoon.

Student: How to have peace, and be at peace with the world, without having to be in a mountain cave?

Ken: Good. Anybody else? Questions you would like to have considered this afternoon? [Pause] Any other questions? One over here?

Student: Since it’s easy to fool ourselves, how can we tell the difference between mahamudra and objectless shamatha. How do we know, how can we be clear that we’re actually in a state of mahamudra?

Ken: Okay.

Student: When you had the figure in there with all the little … and they’re all surrounded, and the nucleus was in there, and you talked about facing it or dealing with it. How do you know the difference between facing—or what the right time is, or the appropriate way—as opposed to those mind loops that have worn ruts in your brain that you’re simply repeating over and over? And if, for instance, I find a way to cut those off before they go through the whole loop, is that not confronting the issue? Am I spiritually bypassing?

Ken: Okay. Tom? You have to be recorded for posterity because posterity really cares about you.

Tom: Ken, you’re wonderful. How does the abhidharma fit into everyday life?

Ken: [Laughs] Have we talked about the abhidharma before Tom? I’m wondering if you’re being provocative.

Student: How do we face the really difficult, painful experiences in life? The ones that I tend to pull away from?

Ken: Lynea?

Lynea: How do we distinguish between feelings of compassion, when we’re opening our hearts, and junk?

Ken: [Laughs] Could you be a little more specific about the junk side of things?

Lynea: My experience when I’m opening my heart, lots of stuff comes up that might feel like love or compassion, I might label it that way.

Ken: Ahhh.

Lynea: And it may just be lots of other stuff.

Ken: Okay. Oh, more. Gee, my page is getting full here. Peter.

Peter: Christian compassion sometimes involves the word pity. They talk about, “the pity motivates me to help others,” or something like that. Pity seems to be like a one-up, one-down thing, and I thought compassion was more feeling with, and what if you clarify that kind of thing?

Ken: Okay. All right. Well, this will keep us busy. One more? Oh, fine. Fire away.

Student: My question is about my daily practice. Somewhat about which practices to do. Somewhat about how there’s no time to do them. And third, about how actually when I practice in a way that seems like it’s really quite helpful, it takes an enormous amount of energy. And then I don’t have energy for the rest that I need to do, in my experience of practice.

Ken: Okay. [Pause] All right. [Pause] Don’t forget the cell phone ritual.

A discussion about the five skandhas

Ken: Let’s start going back to our story. So far, we’ve discussed:

The first tribe which had learned about fire reserved the secret for their priests, who remained in affluence and power while the people froze.

The Story of Fire, Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 29

And that led us into quite an involved discussion about a lot of different things. An exploration.

So now we’re going to turn to the second tribe.

The second tribe forgot the art and worshiped instead the instruments.

p. 29

Now, I’m probably going to put myself in dangerous territory, but that’s nothing new. This, I think, touches on some of the questions that were just posed. We have something which causes us to engage in this exploration. We listen to people, try certain things, and something happens, and we often don’t notice it. What happens is that in our efforts to utilize what people have given us—whether it’s a perspective, a framework, a practice, etc.—and in those efforts, we forget why we are doing it. Or it takes a back seat, shall we say.

And this is what the story is describing. Here you have the making of fire. And these people have been told “you need these instruments to make fire.” So they start to study the instruments. Now thee’s a very good example of this. How many of you have heard of the five skandhas: form, feelings, concepts, mental formations, and consciousnesses. What are the skandhas for? All of those who know about them? Tom, this is right up your alley here, basic abhidharma thing. What are the skandhas for? I’m finally going to find out what the skandhas are for, for the first time, please.

Tom: I’m not sure you are. It’s a roadmap, basically, as I feel it.

Ken: Yeah. Well let’s just say it’s a map. Okay?

Student: Okay.

Ken: Now, there are different kinds of maps. And each one serves a particular function. A roadmap tells me where the roads are to get from A to B. A topographical map tells me of the elevations and the kind of terrain I’m going to be likely to negotiate. A population map tells me where people live, and so forth, or how many people, and population density. What kind of map is the skandha, of the skandhas?

Tom: You got me! [Laughter]

Ken: Well, you have some help here. Francesco.

