1 00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:16,650 To enter the human experience is to enter a great forgetting. 2 00:00:18,730 --> 00:00:24,970 The veil of the conditioned mind obscures the truth of who we really are, 3 00:00:28,050 --> 00:00:34,210 casting us into a world of separation, limitation and doubt. 4 00:00:36,370 --> 00:00:42,050 So who are you really? Are you just a mind living in a body, 5 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:48,210 navigating through life, trying to find happiness and avoiding suffering? 6 00:00:48,210 --> 00:00:54,860 Or maybe something else entirely, something much deeper, something eternal. 7 00:00:54,860 --> 00:01:00,180 Something that can't be explained in words. Something that when realized 8 00:01:00,180 --> 00:01:06,720 brings true peace and true fulfillment.  Here we're going to look beyond the veil 9 00:01:06,720 --> 00:01:12,220 of the mind, beyond thoughts and sensations, to find out the truth 10 00:01:12,220 --> 00:01:15,632 of who we really are. 11 00:01:33,392 --> 00:01:37,392 So what is the mind? 12 00:01:37,792 --> 00:01:44,430 Throughout history, this question has been  asked countless times. From humanity's 13 00:01:44,430 --> 00:01:49,790 earliest spiritual and scientific inquiries the human mind has been 14 00:01:49,790 --> 00:01:55,380 conceptualized and understood in various ways across different cultures. 15 00:01:55,380 --> 00:02:01,580 Humans have used philosophy, psychological and scientific theories as well as 16 00:02:01,580 --> 00:02:08,280 methods of direct investigation to penetrate the mind's secrets.. to find out 17 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:14,790 who we are beyond the mind and body. Ordinarily we think of mind as being 18 00:02:14,790 --> 00:02:19,220 maybe something inside the head like the brain and it's do with thinking 19 00:02:19,220 --> 00:02:27,505 and cognition but the mind is much deeper than this. The mind is actually duality. 20 00:02:28,155 --> 00:02:33,260 It's also known as Maya or Illusion. It's also known as ego. 21 00:02:33,900 --> 00:02:41,050 In Latin the word ego means simply "I". When the sense of "I" is limited to some 22 00:02:41,050 --> 00:02:47,915 thing it is maya, illusion, but when it's unlimited... when it wakes up as 23 00:02:47,915 --> 00:02:53,920 consciousness itself, within which all phenomena arises and passes away, 24 00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:59,470 then there's no longer an identification with a separate "I". 25 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:06,920 The true meaning of the word "I" is infinite awareness, infinite consciousness 26 00:03:06,920 --> 00:03:13,410 That's the only "I" or the only Self there is. However for most of us 27 00:03:13,410 --> 00:03:19,670 our sense of our self has become so entangled in the content of experience... 28 00:03:19,670 --> 00:03:25,560 thoughts, images, feelings, and so on, that we don't perceive ourself as we 29 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:32,760 essentially and originally are. But we know ourselves in a modified way... mixed 30 00:03:32,760 --> 00:03:39,970 with the content of experience. And this mixture of the true and only "I" of infinite 31 00:03:39,970 --> 00:03:44,940 awareness or infinite Consciousness with the content of experience makes for this 32 00:03:44,940 --> 00:03:51,230 illusory self which is what is usually referred to as the the ego or the 33 00:03:51,230 --> 00:03:57,710 separate self. The ego is an idea very persistent very strong, very solid, that 34 00:03:57,710 --> 00:04:04,860 we are a person... a separate entity inside a body mind. Or sometimes 35 00:04:04,860 --> 00:04:10,381 we think to be just a body mind. The ego is an aspect of the mind which forms 36 00:04:10,381 --> 00:04:17,510 at a young age and it's that aspect which gives us a sense of I am an individual me. 37 00:04:17,510 --> 00:04:25,820 The ego is literally a made up entity and it's not real and it's that which 38 00:04:25,820 --> 00:04:34,460 we identify as the body. It's the part of the mind that thinks it's separate. 39 00:04:34,460 --> 00:04:42,790 The ego is the personal sense of me but it's not the true self. 40 00:04:43,750 --> 00:04:49,630 It's a whole imagined construct of me it's not ultimately who I am. Ultimately 41 00:04:49,630 --> 00:04:58,279 who I am is that which is deeper and this underlying presence that's always here. 42 00:04:58,869 --> 00:05:05,600 The dualistic mind is made of two fundamental aspects... the witness and 43 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:11,540 what is witnessed. There's the phenomena of the world made up of sensations 44 00:05:11,540 --> 00:05:17,930 perceptions and egoic preferences, and then there's the sense that there's an "I" 45 00:05:17,930 --> 00:05:25,110 that is separate, witnessing. Awakening is waking up from this duality... from the 46 00:05:25,110 --> 00:05:32,260 split between witness and witnessed. Between subject and object, to realize 47 00:05:32,260 --> 00:05:38,710 primordial awareness that is ever present. 48 00:05:38,710 --> 00:05:45,600 If you look at young children, young  children don't have an ego and they live 49 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:50,730 in a state of participation. They live in a state of exhilaration, because 50 00:05:50,730 --> 00:05:54,590 they are not separate to the world. 51 00:05:54,930 --> 00:06:01,130 When we're born we're dependent and we don't yet have conceptual thinking. 52 00:06:01,130 --> 00:06:06,709 As we develop, we develop concepts and what's called self-awareness, which is the 53 00:06:06,709 --> 00:06:12,040 ability to reflect on what we're doing in order to become independent. 54 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:16,880 So that thinking process becomes this internal identity. 55 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:23,640 The formation of the ego begins soon after birth. We begin to develop a personal 56 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:31,790 identity which we eventually call "I" or "me". The mirror stage in human 57 00:06:31,790 --> 00:06:38,740 development is the point at which a child recognizes themself in a mirror, usually 58 00:06:38,740 --> 00:06:46,050 around 6 to 18 months of age. And it is just one part of the formation of the ego 59 00:06:46,050 --> 00:06:52,710 via the process of identification. It's not that we get our ego from recognizing 60 00:06:52,710 --> 00:06:59,390 a character in the mirror. It's part of a socialization process or conditioning 61 00:06:59,390 --> 00:07:07,730 as those around us begin to treat us as a  separate person, as a separate "I". 62 00:07:07,730 --> 00:07:13,870 We learn to identify a sense of "I" through the sensations that arise on the body, 63 00:07:13,870 --> 00:07:21,740 through perception and conceptualization of things. The mind divides and separates 64 00:07:21,740 --> 00:07:28,020 one thing from another, and then we develop preferences towards those things. 65 00:07:28,020 --> 00:07:34,050 Some things we like, some some things we don't like. This "I" becomes our 66 00:07:34,050 --> 00:07:40,140 individual separate and unique identity as we move through life. 67 00:07:40,140 --> 00:07:44,250 It is the story of who we believe we are. 68 00:07:44,250 --> 00:07:48,430 And the consciousness that we are, starts to believe it when we are very young. 69 00:07:48,430 --> 00:07:54,965 When we are children and it grows with us  until we are completely convinced 70 00:07:54,965 --> 00:08:00,930 to be a person. As people grow and move towards adolescent and into adulthood they 71 00:08:00,930 --> 00:08:06,760 develop a sense of separation; a sense of being an "I" who lives inside their heads. 72 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:15,980 So they become separate egos who live in a state of wanting, 73 00:08:15,980 --> 00:08:21,130 a state of incompleteness, whose lives  are dominated by a desire to 74 00:08:21,130 --> 00:08:25,990 accumulate things to compensate for their incompleteness. 75 00:08:25,990 --> 00:08:31,350 It's the mind that causes all the issues all the problems. The mind is a power 76 00:08:31,350 --> 00:08:35,330 that creates the entire illusion of separation... 77 00:08:35,330 --> 00:08:41,410 The entire illusion or appearance of being a person living in a world. 78 00:08:41,410 --> 00:08:48,750 We could experientially verify that every time we experience 79 00:08:48,750 --> 00:08:56,590 psychological suffering we can always trace it back to the belief to be this 80 00:08:56,590 --> 00:09:04,020 separate person, this separate entity. There are no exceptions, no exceptions. 