The Noble Truth Of Dukkha: Buddhism & Beyond W/ Randi Green

In part one Randi and I talked about various Buddhist related topics and in this part two we expand on dukkha which is often translated as suffering, stress, unsatisfactoriness. Our talk also touches on: Buddha as pragmatist, realist, humanist; turning the fire of indignation into one of transformation; intent; wise/whole/right view; myriad aspects, avenues, pitfalls and payoffs of past life recall, wisdom and work; enslavement; teaching levels and methods; karma; etc

Transcript

Hey,

This is Josh Tippold again from Integrating Presence back with Randy Green for part two of our first series,

Which I may call trauma,

Teaching and textural interpretations.

And I know at the beginning,

We talked a little bit about Dukkha and we said we're going to talk more about it.

So here's where we're back here.

And we might say a few things we said in the beginning.

But if you haven't listened to the first part,

Definitely go back and do that.

Kind of lots of things along the lines of the titles.

And so I think maybe a place to start with this is,

Well,

First off,

What is Dukkha and why is it important?

I'll say another caveat here that it really is not designed to be taken out of context with the other four noble truths.

So the first noble truth of the Buddha is the noble truth of Dukkha.

And what is Dukkha?

And some of the most common ways that people can just jump into it as is interpreted in English is suffering.

But,

You know,

We think of suffering as really extreme.

Like if somebody say,

Oh,

Yeah,

You're suffering.

Or there's,

You know,

But people say,

No,

That's I'm not suffering,

You know.

So this is I mean,

I might suffer a few times in my life,

But that seems really extreme word.

So stress is another interpretation of Dukkha and unsatisfactoriness is really a good one,

Because who doesn't experience unsatisfactoriness from day to day?

And,

You know,

The Buddha said he taught two things,

The suffering and the end of suffering,

Or one thing even.

Sometimes it said,

I just teach suffering and the end of suffering.

So why is this important?

You know,

Have this fully enlightened being said,

And he knew all this stuff,

All these other things,

But he would only teach suffering and the end of suffering,

Which I'll just go really briefly through the other noble truth.

So the second noble truth is the noble truth of the cause of suffering.

And then the third noble truth is the noble truth of the cessation or ending of suffering.

And then the fourth noble truth is the path or the way out or the way towards the cessation of suffering.

But today we're going to drill down more on just the first one.

And I know a bunch of people say,

Oh,

These Buddhists,

They're just such party poopers.

You know,

They're always talking about suffering.

I mean,

Come on,

Give it a break.

So I want to just talk about why this is important to begin with.

You know,

Why are we spending time on this before we jump in?

And I will first say welcome back,

Randy.

And then if you want to jump in here with why is this important or any other approach you want to take immediately on this?

Yeah,

No,

I'll let you give the background here.

All right.

Well,

That's a lot of the different background.

Well,

There's a few more things I might say.

Now,

The Buddha,

He didn't.

.

.

I mean,

This is the kind of a core teaching in Buddhism,

I would say.

And even if there's other schools and sects that,

You know,

Which we.

.

.

Who knows,

We might look at another text on later on in this podcast.

We might not.

But for the most part,

At least all the Buddhist schools,

At least acknowledge the Four Noble Truths,

Whether they think that suffering ultimately exists or not.

But that's another good distinction here.

So we'll be talking about the relative reality of this,

Not the ultimate level of reality.

So there's this notion of the two truths,

Which is an original teaching.

It's a later distinction from my understanding that we're talking about.

There's a relative truth and an ultimate truth or a relative reality and an ultimate reality.

So,

Of course,

We're not going to go into the ultimate reality of this.

We'll probably just be addressing it mostly from a relative reality.

Right.

And also a very practical.

.

.

The Buddha was known as a pragmatist,

Right,

As well as a humanist,

That all these things were visible here and now,

You know,

In addition to being realized by each one for their own,

You know,

Realized by each wise one for their own.

So it's not like some theoretical thing.

You know,

We can look at this in our everyday lives.

It's not just like a scholarly exercise,

Right,

That there is unsatisfactoriness and stress in life.

And a lot of times I know from my own experience,

One of the ways it comes from is this false notion I have that if I could just get all my external conditions lined up just right,

Have everything the way I want it,

Then,

You know,

Then things will go good.

I'll have total control over everything and just keep everything arranged.

And then,

You know,

I'll just be happy that way.

The thing is,

Though,

That that is not a long term,

In my experience anyway,

That's not a long term plan for suffering because eventually in the long term,

I will not be able to keep all the external conditions the way I want them,

Right.

Something will come along and then it will throw that off.

And then when I expect that it shouldn't be like that,

Well,

Then I will get upset because,

Because,

You know,

It's not going the way I wanted it to externally.

And so then I can get upset and frustrated and just feel like things are crappy.

It shouldn't be like this.

So then I'm at that point,

Then I'm overlaying an additional layer of suffering on top of the pain that's already there.

So there's like maybe a psychic pain that's already there.

But then I make it this is the teaching of the two arrows,

Right?

The human incarnation,

Nobody experiences being human without some kind of pain.

But the one that's more avoidable,

Instead of hitting ourself with the second arrow,

Is saying this wisdom of,

Well,

When I say it shouldn't be there,

It shouldn't be like this.

I can't,

I don't want this to be like that.

And so that's just for me,

That's an other layer that doesn't need to be there because it's adding psychological pain on top of how painful it already is.

So that's,

To jump in there,

That's very similar to when we talk in psychology,

When we talk about therapy,

When we talk about,

We have the incident of the situation,

But how we interpret it,

The way,

What we derive from it,

The way we respond to it is all about the narrative we create around the situation.

As in,

This is,

If we,

And people say,

Is it similar to the glass half full or half empty?

It depends on the approach.

And I would say,

No,

That's not it.

That's kind of glossing it over.

Even though you put lip gloss on a pig,

It's still a pig.

So there are certain,

We can't weasel our way around,

We use a lot of animal analogies here,

We can't weasel our way around the incident,

But we can begin to work with the pain of it as in kind of,

Yeah,

I fell and I hit my knee,

That's physical pain.

But you can also have the emotional pain that goes with,

Why did you fell and hit your knee?

If someone pushed you,

Then you will have the emotional pain of it because that was unfair.

Why did that person push me?

And when we have,

Then we can choose to go into anger or we can choose to go into resentment or we can choose to go into victimization.

And blaming ourselves,

I'm a bad person for falling on the ground.

I should have never done that.

Or if the other one or the person pushed us,

Then it's karma or it's punishment or the gods are against me or I deserve this.

So that's where the narrative comes in as in exploring all of these avenues,

Not just locking into one,

But psychologically and emotionally and energetically go in and say,

OK,

That might actually be the truth,

Not the truth,

But the case.

Sure.

Because what is truth?

It might actually be the case.

Yes,

I might have done something in a previous lifetime that actually alludes or builds up to this moment where I have a re-experience of something I have unfinished business with.