Francesco: I understand the words, but not the meaning. But it’s kind of a map of our, and I know you don’t like the word ego, but—

Ken: Well, yeah, it’s just totally misused, that’s all. I mean, ego and I get along quite well, as words, but the—

Francesco: So, the levels at which we fall prey to delusion, maybe? That we get sucked in by our thoughts, or the things we like, or the things we don’t like, or the things that—

Ken: One can actually use the skandhas for that purpose. It’s a little bit like using a topographical map to navigate the highway system, but it’s possible. Peter?

Peter: I was thinking more it was just a tool to help dis-aggregate our sense of “I”.

Ken: Well, that’s actually what the intention of the map is. And we went over this when I was up here talking about the Heart Sutra. I guess that was in September or so? See, the abhidharma is filled with all of these maps. How many of you have some connection with academia, the university system? Now, how do things progress in academia? Well, it’s very simple. People study a subject, and maybe they study animal behavior, say. Somebody comes up with a definition which helps to clarify things. And then somebody else comes up, based on that definition, with a theory. And not very far along the line, what’s being discussed? The validity of the theory and the accuracy of the definition. And what has happened to the study of animal behavior?

Okay. Now this kind of thing happens all the time. And there’s a very simple reason. People in academia make money from talking about things, and writing about things particularly. So if you were an academic, what are you going to do? Are you going to make money? Are you going to produce lots of papers, discussing definitions and theories, which you can do because you never have to leave your office to do that? Or are you going to engage in research into animal behavior, which will require hours and hours and hours of observation? Simple economic stimulus predicts you’re going to talk about theories and definitions. That’s just the way the system works. Now, are there any academics here? I should always ask these questions first.

[Sound of drawing on whiteboard] I’m not feeling artistic today, but we’ll make them a little bit better. There are the five skandhas, okay? Form, feeling, concept, mental formation, and consciousness. Now this morning, we talked a little bit about the notion that we have this feeling—and it’s our experience of ourselves—that there is this thing called “I” which exists throughout time, is one thing, and is independent of the rest of the world. That’s our experience, right? Anybody can relate to that? Am I the only one who has that? [Laughter] When I ask these questions, you’re meant to nod if you agree. [Laughter] Otherwise, I feel totally alone.

Now, there’s a principle in mathematics which is used in proofs of certain kinds of theorems, in certain areas, called the pigeonhole principle. Pigeonholes, like in those mail slots and things like that, and you put things in. It’s useful for counting; it’s useful for all sorts of things. This is an application of the pigeonhole principle. So we have this thing; this is “I.” All right? Now, remember, it doesn’t change. It’s one thing, so we can’t split it in half. And it’s independent.

And this, as Tom pointed out, is a map of our experience. I could have drawn it as an actual map, and maybe I should have, form over here, and feeling, and things like that. But it’s a map. Because everything that we experience fits somewhere in here, okay? Now what form refers to are everything that comes through the senses, and the sense faculties itself. That’s just what the form bucket contains. So seeing, and color, shape, etc., etc. Okay? That’s what goes in that bucket.

Feeling is a little more subtle. A feeling tone would be a better term, and there are only five types of these. They are pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, and mental or physical. So every experience has one from column A and one from column B. So we can have a pleasant physical or a neutral mental, etc. See? So that’s what goes in this bucket. And in this bucket are all the labels that we give to our experience. You know, like cushion, floor, light, person, shirt, flower, big, little, so forth, and so forth. They’re the concepts we use for communication, internal as well as external.

In this bucket is consciousness. And there are, for our purposes here, six or— depending on how you count them—eight. But we’ll just use eight. There’s a consciousness associated with each sense. Like there’s something that’s conscious of seeing. Right? And then there’s something which is conscious of hearing. Now, is the conscious which is conscious of hearing the same as the conscious which is conscious of seeing? Well, when you get into that, you get into a whole host of philosophical problems. So they just said, “Well, there’s one associated with each of the senses.” And then there’s one that’s the consciousness of the sense of self, and all of the emotional stuff. And then there’s basic consciousness. That’s the eighth one. And in some systems there’s nine, and probably more.

Basically everything else goes in there. And so what do you find in here? You find things like intelligence. You find most of the emotions, like devotion, and hope, and fear, and love, etc., etc. But you also get a few little oddities that don’t fit anywhere else. You get things like ownership going in there, because that’s a mental formation. That’s a way we relate to things. Okay. So, now we play the shell game. In which bucket is the “I”? [Pause] Okay. How many vote for form? Pardon? What did you say?

