The logic of Buddhist lists

Ken: Okay. Precious human birth, eight favorable conditions, and the ten special conditions. Any questions? Any thoughts, reflections, anything you want to look at in connection with that? Jessica?

Jessica: You had mentioned in your email that you might go over the importance of the order.

Ken: Of lists. Yeah.

Jessica: Particularly this one.

Ken: Particularly that one. Yeah, “If I could,” I said. Okay.

Often when I’m looking at the order of these things, I have to sit down and think, there’s always the logic in the order. What is the logic? And to me, what suggests itself is the logic here, is that you’re moving from more obscured to less obscured states. Now, I am going to go in a slightly different direction from Jessica’s question here. The material that we’re working with was formulated and presented in a traditional mythic society, which means that, these realms were really felt to exist. This was their cosmology. This is not our cosmology.

A colleague of mine made the observation that a culture’s cosmology is a reflection of the culture’s psychology. From the way that we approach things, it’s very difficult, and I think virtually impossible, for a person who’s been brought up in a modern reason-based culture to adopt a mythic traditional culture and still function healthily. People almost always revert to things like magical thinking. The two can be incorporated, and that’s essentially what I see us engaged in.

So, one of the things that I hope to be able to at least give you the flavor of, if not actually get you to learn in working with this text, is how to read and understand and think critically about the text. And I don’t mean the sense of critical analysis. I mean how to interpret these texts so that they become alive and meaningful to us in our society and our culture. Not as most of us did originally, we have to move back into Tibetan culture, which I did essentially for about seven or eight years. Not an altogether healthy process, if I may say, process or a thing to do. So, if you look at these, what does hell being correspond to in our thinking?

Student: Anger.

Ken: Anger. Now how present are you when you are consumed by anger?

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay. And the hungry ghost?

Student: Greed.

Ken: Greed and so forth. Pardon? Greed and need. Yeah, and so forth. So, you go through this, looking at these—one way to look at this is—in terms of our life now. Okay, how much of your life are you not angry, not consumed by greed, not preoccupied with survival, not intoxicated by desire or enjoyment, oblivious to the dharma or spiritual practice, skeptical or harboring materialistic or realist ideas, have no sense of any spiritual presence in your life, and are impaired one way or another? So, just in round figures, what proportion of your life are you in none of those states? [Laughter] Anybody? Maybe you should do a poll here. [Laughter] Okay? Yes.

Student: What happened to the titan realm?

Ken: No, it is not explicitly in here. No. You’ll have to ask Nagarjuna; I don’t know. [Laughter] I don’t have an answer to that. I mean, I could say something like, well, it’s subsumed in the preta realm, or it’s subsumed in the god realm ’cause those are ways that it’s subsumed when you take the six realms to five. But I don’t know why they didn’t put it here. So, when you think of this list this way, what happens in you? The way that I just suggested. Okay.

Student: It’s more meaningful … [unclear].

Ken: Anybody else?

Student: It’s about us.

Ken: Not only it’s about us, it’s about us right now. Okay? Now, some of you who worked with me on other texts, know that I have this way of looking at things, but this is how you’ll make traditional text come alive for you. And the question is, “What does this mean to me in terms of my experience right now?” Now, it’s not always obvious. Some of the stuff is so locked up in code over the centuries that it’s actually quite difficult to penetrate. But I would like you to learn how to do that, because it’s going to open up vast areas or vast bodies of texts in a very, very different way. This could be very helpful to you. Any questions about that?

The next one, the five that come through oneself: “As a human, in the country where the dharma exists, with one’s senses and intelligence intact, without karmic compulsions to commit evil deeds, is the person able to have faith in the three jewels.” Well, this is simply a logical sequence. No dharma, or no buddha … Oh, sorry, this is that one. The basis is being human. And then you add each of these things. So, each one of those becomes a smaller and smaller subset.

And it’s the same with the next five: “In an age when a Buddha has appeared, in an age when the Buddha has taught, in an age when the dharma has not declined,” and so forth.

There’s so many talks that I translated for Rinpoche when he would say, “It’s rare that a buddha appears. Even when a buddha appears, it’s rare that he teaches or she teaches. And even when they teach, it’s rare that it lasts for anything more than the lifetime of that person.” And that’s just how he talked. And when you think about this, these are another set of conditions that build one on top of the other. So, by going through that, well yes, there has to be this and there has to be this, and there has to be this. That again reinforces the feeling like, “Oh, this situation shouldn’t be taken for granted.” And that’s the whole thrust of this section. Okay. Does that help? All right. Any questions?