Or we could go from a normal psychological perspective,

Looking into,

OK,

That other person,

What was he or she?

Is it a perpetrator?

Is it a kind of predator?

Or is it incidentally something that happened by accident?

And so we can't say if it's done by directly,

What you call it,

By.

.

.

Intent with intent.

With intent,

Thank you.

Intent to harm.

Yes.

Then we can be upset and feel victimized and kind of,

Why the fuck you do that to me?

Kind of.

And then we will have a different narrative than if we are just looking over and if we fall and we get pushed and we think that that person wants to do it deliberately and then we move around and we're full of aggression.

And why do you do that?

Instead,

Just go into the mindfulness approach where we stop up for a moment and look at that person and then person will say,

Oh,

I'm so sorry,

I didn't mean to do so.

And then we say,

Well,

Then that person was an instrument for the gods to reimburse or we put back in whatever I haven't paid.

We can call all of these narratives and just there,

Just calm down,

Stop all of that frustration and just look in the now and say,

This happened,

This is an experience,

This is what that person is,

This is what I am.

And then here I want to put in some of the things you're working with a lot.

That's where loving kindness come in,

Because there you go into that mode of,

If it is a past life reenactment,

If it is a predator,

All depending on what kind of predator it is.

But if it's kind of a manifestation of ill will,

To put it that way,

Into this reality,

Then all of these things can actually be eradicated and cease to be frustration and this fire of indignation and turn into a fire of transformation,

Where we look at the situation and instead of feeling hatred and ill-mindedness ourself,

We go and feel this kindness in ourselves and in this situation.

We might not be able to change the predator,

But we can at least change how we respond to it,

What the narrative will be around it.

So instead of choosing something that re-traumatizes us and lingers on in that pain that will then eventually,

If we do believe in karma,

Will become a physical pain later on from being an emotional pain,

It will later on become a physical pain in another life.

Then we can go in and say,

Well,

Right here and now I heal that pain by choosing to be in compassion,

By choosing to be in that feeling of here I heal it right here and right now and by that I bring it to its cessation.

I stop it right here and now instead of following the trail of frustration that will lead to rebirth.

Yes.

Sorry for just bringing it right up there.

No,

There's so much to pick up on.

This is really good.

So,

You know,

This is natural human inclination to explain things,

To derive meaning from events.

And I think that it's very helpful to do that.

And at the same time,

I also feel it's helpful to have the ability of just saying,

Being okay with not knowing what it is,

But how we view it.

So that's the first step of the Eightfold Noble Path is right view or correct view or wise view or whole view.

And so that's kind of where wisdom starts and ends,

To view something in the best possible manner,

Right,

That's going to lead towards benefit and at the same time is not deceiving ourselves or lying to ourselves at the same time,

Right?

So you almost have to have some degree of wise view in order to become more wise.

And then wisdom will lead to even better,

More,

I guess,

Not evolved,

But yeah,

I guess more skillful views on how to see things.

So that's the one thing we definitely can have a seeming choice over is how we view a situation,

How we respond to it.

Now,

There's all kinds of possibilities on that way.

And you illustrated some beautiful ways to do that too.

But I think a little bit of the key word here is in my opinion,

In my experience,

And what I've remember,

Not what I've studied,

Because I haven't studied Buddhism to the letter as you have to a large degree.

But for me,

When we talk about frustration and the cessation of dukkha,

As in this pain,

Frustration,

Aggression,

Way of interpretation,

Things clinging onto things,

Creating situations for ourselves that makes things more complicated.

It has a lot of meaning all depending on where it could be physical pain,

It can be emotional pain,

It can be mental constructions that leads to pain.

Because we think of things in a specific way that makes us what we call a cognitive scheme when we talk about depression.

There the mind creates what cognitive scheme or a cognitive schemata where you begin in one end and then it goes into a spiral where you end up being depressed and sad.

And if you can,

Via the cognitive therapy techniques,

You can go in and stop that spiral.

So that's mindfulness,

That's also meditation and mindfulness where you go and observe what's happening in my mind and with the emotional level,

What's happening emotionally in my heart when I experience this situation and what's happening on the physical level.

So the pain is,

We know some of the practitioners that are the gurus and some of the other ones that work with the physical form,

They can completely extinguish all forms of pain.

So they don't feel pain and we know that we can do our painkillers and what have you.

So pain is also tied to our expectation of pain or our expectation as we have learned when we're children that if we fall and our mom said,

Oh,

Go that way,

Then pain will be something very to be afraid of.

Whereas if we are,

We kind of when we fall and we get picked up,

We get kiss on the cheek and mom says,

Okay,

It's fine,

It's fine.

It's just pain,

You can deal with this.

It's good.

You feel it,

This is to teach you to be careful next time or put it into some kind of context that is expanding our awareness of how to use our body in a proper way because that's what pain is.

Then we create the narrative around it as in this is not just something to be afraid of,

But actually something to utilize for a better way of being a human being.

And that narrative is more the distinction I'm drawing between pain and the stuff we add on top of the natural pain.

Now the childhood thing I'm going to set aside because that's a whole new complex thing.

But maybe an example I'll give is that,

Yeah,

It's the stories we tell about our,

You know,

This extra stories we add on.

Like if we have a physical pain or something like that,

And then some people might add on like,

Oh,

Well,

I'm,

The stories added on top of that,

You know,

Because there's some stories that we add on top of that.

Well,

That actually add an extra level of unsatisfactoriness to it.

But there's other views and stories we can see that might actually help it more wise,

More wisdom or wise views or skillful ways to view it that won't add that extra level of unsatisfactoriness on it.

Now,

The,

What was the,

So,

Young,

Go ahead.

Yeah,

No,

I was just thinking what we're dealing with here and what we're doing here and try to exemplify here is that when we are having this discussion on words,

Which some scholars do and some do not do,

And is it to be interpreted this way or that way,

Whatever,

Then in my mind,

We must understand,

Because the Buddha was one of the people that could look into different realms and different aspects of things in one go.

Very similar,

I'm not saying I'm a Buddha or anything,

But I've trained my mind to do some of the same things and others that practice and expand their awareness,

They can look into multiple layers at the same time.

And that's why we begin to understand why we cannot take words literally,

Why we must always work with them on the different levels.

This is the physical,

This is the emotional,

This is the mental,

This is the extraordinary unto the other realms.

As well as when the Buddha was teaching the layman,

He would use the analogy of the yoke of the bull,

For instance,

That living inside the human realm in,

If we do contextual as in the time of his existence,

The ones he would be teaching were slaves,

And they were under enslavement,

And they were slaving for someone else.

So they were under a yoke,

Both meaning that they were carrying the burden of the rich people,

But they were also carrying the burden of being the low caste,

They were also carrying the burden of pain,

They were also carrying the burden of psychologically not being acknowledged as living beings.

Yes,

And also round after round of birth and samsara,

Right?

Yes.