81 00:09:04,020 --> 00:09:11,000 I'm not talking about physical pain, but psychological suffering is absolutely 82 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:18,819 unnecessary it is predicated upon the belief to be this separate or 83 00:09:18,819 --> 00:09:26,960 apparently separate body mind. Because we're like fragments who've been 84 00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:32,919 broken away from the whole, like jigsaw pieces that have become disconnected and 85 00:09:32,919 --> 00:09:38,110 spread far apart. So there is a feeling of "something's missing", 86 00:09:38,110 --> 00:09:42,156 "something's not right". The mind seems like an insurmountable obstacle. 87 00:09:42,156 --> 00:09:46,800 How can we overcome the mind? The mind seems to have no end. 88 00:09:47,330 --> 00:09:53,190 Attempting to conquer the mind using the mind creates an endless struggle. 89 00:09:53,190 --> 00:09:59,120 Akin to trying to lift oneself up by pulling on one's own bootstraps. 90 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:05,600 The ego structure can feel devastated, lost and confused, feeling that life 91 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:12,030 has no meaning, and as that seeking mind struggles we experience what St John 92 00:10:12,030 --> 00:10:18,160 of the Cross called The Dark Night of the Soul. This is a necessary part of the 93 00:10:18,160 --> 00:10:24,883 disillusionment process. It is only by letting go of seeking and the false 94 00:10:24,883 --> 00:10:32,860 identification with the seeker that we come into direct union with life. 95 00:10:44,170 --> 00:10:49,680 I was in a good place in my life. I had sort of given up on the spiritual search, 96 00:10:49,680 --> 00:10:55,440 not because I'd given up as such but because there was nothing else really to 97 00:10:55,440 --> 00:11:00,961 look for. I wasn't seeking enlightenment. I wasn't seeking a awakening. I was 98 00:11:00,961 --> 00:11:06,970 seeking peace and I was seeking happiness and I found that surrender to what is was 99 00:11:06,970 --> 00:11:12,430 the only way and that life was my teacher. After many many many years of searching 100 00:11:12,430 --> 00:11:22,390 everything fell away. The structure of the me that I knew myself as fell away. 101 00:11:23,350 --> 00:11:33,710 I was sitting in my living room  and over a period of a few weeks a great 102 00:11:33,710 --> 00:11:43,780 sort of inner desolation seemed to appear in me. So this was unexpected, this vast 103 00:11:43,780 --> 00:11:52,460 inner landscape of darkness... a kind of abandonment... an existential abandonment 104 00:11:52,460 --> 00:12:03,900 from life itself. And I noticed how the mind's movement wanted to move away from 105 00:12:03,900 --> 00:12:11,470 this inner landscape of darkness. And I asked a question to myself: 106 00:12:11,470 --> 00:12:17,800 "What is the meaning of suffering? What is the nature of suffering? 107 00:12:17,800 --> 00:12:25,670 How can suffering end?" Or perhaps it doesn't end and in that question what 108 00:12:25,670 --> 00:12:32,220 arose was this willingness to not move from where I was, to not move away from 109 00:12:32,220 --> 00:12:39,730 that dark landscape, and to surrender in that even if it meant the end of me. 110 00:12:39,730 --> 00:12:46,286 And I didn't know what that meant, the end of me, but it came up as a kind of knowing 111 00:12:46,286 --> 00:12:51,820 that wasn't yet conscious, and in that moment totally unexpectedly the whole 112 00:12:51,820 --> 00:13:02,030 structure of self died. It's like the whole 'me' identity died, and surprisingly 113 00:13:02,030 --> 00:13:11,570 there was a merging with life itself that ended the separation between me and life. 114 00:13:11,570 --> 00:13:20,320 And from that point on I knew that I and life are one; there is no separation... 115 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:27,320 it's all in the mind's movement. And from that point on the whole structure of this 116 00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:35,530 'Amoda' that had been built on a victim identity, not just a victim of 117 00:13:35,530 --> 00:13:40,440 circumstances, but a victim of my feelings a victim of emotions, a victim of 118 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:44,790 thoughts, and therefore constantly trying to change those, to change thoughts to 119 00:13:44,790 --> 00:13:49,517 change feelings, to make them better, to make them more positive, to make them more 120 00:13:49,517 --> 00:13:58,510 uplifted... that ended. And without the  victim it was as if I was born anew. 121 00:13:58,510 --> 00:14:05,330 So I died and I was reborn in that. It's like all the veils of perception that 122 00:14:05,330 --> 00:14:11,460 were built on the identity of Amoda as a me with her history, with her thoughts, 123 00:14:11,460 --> 00:14:17,898 with her beliefs, with her experiences, just came undone. So it was totally naked 124 00:14:17,898 --> 00:14:23,510 from that moment on and it's never changed since then. 125 00:14:27,050 --> 00:14:33,610 In Buddhism the first Noble Truth  is that there is suffering. There is this 126 00:14:33,610 --> 00:14:40,210 inherent dissatisfaction within the conditioned mind. Dukkha or the chronic 127 00:14:40,210 --> 00:14:47,120 dissatisfaction of the mind encompasses not only physical and emotional pain but 128 00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:53,690 also more subtle forms of dissatisfaction such as the inherent impermanence of all 129 00:14:53,690 --> 00:15:00,780 things and the inability to find lasting satisfaction in worldly pursuits. 130 00:15:00,780 --> 00:15:07,180 True happiness or fulfillment cannot be found in external material pursuits. 131 00:15:07,710 --> 00:15:11,428 Even when things go the way we think they should. Even when we're following 132 00:15:11,428 --> 00:15:16,365 the script, being a good person, we have  successful relationships, successful 133 00:15:16,365 --> 00:15:21,970 careers, even then there's often this underlying sense that something's just not 134 00:15:21,970 --> 00:15:29,090 quite right. Something that we're missing, something that we're not perceiving 135 00:15:29,090 --> 00:15:36,020 accurately, and the closer we look at that often it becomes more vivid, more obvious. 136 00:15:36,020 --> 00:15:42,690 So what I often say is the first step in the awakening process is acknowledging 137 00:15:42,690 --> 00:15:50,280 that we suffer. We could summarize it by saying it's a sort of sense that life 138 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:56,360 just isn't functioning right, or perhaps  I'm not functioning right within life. 139 00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:59,893 But it's uncomfortable... it's grace that it's uncomfortable because it leads us 140 00:15:59,893 --> 00:16:07,173 into this investigation that can take us to places that we never could have imagined. 141 00:16:07,173 --> 00:16:15,520 Why do people suffer? If we talk about physical pain we have to understand that 142 00:16:15,520 --> 00:16:24,350 the reason why we experience physical pain is because physical pain is a protection 143 00:16:24,350 --> 00:16:33,770 device that we have genetically inherited. If we never experienced pain we would 144 00:16:33,770 --> 00:16:43,410 constantly bump into objects and our body would drink sulfuric acid and our body 145 00:16:43,410 --> 00:16:51,740 wouldn't last for too long. The reason of psychological pain is different. It is: 146 00:16:51,740 --> 00:17:00,330 "you're making a mistake". So psychological pain is not a problem, 147 00:17:00,330 --> 00:17:05,930 it is the beginning of the solution. Psychological pain is telling us a lesson 148 00:17:05,930 --> 00:17:12,540 about another mistake we make which is to believe we are a separate human being. 149 00:17:12,540 --> 00:17:19,150 That's a mistake... that's a fundamental mistake. It is the original sin; 150 00:17:19,150 --> 00:17:28,840 the original sin that kicks us out of the Kingdom, out of the garden of Eden. 151 00:17:30,360 --> 00:17:37,790 The original meaning of the word sin means "to miss the mark". 152 00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:44,514 Egoic consciousness is a pathological state of mind whereby we constantly 153 00:17:44,514 --> 00:17:51,200 miss the mark. This is the meaning of "the fall". We are focused on the fruits 154 00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:56,850 of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, focused on thoughts. 