Student: All of them!

Ken: All of them!

Student: Yes.

Ken: Oh, but that would involve me cutting the “I” up into five pieces, wouldn’t it? Can we do that?

Tom: Wherever you are at the moment.

Ken: Before we go there, Tom, I just want you to see the problem with that. If you say it’s in all of them, then you’ve broken up the “I,” right?

Student: Well, how about one at a time?

Ken: Oh, now you’re going into his territory. Okay, Tom, you say it’s where–

Student: How about all of them are in the “I.” Turn it around so you don’t have to break up the “I.”

Ken: But the “I” is one thing. I can’t have all of that in me. Tom.

Tom: It’s wherever you are at the moment. If you are in the conceptual mode, “I am conceiving something,” etc.

Ken: [Sighs]

Tom: You don’t like that.

Ken: Well, it’s a description of a way of experiencing the world. And that’s very true. But, let’s just take a sensory experience, okay? You’ve gone hiking. You’ve climbed up a really steep hill. You’re all worn out. You get to the top, and there’s this absolutely magnificent view. There’s lakes, and mountains, and trees, and whatever. And it’s crystal clear, and it goes on forever and ever. And off in one corner there’s a thunderstorm, and you can see a rainbow arcing, and things like that. It’s just like, “Ah!” And you’re right in it, okay? So, totally here. Is there any experience of “I” at that moment?

Tom: Why not? What if my boots hurt?

Ken: Well, then you’re not in the experience, are you?

Tom: Correct.

Ken: Right. But for the “I” to be there, you can’t be in the experience. You follow?

Tom: Gotcha.

Ken: Okay. So you’re talking about something else. We’re talking about where do we put the “I,” the experience of “I.” You’re talking about experiencing things completely without a sense of “I.” A little different. So how many vote for form? How many would put the “I” in form? Any takers? Okay. How many would put the “I” in feeling? Mmm. [Sound of writing on whiteboard] I should be doing this in Technicolor. Just, you know, all of those school things that come up when you see red. And how many would put it in concept?

So I have a question for you, Lynea. If I asked you the question, “What are you?”, would you respond, “Lynea?”

Lynea: No.

Ken: Well … [Sound of writing on whiteboard] [Laughs] You follow?

Lynea: Yeah.

Ken: Okay. How many would put it into mental formations? Give it to me here, Peter.

Peter: Well, it’s a klesha, right? So “I” would just be attachment. It’s not consciousness.

Ken: So you think the “I” is in this bucket of mental formations?

Peter: Yeah.

Ken: Okay. Well, there, there are quite a few things in here, right?

Peter: Oh yeah. I assume so.

Ken: Yeah. And you have some background in mathematics, right?

Peter: A little, yeah.

Ken: A little. You do computer programming?

Peter: Yeah, I teach computer software, yeah.

Ken: Yeah, you got plenty for our purposes. Okay, so we need to flesh up this diagram a little bit.

Peter: It’s really hard to see that color by the way.

Ken: Yeah, you’re right. I needed a bright red. How about this one? That better?

Peter: Yes.

Ken: Okay, so what I’ve drawn is a little matrix here. And here we have anger, and here we have shame, and here we have love, and here we have pride, and here we have intelligence, and here we have discrimination, and here we have ownership, and dates, and there’s all kinds of funny things in there. So, which square does “I” go in?

Peter: It’s own.

Ken: Okay. So we’re going to put “I” right here. How do you experience any of these other things, or do you not?

Peter: It’s a problem. [Laughter]

Ken: There is a problem, yeah. Okay? So, scratch. How many say it’s in consciousness? I mean, we can all agree that we are conscious, but it’s a very different thing to say, “I am consciousness,” you know? And there’s a story from Kangyur Rinpoche about this. Well, it’s not exactly it. If somebody says they are consciousness, you know how to defeat that argument?

Student: Step on their feet.

Ken: Exactly. [Laughter] Step on their feet, kick them in the shins, and they’ll go “Oww!” Now they’re pain. So, nothing there.

Student: How come the seventh consciousness is where the sense of the “I” arises? I mean, why do they say that?

Ken: Why do they say that? The technical term is emotional mind as you know, nyon yid (pron. nyön-yi), and it’s describing—if you look at it in terms of the way that the sense consciousness are organized—the way that it comes is that … now you’re getting really technical.