So in that interpretation,

Have I got to this bottom of the hierarchy because I have done something ill-minded in my previous lifetime?

Is this the punishment from the gods to put me here?

And then the Buddha came into this whole teaching,

Another level of teaching,

Which we have also discussed,

You and I,

Where he goes in and says,

Well,

None of the gods are eternal beings,

They are also having their,

Let's put it in the transgression way,

They will also cease to exist at some point,

So there is no living being that is internal,

There is no continued repetition and rebirth after rebirth after rebirth,

Since everything will come to an end eventually.

So let us go in and figure out,

Okay,

What is it that leads to the rebirth?

And that's where the understanding of the Dukkha comes in,

Because that's where the teachings are.

Well,

You have that experience,

And what you put onto it,

What you tailor around it,

The faculties of mind,

What you interpreted,

The faculties of emotion,

What you put into the five skandhas,

What you put into the.

.

.

Sorry,

If I am not.

.

.

It's interesting,

Because there is actually a terminology in Buddha that calls the five faculties,

But they are also called the indriya,

And so it's interesting how we are kind of mixing these terms that Buddhists usually take as their own terminology,

So in the skandhas too,

But.

.

.

Yes,

I am alluding to that,

Because I am kind of trying to tap into.

.

.

Yes,

And so even if people don't.

.

.

There is no requirement for people that are not into this very deeply,

Is to buy into or believe rebirth,

But the thing is,

Past actions.

So it just goes to the notion of actions have consequences according to some,

Like a cause and effect or thing like this.

So,

Yes,

The earlier examples you talked about,

Well,

Maybe this is a fruit of a past action,

And so that's the way maybe to weasel out of past lives,

You just say past action,

Because sometimes things might happen in this lifetime,

But some might be from prior lifetimes too as well.

But I don't think we can take the teachings of the Buddha without having it in the context of the time he was living in.

Absolutely,

Yes.

He lived with people in India that believed in past life and current life and future life.

Absolutely,

And that's part of it too.

Reincarnation.

And he talks about it.

For me,

If I am to interpret it in my way,

He was teaching people that this might be true to some point,

Not what he would have said,

I would rather go around.

If we are to understand the concepts of Dukkha on its different levels,

Then he would teach one level to the slaves,

As in a kind of explanation of why they were positioned where they were positioned,

As in this is the life you have now,

But it's not necessarily because the gods have deemed it that way.

It's not necessarily because they are impermanent creatures as well.

So they don't rule over you as a human being.

So what it all comes down to,

It's not circumstances,

It's not the gods,

It's not karma,

But it is your actions in here and now,

What you're doing here and now,

That determines whether or not you will be in the wheel of samsara,

The wheel of rebirth.

And for me,

That's the understanding of Dukkha,

Where he goes in and teaches people and says,

Well,

This is your own doing,

So to speak.

If you change the way you experience life,

If you change the way you experience your life as it is now,

Yes,

It sucks,

He might not have said that,

But you can change the way you perceive it,

You can change the way the narrative you create around it,

You can change the way you experience these physical impermanence,

And they are just things that happen to your body.

You can override it,

Which you learn by the gurus,

You can override it,

You can work with it in meditation,

Contemplation.

Yes,

You come home,

You have been beaten up,

You have been,

Whatever has happened to you,

But you can sit at the end of the day,

Doing your before the sun goes down meditation,

And clear it all out and go into love and compassion and just heal yourself from that moment.

Yes,

You'll wake up tomorrow,

It'll be the same shit,

But you could do that every day,

And that will minimize the burden of distortion or that leads to a specific type of rebirth.

Yes,

And they also talk,

Sila Samadhi Panya,

So Sila is the ethics,

So even the people that don't get a chance to do meditation,

Right?

These ethical ways of conduct,

It's going to be of benefit too.

If you act skillfully,

Usually you might have more of a chance to have a skillful result.

So,

It's not because thou shall not,

Right?

This is for your own welfare,

Long-term welfare and well-being.

Then the next step is we're talking more about the meditation path,

That that helps,

You can go another layer,

And then the Panya is the wisdom,

And that can really help us see and know and overcome levels of suffering towards the complete.

.

.

Yeah,

And I just wanted to go in,

Would you go ahead?

No,

No,

Go ahead,

Please.

No,

Because what you said there,

Because if you go into the circumstances of the laymen that were slaves,

They had no chance of changing their life,

No chance whatsoever.

They might as well have been thrown into a prison cell.

That's why he allowed the lower caste to join the order,

If they could even have that possibility,

Though.

But if we look into that context and say,

Well,

They had no chance of changing their lives,

What could they then change the way they perceived it?

Absolutely,

Yep.

So,

I think we should look at the teachings,

The Four Noble Truths as well within that context.

If we look within the context of the Rajas,

Of the nobilities and the rich people,

Then the teaching would apply in a different way.

So,

We have to say,

Well,

When you talk about the idea of Dukkha,

We have to,

Who is working with frustration there?

What level of frustration are we talking about?

But also,

What are the life circumstances?

And this is why it's a right view,

And this is the very first step on the path.

And it's the,

You know,

Yeah.

And so,

Like,

I don't know all the exact terms,

But I think it was defined as what,

You know,

What is Dukkha?

Birth,

Aging,

Sickness,

Death,

Sorrow,

Grief,

Lamentation,

Despair.

I think I'm missing all these things.

So,

It's the ending of that.

So,

Just know that it's not just all the bad things.

There's a possibility,

It's said,

That,

You know,

There is a chance to end this.

If it wasn't possible,

I wouldn't teach it.

So,

That's the third one.

So,

We keep this in mind at the beginning,

Maybe middle and end,

That it's just not all party pooper time,

Right?

All right.

Now,

Actually,

It's a little bit when we're going to talk about the Gospels and the saints,

The happy,

The Gospels,

It actually means the happy message,

The happy news that we're brought.

Yes,

The good news.

And Jesus were also teaching the layman.

He was also teaching the slaves.

And St.

Paul goes in and say,

This is the liberation of enslavement,

Where we get liberated in the corpus of Christ.

So,

The idea is the same that we have these people that are targeting that information for the ones that are enslaved.

And I don't.

.

.

That language is used to liberation,

Emancipation.

Exactly.

And I think that's enormously important.

We can,

Of course,

If we go scholar,

Nerdy here,

That the emancipation that Jesus talked about were actually the Hebrews that left Egypt and that old enslavement and what have you,

We could go tailoring back to that one because that's a Jewish context.

But here we have an Indian context,

But they both on the Indian continent,

As well as in Judea,

People were enslaved and they had no freedom.

And then we have these teachers that comes in and tells you,

You can't change the circumstances because that is what it is,

But you can change the way you perceive it.

And then we can go and say,

Well,

Do we then go in and create the narrative of God or reincarnation or whatever?

