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20030805GRALS04

8.5.03 evening

Good evening everybody and welcome to the evening session. This morning we talked about the mind. As a matter of fact, I described as much as I could and I don’t intend to talk about the mental faculties or talk about the mind in that manner. Geshe Rabten, in his Treasury of Dharma did a good explanation from that angle. He described all the 52 mental factors in very simple words and very straight forwardly. So I am going to refer you to his book. You don’t have to buy it, though. We can copy the relevant pages and make them available. I cannot take all the time here, explaining all the mental faculties.

Question and Answer Session:

Lets go to the questions. I like to mention one thing. From tomorrow I have selected two people to collect all the questions and combine them together. Today I will take all questions directly.

Audience: If the mind is free from all obscurations, is it enlightened or is there something else that a mind which is free from dirt and obscurations, has to do?

Rimpoche: Very good question. You are right on the point. You always hear that you are a wonderful person, that we are by nature kind, compassionate, wonderful and great. We hear that from every spiritual person. I hope so, at least. I hope nobody will tell you that you are terrible and will go to jail and to hell. I don’t think they will say that. The nature of the mind is in fact pure. That is its straightforward pure nature, not influenced by hatred, attachment and all those negative emotions. There is no dirt or anything like that. It is pure. Negative emotions cannot become part of the mind because mind itself is pure. The pure can not change its nature and become impure. That’s why Buddha gives the example of pure silver. This means pure, old fashioned silver, not the 99 % sterling. I am talking about 100 % silver. That silver collects a lot of tarnish, but that tarnish doesn’t become part of the silver. It can be washed off and the silver can shine again. The tarnish can never become part of it. The pure is pure by nature and the impure cannot become part of that. The mind itself is right, and it cannot accept as part of its nature wrong things. They just don’t work together. They clash. That is why we get into trouble all the time with push and pull, up and down through the emotional drives we have inside. While answering the questions, I will also give you some more information too.

So here we are talking about the mind itself, not the mental faculties, not the skandhas, not the sense consciousnesses, like ear, ear, nose and so on. Some people call it marginal consciousnesses. Also, besides the sense consciousnesses, according to the Abidharma kosha there is supposed to be something called ‘pure inner form’ for all the senses like eye, ear, nose, and so on. They are located somewhere inside the back of the head. Then the retina picks up a picture, reflects it, puts it upside down, light gets reflected inside. That is what we call wang den kok pa, the external capsule for the internal pure form.

All of these are gross minds. Even what we talked about this morning is still gross mind. There is one deeper subtle mind. This is what we call nyug sem, primordial mind. It is the source of all the other gross consciousnesses. All of them are coming out of that primordial mind. The description of the primordial is not much different from the description of the general mind we gave you this morning. I gave a very good talk about the primordial mind in a Vajrayogini winter retreat. Although this explanation is a little restricted we made it possible for everyone to read. The transcript of this is available separately.

A lot of what I taught has been transcribed and edited, but I think still 80 % of my teachings have not been transcribed at all, let alone edited. Sine 1987 all kinds of tapes are available. Chris Branson has a lot and Ruby has some, for example. Whatever tapes have made it to Holland they have all been organized and have come out as transcripts. Apart from that there are a lot of pieces everywhere. I think it will be quite a job for somebody, even way after I have gone. It will be a life-long job to pick it up and sort it out. The transcripts that are readily available right now after all made through Holland’s work. Even before I went to Holland there were a tremendous amount of teachings. A lot of tapes have never been transcribed. The transcripts of the 70s and some even from the 60s. Lots of them are in some safe box deposit in an Ann Arbor bank. These were Gelong-la’s hard copies that we saved from his lap top. It was a huge quantity of transcripts. In future, if you look, it is there.

In any case, if you read the transcript on the primordial mind it should give you a pretty good idea.

Coming back to the first question: is a mind free from dirt and obscurations already enlightened or is there something else that needs to be done? I believe when all the dirt and obscurations are finished that is called enlightenment. I don’t think anything else needs to be done. That is the measurement of enlightenment. Mind has the capacity to know everything simultaneous altogether. There is nothing blocked or obscured. Therefore it can function to full capacity, which is what we call enlightenment. It is as simple as that.