Student: You should have left it at six.

Ken: Yeah. I should have, you’re quite right. But this goes to Tom’s question about the abhidharma. You have basis of everything consciousness. As soon as there’s any movement out of that, okay, that is when you’re sitting–and this goes to your question about shamatha, objectless shamatha and mahamudra—objectless shamatha is basically resting in the basis of everything consciousness. And the experience there is clear and empty, clear and empty like an ice cube. Okay? As soon as there is any movement in the mind—and it’s the nature of the mind to move, so there is always some, eventually—then it can go in either of two directions.

And interestingly enough, there’s a philosopher on YouTube. If you look up a lecture on YouTube called “Being No One” by a German philosopher called Tom Metzinger. It’s not an easy lecture, it’s an hour long lecture. But it’s an exploration of the functional, structural, and phenomenal absence of any self. He wrote a book, which is this thick on the subject. And it is the most difficult book I’ve ever attempted to read. And I’m still trying to get at it, but he goes into it in great detail in that. And it’s surprisingly parallel to what Buddhist philosophy came up with 1,500 years ago.

As something moves, it can either be experienced as a subject, in which case it’s experienced as “I,” or it’s experienced as an object, in which case it’s form or something like that. And that movement into it, the being experienced as a subject, is the movement into the emotional mind. And that’s where you experience what is arising as subject, as “I.” Okay? But the “I” isn’t a thing there. From that point of view it’s simply a movement. You follow?

And the ninth consciousness, if anybody’s interested, refers to this part, the moment, that immediate arising of experience. And don’t ask me about ten, eleven, twelve, I don’t know anything about those. So the point here is that you go through this pigeonhole thing and you can’t find anywhere to put the “I,” so that has to cause you to question your assumption that this exists. Again, in mathematical terminology it’s called reductio ad absurdum. You assume the hypothesis, go through the thing, and you end up with an illogical conclusion, so it causes you to question your hypothesis.

Now, that’s what the skandha map was developed for. Did it stop there? No, just as the academics study definitions and theories in their own right, people have studied the skandas for many, many years. They’ve just made a big study of this, but it doesn’t have anything to do with your actually waking up or becoming present in your life. It’s just more theory and stuff. Stuff to keep the monks busy.

Okay. Now, how did we get onto that? Instruments. Maps. Okay. So, the answer to your question, “How does the abhidharma help you relate to life?” It gives you a very impressive conceptual framework, which if you wish to carry around as you relate to daily life, you’re very welcome to Tom [laughs]. It is really, really heavy. Yeah. And I’m very grateful to my own teacher, because he never encouraged us to study abhidharma. And I suppose I followed in his footsteps because I regard it, from an experiential point of view, as a complete waste of time. Again, this makes me very popular in certain Buddhist circles.

Forgetting what tools are for

Student: [Unclear] … wouldn’t like you.

Ken: No, well she uses it as a framework to get something across, but it’s very, very heavy machinery. And this is actually right on the subject of instruments. So here you are studying these instruments, and you study these instruments, okay, let’s get the instruments for fire. Let’s say—we’ll make it a little easier than rubbing two sticks—say it’s a flint and steel. Studying the abhidharma is like studying all of the different forms of steel and all of the different kinds of flint, when all you need to do to make fire is to know how to recognize flint, how to recognize steel, and how to hit the two together. Okay?

So, what happens in our spiritual practice is we learn certain tools and then we get engrossed in the study of those tools. And we forget what the tools are for. Anybody recognize that in their own practice? Okay, Sylvia.

Sylvia: But doesn’t that have to do somewhat with people’s personalities, or their intellectual capacities, or their tendencies? And some people would understand more by studying the abhidharma than they would by, you know, I swim, or some other kind of capability of being in the body. Some people need that intellectual kind of grunt work to come to some realization.

Ken: Yeah. I think that’s absolutely right. And what I’m on my high horse about, is saying, “This is the only way to do it.” For some people, yes, it does enrich their experience. And it gives them tools to work with to relate to things. It’s helpful. But to say, “Everybody has to do this,” or “This is the only way to do this,” or something like that. That’s just not true. Okay. Tom.

Tom: As a photographer, I’m approached many times by people saying, “What kind of camera should I buy?”