155 00:17:56,850 --> 00:18:03,050 The dualistic mind is made of the phenomena that forms the perceived world of form; 156 00:18:03,050 --> 00:18:10,250 made of sensations, perceptions, egoic preferences, and this sense that there is 157 00:18:10,250 --> 00:18:17,480 an "I" that is separate, witnessing. It is this "I" thought that is at the root of 158 00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:20,580 identification with the ego. 159 00:18:20,580 --> 00:18:30,226 Whatever we are experiencing it is I who am experiencing it. If I am sad or anxious 160 00:18:30,226 --> 00:18:34,770 or lonely it is I who am having that experience. If I'm talking with you 161 00:18:34,770 --> 00:18:39,800 it is I who am talking. If I'm seeing the world it is I who am seeing the world. 162 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:47,620 So all our experience revolves around this "I". "I" is the central character 163 00:18:47,620 --> 00:18:58,680 in all our experience so that the essential investigation... the prerequisite for 164 00:18:58,680 --> 00:19:03,841 awakening, is to explore and recognize the nature of the "I" 165 00:19:03,841 --> 00:19:06,900 or the self that we really are. 166 00:19:06,900 --> 00:19:13,247 In the heart Sutra one of the most revered teachings of Buddhism it says that to be 167 00:19:13,247 --> 00:19:19,670 liberated we must realize this entire mechanism of the dualistic mind 168 00:19:19,670 --> 00:19:28,650 to be empty of self. When the "I" thought drops, then duality itself collapses. 169 00:19:28,650 --> 00:19:35,120 Form is realized as exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. 170 00:19:35,120 --> 00:19:43,850 In the samadhi state, emptiness dances as fullness, stillness is inherent within 171 00:19:43,850 --> 00:19:51,570 movement, silence inherent within  sound. Life is experienced directly, 172 00:19:51,570 --> 00:19:58,580 not mediated via the filter of the mind. When we no longer go after the fruits 173 00:19:58,580 --> 00:20:04,660 of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when we no longer interface with the world 174 00:20:04,660 --> 00:20:11,923 in the old way, it is liberation, the end of suffering. 175 00:20:11,923 --> 00:20:18,550 As long as we believe to be having our own mind or our own ignorance or our own ego, 176 00:20:18,550 --> 00:20:23,920 it is because we are viewing this from a separate point of view and this is okay 177 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:27,840 you know at the beginning that's how you're going to see it. But it's not how things 178 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:36,410 are in reality. In reality there is only life. That's it. Only pure life into action 179 00:20:36,410 --> 00:20:40,700 So suffering is this resistance to life, resistance to our yes, 180 00:20:40,700 --> 00:20:46,230 resistance to our no, resistance to anything that is appearing, 181 00:20:46,230 --> 00:20:53,140 because we feel separated. And awakening is the healing of this separation, 182 00:20:53,140 --> 00:20:56,534 of this idea to be separated. 183 00:20:56,534 --> 00:21:01,750 We can start to understand egoic  resistance in the mind by observing the 184 00:21:01,750 --> 00:21:09,910 larger principle of how all energy moves in the universe. One way to understand is 185 00:21:09,910 --> 00:21:15,980 by looking at something called a Lichtenberg figure. A Lichtenberg figure 186 00:21:15,980 --> 00:21:21,820 is a pattern that occurs when high voltage electrical discharge passes through 187 00:21:21,820 --> 00:21:28,200 materials. The electrical discharge creates a pattern of branching channels 188 00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:36,150 that look like trees. Here electricity is going into wood. In this example the 189 00:21:36,150 --> 00:21:42,980 Lichtenberg figure is created by injecting trillions of electrons into an acrylic 190 00:21:42,980 --> 00:21:49,984 block using a 5 million volt particle accelerator. All physical matter, in this 191 00:21:49,984 --> 00:21:56,610 case the acrylic block, is a resistance or slowing down of energy. 192 00:21:56,610 --> 00:22:02,680 In a thunderstorm the resistance of the air affects the formation of the conductive 193 00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:08,560 channel and the current flow. When we observe the treelike structures created by 194 00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:15,960 the energy we're seeing the path that energy took through the medium 195 00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:21,429 through time. These treelike patterns or branching patterns are found at all levels 196 00:22:21,429 --> 00:22:31,597 and scales of nature, from the micro to the macro. The very fabric of the universe 197 00:22:31,597 --> 00:22:38,930 is a play of form, a play of resistance; one giant mind playing a kind of hide 198 00:22:38,930 --> 00:22:46,440 and seek with itself. Samskaras or unconscious patterns are created when the 199 00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:54,410 charge of an experience is high. Energies come together and the "I" thought appears. 200 00:22:54,410 --> 00:23:00,930 Resistance appears. If there's no resistance then energy just passes through 201 00:23:00,930 --> 00:23:07,020 life flows through. But when there's resistance, when "I" appears, 202 00:23:07,020 --> 00:23:12,510 then the energy branches off, creating new pathways in the unconscious mind. 203 00:23:12,510 --> 00:23:20,040 These patterns run autonomously, hiding and growing in the shadows until they're 204 00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:25,433 revealed again and consciously integrated  into the whole. 205 00:23:26,263 --> 00:23:31,870 The very first memory I have is of being really scared and I didn't know why I was 206 00:23:31,870 --> 00:23:38,910 scared and feeling like something was going to go wrong in any particular moment, 207 00:23:38,910 --> 00:23:46,360 and that feeling persisted throughout my whole life and intensified in my 20s. 208 00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:52,440 And I sank into a deep depression even after having four children. 209 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:59,440 And I ended up going through probably 3 or 4 years where I was really searching 210 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:03,500 for something but didn't know what that was. I never heard about awakening, didn't 211 00:24:03,500 --> 00:24:11,040 know what that was. And over time it began to become clear that whatever I was looking 212 00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:18,050 for wasn't to be found in my outer life. I had a good family, good business at the 213 00:24:18,050 --> 00:24:23,020 time; all the things that anyone could want. And yet still felt really empty 214 00:24:23,020 --> 00:24:32,960 inside, and eventually as part of healing from my depression I discovered meditation 215 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:41,830 and dived into that, found some kind of peace, some deep sense of contentment, 216 00:24:41,830 --> 00:24:48,000 and for the first time in my entire life that sense of dread or fear had disappeared 217 00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:55,090 just momentarily for that first time ever. So I began to try to find out everything I 218 00:24:55,090 --> 00:24:59,757 could about what had happened, why that change. And why it had come back again, 219 00:24:59,757 --> 00:25:05,260 that feeling of fear. I began to research different spiritual pathways and came 220 00:25:05,260 --> 00:25:10,480 across this term awakening, enlightenment, and began to try to understand 221 00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:19,920 what that is. Eventually 15-20 years later came to recognize that it is 222 00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:24,850 when we're not believing our thoughts anymore. Thoughts might still be going on, 223 00:25:24,850 --> 00:25:29,530 but the fear was coming from believing my thoughts, believing that I was just 224 00:25:29,530 --> 00:25:36,860 a person or someone who was going about my life, and came to see I was a lot more 225 00:25:36,860 --> 00:25:46,510 than that. I am infinite and that over a period of 5 years that began to stabilize 226 00:25:46,510 --> 00:25:50,779 for lack of a better word. I had to look at everything that was coming up 227 00:25:50,779 --> 00:25:58,720 in the way of that, the sense of not being a good enough parent, the sense of 228 00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:05,108 this feeling of inadequacy in my core.  