Let me add up one little thing. Enlightenment is difficult to get. If it wasn’t difficult, then almost everybody, all of us should have been enlightened long ago. We are not, because it is difficult. Enlightenment is something we have to earn. It doesn’t just grow. In order to earn it we have to work. Working for enlightenment means meditation. Meditation for enlightenment is not just simply sitting and thinking positive. That doesn’t do it. If that were enough, everybody would have been enlightened now. It has to be more than that. You have to analyze. Analytical meditation is a must. Simply concentrated meditation alone does not work at all. Tsong Khapa has said, ‘Analytical meditation is like a weapon that overcomes the obstacles and dirt and impurities. It is the real weapon. Concentrated meditation is simply like a horse, stable and unshakeable. But the real weapon is wisdom. Without analytical meditation wisdom doesn’t grow. Wisdom is not a mushroom that pops up. When you have some kind of half-rain, half fog on a high mountain over night, the next morning you see mushrooms popping up. Wisdom doesn’t grow that way at all. Nor does wisdom develop if you keep on sitting and waiting. Just closing your eyes and thinking that everything is pure and wonderful and great is never going to get you wisdom. It is like this men’s ware commercial where they guarantee you something. Just like that I can guarantee you that this is not going to happen. Honestly, you can wait till the cows come home. Working is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, what do you excpect?

Enlightenment is not a gift, nor is liberation or nirvana. You earn it. If it were a gift that Buddha gives you, he would have made so many gift parcels, zillions of them, for everybody. But it doesn’t work that way. Your work is to clear these obstacles and dirt out of your mind. When that is done you become pure. Your natural purity will connect with that pure thing and that is called enlightenment. I believe that is what enlightenment is all about. There is nothing else. It is simple and straight forward, but when you work it is difficult.

Audience: If you do analytical meditation is that enough, since it is the one that really delivers the wisdom?

Rimpoche: I did say that analytical meditation is doing the major work, but I didn’t say it is the only thing you need. I keep on saying that there is always wisdom and method. Yesterday I introduced base, path and result. When I talked about the path I said it is like two legs to walk on or two wings to fly with. A bird with one wing cannot cross the ocean. It will go in circles. It will be like a boomerang that comes back. That is not my metaphor. It is Chandrakirti’s. He said,

When the king of the birds wants to cross the ocean, the must have two wings. In order to cross over to liberation or nirvana or enlightenment you must have the two wings of method and wisdom.

Also Nagarjuna says,

Ge wa di kye bo kun

So nam ye she so sor she

So nam ye she le jung we

Dam pa ku nyi tob par shok

By this merit

May I attain the two collections

Of merit and wisdom

And achieve the two enlightened holy bodies.

You have to be able to prove your statement. If Buddha is wrong and if all these great Bodhisattvas and early great masters are wrong, then I am wrong too. They all speak the same language. If they are wrong, I am wrong too and that is worth for me to be wrong then. According to them enlightenment is not only the mind level but also the physical level. I said in many talks, if mind doesn’t get enlightened there will be a Buddha without mind. If the body doesn’t get enlightened, there would be a Buddha without body, just a spirit. Body and mind exist in combination. They both have to be developed and built. It just doesn’t pop up. You have to have both.

On the other hand, I don’t have to spell it out every time. Once I have said it that should be enough for you to remember. If you mention one thing and therefore have to talk about the other thing too, it would be never ending. So when I say that you need this one thing, it doesn’t mean that you don’t need this other thing.

Audience: What is the difference between primordial mind and enlightened mind?

Rimpoche: Excellent question: There are a number of great teachers who say that the primordial mind itself is not exactly the enlightened mind but a mind of emptiness, a mind of wisdom. In Buddhism emptiness is wisdom and wisdom is emptiness. There are a number of people who will say that if you encounter the primordial mind consciously you have encountered emptiness. Many of them will say that. But there is a big logical problem with that. It is very simple. When we die, the dying mind is very, very subtle. The metaphor I am going to give you may not be perfectly correct. But the idea is this: we have all these huge gross minds and all of them start to diminish. The eyes will no longer see, the ears will no longer hear, and gradually even the memory will fail. We don’t remember the name of the person. All memory will fail and the recognition, realization and conception will also fail. All the gross minds will shrink completely and the mind goes to a very, very subtle continuation, which probably is encountering the primordial mind. This is more than seeing something here and there. The mind’s way of knowing is becoming what it knows. You have to give up that idea of encountering the primordial mind face to face [like one person meets another]. You may use the expression ‘face to face’, but really it is becoming oneness. It is touching the source. You are touching with the primordial mind. The gross minds are completely gone, shrunken to the very subtle source, the primordial mind. From that you expand again. That is what happens at the time of death. If that is the same as encountering emptiness directly, we would have the logical problem of falling back. When we grow again from the primordial mind we will be the same old person. We are not people who see emptiness directly. That is the problem.