Ken: This is a wonderful example. I think I even asked you that question.

Tom: I wasn’t going to embarrass you. [Laughter] And I keep saying, “It doesn’t matter what camera you buy, what size it is. A camera is a screwdriver. It’s just a tool for your vision.” And it’s the same thing.

Ken: Yeah, that’s a very good example. Thank you. So, one of the things I’d like you to take from this discussion is, you’ve been exposed to many, many different tools. Some of the tools do certain things. Some of the tools do other things. Some of the tools you can actually use to do everything that’s important in the spiritual domain. One of those tools is death and impermanence. Another of those tools is compassion. Another of those tools is devotion, if it’s handled correctly. Another of those tools is direct awareness techniques, such as mahamudra or dzogchen or shikantaza and so forth. Those are some of the tools which can do everything; there are others. There are other tools which are much more specific. And it’s really good to learn the tools, but don’t get distracted by trying to figure out every last little detail about the tool. That’s like taking a screwdriver and okay, so what’s the shaft made of, what’s the width of the blade? Why don’t you just take it and turn the screw? And so forth. Okay?

Distractions from learning to be at peace

Ken: There’s so many threads in so many different directions here.

The third worshipped the likeness of Nour himself, because it was he who had taught them.

The Story of Fire, Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 29

[Pause] It’s a human trait. The human trait—and this is really important—when somebody shows us a possibility that we hadn’t considered or hadn’t come into our experience before, and it’s something that brings great value, meaning, ease, etc., to our lives, how do we feel about that person?

Yeah. We appreciate them. And we think they’re wonderful. And we’re very, very grateful, at least if we’re a half-decent human being ourselves, we’re grateful. I have one student, she’s never going to thank me for anything she’s learned from me. I know that. She’s just wonderful. Every time she comes to a retreat, at the end of the retreat, she comes to me and tells me everything I did wrong in the retreat. [Laughter] She’s learned a lot, but she’ll never thank me.

I take the mind training teachings to heart: “Don’t expect thanks.” So, we appreciate that person. And then it’s a very short step, you know, maybe you appreciate that person so much that we want to have a picture of them to remind us. And we want to tell other people how important this person is. But they never met this person, they never had anything like that. They’re getting something from you, which is helpful. And you’re telling them, “This is a really important person.” What are they going to do with that person?

Student: Have an expectation.

Ken: Well, the person’s dead.

Student: Oh!

Ken: Pardon?

Student: Put his picture up just like you would.

Ken: Yeah, because they see you put a picture there, so now they put a picture. What are they going to do with that picture?

Student: Get a group together to honor that.

Ken: Yeah. And they’re going to come and honor it. And so you see how it develops. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong, in fact, there’s a great deal right with where all of that comes from. But if … [unclear], this is the inventor of fire, this is the person who taught me how to make fire. Two or three generations down the line, nobody knows how to make fire, but this is the person who invented fire. Not only that, we have a tradition here. And you see we have all of the instruments, etc. You see how it works? And this happens all the time.

Venerate teachers who speak to your individual questions or search

Ken: What we can take from this is that, yes, there’s a history of really quite extraordinary individuals. And when I read the accounts of some of them, the energy and the hardship that they put into being as completely at peace with the world as they have—from the way that we talked about this morning—is quite extraordinary. And when we engage in that same endeavor ourselves, just as I was describing with respect to that dzogchen retreat, two weeks doing nothing. That was okay, but the thought of like taking two years and do absolutely nothing. I mean, I’ve been in retreat for long periods of my life, but I felt I was getting something. I was doing something there. Just to go and do nothing for two years. I have to consider how much would I have to let go of in terms of who I want to be, and who I think I should be, and all this stuff about being productive, etc., etc. Does anybody have any of that stuff flying around?

Yeah. Okay. Well, if you really want to be at peace with your life, that’s where you go. And it’s really quite extraordinary when you think about it that way. But when we consider these people, it’s very important to connect with the aspect of their lives which is speaking to our individual questions or search. And then, absolutely no problem venerating them, appreciating them, because there’s something alive in that. But the idea that something good can happen just from venerating somebody, or worshipping an image of somebody who was an important person, or a key figure at some time, without really connecting with how that is showing up in our own lives, that’s just a complete myth. Okay. Does that touch any of the questions? Let me see. Do you have a comment? No. Okay. Please.