And I think that why I do enjoy Buddhism very much to the degree I understand is because it is so close to psychology,

It's so close to good human behavior,

It's so close to these are the techniques,

How you can survive being in an environment that literally restrains you from A to Z and how can you still have that balance point?

Because I'm not going to say you create joy because that is impermeable as well.

That will,

The moment you have joy,

You might get kicked in the butt and life happens.

But there are moments of joy,

Otherwise it wouldn't be tolerable at all.

Yes,

But I would rather say points of neutrality where you are just in acceptance and trust and just being in that without labeling it,

Without valuing it,

Without putting things in it and just do what you have to do because tomorrow is another day.

As the gospel says,

Each day has its own burden.

So you just,

As a slave,

Because I want to put it there so we have that context,

That as a slave of reality and what's with the circumstances you put into,

It all depends on how you're working with these circumstances and that can,

As we kind of saying,

As you have the piece of coal,

That the more you pressure it,

It will eventually become a diamond.

And that actually goes into some of the diamond body teachings where you use all of that pressure,

Which we can interpret as suffering.

You take all of that pressure,

All of that dukkha and you transform it into becoming this enormously strong,

Sovereign,

Independent being that no matter whatever happens to you,

Always stand in the midpoint and you will always transform suffering and you will always turn it into love,

Compassion and you will always find the center point that no matter what happens,

It will not really affect the core of who you are.

And that goes into the sukha where we talk about the non-essence,

What is the essence.

So,

And before we get there,

Pick up on some points.

Yeah,

That equanimity,

That wise,

Some people it's not to be confused with indifference.

It's a really kind of wise,

Grandparently love that saying that I cannot live your life for you.

You know,

I need to worry,

Or not worry,

Maybe that comes into it too,

But my own kind of own or whatever level of stability in that while I can offer,

You know,

Help and guidance along the way,

I can't do every single thing for you.

You know,

You have to do your,

You go on your own path.

And this whole notion of enslavement is a really good one,

Both literally and figuratively,

Because,

You know,

Just even the nobility would be enslaved to like,

You know,

I don't know,

Lots of different sense pleasures,

Having access to all kinds of things,

Right.

And still even not having that be satisfactory,

You know,

And really,

So just whatever cast you were,

There will still be some level of stress and unsatisfactory,

Just different degrees in that view.

And so there was a big emphasis with,

You know,

You might've been fruits from past actions,

But the thing is,

Like we were saying,

Right now is the chance to change.

You can view this,

There's the choice to view this a different way now,

And there's a choice now to act,

Think and speak more skillfully and more wisely now,

Which will pay off.

So instead of putting the emphasis on all of the past and how horrible it was,

Maybe what I did all in the past,

You know,

Not to deny that,

But know that that can actually drag one down even further if we would give that more time and attention energy,

But know that now is the chance to make a change.

Our actions,

Our thoughts,

Speech and action do make a difference.

There's one thing though that I also wanted to pick up with is when we talked about the real life example of getting pushed down.

And yes,

I think you kind of also mentioned compassion because in my notion,

That would be a notion of compassion there because to say,

Oh,

Hey,

How you doing?

When somebody's hitting you,

I don't,

You know,

It's not,

Now I mean,

That's a real high-minded thing.

And I would say very advanced practitioners can do that.

But for the reality of the streets,

Smart spirituality,

Would my view is that person isn't a lot.

What is that person going through that they did that,

You know?

And also this notion of the,

Yeah,

That person is a lot of fricking pain,

Right?

Or something really bad is going on there.

And at the same time,

They want to be happy just like I want to be happy,

Right?

You know,

So now sometimes the most compassionate thing to do is,

You know,

Put up strong boundaries and stay just as far as away from that person as you possibly can and have no interaction whatsoever.

I think in some cases,

That is the most compassionate thing.

It's not like I'm going out,

You know,

So.

But again,

I put,

Yes,

Absolutely.

So that's,

I would say that's people in the distance that kind of,

We don't look at people in the distance because we're not infiltrating,

We're not entangling ourselves into their energy field.

Unnecessarily,

Yes.

But if I have a person,

This is,

You talk about the high levels of compassion.

If I have the situation where I'm on a train and I am in my bubble of energy,

I'm in my version of reality,

The relative reality that I have created by working with my energy system to the level where I am in that balance point of neutrality so that whatever happens around me fluctuates in and out of my field without me clinging onto it,

Without me grasping it,

Without me pulling it in and saying,

This is mine or this is part of who I am,

Just letting it be there as an experience.

Then if someone comes and pushes me,

Then that person becomes part of my experience and by that becomes part of my field.

And that's where,

In that situation where I will then go into that still point and look at the situation and actually in that moment I would be able via the higher levels works of compassion be able to change the trajectory of his,

I'm using a he here,

His and my entanglement in future lifetimes.

I can actually put,

I can extinguish that karma that would arise from that moment by being in the correct type of compassion.

And that has nothing to do with me being all softy and oh yeah,

You didn't mean to do that.

Very good point.

It is an energetic nullification of the incident.

So that's something entirely different.

It is.

That's the mastery of energy field.

So that means compassion has different layers too.

Absolutely.

And this goes along with a view because you saw all this and you know where it could potentially lead with your action,

Right?

And the action is more energetic in this case but it's still what you saw,

The view and where it could lead and then the action,

The response that was chosen there.

So it is a type,

But it's again on a high,

You know,

A different level,

But yeah.

So that's beautiful.

Yes,

Because if that situation is not resolved then we will meet up again at some point because it's kind of,

You have this,

It's like a tear in the fabric of reality.

Two realities clashes together.

This is where we go into,

We have relative reality.

There's our individual reality that is ignited and controlled and explored and unfolded via our energy system.

But if we go into the unified reality field then all of these individual relative reality incidents will create a pattern from where we will be forced to meet up eventually.

And this goes to the notion that maybe a similar type thing is when if I don't learn a specific lesson,

A specific,

A specific lesson,

It seems to keep repeating until I've mastered it or came to completion.

It might not be the exact same person.

It might be in a different scenario,

In a different place,

But the dynamics are really similar,

Right?

These repeating things that happen in our life over and over again until we kind of get the thing that needs to be learned or realized.

I mean,

That's what came to mind with this.

Yeah.

Yes.

So that's the understanding also of karma as this pattern that we are weaving together of reality,

Our relative reality,

Our individual perception of reality,

The way we administer our energies and our consciousness potentials will then create the big pattern where we are all interconnected in that.

Not that we are all at one or we are all one because we're not.

.

.

Interconnected way better.

Yes,

But we are interconnected and we are affecting each other.

Interdependent too.

Yes,

Because we are in the same reality.

So in a way we say karma's entire reality is not just cause and effect,

But it has a cause and effect in our everyday life.

And it has a cause and effect on the long run.

And that's where you go in when you master the compassion to the high degree where you begin to understand it's,

Yes,

You're both compassionate in the moment,

But what is compassion in that moment?

Compassion in that moment is to understand who's actually in front of you.