I had to really look at that and 229 00:26:05,108 --> 00:26:12,546 investigate that and contemplate that. And eventually the peace became stable 230 00:26:12,546 --> 00:26:18,950 effortless, and even joy and love, sometimes even bliss. A deep sense of 231 00:26:18,950 --> 00:26:24,650 everything being okay, feeling at home, feeling safe, feeling that I can love 232 00:26:24,650 --> 00:26:30,120 myself, I like myself which is something that was not possible before for me. 233 00:26:32,270 --> 00:26:37,430 Many people get a glimpse of awakening but then seem to lose it. 234 00:26:37,430 --> 00:26:42,990 There's this game of I've got it and then I've lost it, or I'm awake and now 235 00:26:42,990 --> 00:26:49,500 the mind has come back. This happens when awakening is not fully recognized 236 00:26:49,500 --> 00:26:58,520 for what it is. Often there's a pleasant state when samadhi occurs; energy, bliss 237 00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:05,640 or a change in the mind consciousness or  perception and a sense of ease or freedom. 238 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:10,399 And one will naturally mistake the phenomenal state for the truth 239 00:27:10,399 --> 00:27:17,684 of who you are. Often after a glimpse of awakening one will start seeking states 240 00:27:17,684 --> 00:27:24,080 or experiences rather than recognizing the awareness that is already present, 241 00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:30,320 and realizing it to be the source of true fulfillment. The truth of who you are 242 00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:38,250 is not a temporary state or experience. The phenomena comes and goes but the one 243 00:27:38,250 --> 00:27:46,890 who remains, primordial awareness, always IS. If you continue seeking states 244 00:27:46,890 --> 00:27:52,780 or experiences, eventually the seeker will get stronger and stronger and you will get 245 00:27:52,780 --> 00:27:58,170 farther and farther from the truth. The Seeker always misses the mark 246 00:27:58,170 --> 00:28:04,210 by chasing what is impermanent, just like an addict chasing temporary highs, 247 00:28:04,210 --> 00:28:08,110 and just like the addict the false seeker will always come 248 00:28:08,110 --> 00:28:11,540 to a crisis point or failure point. 249 00:28:11,540 --> 00:28:17,498 Life is a festival of addictive patterns of behavior and when I say that I don't mean 250 00:28:17,498 --> 00:28:23,920 only addiction to drugs like alcohol and nicotine. Everything that is preponderant 251 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:27,970 in society tends to be addictive patterns of behavior; addiction to 252 00:28:27,970 --> 00:28:34,320 reality television, addiction to celebrity life addiction to buying the next pair of 253 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:40,379 shoes, and why is that? The reason for that is that we are desperate to find a 254 00:28:40,379 --> 00:28:48,270 way to escape the profoundly meaningless and unnatural way of life that we have. 255 00:28:48,270 --> 00:28:52,401 But we don't know how to escape that so we try to compensate for it by engaging 256 00:28:52,401 --> 00:29:02,080 in addiction. Now understanding reality  has this peculiar characteristic of making 257 00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,610 life more natural, making life better aligned with the rhythm and flow 258 00:29:06,610 --> 00:29:10,440 and the directions of nature. If that happens there is no need 259 00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:15,130 for the addiction anymore, and we will live more fulfilling, healthier overall 260 00:29:15,130 --> 00:29:22,160 better lives without skewed perspectives  like the notion that your life is about you 261 00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:26,560 and my life is about me, which is one of the most unnatural things imaginable. 262 00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:32,169 It's like the blossom on my apple tree thinking my life's about me and I need to 263 00:29:32,169 --> 00:29:36,230 survive forever. If the blossom had its way there would be no more apples 264 00:29:36,230 --> 00:29:38,410 and no more apple trees. 265 00:29:38,410 --> 00:29:43,917 Once we understand the truth there is naturally a flip from an ego centered 266 00:29:43,917 --> 00:29:49,740 life or a life that is constantly feeding the patterns of craving and aversion, 267 00:29:49,740 --> 00:29:54,920 to a life that is more natural, more in the flow. 268 00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:59,990 And then it can happen at a certain point that this idea goes into crisis and maybe 269 00:29:59,990 --> 00:30:07,380 we start to seek spiritually or maybe before then some psychological inquiry. 270 00:30:07,380 --> 00:30:11,770 Then comes a moment in which we are ready to see beyond this illusion of being 271 00:30:11,770 --> 00:30:18,615 separated and let's say a conscious spiritual seeking starts. This spiritual 272 00:30:18,615 --> 00:30:23,720 seeking might starts before we are aware that we are spiritually seeking. 273 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:33,557 When it's conscious we can see this unfolding of life no more as something 274 00:30:33,557 --> 00:30:38,050 to fight against, but as an invitation to wake up, 275 00:30:38,050 --> 00:30:40,570 so we start to be more open to life. 276 00:30:40,570 --> 00:30:47,250 Also suffering is the best natural tool to foment insight. 277 00:30:47,250 --> 00:30:52,123 We don't ask the deep questions unless we are suffering. If you're not suffering 278 00:30:52,123 --> 00:30:58,840 we just sort of ride the wave of life in a very Epicurean lighthearted superficial 279 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:03,000 manner, and we never stop to think about what is happening. Who am I? 280 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,030 what is this about? No. What is the purpose of it all? 281 00:31:06,030 --> 00:31:10,000 What's the meaning of it? We don't ask those questions unless we suffer. 282 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:13,860 So suffering is a tremendous tool. It's very conducive to insight. 283 00:31:13,860 --> 00:31:20,930 Now we make it worse than it needs to be. We invent unnecessary superfluous suffering. 284 00:31:20,930 --> 00:31:25,410 I like to call it meta-suffering, and meta suffering comes from that little voice 285 00:31:25,410 --> 00:31:31,150 in your head that says you are suffering and you shouldn't be. That doubles the 286 00:31:31,150 --> 00:31:35,700 suffering right there. Because now not only do we still have the suffering that's 287 00:31:35,700 --> 00:31:40,385 natural and part of your life and you can't avoid, now you have the meta-suffering for 288 00:31:40,385 --> 00:31:46,510 being at war with nature, for being at war with the original suffering. The game is 289 00:31:46,510 --> 00:31:52,625 not to get rid of a natural process conducive to insight, a key tool 290 00:31:52,625 --> 00:31:58,380 of nature, the game is to not exacerbate it unnecessarily by waging war against it 291 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:07,292 When we drop resistance to suffering then  it is no longer suffering. It transmutes 292 00:32:07,292 --> 00:32:13,900 into something that is for your benefit. Often in spiritual circles we hear the 293 00:32:13,900 --> 00:32:21,575 phrase "love what is." It is possible to love whatever pain is arising by learning 294 00:32:21,575 --> 00:32:27,322 to surrender egoic preferences understanding that what is arising 295 00:32:27,322 --> 00:32:33,794 is simply intense phenomena that actually takes you deeper into connection with life 296 00:32:33,794 --> 00:32:39,400 By remaining equanimous with what is, we begin purifying the patterns of 297 00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:47,290 resistance within the ego structure. This brings us to the surrender paradox. 298 00:32:47,290 --> 00:32:53,381 The surrender paradox is realizing that whatever you resist persists. 299 00:32:53,381 --> 00:33:00,450 The resistance actually gives power to the ego. The ego is nothing but the 300 00:33:00,450 --> 00:33:06,130 resistance itself. Sometimes on the path we get the idea that we shouldn't 301 00:33:06,130 --> 00:33:12,320 experience this or that emotion. We might feel that we're regressing if we feel hate 302 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:19,300 or anger. The experience of the full range of human emotions is necessary. 