Now in one sense, most of the verses that now follow are very much easier to understand. There aren’t going to be that many technical explanations. I’ll be very happy to answer to the best of my ability, any questions you may have about translation choices, because I know you’ve been comparing various translations. And I think that’s a really good thing because if you don’t compare translations, you’re completely at the mercy of the translator. Yes. George.

George: Apropo of that, what was behind the choice of the term spiritual heir?

Ken: Yeah. See in my version of I have bodhisattva. Is it up on the web? Does it have spiritual heir?

George: No, I think the version I had was from Sunday, the last—

Ken: Oh yeah. Okay. Now the name of the text in Tibetan is: rgyal sras lag len. And it’s worth talking about the title a little bit, rgyal sras lag len gsum cu so gdun (pron. gyal sé la(g) len sum so dün). gsum cu so gdun is just 37. lag len means literally to take in hand. So, that’s often been translated as practice. But you take it in hand, lag tu len pa (pron. la(g) tu len pa). lag is the word for hand; len is to take. So, you take in hand. There may be others; it could also be translated as application.

And then the term rgyal sras is an epithet for bodhisattva. rgyal sras means the king’s son or prince. In this case the king is buddha. So, it is the buddha’s son. It’s a masculine-oriented term. And so the trouble is, okay, how do you translate? And it’s the idea that bodhisattvas are the offspring of buddha. You have buddhas. And what do buddhas produce? They produce bodhisattvas. And then the bodhisattvas grow up into buddhas and they produce more bodhisattvas. It’s a family metaphor, royal family metaphor, actually. So, the question for me then was, okay, well son is a totally gender-biased translation, and in today’s age, nix.

And so offspring doesn’t sound right. I suppose you could translate it as scion, but that has another connotation. So, I settled on heir as the best that I could do, even though strictly speaking, the feminine of heir is heiress. But you can get away with it. But in the end, after struggling with that, then I just said, “The hell with this, we’re just going to shift it back to bodhisattva and make it simple.” And that’s a typical problem that one faces as a translator. You have all of these terms which have different flavors, but sometimes just the way the languages are structured, it’s very difficult to carry it across. Okay? Now. Yes?

Student: In that case, what’s the difference in the meaning between rgyal sras and geshe?

Ken: Oh. They are two different words. rgyal sras is son of the king. Okay? dge shes (pron. gé shé); shes is the word to know, and dge is the word for virtue. So, one who knows virtue, and it’s equivalent to a PhD in Buddhist theology or whatever. So, they’re totally different words, even though they sound—I mean Tibetan is a terrible language because everything sounds the same to our ear, but they’re actually very significant differences, rgyal sras and dge shes.

Leaving your homeland

Ken: Okay, anything else? Okay, verse two or practice two:

Attraction to those close to you catches you in its currents;
Aversion to those who oppose you burns inside;
Indifference that ignores what needs to be done is a black hole.
Leave your homeland—this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 2

So, over the week you were going to study or/and reflect and meditate on this. So, what were the results?

Student: I have resistance to leaving my homeland. I see that, and I think, “This is why I can never do this.”

Ken: Okay. Anybody else? Julia?

Julia: Well, I have left my homeland. [Laughter] But what was interesting to me here was this sense of pervasive taking for granted likes and dislikes in different places.

Ken: Okay, can you expand on that? And speak up so we catch it.

Julia: Well, when I think of leaving England, there’s a whole set of things in England that you like and don’t like because you’re English [laughter], including Americans [laughter]. And it’s the same here.

Ken: Except the French [laughter].

Julia: But I realized on a personal level, that operated very strongly. So, although I’d left my homeland, I still had a whole other series of things that I had likes and dislikes about here. So, when I’m back in England, there’s a whole set of things I can complain about. And when I’m here, there’s a whole other set of things I can complain about.

Ken: So, the cultural and social conditioning of likes and dislikes. Okay. Anybody else? Deborah?

Deborah: When I was reading the commentaries about the homeland, it occurred to me that perhaps the homeland is not necessarily a physical place … [Unclear] It’s more internal. That’s where I was seeing it. It could be ignorance, it could be … [unclear], could be my identity. It’s somehow the way that I see things. I can’t abandon that … [unclear].

Ken: Okay, so different interpretations of homeland. Okay, Peri?

Peri: Well, I sort of saw myself as taking up residence in lots of different places all the time. I’m either making my home attraction, making my home aversion or spending lots of time in indifference. And those were, and so, if I leave all of three behind … [unclear].

Ken: Okay. Steve?