What's the right course of action here?

So that's another cause and effect.

What's the right course of action here?

Which we talk about the noble truth of how to end dukkha,

The course of action.

What do you do here?

What's the root of it and how do you work with it?

And that's wisdom,

Knowing what,

Taking knowledge and applying it in everyday life,

Right?

Actually putting knowledge into action and then knowing it for yourself.

You know?

Yes,

With the incident that's in front of you and not just in contemplation and not just in meditation.

So you have to be out in life to really experience how we put these teachings into effect in everyday life.

And that's the mindfulness for me comes in that in that moment,

Every single moment,

You have to be completely mindful,

Observant.

You never have too much mindfulness.

Yes,

And always see every single incident that comes into your life.

Once you get to the higher levels of the path where you begin to understand the whole life is this fluctuation of energies that changes and you're in this ocean of all of these energies and every single moment is a moment of wisdom,

Of learning,

Of processes,

Of transformation and where you can begin lives and end lives and develop lives and whatever you want to do with that moment,

Everything can be lifted up to an enormous unified level understanding of reality or just choose to do it locally.

Yeah,

And I think the Buddha is an example of that that's possible,

You know,

At least what we have handed down.

There's one thing you said there though that I was wondering and I kind of missed that you said everything is karma in a way.

Now,

My understanding is that there are other laws that come into,

Not everything is karma,

Right?

And this goes into the bigger,

Well,

I mean,

Just like the laws that govern whether,

Although we are in some sense,

You know,

Connecting and can affect,

But there's,

I guess,

Certain natural processes that don't depend on our action.

The human realms.

So when we talk about the human realms,

But it's a good distinction to make because people might not think in these different boxes,

But I was thinking when talking about,

When talking about the human realms and talking about karma,

Karma is only connected to human existence.

I see what you say,

Because I was like the spin rate of an atom might not have to do with any of my actions,

But then sometimes it depends on what those were.

Atoms even exist.

So no,

Nature does not have karma.

Nature is not an entity.

Nature is not a life form as we understand of it.

So it does not get reborn.

It can't do its own actions.

Yeah,

So it does not get reborn.

The planet does not get reborn into different shapes,

Even though the esoteric teachings allude to that one,

Because they want to make them entities,

The logos of the planet,

What have you.

But when we,

From my understanding,

Is that when we talk about the human realm,

This is the human realm on its own,

Because if we talk about the laws that governs universal structures,

We go into a completely different discussion.

So cause and effect here is always connected to rebirth and karma is always connected to the understanding of existence in different realms of reality,

Or as I call them,

Timelines or nodal points.

And don't get me started on a whole other level of things,

But here we keep it within the concept of the Buddhist ideas.

And for me,

Karma there is alluded to the actions of the past,

The actions of the present and how you can change that.

So you will not be caught up in the wheel of samsara,

Because at the end of the day,

Dukkha is to be stuck on the wheel of rebirth.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Yep,

And that's what the ending of dukkha is.

That's what enlightenment and liberation is,

The ending of dukkha,

What's being ceased dukkha,

Right?

And it's a really important notion too,

That our actions matter because some systems say,

Oh no,

Everything's predetermined,

You know,

It's either fatalistic or predeterminism,

Things like this,

You know,

So that's really,

Cause then there's no incentive to behave in a way or do anything whatsoever.

I mean,

If nothing applies,

So yeah.

So that's another important thing.

Now,

The one thing we talked about in the last one is this,

Well,

Before I wanted to,

Do you remember the point when I said I was going to go back and pick up some things before you kind of transitioned into something?

Now I've completely,

I'm off on that.

So maybe if it comes up later,

We can choose that.

But the one thing we left the last time that we kind of hinted that we'd pick up is this symbol,

Working with the symbol.

So we're going to go back to that and explore that a little bit deeper and how that works.

Well,

Let's see if we can work our way back in,

Because that's a very,

Very high level.

Right now we have gone into the path of compassion and karma and the cessation of being on the wheel of rebirth and being enslaved to the wheel of rebirth.

Because I think it's important when we talk about the Buddha and his teachings,

He was always working with this very,

I'm sorry,

I'm saying he was always as if I've been around him,

But it's an English express.

So,

So the working with the different layers of information and teachings.

And again,

We have talked about from the slaves and how to,

To be in a reality where you're stuck and you're,

You're,

You're literally refrained from doing anything and then going into the Kings and the abilities or whoever were on a higher cost.

And what would they be enslaved by other than frustration and nitty gritty?

Yeah,

You got the whole palace there and you're still complaining kind of psychology,

But what would they be actually enslaved by?

They would be enslaved by the gods.

They would adhere to the gods because they were put there as that level that would administer reality field for the gods.

So in,

In,

In my vision I'm having here is that if the Buddha were teaching a King or an ability or Raja,

He would then go in and say,

Your frustration is that you're linked up to the gods.

You are controlled by the gods.

Your wealth is controlled by the gods.

You are technically not free either.

You're also enslaved.

You're enslaved by your greed.

You're enslaved by your,

Your,

Your priesthood that you are asking them to cast the,

The,

The,

Not the runes,

But the cast of the,

The fortune or whatever that is to look into the stars,

To look into astrology.

So you can get more fortune so you can get more wealth.

And that would also mean more power.

So you're enslaved by your power.

You're enslaved by your greed.

You're enslaved by,

And if you don't get that,

Then you get frustrated.

You're enslaved by your thousand wives or whatever was going on.

So how do you stop having that?

That,

And that's why both of them talk about the gospels or the teachings of Jesus or the Buddha as in,

Yes,

You can teach this level to these people,

But at the end of the day,

It's,

They are more difficult actually to liberate than the commoners.

And even expanding this beyond and said that the human realm is the best place for this type of practice,

Because if,

If one's in a hell realm,

It's just too agonizing.

You don't have any thought.

You just have to wait till that lifetime's over.

And then if it's in the heaven,

Everything's so delightful and beautiful,

You know,

That there's no incentive.

What is suffering?

I mean,

Stress,

What are you talking about?

This is lovely,

You know?

So there's no incentive in the extremes,

Right?

To practice,

But there's just enough here to say,

Yeah,

This just isn't doing it for me.

You know,

What's the better way here?

So there's an incentive here on,

From the Rajas all the way to the slaves that,

Yeah,

We all share this in common until we're fully enlightened.

From my understanding is that we're all going to experience at least unsatisfactoryness.

But if we go to where I kind of wanted to work with it,

Which we have the gospels as well,

There's a saying where Jesus,

This rich guy comes to him and said,

I'll give away all my money or this kind of thing.

And he still says the eye of the needle is still too narrow for you.

You will still not be able to go through.

Why is that?

Why is it that rich people,

Not to put that away,

But the ones on top of the hierarchy,

Why is it more difficult for them to reach enlightenment?

Because we need suffering.

We need the crisis.