303 00:33:19,300 --> 00:33:25,292 The paradox is that when we accept each emotion fully, dropping the resistance 304 00:33:25,292 --> 00:33:31,458 to it, it transmutes from emotion, which is full of beliefs, judgments, and 305 00:33:31,458 --> 00:33:37,130 and preferences, to pure feeling; to pure aliveness, 306 00:33:37,130 --> 00:33:43,170 which is beyond the evaluating mind. 307 00:33:47,460 --> 00:33:54,000 There's a famous story in Zen that  illustrates this point. Once a student 308 00:33:54,000 --> 00:34:01,308 asked Tenzin, a Zen master known for his wisdom and tranquility, "Master when your 309 00:34:01,308 --> 00:34:09,430 wife passed away did you feel sadness?" Tenzin replied "Of course I felt sadness, 310 00:34:09,430 --> 00:34:15,700 how could I not?" The student was puzzled and then asked, "But I thought you were a 311 00:34:15,700 --> 00:34:23,580 Zen master. Shouldn't you be beyond such emotions?" Tenzin smiled gently and 312 00:34:23,580 --> 00:34:30,870 responded, "Ah, you misunderstand. When I felt sadness I allowed myself to 313 00:34:30,870 --> 00:34:38,000 feel it fully, and to experience it deeply. And in doing so I honored the truth of 314 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:44,860 that moment. Then like clouds passing through the sky the sadness came and went. 315 00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:57,470 But the sky, the vastness of my being, remained unchanged. 316 00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:10,640 My awakening began really when I was in  graduate school, when a series of personal 317 00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:20,520 experiences really challenged me To begin  to question the purpose of life, of my 318 00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:29,560 life in particular, and the meaning. I began questioning, what's the point of 319 00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:35,820 all that I was doing. The experience was one of just being aware without being 320 00:35:35,820 --> 00:35:43,947 anything in particular. It was very liberating. There was a great sense of 321 00:35:43,947 --> 00:35:52,280 release, like something that had been under great pressure releasing, and there 322 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:58,220 was relaxation and exhilaration, and all I remember was just being. 323 00:35:58,220 --> 00:36:03,320 That's all I want to be... just be. Nothin in particular. I call it the big shift 324 00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:13,520 for me. It really changed... almost like I want to say "inside out" but the way 325 00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:19,090 I saw things and the way I experienced things, the way I saw people, interacted 326 00:36:19,090 --> 00:36:25,760 with people.. and the flip is in the sense that all that I was experiencing, 327 00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:34,330 no matter what I was doing or saying, is simply awareness being expressed. 328 00:36:34,330 --> 00:36:39,750 The awareness that I am being expressed, so in that moment, in any moment, 329 00:36:39,750 --> 00:36:45,360 whatever I was saying or doing, that's  all that was happening is being aware, 330 00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:52,760 and that has stayed. But it has continued to reveal its nature. It was like I could 331 00:36:52,760 --> 00:37:01,140 see thoughts flowing by, and whatever action needed to happen, 332 00:37:01,140 --> 00:37:06,380 the action just came up and then the body was just basically acting out the action. 333 00:37:06,380 --> 00:37:10,810 It was no longer like before, whereas before I would think something, 334 00:37:10,810 --> 00:37:14,720 "I think I need to do this " and the "I" this person would be doing it. 335 00:37:14,720 --> 00:37:20,220 No. What's happening, what started to happen was, I'm just being. Being aware 336 00:37:20,220 --> 00:37:29,550 and actions just were arising and then the body was the tool and I was watching it in 337 00:37:29,550 --> 00:37:35,130 real time. The body is simply implementing any action arising in awareness 338 00:37:35,130 --> 00:37:39,800 and I happen to be a participant and an observer. I think that's the best part. 339 00:37:41,790 --> 00:37:49,190 Awareness is choiceless. The true Self is beyond choosing. Upon hearing that, 340 00:37:49,190 --> 00:37:54,740 one might say "okay I'm going to give up everything. I'm just not going to choose 341 00:37:54,740 --> 00:38:00,120 anything. I'll just sit in a cave. And many people have done that. 342 00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:06,629 But the problem is, that would still be a choice. I'm just choosing to suppress my 343 00:38:06,629 --> 00:38:13,490 choices and desires. It's the conditioned mind choosing to not choose. 344 00:38:13,490 --> 00:38:19,510 Both choosing and non-choosing are all at the level of the conditioned mind. 345 00:38:19,510 --> 00:38:24,120 But who or what is aware of that mind? 346 00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:28,600 After awakening you will find the conditioned self may still choose its 347 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:35,530 favorite tea. It will still eat the diet that is best for the body. It's not that 348 00:38:35,530 --> 00:38:39,850 choosing isn't happening anymore. Many choices are still happening, 349 00:38:39,850 --> 00:38:45,960 arising all the time. But the difference is the sense of "I" is not entangled 350 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:51,220 with any of that. The "I" thought has dropped away. 351 00:38:51,220 --> 00:39:01,560 "I" am not choosing, nor am I suppressing choice. 352 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:09,350 So waking up is like demolishing the invisible walls of the ego, this armor, 353 00:39:09,350 --> 00:39:15,990 and recognizing our Oneness with it all. And the result is outstanding because 354 00:39:15,990 --> 00:39:20,770 we discovered that we were not suffering anger, pain, sadness... we were suffering 355 00:39:20,770 --> 00:39:27,890 our refusal of life, and we can learn to be so open that we are 356 00:39:27,890 --> 00:39:32,680 consciously one with life as it is. 357 00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:40,570 We'd rather feel good than suffer.. that's just normal, something in the human 358 00:39:40,570 --> 00:39:48,520 being, the ordinary species of homo sapiens, would rather feel good 359 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:56,960 than feel bad. And I think that in the times when we become aware that 360 00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:02,920 it actually feels good to be conscious, something in us registers in the ordinary 361 00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:12,110 human brain, "Oh, I like this. This is possible." And it reinforces itself. 362 00:40:12,110 --> 00:40:17,980 Awakening can happen in stages gradually, or it can happen all at once in a 363 00:40:17,980 --> 00:40:24,360 radical flip, where we suddenly know who we are, as if waking from a dream. 364 00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:31,550 As if we've been asleep all our lives in our dream character. To stay awake 365 00:40:31,550 --> 00:40:36,220 there is an ongoing purification of the self structure required. 366 00:40:36,220 --> 00:40:43,308 Even if we have a full awakening it is important to be vigilant, to not believe 367 00:40:43,308 --> 00:40:49,840 the next thought, to remain equanimous with what is when unconscious thoughts 368 00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:56,800 surface. Otherwise the unconscious patterns of the mind may obscure the truth 369 00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:04,290 The unconscious must become a transparent unconscious. If we do not face what is in 370 00:41:04,290 --> 00:41:10,070 the unconscious we'll fall into what has been called spiritual bypassing. 371 00:41:10,070 --> 00:41:16,960 Spiritual bypassing refers to the tendency of some individuals to insist that they 372 00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:23,660 are already awake in order to avoid dealing with difficult emotions, unresolved 373 00:41:23,660 --> 00:41:30,670 psychological issues, or real life challenges. The egoic mind can appropriate 374 00:41:30,670 --> 00:41:37,950 a glimpse of awakening and keep one from living from that place of truth. 375 00:41:37,950 --> 00:41:43,430 I was sitting on my bed thinking about the mammogram I was about to go for the 376 00:41:43,430 --> 00:41:50,610 next day, and it had always been an extreme anxiety producing experience 377 00:41:50,610 --> 00:42:00,930 which I had once a year, and I was tired of feeling so scared. Tired of being afraid 378 00:42:00,930 --> 00:42:07,310 of dying and I was sitting on the bed and out of the blue I had this thought 379 00:42:07,310 --> 00:42:17,040 Couldn't I do this thing tomorrow without freaking out? And there was a thought 380 00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:28,030 really, just a thought but suddenly I felt this surge of a realization that 381 00:42:28,030 --> 00:42:38,630 I could indeed. And I didn't know how I knew that. I didn't know what had just 382 00:42:38,630 --> 00:42:47,860 changed, but something clearly had just changed. And I was stunned and I suddenly 383 00:42:47,860 --> 00:42:55,260 knew that it was going to be different from all the terrible anxiety I'd had 384 00:42:55,260 --> 00:43:01,000 all the years prior. And that didn't mean that the mammogram was going to 385 00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:05,290 turn out fine. It didn't mean I didn't have breast cancer. 