But the question was not whether the primordial mind is a mind that recognizes emptiness, but whether it is enlightened mind. That is very simple. No, it is not enlightened mind, because all the obstacles have not been cleared. But if the question was, whether this mind recognizes emptiness, it is difficult to answer for anyone. It is not easy to say yes or no. Some of the early teachings keep on saying yes and no together. They saying things like ‘It is not there, yet it is here.’ It all comes from that problem.

Audience: You said earlier that mind is empty like space. In absolute reality, however emptiness and mind are separate. How are they separate?

Rimpoche: Emptiness is not mind and mind is not emptiness. But mind has its own emptiness. Emptiness has a mind that perceives it. What is the problem here?

Audience: Absolute reality is confusing to me in this respect. I understand the metaphor of mind being empty like space. That is a good visual representation for me. But when I think about absolute reality, I don’t have a simple visual metaphor. When I hear that mind and emptiness are separate in absolute reality I get lost. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Rimpoche: It is not only you. We all have tremendous difficulty of finding a visual image for absolute reality. If we could, we wouldn’t be here. That’s for sure. There is a reason why space is used as example in names like space-like meditative equipoise and illusion-like aftermath activities. Why is it called ‘space-like’? Space has nothing that blocks. It is totally open. Like that, in the absolute reality there is nothing blocking. It is probably the best metaphor you can use. Space is empty, nothing can block. This morning we talked about form and formless state. Form is when there is something blocking and formless is if there is nothing blocking. That basic division Buddha put is for that reason.

At the end of the lama chopa it says,

Inspire me to perfect transcendent wisdom,

Through practicing space yoga in equipoise on the ultimate,

Joining the bliss of subtle ecstasy

With the insight that discriminates what is.

Absolute space yoga, that’s what it is.

Audience: What is the difference between mind and consciousness and what is it that continues from life to life?

Rimpoche: These two terms are synonymous. Mind, consciousness, self, soul, the individual and so on. Just before I talked about the primordial mind. That is the mind that comes from the previous life and stays here now and goes to the future life. Please don’t raise the question, ‘If that is so, is that primordial mind intrinsically existent?’ If you do that we get into more trouble and need another week to sort that out. That primordial mind is not labeled as consciousness. It is not conscious. It is very subtle. But it is mind. And on the gross level they are all the same. Take the good old Christian terminology of ‘soul’. Is there something else besides that? I don’t know. I know nothing about Christianity, but the moment I hear ‘soul’ I identify that with mind, self and so on. From that angle I have no problem with people calling it ‘soul’. But if you talk about an unchanging, un-developing kind of soul, I do have a problem with that. But otherwise, you may call it subtle mind or primordial mind or soul and I don’t have a problem with that. Maybe I have a lack of knowledge of Christianity.

Audience: When you talk about clarity, do you mean that nothing is in the way or that nothing is blocking it?

Rimpoche: I talked this morning about 3 different ways of looking at what is clear.

First there is light coming into the darkness, then a reflection in the mirror and then actual clarity. So there you go. I am not going to say it again.

Audience: Is karma like the reflections, deflections or refractions of light or mind?

Rimpoche: Karma is definitely not like a reflection. A reflection is when you see yourself and you project. Karma is something you create and then it becomes like an invisible seed. When it meets with terms and conditions, then without fail it will materialize whatever it is aimed for. So it is not a reflection.

Now, what do you mean by deflection? The opposite of reflection?

Audience: Deflection of light for example is when it is blocked by something and goes the other way.

Rimpoche: Karma doesn’t not block anything or anybody, but negativities do. We are not differentiating between negativity and negative karma. We have not talked about negativity separately, but negativity does block. Does negative karma block you? It probably does block you from achieving your result.

It is not like a refraction either. Rather it is like a seed that is sown and is waiting to come out and give you a result. It requires right terms and conditions to give the result. It is dependently arising. It’s existence depends on the terms and conditions.