We need what molds us,

What like being in this fiery place,

Not hell,

Not hellish conditions,

But we need to be in a situation where we are confronted with constantly that life is unsatisfactory,

That no matter what,

We can't get a full stomach.

We can't,

We go to sleep tired.

We are always being beaten.

We're always this,

That,

Whatever.

So we're in this constant psychological grinding machine that where there are larger potential for transformation.

Whereas if you're on the top end of everything,

You get served for you and you have access to whatever,

Then these,

Then,

And I think,

Sorry,

You kind of know where I'm going,

But the idea is then,

Why did the Buddha then leave the castle?

Because perhaps he knew that if I'm going to do this,

If I'm going to adhere to the inner teachers that he probably already had the time,

I need to be out there in the grinding machine.

I need to be where pain is felt.

I need to be where the gurus are teaching the commoners how to deal with their physical pain.

I need to be out there with the sages that teaches me the ancient wisdom of the ones that have gone before us.

I need to be in the forest so I can feel the nature,

Spirits,

The devas.

I need to be out there.

He started as a seeker after truth.

Yeah.

And the truth is,

The Four Noble Truth,

That suffering does exist,

Or people experience suffering while the people in the castle,

They want to hide from it,

Pretend it doesn't exist,

Covered up with more sense pleasures,

Right?

And that said,

Not even a mountain of gold or a rain of gold would be enough.

Yeah.

There's never,

Always more and more and more and more.

So that kind of blinds them to the truth of how actually unsatisfactory that is.

They're just totally caught up in that.

So yeah,

It's a very good point.

Yeah.

So that's kind of just what I'm.

.

.

So we're still talking about when he said he was teaching the different people in different ways.

And for me,

And I know I'm constantly conflating it with Christianity or the perception of Christianity.

No,

It's a good reality,

Because you're drawing on that teaching system to understand this type of approach.

And that might be completely wrong.

Well,

It could be,

Or it could be even more right than we know of.

So I don't know.

And then of course,

This intuitive,

What I remember,

What I was experiencing as being that Buddhist monk when I had that,

We remember in,

So to speak.

Yeah.

Then let's talk about that for a little bit,

If you'd like to,

Whatever you'd like to say about that.

Let me preface it with a little bit of this kind of paradox of.

.

.

So it said on the night of the Buddhist enlightenment,

One of the things,

Stages he went through is recalling his own past lives,

Incalculable number of past lives,

Right?

And then before going on to actually seeing these,

The cycles of birth and death in other beings.

So that was the next,

But his own past lives.

So that,

To me,

That seems fairly important.

Now,

The paradox is some people say,

And there's wisdom in this too,

Obviously.

Well,

I guess some of the monastic order,

They're not allowed to really talk about their past lives for this and that reasons,

At least among the lay people that I know of.

Now they can talk about the Buddhist past life or I don't know exactly what,

But you don't hear too many monastics talking about that.

I won't go into the reasons now,

But we're not monastics.

So that rule doesn't apply to us.

And the other thing is that,

Some people can get hung up on certain past lives,

Right?

So they can constantly either re-traumatize or get too involved in that and where they put too much importance on it.

But I would say there is a great deal of importance to be gained.

So what is the balanced approach to look at these types of things?

And then you can also do this from,

Draw on your own experience with past life memories too,

Right?

As experiential.

Yes,

Because all the things you said there,

Absolutely.

So I will give more kind of my approach to this more than what others have put.

Because in the inner work,

I've been doing where I work with timelines and clearing of timelines using the kheism of my heart feel.

So that's a completely different approach.

But when I go in this life alone,

I work through many of my feels that are part of my energy system.

And when,

Once I'm done with the field,

It collapses.

And once it collapses,

You see everything that is on the timelines connected to that field.

That would be how I would interpret that,

As the Buddha went through this enlightenment stages,

He would collapse his scanners or his feels.

And there he would see all the existences he had been on with that feel on these timelines,

As I would put it.

Because the experience I have had is that once that happens,

I see all the timelines collapse,

But they surface as these,

This life and kind of past life that just as in time of death,

They,

You just go through all of them as they cease to exist on the timeline.

They surface,

Activate,

Evaporate.

And then what you are pulling out of that is that whatever remains there of viability,

What's called viability rate that goes with consciousness units will then be transferred into my heart field.

And then activate that to another ring of expansion,

Another ring of developmental processes that will lead to new timelines.

But whenever I'm done with a field and it no longer is useful for me for my continued journey of expansion,

It will collapse and everything that's on it will collapse with it.

And by that,

All of these past lives would cease to exist.

And even if you ask me,

Can you remember them?

No,

They will completely cease to exist.

So that's another way of getting unhooked off the wheel of samsara,

Where you work with the different developmental processes of your fields,

Lifting them to their highest energy state and highest viability rate,

As it's called,

Where you then will understand this is lifting it up to its highest potentials from where all of the other timelines that is below that will cease to exist.

So thereby,

There's no need to talk about it because it doesn't exist anymore.

It ceases to exist completely.

So that's also cessation of pain and cessation of rebirth and cessation of suffering because you have cleared yourself to that level where everything literally becomes light and symbols,

To put that one in there,

And with that,

Collapse everything that's below that,

That is lesser than that.

So that's how I kind of perceive that thing.

So,

But with things that lingers on,

As in this,

The Buddhist monk,

That's because I'm not done with it yet.

I still have got some frustration there because I died in agony and torture and severe pain.

And some of the things that I experienced there where I was using all of my techniques,

First to try and transform in compassion,

Which didn't work because I was dealing with some really severe,

Let's just call it,

Type of being that were in human form there.

So that didn't work.

Then I went to other ways while I was being tortured,

While I was in severe agony and completely bodily pain,

But I could administer that.

But what frustrated me was that I kind of felt in that moment that all of my techniques didn't apply.

So that's the frustration.

And that's why sometimes when I work with the whole idea of Buddhism,

I can go in between this high state of compassion and understanding and transformation,

And it brings me joy.

And then the next moment,

Because of that frustration of in the moment of death,

Where I try to,

None of this works.

And eventually the only thing I could do was to pull myself into the void.

But that has not really ended that timeline.

It's not,

There's still pain.

There's still this image of that being.

What was that being?

What was going on?

The whole frustration around that.

So that there's still pain there.

So that's why it's not ended.

So when you're in that state of a past life,

That's also when you talk to the monastic level as a monk,

It's good not to talk about it because you will then activate it further.

You will go in with your human mind.

Once you try to verbalize things,

You will go in with human mind.

It creates thought forms and ideas.

And by that actually amplify the narrative around it,

Amplify the experience other than just having it as an experience.

So it should be done in contemplation and inner work and compassion work that goes with my relative reality.

And why it for me led to frustration.

What was it of the teachings that I might have misinterpreted so that it didn't apply to that situation?

And thereby it would be logical to think,

Oh,

Perhaps my teachers didn't teach it right.

I would go into this whole kind of spinning of it.