386 00:43:05,290 --> 00:43:12,800 That was really bizarre to me. It was a stunner and I got up and went in to my 387 00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:21,150 partner who was busy at his computer and I just stood in the doorway and 388 00:43:21,150 --> 00:43:24,160 he finally looked up he realized I was there and he said "What?" 389 00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:35,260 And I said, something's just happened. And I told him in the coming days little 390 00:43:35,260 --> 00:43:40,190 by little I began to realize it wasn't just that fear didn't seem to animate me 391 00:43:40,190 --> 00:43:50,920 anymore. I felt peaceful, completely without my ordinary ongoing stress. 392 00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:59,240 My mind was still. My outer life was basically the same but it was many months 393 00:43:59,240 --> 00:44:03,750 before I understood that this was awakening that had happened. 394 00:44:03,750 --> 00:44:09,140 It was a long time really. All I knew was I didn't hurt anymore in the way I had. 395 00:44:10,460 --> 00:44:16,520 And my mind was quiet and it's been like that ever since. 396 00:44:17,890 --> 00:44:24,874 There can be no memory of awakening itself There is only memory of experiences and 397 00:44:24,874 --> 00:44:31,330 phenomena. Whenever there is a memory there's always some resistance trace in 398 00:44:31,330 --> 00:44:37,381 the mind. This resistance trace is the original repetition... 399 00:44:37,381 --> 00:44:43,080 the beginning of the "I" thought. Awakening itself does not leave a trace 400 00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:50,040 in the mind. It is not an experience. Primordial awareness wakes up to itself 401 00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:58,374 in the now, unmediated by memory and the filtering of the mind. If we are chasing 402 00:44:58,374 --> 00:45:05,370 any state, any experience, and trying to live there, then we've missed it. 403 00:45:05,370 --> 00:45:11,770 If it comes and goes, if it's not here now then it's not your true nature. 404 00:45:16,140 --> 00:45:22,830 Let's take a moment to inquire directly  into our true nature. Directly means 405 00:45:22,830 --> 00:45:31,350 not via the mind. You cannot recognize that which is beyond the mind by means 406 00:45:31,350 --> 00:45:41,830 of the mind. Shift your attention inward and be aware of this moment. Become aware 407 00:45:41,830 --> 00:45:50,280 of awareness itself. Notice the thoughts, sensations and emotions that arise within 408 00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:57,760 this space, but also recognize the spaciousness within which they arise. 409 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:04,660 Phenomena may bubble up from the unconscious. Thoughts, memories, 410 00:46:04,660 --> 00:46:11,560 feelings, emotions, energies; this is a natural clearing process that unfolds 411 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:18,680 when we inquire. Just be open to anything that arises as a result of your inquiry. 412 00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:24,270 Allow yourself to abide in the natural state of the mind, 413 00:46:24,270 --> 00:46:32,280 free from the limitations of conceptual elaboration. 414 00:46:36,070 --> 00:46:43,400 So my own awakening occurred in essentially two fundamentally different 415 00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:51,710 movements. I approached the initial shift from a place of suffering, profound 416 00:46:51,710 --> 00:46:56,440 suffering, and I had known that it had something to do with thoughts. 417 00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:00,629 It had something to do with the way I was thinking, the way I was perceiving the world, 418 00:47:00,629 --> 00:47:06,700 the way I was perceiving myself. And this led me into a direct investigation 419 00:47:06,700 --> 00:47:12,730 of the nature of thought itself. And most importantly the nature of the thinker; 420 00:47:12,730 --> 00:47:17,440 the nature of the one who is seemingly bound by those thoughts. 421 00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:26,960 So with this direct investigation the sense of being a thinker was dissolved and 422 00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:33,120 with the sense of being a thinker being  dissolved, then all thought forms sort of 423 00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:40,320 lost meaning to me. What I didn't realize is when that happens we're left with a sort 424 00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:48,280 of pure or unbound conscious experience. And to me that was tremendously peaceful, 425 00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:56,950 tremendously relieving of my suffering. That was the first part of my awakening. 426 00:47:56,950 --> 00:48:02,640 I had no idea even from there with the clarity that was revealed, with the peace 427 00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:08,260 that was revealed, that it could go deeper That it could go a lot deeper. 428 00:48:08,260 --> 00:48:15,680 So over a period of a few days the initial glimpse, the initial very profound, very 429 00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:25,760 releasing, and surprising experience broke  open into something that goes beyond the 430 00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:32,810 human dimension; goes beyond the confines of who I take myself to be 431 00:48:32,810 --> 00:48:38,810 in any form at all. And how I take the world to be in any form at all. 432 00:48:38,810 --> 00:48:44,980 All of that was dismantled. What was left, what is left it is 433 00:48:44,980 --> 00:48:52,267 extremely difficult to actually formulate  into words, but through the book, 434 00:48:52,267 --> 00:48:56,730 through direct interactions with people who are interested in addressing this, 435 00:48:56,730 --> 00:49:00,440 it can be revealed and it can be revealed to that that person 436 00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:05,890 if they're ready for it and interested in investigating it themselves. 437 00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:15,480 No one can tell you what the mind is, what the matrix is, what you are. 438 00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:22,500 To know the immeasurable, the ineffable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet 439 00:49:22,500 --> 00:49:28,560 and still without any movement. In that deep quiet and profound 440 00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,576 silence there's a possibility of coming upon something which is 441 00:49:33,576 --> 00:49:40,410 timeless, eternal and beyond all measure. 442 00:49:40,410 --> 00:49:47,710 Let's say, to make a metaphor that awakening is when your head, 443 00:49:47,710 --> 00:49:52,110 the head of the ego, has been chopped by life. 444 00:49:52,110 --> 00:49:57,067 You saw clearly that you are not your bodymind. You're not an entity 445 00:49:57,067 --> 00:50:02,240 inside the bodymind but yes, the head has been chopped by life 446 00:50:02,240 --> 00:50:06,870 but it's still rolling down the hill, and as it's rolling down the hill 447 00:50:06,870 --> 00:50:13,258 it carries with it old patterns, old schemes, old point of views, that are 448 00:50:13,258 --> 00:50:18,830 no more nourished by your attention. You're resting in the witnessing solidly, 449 00:50:18,830 --> 00:50:23,720 you see these old patterns unfolding, you're not involved with them, 450 00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:27,580 but they're still happening. So the head is rolling down the hill 451 00:50:27,580 --> 00:50:34,040 but at a certain point it is going to stop. No more movement of old karmas 452 00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:39,680 coming into action. No more patterns emerging that you need to look for and 453 00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:48,110 dissolve. They're gone. And that's Moksha, that's Liberation. What I've been seeing 454 00:50:48,110 --> 00:51:04,470 is a progressive opening up to seeing life not as a person inside the body, but as 455 00:51:04,470 --> 00:51:11,875 a peaceful silent witnessing of it in which there were moments in which there was 456 00:51:11,875 --> 00:51:17,600 just actions, but there was no doer of those actions. 