Steve: I was curious, why, if there’s a significance to attraction to those close to you, as opposed to attraction? Like what is that?

Ken: Okay, well that’s a translation point. So, let me comment on that. Tibetan is full of redundancies. And we would tend to say—and it’s good that you’re bringing this up because one gets absorbed in it, so used to it, you don’t think about it and then you miss that it isn’t quite English. The idea is that you hang out with a group of people because you’re attracted to them. So, the ones you’re attracted to are the ones that become close to you. And that’s why it’s attraction to those close to you. They’re the ones that you draw around you. So, family, friends, colleagues, so forth. And it would be better, actually, it might be better to translate attraction to those who accord with you, because then it would get the construction in the next sentence, aversion to those who oppose you. That might actually be a better translation. Sue?

Sue: One of the other versions used, attached to your love ones, you’re stirred up like water.

Ken: Yes. Yeah, pardon?

Student: That sounds sort of the same.

Ken: There’s a reason that I don’t use attached, even though a lot of people do and you hear about attachment, attachment, attachment. You can be attached to things you don’t like. You can be really attached to things you don’t like. And so that’s one piece. And that particular translation is at what I would say the surface level, or the surface level is too unkind. It would be the outer level. And it’s basically what it literally means. You have these people you care about and because you care about them, you get caught up in all of the stuff, you follow?

Levels of interpretation in Tibetan texts

Ken: As we’re discussing this, I’m thinking it may be interesting to translate this so that it has a little more ambiguity to it, a little freer translation. Rather than attraction to those close to you, you could say attraction to what accords with you, because we get caught up internally as well. And that may not be actually out there.

And Deborah raised this point in her comment about homeland. One of the things that some of you probably seen in translation of Tibetan texts is levels of interpretation. And there are typically three or four levels of interpretation. There are probably additional ones, but these are the three or four main ones. In three, it’s: outer, inner, and secret or mystery level. And if there’s four, it’s: outer, inner, secret, and ultimate.

Now, if we play with this one in that framework, the outer interpretation would be people I love and care about, and I get caught up on all of that. And the people I don’t like to hang out with, my own anger gets me all upset, you know how that is, and so forth. The inner level—there’s a number of ways you could take it—might be aspects of my experience that I like and I try to hold on to, and things in my experience I try to get rid of. So, now instead of being external objects, it’s experience, which includes thoughts, feelings, sensations. And then at the secret level—because I’ll just do a three on this one—it might be attraction itself, the very dynamic of attraction, the very dynamic of aversion, the very dynamic of indifference.

So, that’s another way to be alert to interpreting these texts is on those levels. And if you’re alert to that, it’ll always bring you into a way of reading the text that means something to you personally. And it may mean a lot to you personally at different levels of your practice. Do you follow? Okay, do you have a question then?

Student: Well, I just have a comment on homeland. When I think about it, it reminds me of comfort zone, or reactive patterns, sort of getting out of your comfort zone.

Ken: Well, let me talk about homeland a little bit. One of Milarepa’s more famous sayings is, “If you want to work out your anger, you have to leave your homeland.” And he meant it absolutely, literally. Why?

Student: Because of the charged memories and charged experiences that condition your reactions.

Ken: And I think that’s basically the case. That’s where we grew up. How difficult is it to undo all of that early conditioning? [Laughs] It’s really hard. I’ve worked with some people who engage spiritual practice and keep bringing to me their really difficult family interactions. And after a while I say to them, “Trying to work through this stuff when you’re interacting with your family like this, is basically like trying to windsurf in a hurricane. In theory it’s possible.” [Laughter]

It is really, really difficult because the stuff is being re-triggered and reinforced all the time. So, this is one of the reasons why retreat is really very, very important. Retreat serves many functions, but one of them is that it gets you out of that stuff. Now absolutely, you carry it all with you, but the external circumstances aren’t there to keep re-triggering it. You may have plenty of internal circumstances which keep re-triggering it, but at least you got rid of one set of re-triggering things.

The value of retreats

Ken: So, that’s one of the reasons we do retreats. We get right out of the city environment, we get to another place and everybody knows that. Everybody’s come to one of these retreats knows this because when you get right out of the city, there’s a whole bunch of conditioning—just to the way that Julia was talking about—which you are able to drop. Often it takes a day or two to drop it, but the cell phone doesn’t work, so you stop doing it, and you can’t access the internet, so you stop checking email and the phones …

I remember organizing a retreat for Jamgön Kongtrül at Mount Baldy. Kongtrül— unfortunately he was killed in a car accident—he was a really wonderful teacher. And normally he’d be traveling around and he’d be teaching, but every minute of his day was filled with phone calls from all over the world and people wanting interviews and things like that. So, we set up this retreat over Thanksgiving weekend at Mount Baldy. We crammed 55 people into Mount Baldy, every nook and cranny.