Student: I’m just thinking that wherever we go, in practice, we’re always surrounded by all of the images. And it’s just going on. We’re all falling prey, in varying degrees, with our thoughts about what these things—

Ken: You’re talking to about these things?

Student: Yeah, what we’re sitting in the middle of, sure.

Ken: Yeah, you haven’t come to any of my retreats. There’s nothing. People get upset about that too. Why don’t you have … ? Yeah. Okay.

We make up stories about what we don’t understand

Ken:

The fourth retained the story of the making of fire in their legends: some believed them, some did not.

The Story of Fire, Tales of the Dervishes, Idries Shah, p. 29

Now, this takes us a big step deeper into a lot of things. How many of you have been possessed by a demon? No, really have been possessed by a demon. Not speaking metaphorically, you’ve been possessed by a demon. Nobody here? Okay. So we’ve got one person with a possible, maybe. Turn back the clock a thousand years. Well, before we turn back the clock: How many of you have known someone who is possessed by a demon? Really possessed by a demon?

Student: That’s what they said.

Ken: That’s what they said, but did you … that’s how you saw it?

Student: You mean, did I trust that? Did I believe what they said?

Ken: Yes. That they were possessed by a demon.

Student: Yes.

Ken: Okay. What about you?

Student: I think I need you to define what you mean by demon.

Ken: Well, you see, isn’t this where we get here? “Define what you mean by demon.” I mean, an actual demon took over possession, took over this person and lived. Now, let’s turn back the clock. If I asked these same two questions a thousand years ago, what would the answers be?

Student: Yes.

Ken: Yes! Because anybody who was insane, anybody who had a mental disability, and anybody who had a profound psychological disturbance in their lives precipitated by grief or abuse or something like that, was described as being possessed by a demon. And that’s how everybody in that society regarded them. And that’s how the healing methods operated, you worked out a relationship with that demon by various different techniques, all the way up to exorcism, and so forth.

And when that person recovered their sanity, then it was said that the demon had been dispelled from their body. And you look at all the stuff in the Bible, Christ expelling demons from people, and so forth. That is how people related to those kinds of disturbances. It’s not how we relate to them today. So this is a long-winded way of saying that it is human nature to make up a story about what we don’t understand. Please, Francesco.

Francesco: I’m just going to take exception to the statement that that’s not how we relate to things today. I think a significant percentage of our society still relate to things in medieval or mythical terms. They might not acknowledge that, but—

Ken: I agree with you, and there’s very significant portions of the world, this is how they relate and see and experience things. And I want to make it clear that these methods, even though we now have a physiological, and neurological, and psychological, and emotional understanding, and have very different methods, the actual methods that were developed in these societies to meet these various conditions were often very effective. But we understand them in a very different way. You could say, if you wish, we now have a different story. But this would get the scientists upset, because the scientists really don’t like being told that the way that they conceive of the world is just another story. They take themselves very seriously. Yes.

Francesco: I think in a lot of ways you have more hope if somebody thinks that you’re possessed by devils, than if they shut you off into the realm of psychiatry, for example. [Laughter]

Ken: I think that depends on a lot of factors. Yeah. Okay, now, one of the greatest stories—I get myself in all kinds of trouble with this one—is the story of God. And I don’t know how many of you have read Karen Armstrong’s A History of God? Well, you really get to see that God is a story that people have made, have conjured up, or whatever, developed, for the sole purpose of coming to terms with their experience. And so, people had very, very different experiences.

The Jewish prophets, for instance, found when they had the visions or experiences of God, it completely upended their lives. Just made a mess of their lives, it was a very, very disturbing thing. And they felt compelled to speak about things that they often felt extremely inarticulate about. You know what we would call that today?

Student: Psychosis.

Ken: Channeling. You know, the Course in Miracles channelled … [unclear]. In another age that would now be a revered scripture. Right. Yes.

Student: So, one of the many ways that I came into Buddhism, one of the many roads into it was to experience phowa practice, the practice of letting your consciousness, when you die, up into the other realms. And while it was a very powerful practice, at some point I began to see that this was a mythology, and full of conscious constructs and stuff—eastern Amitabha lands and pure lands, and all this kind of thing. And then I read Thich Nhat Hanh, and he said there’s not really a place, and I get really confused. Buddhism obviously is full of this, you know, replete with this.