457 00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:23,770 A dog was barking... it was just a barking in the silence, or there was somebody 458 00:51:23,770 --> 00:51:32,080 walking, or my body walking, and it was just the walking. Not somebody walking. 459 00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:36,950 And this was accompanied with the silencing of the inner dialogue 460 00:51:36,950 --> 00:51:43,520 that was sometimes accompanying my life. So these moments of stepping out 461 00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:48,090 of this sense of being a person came  more and more frequently. 462 00:51:48,090 --> 00:51:53,080 And as this was happening everything that I thought to be, 463 00:51:53,080 --> 00:52:00,600 or to be engaged in life started to have a different sense. 464 00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:08,400 Instead of seeing like life against me or  difficult for me, or trying to ask to pray 465 00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:22,810 for a change, I started to become able to see that all that was aiming towards 466 00:52:22,810 --> 00:52:28,320 something higher, to open my heart more. To be more available to life. 467 00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,963 I started to see that what I called accidents or mistakes or things 468 00:52:32,963 --> 00:52:38,880 I didn't like, they were not wrong, and they were not against me. 469 00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:44,770 They were actually showing me a deeper reality which I was not in contact with. 470 00:52:44,770 --> 00:52:50,301 So all prayers became more like an amen. Thy will be done. All requests were 471 00:52:50,301 --> 00:53:00,870 more like, help me to see where I'm still refusing life, where I'm still refusing 472 00:53:00,870 --> 00:53:07,830 something. Where I still am suffering because I say no to the unfolding 473 00:53:07,830 --> 00:53:13,240 of life itself. So there was an opening up. And more this opening up to life 474 00:53:13,240 --> 00:53:18,770 happened and more these moments of conscious witnessing came. 475 00:53:18,770 --> 00:53:27,360 Awakening is just the beginning of this opening up. And it never ends in a way. 476 00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:38,590 It is a never ending opening. And the more this happens, more what we still see as 477 00:53:38,590 --> 00:53:49,920 difficult as contraction as fear, you really see that it's a trampoline towards 478 00:53:49,920 --> 00:54:05,600 a higher love. A dimension of love, of peace, of compassion, and we are all in it. 479 00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:11,680 Even those we think they're not. We are all taken in it. 480 00:54:15,820 --> 00:54:20,430 We can know that consciousness exists. That we can know for certain. 481 00:54:20,430 --> 00:54:24,940 Everything else we can make educated guesses about. Maybe very good guesses, 482 00:54:24,940 --> 00:54:30,580 but guesses nonetheless. Consciousness is the only pre theoretical 483 00:54:30,580 --> 00:54:36,320 given fact of nature. Everything else are theoretical abstractions that arise within 484 00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:42,510 consciousness. Consciousness is the sole axiom of nature. That it exists is the only 485 00:54:42,510 --> 00:54:48,950 absolutely certain thing in nature. And I can assure you that based on reasoning 486 00:54:48,950 --> 00:54:53,020 and the empirical evidence coming out from foundations of physics coming out from the 487 00:54:53,020 --> 00:54:57,932 neuroscience of consciousness, it has become extraordinarily unlikely that 488 00:54:57,932 --> 00:55:02,660 consciousness is not fundamental. To think of consciousness as secondary or 489 00:55:02,660 --> 00:55:08,300 epiphenomenal leads to all kinds of  insoluble problems. So there is excellent 490 00:55:08,300 --> 00:55:12,960 rational and empirical reason to take consciousness as at least one of if not 491 00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:18,580 the only fundamental building block of nature. Physics is fundamentally a science 492 00:55:18,580 --> 00:55:24,610 of perception. It's an attempt to account for the patterns and regularities of the 493 00:55:24,610 --> 00:55:30,200 world we perceive. It does not attempt to transcend perception. 494 00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:34,930 Even when physicists use instruments like  telescopes, microscopes, oscilloscope's, 495 00:55:34,930 --> 00:55:39,490 or whatever-a-scopes you want, the output of these instruments still needs 496 00:55:39,490 --> 00:55:46,050 to be perceived. So everything in physics gets filtered out through the paradigm 497 00:55:46,050 --> 00:55:50,970 of perception, so to say. Physics is a science of perception. Therefore it does 498 00:55:50,970 --> 00:55:57,826 not make any attempt to see fundamentally beyond the physical or fundamentally beyond 499 00:55:57,826 --> 00:56:04,597 matter, because physicality and matter are just other words for the world we perceive, 500 00:56:04,597 --> 00:56:12,310 for the contents of perception. Life is the instrument for its own understanding. 501 00:56:12,310 --> 00:56:18,678 To understand life you don't unplug from life. You don't unplug from that which 502 00:56:18,678 --> 00:56:23,250 you're trying to understand. What you do is you pay attention to what's happening, 503 00:56:23,250 --> 00:56:29,070 try to capture the nuance. Ask yourself, "What is this about? Why is this happening? 504 00:56:29,070 --> 00:56:34,390 What does this mean?" Life in the world is a book to be read and deciphered. 505 00:56:34,390 --> 00:56:40,330 But we may get so caught up in an understandable need to suffer less, 506 00:56:40,330 --> 00:56:43,918 that we forget to read the book. We forget to pay attention. 507 00:56:43,918 --> 00:56:49,020 While the book is the key to its own decipherment. If you decipher the book 508 00:56:49,020 --> 00:56:55,600 of life you will automatically suffer less, but you can't decipher it if you're not 509 00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,670 with your eyes on the ball, if you're not paying attention. 510 00:56:58,670 --> 00:57:01,690 Life is the tool to its own understanding. 511 00:57:01,690 --> 00:57:09,120 All the great religious and spiritual traditions were founded on this 512 00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:18,630 understanding. Namely that the there is  one infinite and indivisible reality which 513 00:57:18,630 --> 00:57:28,490 shines in each of us, as the experience "I am" and which appears to us as the world. 514 00:57:28,490 --> 00:57:36,140 In other words there is an ocean of being so to speak, that underlies everyone and 515 00:57:36,140 --> 00:57:41,640 everything from which everyone and everything derives its existence. 516 00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:46,160 In which everyone and everything lives, and into which it vanishes 517 00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:51,480 and disappears. And this is really the founding principle of all the great 518 00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:56,950 religious traditions, this the recognition of the the unity of Being. 519 00:57:56,950 --> 00:58:06,110 The first Hermetic principle is that "The all is mind, the universe is mental." 520 00:58:06,110 --> 00:58:14,400 Wherever we look is the one mind. As Rumi said, "Wherever I look, there is the 521 00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:22,170 face of God." Whether we peer into the micro world or into the macrocosm of space, 522 00:58:22,170 --> 00:58:30,500 we find the one mind. Here is an image of human neurons, and this is a simulated 523 00:58:30,500 --> 00:58:35,440 image of Dark Matter distribution throughout the Universe. 524 00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:41,280 The Millennium run is a simulation done by the Max Planck Institute using 525 00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:47,513 supercomputers to create a representation of the distribution and evolution of dark 526 00:58:47,513 --> 00:58:53,680 matter in the universe. Dark Matter forms a vast Cosmic web of interconnected 527 00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:59,310 filaments and nodes which is visually almost identical to neurons and the 528 00:58:59,310 --> 00:59:05,310 neuropathways found in a human brain. And the same pattern is ubiquitous 529 00:59:05,310 --> 00:59:14,130 throughout nature. We can call it the One Mind, or God or simply "all that is". 