And Kongtrül said to me during the retreat, “This is really nice. Nobody can reach me here. I like this. This is very restful.” And he could focus solely on teaching. And it was a wonderful retreat. People who came to it said it was the best thing that he’d done in his whole North America tour because people had actual interaction with him. He’d did interviews with everybody. Had one poor guy sitting out in the snow banging a gong at the end of five minutes. [Laughs]

But that’s why we go into a retreat, is to get out of the actual external circumstances. Theoretically, yeah, it’s totally possible, but it’s actually more difficult. And I know from my own experience that getting away, at least for some period, from that re-triggering of family stuff. Well, when you’re in your family environment, there are a whole bunch of things that you just take for granted and you don’t question. It’s really, really hard to see until you get away. So, there is an element of actually getting out of your homeland.

There’s another interesting point of this. Any of you heard the expression: a prophet is never recognized in his own country? A prophet is never recognized in his own country. Why?

Student: Because they’re used to him, and they know him … [unclear].

Ken: Yeah, that’s just the kid next door [laughs]. And it is actually quite exceptional because all of that stuff is there. And out of this I hope you can begin to appreciate just how heavy the conditioning can be. It really is. Now, there are other levels of interpretation, as Deborah pointed out.

There’s the internal homeland, which is the way that we’re use to—somebody used the term comfort zone—how we’re used to doing things, how we’re used to approaching things. And as long as you want to stay in that, there’s the limit to how much you will be able to understand and learn and experience spiritually. Why? How does spiritual practice regard a comfort zone? Asleep. It’s a place where you’re asleep, so you’re going to have to leave there. You’re going to have to get out of bed. Sorry.

Are you willing to leave your homeland?

Ken: And then, as Deborah pointed out, there are the deeper levels. There is this ignorance and all of the habituation connected to that, which is actually a very difficult homeland to leave because it’s so intertwined or embedded in us. And it’s precisely because of this verse that when people express an interest in spiritual practice, I ask them, “What are you prepared to pay?” You’ve heard me ask that before. Okay? It’s another way of saying, “How prepared are you to leave your homeland?”

And most people don’t want to. In fact, most people won’t. And that places an absolute limit on how far they can go in their experience of how things are. Why? Because how things are, is not how we were brought up to consider them. I mean, what do we have in the Heart Sutra? Form and emptiness. Experience is empty. Well, that’s not what you’re taught in school. It’s not what you’re taught in your family. And so in order to come to those understandings, you have to leave those areas of conditioning behind. So, this is very important. Yes?

Dave: All of those interpretations pretty much hit me, as well as this one. And it’s concerning those internal attachments.

Ken: Yes.

Dave: And leaving my homeland in a sense implies an external action. You can correct me if I’m way off on this. But I took it and I have an example of this. Well I’ll give the example because it explains it more clearly. I was completely identified with my business, totally attached to it, it’s my baby. I started it five years ago and I realized that and I struggled with trying to separate, trying not to be so identified. And what finally allowed me some space to be less identified was actually planning to sell it to one of my employees—the escape plan. And as soon as that was implemented, that I’m going to potentially be out in three years, the identification is diminished.

Ken: Yes.

Dave: And it seemed to require that external action of making the plan of externalizing the internal attachment and breaking it both ways, outer and inner at the same time. And I took this to one possible interpretation being along those lines.

Ken: I think that’s a very good point, Dave. The piece that I really want to focus on is you have to take action. This doesn’t happen by itself. You may not have been aware of how deeply attached you were to your business. And then when you went, “Okay, I suppose I can sell this?” Well now, it was an actual separation and it brought you in touch with all of those internal attachments in a way that you couldn’t have seen them before.

Does it always need to be an explicit external action? Probably not. But there has to be something which brings all of that internal stuff into relief and requires making a gesture of separation. Now, that’s actually what’s at the heart of refuge. One of Trungpa’s favorite interpretations of taking refuge is you become a refugee. What does a refugee do? A refugee leaves their homeland. Why? Because it’s intolerable. And does a refugee know where they’re going? No. So, it’s a very good metaphor. Steve?

Steve: One thing, another perspective of it, I was thinking of it, every time I’ve left my homeland, for a couple months, things seem a lot better in the new land.

Ken: That’s right.

Steve: And then I realize that it’s the same.

Ken: Well, we bring it inside.