Ken: It’s been around for 2,500 years, it’s accumulated a little baggage. [Laughs]

Student: But I realized that what I was drawn to in the initial experience was trying to calm my fear of dying.

Ken: Exactly.

Student: And it did that for a while until I began to, I think, I don’t know what I’m saying, see through it, or just see it as another construct as another ideation.

Ken: Thank you so much for this, because this is a really wonderful example. And this takes us back to the people that are fascinated with the instruments. Okay? So you do this practice, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, there are different forms of it. Were you imagining the mind in the heart?

Student: Yeah, go up the central channel.

Phowa practices

Ken: Okay. There’s many different versions of it. But you imagine your mind as a seed syllable, or a very small ball of intense light, and there are different ways of doing this. And you imagine it shooting up, as you go, hik! And I don’t want that going over the microphone, you might find it a little disturbing. Now, the story there is that you’re merging with the mind of Amitabha Buddha or your guru. I mean, there’s so many different phowa practices. We practiced about four or five in retreat.

And you have signs of success that you’re actually doing this when a little bit of blood comes out of the top of your forehead, and you can stick a blade of grass in it. Which is no big deal. I mean, there was one person in our retreat who hated this practice so much that when it came time for that, he just worked at it, and produced the signs, and 24 hours later said “done.” And then there was one poor woman in the women’s retreat, they had more difficulty trying to see whether the signs had emerged or not, so she ended up with blades of grass all through her hair. And it’s a pretty easy practice. But as Jamgön Kongtrül, one of the great 19th century teachers, says, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

Now, let’s take a look at the practice, what’s really happening in the practice. You foster intense feeling of devotion for Amitabha, or whomever the figure above is. And then you imagine your own mind as this intense ball of light, and powered by that devotion and the mechanical exercise, and if you think of saying the syllable, hik, you can look at what happens physiologically. You contract your stomach and actually you just send a whole blast of energy right up, you see. So it raises energy in your system, and you associate that raising of energy in your system—it’s propelled not only by the physical energy going up, but also by the energy of devotion—into a feeling of complete union with the symbol of awakened mind.

So, this is a way of opening. In the scheme of things it’s a pretty forceful way of entering into a union with awakened mind. Now, if you actually entered into a union with awakened mind, how would you feel? Calm, open, present, is exactly what you experienced, right? That’s the intention of the practice. But what happens is people get caught up in the stories about going to this pure land or that pure land, etc. Thich Nhat Hanh is absolutely right.

Pure lands

Ken: What is a pure land? Now, again, huge translation problems here. I don’t know what the Sanskrit is, I should look that up, but in Tibetan it’s zhing khams (pron shing kham), is the word for pure land. And basically it just means realm or sphere. And, you know, there’s all kinds of pure lands, but what are they operationally?

How many of you have come into the presence of a spiritual teacher, and you felt a shift in you? Okay. So some of you describe that shift. Describe it. Yeah.

Student: Yeah, actually, opening of the heart, intense emotions, at times incredible peace, or heightened sense of senses. All those experiences.

Ken: All those experiences. Anybody else? Somebody else who’s gone into …

Student: As Eleanor will attest, when we first went to see Dr. [unclear] …, I volunteered to drive her over there, and I said, “I’ll sit in.” It has now been seven or eight years. And it has opened a new vision and way of life to me.

Ken: Yeah. So, you felt something when you were there, by the actual experience of just coming into their presence.

Student: Yes, immediately. It was … there’s a reason, sense, and usefulness, and this will help in my life.

Ken: Okay. Now, when we did that meditation this morning of opening, opening, opening, what did you experience in that? Anybody? Anybody feel more peaceful? Felt sensory experience was heightened? A natural opening of compassion? Okay. What’s the connection between these two? [Laughter]

Gee! Now, what we did in that—a group of people, I’m drawing them in a circle just to make it easier—this is one of the great benefits of group practice. Each person generates a field through their own efforts. [Sound of drawing on whiteboard] But as you see, those fields overlap and touch, and a field is generated in the whole thing. So when you do group practice, by practicing with like-minded people who are doing the same thing, you create a field, which everybody can draw on. And it allows many people to make an effort, and to have a deeper experience than they might have just meditating on their own, and practicing on their own. Now, you take a person who’s done a lot of practice. They have stabilized some level of attention in their being. And so they kind of have a field around them all the time.