Therefore,

Was the Buddha fake or what have you?

And then put it back into the center point and say,

OK,

Not as in why did I have that experience or why was it put in?

It was a political issues and the things I was involved with in the time and all this kind of circumstances of 1959 in China.

So we kind of get the context of that.

So why was it that it's unfinished for me?

That would be the point of inquiry where I go in and look at that in meditation as I've done with a past life as a Native American.

And what was it that I didn't get done that keeps me stuck on that timeline?

So that's where the way we work with past lives,

But we don't share it because that is so relative that when we talk about the Buddhist ideas,

You only share what's relevant for the group.

You don't share what's relevant for you.

So you keep what's yours because that's your process.

But you share what's relevant for the group as a community to lift up as an enlightened group that lifts the group to a higher level,

Not your personal distress or what have you,

Because that's yours to deal with,

Duh.

You're practicing compassion and undo of pain and suffering.

So you don't share that.

Very beautiful and wisely put.

And the Buddha would do that too.

And in crowds,

He would kind of survey the crowd and just know exactly what to say,

What not to say for everyone present there,

Right?

And,

But this,

What comes to mind now is besides the,

Yeah,

The pain and the challenge behind what I felt by hearing you say that is that I wonder if there's other past lives behind that,

That interrelate to that moment too.

If there's patterns in past lives too,

Yeah,

That can,

That either repeat or that are significant.

And yeah,

So it's,

The way you viewed that and your response to it,

It's,

I think it's,

I find it very helpful,

Especially for practitioners that are getting around that level.

And I would love to hear from some practitioners who are experiencing past life recall.

And I know I've done a post in the past about what makes it even more confusing is all the different potentials where it could not be a past life.

It could actually be something else,

Right?

There's so many other possibilities where what one is experiencing could seem like a past life,

But there's so many other explanations of what it could be too.

Yeah.

Maybe I can refer people to that post because I can see where Randy can just go on for probably a couple of days with that one at least.

So that's a whole other level.

So now I want to keep it with the whole Buddhist and you can kind of say,

Well,

If you're not supposed to share this as a monk because you didn't share the frustration,

Yes,

Yes,

Absolutely.

Dillinger noted here,

Yes,

I should not have shared it.

But since I'm not a monk,

And I'm using this as an example of,

Okay,

Because I'm working with past lives as well.

And we are getting into when we talk about the elevation of a reality on its own merits and what that is and what that means.

Then as part of the universal structures,

The whole clearing of past lives come in and we need techniques to do that.

Absolutely.

Well,

First,

I feel we need techniques and able to access them and recall them because it's obviously valued within Buddhist teachings of past life recall,

Right?

Then we need ways to how to go about experiencing them,

Viewing them,

And then how and when we should share them to who,

Because they're important and some parts are taboo,

Some parts are not.

And then some people write it off altogether.

And I don't think that.

.

.

So you'll have these,

If I might do a slight gripe,

You have some psychologists that find all the brilliance of the Buddhist teachings in psychology.

But if someone's that brilliant,

And they're talking about past,

They just completely disregard that.

Like,

Oh,

That's just fairy tale.

Well,

I don't think it would be in there for no reason whatsoever,

Right?

So it is a complex issue that I feel needs to be explored because we're not subject to monastic rules,

You know?

And I would also invite monastics to come in here and also give advice on how lay practitioners might experience these things too,

Right?

Yeah.

I want to put in there,

When we talk about all of these ancient teachers that's been there in my understanding and the way I see it and recall it from my life's here and there and beyond,

Is that you have the teacher that's always kind of the center point of this teaching system that is not channeling,

That is not downloading.

It is given off over by the ones that gone before.

This is kind of,

You have a field of knowledge,

You have a field of consciousness,

You have a field of that is divided into a kind of hierarchical structure of different beings,

Which goes into the Buddhist cosmology as well.

And all of this is,

It's trickled,

What you call trickledown,

It spills over down to the deeper layers until there is a human representative that becomes the face of that system,

That becomes the interpreter of that system,

That is born into different realms.

That is what the esoteric calls avatars.

And you have other ideas of the rebirth,

A heart or whatever it is.

There's always one,

The teachers that comes in,

In different crisis,

In different times in human history and teach these different concepts within different,

I call them factions,

Extraterrestrials,

What have you.

That's where I go in a little bit out of normal understanding of Buddhist teachings.

But there are always these teachers and the way they operate,

The dynamics are more or less the same,

You have the teacher that comes in,

Whether it's poor or it's rich or whatever it is,

Then that person begins to create people around him or her.

We haven't heard many of the female teachers,

But there have been a few.

And they create,

They have the first one,

That is the second ring,

Where they have this inner circle of people around them that are in the field of the teacher,

Where they,

Like osmosis,

Get the teachings directly delivered to them.

And they are always connected through past lives.

They're always doing the same thing.

They're circulating to do that.

So they are appointed that position always.

So they are called the igniters and the administrators.

And we'll not go further into exploring that.

And then we have the third cycle,

Where we begin to have the ones that are preaching,

What that's the kind of the monastic,

The teachers of the monastery,

The teachers of the monk,

The high level of that one,

Which I have no English word for that,

I just call it the grandmaster.

And then you have the monks that are part of that section,

But the monks go into the fourth ring as well.

So the teachings would there be a different type of teaching.

And then you have the fifth ring,

Which are the layman of the commoners that are inside reality.

And if you ask me,

Would the Buddha teach the layman,

The fifth ring about reincarnation?

Absolutely not.

That's monastic.

That's for the monks to do.

But the teachers of the monks,

They would know about these past lives because they will recall it.

They will not be taught it.

They will recall it automatically because they're so close to the second ring,

Where they would also get a spill over,

Not osmosis in the same way as from the teacher,

But they would get a spill over that would ignite enough for them to run a monastery,

To do the daily chores,

To do,

We wake up,

We do this,

We have this discipline,

We have this way of living.

And we're working with this to nullify the effects of physical existence within the monastery.

We're working that way with energy,

Like Feng Shui,

Or with the garden,

Or with growing of herbs,

Or whatever it was,

So that we transform the monastery setting,

If there's a word monastery,

I don't know.

The grounds of the monastery.

Exactly,

To keep that pristine.

So it represents Shambhala on earth,

Actually.

So that's what the monastery is.

And the Shambhala is a kind of heavenly realm where the hearts and the enlightened ones or whoever,

And that's a huge,

Which we know from Tibetan Buddhism,

There are many different realms there.

And we're not to go in there either.

So all of this is the understanding.

Well,

You would say,

Well,

The Buddha didn't have a monastery.

He didn't have monks.

They came later,

As far as I understand,

Right?

But I don't think that,

I think he did have the,

He might not have called them monks.

He did not have the monastery,

As the early Christians didn't have a church,

But they have the ecclesiastes.

They had the gatherings.

They met in specific meadows and parks and what have you.

As you know,

The,

Sorry about this.