Steve: So, then I took that and said, we’re really talking, really more of the internal, at least for me that is.

Ken: Yeah, it really is helpful to do it externally. You have to do it internally. The real effort is there. Susan?

Susan: I was thinking of homeland internally as well, in the sense of how I define myself and my experience.

Ken: Yeah.

Susan: And then I was realizing that you can’t really have the three poisons unless you think you’re somebody and that your experience is something.

The structure of conditioning

Ken: That’s right. If I may pick up on that? One of the points I wanted to bring out in respect to this particular verse is a way of seeing the structure of our conditioning. There’s base level ignorance, which … you want to experience base-level ignorance? It’s very simple. What are you? Well, what happens?

Student: Your mind stops.

Ken: And what do you experience?

Student: Space. Fear.

Ken: Yeah. Actually before the fear, you experience not knowing. That’s base-level ignorance [laughs]. Okay? Now, that base-level ignorance, because you cannot open to your own non-existence, because if you were open to that, you know what you are, nothing. Know it and experience that, that would be fine. Because you can’t open to that, a sense of other arises, and as soon as a sense of other arises, a sense of self forms in opposition to the other. That level of ignorance is called proliferating habituation. Nice fancy technical term. It’s where the dualistic mind develops.

So, you have basic ignorance, and then you have this proliferating habituation ignorance, which is where dualism is formed. And as Susan was just saying, as soon as you have a sense of self, then you have the three poisons. Because now experience becomes interpreted in terms of what supports the sense of self—attraction—what threatens the sense of self—aversion—what is neutral to the sense of self—I don’t care, indifference; you don’t pay attention to that.

Student: So, maybe when you have a homeland is when these things happen?

Ken: No. This is all the creating of the homeland, but the homeland reinforces this whole structure very, very powerfully. Above that, then you have the six emotional reactions. In other words, the six realms, which are: anger and jealousy coming out of aversion; desire and greed coming out of attraction; and instinct and pride, or stupidity and pride, coming out of indifference. Okay? So, that’s the basic structure. Michelle?

Michelle: Does leaving your homeland, whether it’s literal or metaphorical, also mean that you lose a degree of attachment that you might otherwise have?

Ken: It creates the possibility for that to happen. It doesn’t happen automatically.

Michelle: I was thinking in the literal sense because my dad is a Holocaust survivor and by the time he was 16, he had lived on three continents and spoken five languages. And he’s the most easily adaptable person. And so even though that’s very literal, there’s clearly something in that, that enabled him not to attach.

Ken: Yes. But it also says something about your father because there are a lot of other people who went through exactly the same experience and ended up very, very attached. Two people can have the same experience and there are two very, very different things. So, that’s why I say it creates the possibility. And that’s really what we’re trying to do in practice, is to create conditions or generate conditions which create possibilities, and then hopefully take advantage of the possibilities. Okay. So, have we flogged this one to death? [Laughter] Okay.

Student: Can I ask you one more thing?

Ken: No, I was going to ask you one thing, but you go ahead first then I’ll get you.

Student: How many times can you leave your homeland? Because it seems to me that I’ve left mine once, then I create a new one. Then you leave that one. I mean at what stage …?

Ken: Well, this is the Mark Twain theory of quitting cigarette smoking, isn’t it?

Student: Yes. It’s always sweeter when it’s the last cigarette?

Ken: No, it’s, “Ask me about quitting cigarette smoking. I’m an expert. I’ve done it at least 50 times.”

Student: Right, okay.

Ken: You only have to leave it once.

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Don’t go back [laughs].

Student: We keep recreating it, don’t we?

Ken: Yeah, stop doing that.

Student: It’s probably the same homeland every time.

Ken: Basically. Yup.

Student: Okay. Just checking.

Student experiences

Ken: Okay, now. [Laughter] So, you’ve got a pretty good understanding of this. What was it like to really reflect on this or to meditate on this? What happened then? Julia?

Julia: I started to feel homesick. [Laughter]

Ken: Okay. It was becoming real then?

Julia: Yes.

Ken: Yes. Good. Okay. Anybody else? Susan.

Susan: Started to see all the different areas I’m still very much sleeping.

Ken: Okay, good, good. Yeah, John?

John: I feel very frustrated because I don’t know how to unload it all.

Ken: Let’s come to that one. Okay.

Peter: To me, it all kind of came around and circled right into indifference. I realized .. [unclear] I just kept coming back. So, it was focusing.

Ken: It brought some clarity to you?