530 00:59:16,020 --> 00:59:24,330 And what is referred to as God is not  some external being beyond and 531 00:59:24,330 --> 00:59:31,840 prior to the world. God is the the being that shines in each of us as the knowledge 532 00:59:31,840 --> 00:59:41,210 "I am" and appears to us as the world. So we could say from this point of view 533 00:59:41,210 --> 00:59:46,980 in religious language, the world is the appearance of the word of God, the Logos, 534 00:59:46,980 --> 00:59:56,040 and that we are localizations of God's mind within God's mind. 535 00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:02,590 So how does one universal field of subjectivity, one universal consciousness, 536 01:00:02,590 --> 01:00:05,880 how does it appear to be many? Because I can't read your thoughts, 537 01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:09,203 presumably you can't read mine. I don't know what's happening in the 538 01:00:09,203 --> 01:00:15,680 galaxy of Andromeda, not even in China. We don't have a full experience of the 539 01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:22,480 entirety of nature, so how can this one mind that nature is have these limitations 540 01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:27,678 and appear to be many? Well I think we know one natural process 541 01:00:27,678 --> 01:00:32,560 that does exactly that. It's called dissociation in psychiatry. It's a process 542 01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:38,808 according to which one mind seemingly fragments into multiple disjointed centers 543 01:00:38,808 --> 01:00:46,410 of awareness. We have definitive empirical evidence for this in people, in humans, 544 01:00:46,410 --> 01:00:54,460 from neuroimaging and now I think we are close to beginning to have an explicit 545 01:00:54,460 --> 01:01:00,550 conceptual account of dissociation based on integrated information theory, which is 546 01:01:00,550 --> 01:01:04,940 the main theory in the neuroscience of consciousness. When a dissociative boundary 547 01:01:04,940 --> 01:01:10,810 forms you can only see what is across that dissociative boundary through perception. 548 01:01:10,810 --> 01:01:16,730 And what you then perceive is matter, physicality. In other words 549 01:01:16,730 --> 01:01:22,920 matter, physicality, is a conscious appearance of a conscious process 550 01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:27,510 from across a dissociative boundary. 551 01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:34,140 Whether we describe these processes in terms of modern theories or using 552 01:01:34,140 --> 01:01:39,520 ancient models like the five skandhas, what matters is that we make these 553 01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:46,480 processes which are usually unconscious, conscious. When they are made conscious 554 01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:52,750 then resistance within the self structure can be dropped. The unconscious operation 555 01:01:52,750 --> 01:01:59,880 of "I" can be dropped. The perception that we are a physical body, the perception 556 01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:05,240 of sensations on the body, the conceptualization of objects and things, 557 01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:11,280 the identification with preferences towards  those things, and the sense that there is a 558 01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:18,560 witness watching all of this, all of these  mind processes are to be realized as empty 559 01:02:18,560 --> 01:02:26,600 of self. In other words we disidentify from the phenomena while allowing it to be 560 01:02:26,600 --> 01:02:34,860 exactly as it is. This is not a turning away from life. Quite the contrary this is 561 01:02:34,860 --> 01:02:40,408 a deepening of the intimacy with life. 562 01:02:41,328 --> 01:02:48,530 My understanding that consciousness is  fundamental and precedes physicality, 563 01:02:48,530 --> 01:02:53,720 over the years has fundamentally changed my experience of life in the world and 564 01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:59,560 what it means to be a human being alive in the world. To me it happened slowly. 565 01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:03,380 At first it was a merely conceptual understanding in my head, and then 566 01:03:03,380 --> 01:03:08,550 it sort of sunk into the body and started modulating my emotions, my feelings, 567 01:03:08,550 --> 01:03:14,090 and it changes everything. It changes what you consider to be a well-lived life, 568 01:03:14,090 --> 01:03:21,040 it changes what you consider to be goals worthy of working towards, it changes 569 01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:24,930 your perception of self, it changes your relationship to other living creatures, 570 01:03:24,930 --> 01:03:31,440 yeah it does change everything. Personal goals in terms of status, power, money, 571 01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:36,398 that has gone away. The awareness that my life is not at all, has never been, 572 01:03:36,398 --> 01:03:41,730 and will never be about me, but it's about nature, and I'm just one local manifestation 573 01:03:41,730 --> 01:03:48,040 of nature, that understanding leads to a profound relaxation of that anxiety 574 01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:52,395 that comes with the need to achieve certain personal goals or with the 575 01:03:52,395 --> 01:03:57,160 disappointment that comes when you don't reach those personal goals. 576 01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:03,040 All that stuff has gone. I live life now as a form of service to Nature. 577 01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:08,440 I'm open to doing whatever it is that nature wants to do through me and 578 01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:14,820 although that may sound like being bonded to service like a slave it doesn't 579 01:04:14,820 --> 01:04:20,670 feel like that. It feels like I no longer have the oppressive overwhelming responsibility 580 01:04:20,670 --> 01:04:25,400 to make myself personally happy. Which is the most oppressive idea 581 01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:29,610 that the human mind can have, which is that your life is about you and therefore 582 01:04:29,610 --> 01:04:33,850 you have the responsibility to be happy so when you fail on that it's your failure 583 01:04:33,850 --> 01:04:39,360 and then you start regretting it. No, that has gone. It has disappeared. 584 01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:44,580 That's one of the things that changed in my life. A deeper understanding of reality 585 01:04:44,580 --> 01:04:53,700 is directly conducive to empathy, to mutual respect, to non egoic purposes. 586 01:04:53,700 --> 01:04:57,410 It's conducive to less addictive patterns of behavior. 587 01:04:57,410 --> 01:05:03,640 So there is absolutely no doubt that if humanity's understanding were deeper 588 01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:09,130 and more pervasive, life would definitely be better. 589 01:05:09,860 --> 01:05:16,120 The solution to the world's problems is to recognize the true source of the problems, 590 01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:23,060 which is the ego that operates only for its own interest. It doesn't matter what 591 01:05:23,060 --> 01:05:30,890 the ego engages with; politics, religion, economics, or education. As long as it 592 01:05:30,890 --> 01:05:36,780 operates from the false premise that there is a separate "I", then we will continue 593 01:05:36,780 --> 01:05:43,110 to perpetuate suffering and separation.  The only solution for humanity now 594 01:05:43,110 --> 01:05:47,620 is to wake up. 595 01:05:50,450 --> 01:05:57,518 In Buddhism, when there is no longer a sense of self as a separate thing, and at 596 01:05:57,518 --> 01:06:05,680 the same time, no other than Self, it is nirvana, the cessation of self-centered 597 01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:11,760 activity, the cessation of delusion, the cessation of dreaming, 598 01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:17,220 and the waking up from the character in the dream of life. 599 01:06:17,220 --> 01:06:24,640 The Bible says the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. 600 01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:30,961 The Word is is often translated as Logos, which is an ancient word with a profound 601 01:06:30,961 --> 01:06:39,920 meaning. The logos is associated with eternity, Truth and direct revelation. 602 01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:45,310 You could say that it is through the Logos or through Christ Consciousness, 603 01:06:45,310 --> 01:06:58,120 or Buddha nature that God's mind is made known.