And when you come into that field, exactly the same kind of thing happens. The level of attention in you resonates with that field. And so now you start experiencing things: more open, more peaceful. And this is wonderful in the Hindu things, you know, you have these people who generate these huge fields and they have hundreds of people who come to them just to sit in their presence. I think it is called darshan or something.

Now, there are certain problems which can come out of this. You want to hang around this person because it makes you feel good. So you get energy junkies, you know. There’s one animal which you all know very well, who is a consummate energy junkie. What’s that? Cats. Yeah. How many of you who have cats find it rather inconvenient because your cat just wants to snuggle up to you when you meditate? What’s going on? They’re going slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp. And they won’t be interested in a bowl of milk. They’re absolute consummate energy junkies. And people are like that.

Since we’re on this topic, I’ll just point out one thing, which unfortunately is all too frequent in dharma centers and retreats. Suppose there’s one person who has one of those little nuclei that I talked about. Let’s use a different color for that. We’ll make it black, I hope this enough of a distinction. Okay. And the general level of attention allows them to feel what is at the core of that nucleus. Okay. But they don’t want to go there, or they aren’t able to stay there with any kind of stability. What happens then? Pardon?

Student: They freak out.

Ken: They freak out. Now, here’s what happens. They create a hole in the field. They can’t hold their attention there. Yet they’re drawing on the energy of the whole group. So what happens is that all of the energy pours into that hole, they freak out far more than they ever would. The term for this is psychotic break. And it’s extremely damaging, not only for the individual, because they’re experiencing that very difficult thing at a much higher level of intensity than they would normally. It also drains all of the energy out of the group, so it affects everybody in the group emotionally and energetically. So, the solution here? If there’s a person in the group that is going in that direction, get them out of there. It’s better for everybody.

I was teaching a retreat in Washington and it was meant to be screened for people who are on medication, and for mental instability. And this woman had filled out the form, and had gone completely through the screening process and wasn’t identified. So, I was teaching this retreat and discovered I had an obsessive compulsive depressive. My retreat manager at that time was a psychotherapist. It’s a very isolated retreat place so that we couldn’t actually get her out. But the two of us together managed to contain her for the period of the retreat. So there wasn’t any damage done, and I was very grateful. And I was also very, very angry with the hosting center, because when they went through, they found that she had described that, and it hadn’t been brought to my attention. Because I would have said, “No, you can’t come to this retreat.” So, this is a very important thing.

But going back to the pure land—this is a pyramid. It’s the field of awareness, which a person who has a deep level of practice generates. And when you walk into that field, it’s like, “Oh, I’ve come home.” “Oh, I see things a different way.” Now this is not talked about in these terms very explicitly, very often. So there’s all kinds of mystery around this, all kinds of projection, all kinds of confusion, but it’s really a very, very simple phenomenon. And if you just become aware of it, then you can benefit from it and not be confused by it. It’s very similar to falling in love. We make up a lot of stories about that too. “Oh, she’s perfect. She’s wonderful. I’ve never met anybody like her,” and things like that. And, you can’t see. Sylvia?

Sylvia: I just wanted to add something. Actually, I work at the University of California Davis, and they actually have a staff program for meditation. And they’ve gotten pretty savvy about it, I guess, because now they actually screen people before they allow you into the class.

Ken: That’s very wise.

Sylvia: It’s run by the staff assistance program, which has psychotherapists. So, the way they explained it to me is you have to be, in case you have any grief issues or other things, then they would prefer that they direct you to a psychotherapist rather than … that meditation can be relaxing for some people, but not necessarily.

Ken: Yeah. And there are ways of working with those difficult feelings in meditation, as we all know, but that’s quite prudent on their part.

So, understand the instruments, but don’t study the instruments purely for the sake of studying the instruments. Unless you just like doing that, that’s fine, but understand the instruments. The big thing with instruments is to understand how to use them. And venerate and honor people that are important in your own spiritual development. That’s very, very helpful, because when you honor them, you are also opening up inside. But don’t let that fall into worship. There needs to be that personal connection of knowing why this person speaks to you, or what in you this person is speaking to. Then it moves in the direction of waking up, and not just in the direction of projection. Okay? Am I being clear here? Okay.

Let’s take a ten-minute break. We’ve covered a lot of stuff here.