Peter: Yeah. No matter how I looked at it, as I went through different levels of looking at it, it always seemed that … [unclear] that was the lowest point where everything fell into place. That was the most central. And at first it didn’t seem like it was as important, but then I realized, oh, yeah.

Ken: This is really important.

Peter: This is really important.

Ken: Yeah. So, you found a well that you fall into, did you?

Peter: Yeah.

Ken: Okay, good. So, you got clear about the nature of your homeland.

Peter: Yeah.

Ken: It’s a black hole. [Laughter] You know the property of a black hole, don’t you? Light can’t get out [aughter]. Light can’t get out.

Peter: Right.

Ken: It’s a long way from illuminating the world there, Peter.

Peter: Strangely, it wasn’t that depressing.

Ken: Okay, Nava?

Nava: It made me to know what I need to do. Very hard things that I need to do. And just also realizing that it happens every moment. Every moment I have to leave my home, every … [unclear].

Ken: Okay.

Student: The image to me it was like a turtle trying to leave it’s shell.

Ken: [Laughs] A little difficult. Okay, how do you leave your homeland?

Student: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay, yes. You remind me—I may have told you this before—one night I was translating for Rinpoche. We were being hosted by a nice middle class family in a good part of Vancouver. And it’s a typical Vancouver winter day. It was raining, it was cold, it was not a lot of thunder, but just this nasty cold, windy rain. And we were inside, and there was a nice fire, and we’d have a nice dinner. And after that, we were in the living room, and the husband in the family said to Rinpoche, “So, tell me what Buddhism is about.”

And Rinpoche said—he didn’t do this kind of thing very often but every now and then he did—he said, “Right now we’ve just had a really nice meal, and we’re sitting around here warm. Imagine what it would be like to have to take off all your clothes, and walk out into that stormy rain and all that cold, knowing you could never come back. Death’s much worse than that.” [Laughter]

Student: What was the reaction to that?

Ken: I was like, “Thank you.” [Laughter] I mean, Katagiri Roshi did the same thing, more or less, in Minnesota. They had this big fundraising thing, and so they had all of the elite of the city, and champagne and flowers, and everybody was dressed beautifully, and they had this nice thing. And the way they have the fundraisers, everybody gathers around and then the star, whoever you’re fundraising for, comes down and makes the little short little address then goes away, and then you put the squeeze on for the money, right? Standard formula.

So, anyway, so everything was beautiful, and so time for Katagiri Roshi to make his entrance. And he comes down the stairs and stands in the middle of the stairs addressing everybody, and says, “You know that you’re all going to die, don’t you?” [Laughter] It was not a very successful fundraiser. [Laughter] Okay. Yes.

Student: So, when you leave your homeland and you’re naked, does this mean Genesis is a metaphor for homeland?

Ken: It’s not the reading I put on Genesis, if you’re interested. The reading I put on genesis is that it’s the arising of ordinary consciousness from pristine awareness. And once that’s happened, you cannot go back. You’ve got to undo all of the habituation. And the rising of ordinary consciousness arises when you focus on one thing instead of open to everything. So, that’s what happened. Now, there are probably other layers in there too, but that’s my reading of Genesis. I see it as a little different from this. Okay, we’ve got to rush through the next two. Is this discussion helpful?

Student: Mm-hmm.

Disturbances and distractions

Ken:

Don’t engage disturbances and reactive emotions gradually fade away; Don’t engage distractions and spiritual practice naturally grows;
Keep awareness clear and vivid and confidence in the way arises.
Rely on silence—this is the practice of a bodhisattva.

37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, Tokmé Zongpo, verse 3

Yeah, that’s what I thought it was. Okay. Now we’re probably going to have a similarly involved discussion here. A little translation point. Strictly speaking, the English is not what it should be. The Tibetan reads, If you don’t engage disturbances, reactive emotions gradually fade away. But to me that particular construction in English doesn’t carry any power: if this, then that.

So, I wanted to translate it into something which had more power to it. So, that’s why I put it into this incorrect English where I have two principle clauses in the same sentence, but I hope you’ll excuse me. Don’t engage disturbances and reactive emotions gradually fade away. What’s your take?

Art: [Unclear]

Ken: Okay. Anybody else?

Student: Watch them rise and watch them fall away without engaging in the story.

Ken: Okay.

Student: As internal crutches.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Art: Engaging with them gives them more energy.

Ken: Mm-hmm. Julia?

Julia: I was thinking about two things. One was don’t go looking for trouble.

Ken: Because it’ll find you. [Laughs]

Julia: And the other one is that line from the prayer: In the end, you should let confusion subside on it’s own. So, you don’t get stuck to it.