I'm going to Greek philosophers.

They also,

The Stoics,

They met under the stolas.

They met under the pillars where they were discussing topics.

So that's how it was.

So of course he had his people around him.

Sure.

Yes.

And he had,

And this goes to,

Was the chief disciple,

I guess,

Or I mean,

Whatever is interpreted,

The close ring of monks that are well-known.

And what was it?

Sariputta was foremost in wisdom.

And there are,

I think,

Accounts of Sariputta doing his own teachings to his own.

I don't know if anyone else noticed,

But when Randy talked about the third ring,

You actually said cycle for third one.

So I,

You meant third ring,

But it just came up.

So,

So yeah,

No,

No,

No,

No.

That's just one to point that out in case anybody else noticed that or was confused about it.

But yeah,

It's,

It's,

It's it makes a lot of sense to,

To see that,

That system as well.

And we see that mirrored actually,

When you do educational institutions,

You have the podium and then you have the seats that are divided into rings or the theater where you have the rings again,

And,

Or as well with the ones in the back or the ones that are in the cheap seats.

Sure.

The ones you have the serious practitioners closer to the,

Yeah.

And the ones that are close in the past life connection is really interesting as well,

Because there's stories in the suttas where it was a Moggallana and was it Anna?

No,

I think it was,

Was it,

No,

It was,

It was,

Well,

Sariputta and whoever he was with either Moggallana or Aniruddha or whichever one he's paired up with,

But they supposedly went through many past lives together.

And it's like this Bert and Ernie type character.

Oh,

I don't know,

But you know,

They,

They were always kind of known together.

And so,

Yeah,

That,

That makes sense like that as well.

Yeah.

They will always find each other no matter where they were,

They will always be drawn together because if there is to be a teacher seated into reality and create the five rings of knowledge to create the waves of different levels of ignition of the original teachings within humanity,

So they can,

They can do the elevation because it always comes in when we are on a threshold to a new age,

Then the teachers come in.

That's what they say.

It's,

He's,

It was,

The time was ripe for him to be here at that time.

All the different conditions were perfect for it.

Are not perfect,

But ripe for it.

So he was,

He was to end an age and ignite another age.

So he's an igniter and that's what the teachers often are.

But that's also why he says that everything that I leave behind was ceased to exist because the point of me being here is not that I become a religion,

That I become something you worship.

The point of me being here is to end everything that I brought with me.

And this goes to the Buddha's last words,

Which may or may not have to come another time because we were ready an hour into this.

And,

Uh,

There was,

I think one other point that I wanted to make that,

Oh,

Now I forget.

So not,

Not a smooth ending,

But I think we can probably leave it at that.

The ending was that he said to his students that,

That go out,

Be lamps of your own,

Go out and carry on my teachings as the Buddha,

The teaching of Jesus is as well.

He says,

I will cease to exist,

But the,

The,

The,

The spirit,

The Holy Ghost will come in and light you and you will then carry the teachings on.

And the,

For me,

The Buddha did the same thing in his end of whatever happened in the last hours of his,

He was having these people around him.

He was talking to different people on different levels,

Saying different things to each and one of them deliberately so that they would not come up with this great teachings system.

And that's why when we talk about the,

The,

The whole practitioner of Buddhism today,

For me,

It's kind of,

That's not what he asked.

He asked people to not make it into a religion.

He,

He asked them not to make it into a teaching system.

That's right.

So like,

Well,

Now I remember what I wanted to say that what you were talking about here is just this realm.

So in the Buddhism acknowledges many,

Many,

I'm sorry,

World systems.

That's what they,

That's translated.

So that's just this world system,

That Buddha for this world system,

When there's so many different world systems and things going on.

So,

And yeah,

And so I think the,

One of the interpretations of the last words I was looking into this,

If I'm getting this right,

Compounded conditions are subject to change,

Work out your own,

Work out your own liberate,

You're getting excited here,

Your own liberation with diligence.

That's our long,

These lines,

Right?

So it doesn't say,

Yeah,

You know,

Build huge temples and you worship me.

I mean,

That's the,

Well,

Of course they don't do that in Buddhism,

But they get more Christianity or something,

But yeah,

He didn't,

He didn't necessarily say you have to rely on me for a teacher anymore,

You know,

Work out your own liberation with diligence.

Yeah.

So,

I mean,

It's a little,

It's somewhat cryptic,

Right?

But I mean,

It's also very wise.

Yes.

But when we talk about the ancient wisdom that's been given to us from the ones that were before us,

That will always change according to the teachers that are ending an ancient beginning of new,

It will always change.

It will become something else.

And the ones that have got the spillover of the osmosis of the teacher,

They will carry the torch for a certain period of time,

Then they will distinguish.

And then the third ring will carry the torch for a certain amount of time.

And then the fourth ring will carry it for a certain amount of time.

And then the fifth ring.

And once the fifth ring has turned it into a religion,

Then the teachings will cease to exist.

And because they've solidified,

They are no longer living words.

And this is acknowledged too,

That the Dharma is going to die out.

And they give these sign points of,

You know,

If you see this,

Then it's the end is near kind of thing.

Like one of the things,

If I'm remembering this right,

Is when people start losing the ability to do,

You know,

Deep samadhi and deep Samatha practice or concentration.

That's not the right translation I like.

But when that kind of dies out,

Then that's a sign that this will die out for this cycle until the next one,

Right?

Well,

There'll be maybe another Buddha or however it works,

Right?

But that's that's inbuilt too,

That is going to go.

And once he's he sees to be reborn,

I am pretty sure about that.

So yeah,

There's no more rebirth after that.

Then the second ring,

There would perhaps be reborn one or two or three times.

Once they are gone,

The third ring would be reborn four or five or six times.

So there's this amplification vector that goes with that as well.

And then eventually the ones that the layman that got the lowest level of the teachings,

They will they will have been reborn many,

Many,

Many times.

But once they die out to either by lifting themselves up to the second ring or the third ring or the fourth ring,

Or just by complete decomposition,

Because they're worn out and no longer exist,

Then that's then that era is done.

But he started by collapsing everything that was connected to the teachers he got it from.

So that's the most important thing to remember.

Yeah,

Because when it said when he achieved awakening,

And then he decided to teach out of compassion,

That the first person that could get it,

Because it was so complex and so subtle and so profound yet and not understandable by mere logic alone,

To his first meditation teachers,

The ones that taught him these profound levels of subtle levels of consciousness,

They were already dead,

Though.

So he wasn't able to teach them.

And the other thing,

This also lines up a little bit,

I'm taking with the Theravada notions of the stages of enlightenment,

You have the stream enter,

And if it was at seven more births,

The first stage of enlightenment,

Then there's a once returner,

Non returner and arhat.

Yeah,

So.

All right.

I think that's the way to put it.

Yes.

And that's the goal to see and know suffering in order to see suffering.

All right.

Well,

Thanks,

Randi.

You're welcome.

Thank you.