Ken: Okay, these are all right. Several of you are interpreting this at quite a deep level. Let’s start at the first level, which is along the lines where Art was. And this is really basic Theravadan stuff, but it’s just true. In the Theravadan tradition, one of the ways it’s thought is that you become aware of negative mind states. And you just make a point of tracking negative mind states. Don’t try to change them. You just take a point of tracking, being aware, “When am I in a negative mind state?” Now this is a very interesting little thing to do. When you’re aware of a negative mind state, are you in a negative mind state? No. You’ve started to step out of it. Now you’re just aware of it. And so in this approach in the Theravadan, the idea is you start reducing the amount of time you spend in negative mind states. And that by itself creates a condition for other states, other more constructive states to arise.

Now, someone asked me once, “Why are there 37 practices?” I don’t know how he arrived at 37, except that the only time 37 crops up in Buddhism is the 37 factors of enlightenment, I can’t remember them all, but I remember the first eight. First four are the four foundations of mindfulness, and the second four are called the four right efforts—there are other names for them.

Now, the four right efforts are very simple. The first one is: reduce those things which are making things worse. The second one is: stop those things which are making things worse. The third one is: start doing things which make things better. And the fourth one is: reinforce those things which make things better.

Now, when you see it in the traditional thing, it’s worded a little more obscurely or a little more Victorian English, usually in translation. But when you think about that, it just makes such wonderful common sense. Why wouldn’t anybody do that? Do we? No. We continue to do things which make things worse, and lo and behold things get worse.[Laughter]

Student: What was that again? The 37 factors—

Ken: 37 factors of enlightenment. I mean, you can type it into Google and sometimes it’ll be 37 branches of enlightenment, so just put enlightenment and 37 [laughs].

Student: I actually have it right here.

Ken: Yeah, and this is a list that runs through all traditions of Buddhism. So, it’s a very good list to know intimately. Of course, I don’t know it, but in the Vajrayana level, when you’re doing the really elaborate visualizations, you visualize this palace in which the deity resides. Well, the palace is made up of stuff, each part of which symbolizes the 37 factors of enlightenment. So, it’s basically the house of enlightenment. So, you have these beams symbolize that. And these features of the house symbolize that. Every architectural feature represents one of the 37 factors.

So, then the next one is:

Don’t engage distractions and spiritual practice naturally grows.

That’s very similar. So, this is like, reduce those things which are making things worse. That’s the first line. And the second one is, stop doing those things which make things worse. And third one:

Keep awareness clear and vivid and confidence in the way arises.

What was your experience there? [Pause] A couple of people haven’t spoken up. Joe. Yes.

Joe: Seems a lot harder to hold onto than do the negative construction of the first two lines.

Ken: Why is that? Why is it harder to hold onto?

Joe: I suppose it involves looking at something that I can’t quite get a grasp of.

Ken: I think that’s right. Keep awareness clear and vivid. Okay, trick question: what’s there to hold onto there? Anybody?

Student: Nothing.

Ken: Nothing. It’s really hard. What does the Tibetan say here? Yeah, I don’t know what level Gyalse Tokmé was conveying, but this actually can be interpreted as an extraordinarily deep instruction. I mean, mahamudra and dzogchen. Keep awareness clear and vivid and confidence in the way arises. That’s the whole Vajrayana path right there, if you want. That’s all you have to do. Just keep your awareness clear and vivid. That’s it. You can go home now. Molly?

Molly: How do you know, before you even get to the awareness part, how do you even know when you’re distracted, came to my mind. And I guess my answer to my question, I think, is that you can just be as aware as possible at all times. Then when you’re distracted, you’re aware when you’re not really there.

Ken: Okay, can you be aware of being distracted? How many say “yes”? We’ll have a vote here? How many say “yes,” you can be aware of being distracted? Pay very careful attention to my English. Can you be aware of being distracted? Can you be aware of having been distracted? [Laughter] Ah, okay.

When we’re distracted, when we’re in the distraction, there is no awareness. And we all know this in our meditation. There we are, happily meditating, maybe we’re sitting in clear awareness. And now I’m down at the Santa Monica Pier. [Laughter]

Student: How did I get there? [Laughter]

Ken: Exactly. I mean, Jamgön Kongtrül the Great writes, in his biography, “I was sitting in a ritual one day and suddenly I had this experience of a past life.” And just all the detail and everything like that. “And then I came back to the temple and realized I’d just been distracted.” [Laughter]

Student: Sometimes you can see a little thought come up and you don’t have to attach to it.

Ken: That’s right. But that’s all you get. [Laughter] And if you don’t do it then …

Student: It’s all over.

Ken: Yeah. You remember the story about the monk and the clothes factory in my book? Well, the monk and his teacher are coming along and the teacher says, “This would be a really good place for you to practice. So, you just practice here. I’ll come back, see how you’re doing”. So, the monk sits down and it’s a perfect place. It’s a little bit outside the town so he can go and beg for alms, and things like that. Just right according to all the conditions.

Teacher comes back two years later. But things look a little different. He’s not quite sure where the village is. There’s a whole town there and there’s trucks rumbling back and forth, and there weren’t any trucks before. And he goes to where he thinks the tree was, but there’s now huge buildings and warehouses and there’s this great big glass tower. And he goes, “What happened here?” And eventually he finds somebody because everybody’s rushing around with their cell phones and blackberries and things. He says: “I’m looking for so-and-so.”

“Oh,” says the person. “He’s in that building.” So, he walks in the building and there’s the concierge. And he goes up to the concierge, and says, “I’m looking for so-and-so.” “Do you have an appointment?” “No, no, I’m his teacher.” “Oh, well I’m sure he’ll make time for you.” He calls up and says, “Go into the elevator, get off on the 10th floor.” Gets off on the 10th floor. There’s this magnificent office. And in this office there was this beautiful view and everything. Comes in, and there’s his student, sitting impeccably dressed in this wonderful business suit and couple of aides with him and he’s giving dictation. And the teacher looks at this, lightly clears his throat. The student looks up and says, “Oh dear. It all started when I thought I needed a new robe.” [Laughter]

Student: A new what?

Ken: Robe. So, all you get is that thought, and after that you’re gone. Okay? So, Keep awareness clear and vivid. Now this next line: Confidence in the way arises. I was wondering what I was going to talk about this evening, but there seems to be plenty here.

Three kinds of faith

Ken: There are three kinds of faith. There’s faith, which is based on rational understanding. There’s faith which comes out of a sense of longing.

Student: A sense of what?

Ken: Longing, longing for understanding, for presence, what have you. It’s the faith which comes out of that. And then there’s faith, which is just like a kind of open clarity. Now, the ability to keep awareness clear and vivid and confidence in the way are intimately connected. The more confidence you have in the way, the more you can rest in open, clear awareness, holding on to nothing. And just as it says here, the more you rest holding on to nothing, the more you see and understand the way things are. And that gives you confidence in the way. So, this is a very, very intimate relationship.

Now, the last line there: Rely on silence. The word in Tibetan literally means isolation. It means getting away. So, this is not just leaving your homeland, this is being isolated. And it’s discussed in terms of different levels of isolation: isolation from external busyness, isolation from internal distractions, isolation from the very activities of mind itself. I don’t like to use the term isolation because it has this idea of fencing off or getting away from. And so I elected to translate it as silence, which I think more accurately conveys the meaning and the feeling of it. And maybe you’ll recall something that I’ve mentioned to many of you in the past. Where does the silence go when noise begins?

Student: It’s still there.

Ken: Yeah, it’s still there. What we tend to do is we stop listening to the silence and our attention goes to the noise. We collapse down onto the noise. In your practice and in your life, if you can be connecting with the silence in everything you do, that’s going to give a tremendous continuity to your practice. You can do this by observing space. That’s silence at the physical level. Whenever there’s noise, make a point of listening to silence. I can hear it, while there is noise. And that’s going to change your relationship to whatever noise there is. When there are thoughts, well, wherever there are thoughts, there’s also non-thought. That’s the silence. Can you be aware of that while there are thoughts? If you can do that, you’ll never go to sleep, you’ll never be distracted. So, there’s a lot of depth here in terms of instruction. Deborah?

Deborah: Isn’t that like blue sky?

Ken: Yeah. Opening to the sky is a way of doing that. And that’s one of the reasons you do that is because you get so used to that huge sky. It is deeply habituated in you from doing that practical all the time, that you begin to relate to everything with that sense. And it makes a very big difference. Okay.

Okay, we’ll stop here. Questions? Number four. So, we’ll do four, five, six and seven for next week. Yeah, that’ll be fine, I think.

And as we did this time, clearly you’re thinking about it and working with it at various levels. It’s very good. And I’d like to encourage you to keep doing that because in doing so, you’re learning how to read and understand this text in a way that becomes alive for you. And then when you turn to other texts, you’re going to find that same quality. It’ll also helps you tremendously in being able to detect what’s bullshit. Because people’s writings that don’t resonate at various levels simultaneously, tells you immediately their level of experience.