Audience: If we have to do our own work to develop how can praying for another person help them?

Rimpoche: Ram Das asked his guru Nim Karoli Baba, ‘How do I become enlightened?’ and he said, ‘Feed others and help others.’ Helping and benefiting others is the best way to benefit ourselves. Yes, we help others. We are doing it for another person. But who is really gaining most in there? The individual who is putting in the effort, who is doing whatever they can. This is the spiritual work, which is effecting ourselves. Whatever you do for others is depositing some kind of amount or virtue like depositing some money in the bank.

Audience: What is the link between the mind and the brain? For example, someone may be kind and compassionate, have a spiritual practice, but then suffer a stroke or head injury which physically impacts on the brain, incapacitates them and leaves them with a different personality. They may become angry or mean. So when the brain is physically damaged, what then happens to the mind?

Rimpoche: I have no idea from the scientific point of view. From what I understand the nerves and cells in the brain are the medium for the mind. The mind is utilizing that. Certainly, when you have brain damage it will affect the mind’s ability to operate. I am planning to talk about the relationship between mind and energy tomorrow. That may clarify that point a little more. There is a subtle energy which is formless. Then there is a gross energy with form. These gross energies travel through the nadis and channels. There are gross physical and subtle psychic channels. They are interconnected. When you have a certain damage somewhere, particularly in a complicated area like the brain, then the air flow, which to me is energy, is disrupted. When that happens, the mind traveling on that air can’t function. We always say that the mind is like a horse rider and the air is like a horse. Sometimes we see in movies how horse riders carry weapons and attack each other. One of them will be thrown off the horse because they get hit by the other’s weapon. The horse may collapse too. Likewise, when the energy is blocked, the mind that travels on the air will have difficulty. Even a stupid person can see that. So there is the effect on the individual.

However, a stroke or any other brain damage, in my opinion will not change a person from a good person to a bad person. A kind person will not become an angry person through that. We do have the seeds of anger and nuttiness and difficulty within us. When physical difficulties arise, it can cause the anger to rise more. You may say, ‘I have been trying to do my best for a long time? Why is this happening to me now? This is too much.’ In that way anger can rise. There will be only very few people who can say like Ram Das, ‘The stroke is my guru’s blessing. ‘ Most will get angry. But I don’t think it will be such a strong effect that it can change the mind from positive to negative. Maybe I am wrong. But anger can come up because of the difficulty and because seeds of anger are still there. Then at the time when you are angry you cannot see anything else. We all know that. So that can happen to certain people.

Audience: What is absolute Buddha nature, do we all have it and is it permanent?

Rimpoche: We are all supposed to have it. I don’t think it changes. I have been saying that the nature of the person is wonderful. So it is an excellent quality. We all have it. Although we show others the cold shoulder, that is just temporary. The reality is that there is a good, kind being. I said this is temporary. It doesn't tally with the nature of the mind itself, therefore it doesn't become part of it. Buddha nature doesn't change. You don't lose it. It remains until you become a Buddha. That is why His Holiness had to say in Jerusalem that Hitler has Buddha nature. The journalist who asked that question probably expected him to say no, because this was Jerusalem, but he said yes and gave a long explanation why.

Audience: What is the relationship between the permanent Buddha nature and the decreasing, impermanent Buddha nature?

Rimpoche: I don't know. It is interconnected, for sure. But I better I don't know tonight, because it requires tremendous explanation.

Audience: Is speech form-or formless?

Rimpoche: Sound is form. Form is empty, emptiness is form. Look at a description of the 5 skandhas. That will be good enough.

Audience: How does that relate to mantras and seed syllables and the sound of the bell?

Rimpoche: The idea comes from mantra being sound and sound being mantra, seed syllables as persons and persons as seed syllables and the idea that the sound of the bell is the sound of emptiness. If you look from that angle, the whole idea of what sound is changes. Yes, the seed syllables represent the primordial type of mind, the yidam deity being. The mantra itself is a yidam. That reminds me of Kungba Rimpoche who has already passed away. During his tenure as abbot of Gyoto, he was invited to J.W's house. At that time he hung a mantra roll on a pillar or beam in his house and told JW that it was a yidam. That's why lamas also give you these red cords. All of these are interconnected. That is a yidam.

Audience: What should we visualize when we say the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM?

Rimpoche: Coolness. When you attend a teaching on that you are given a tremendous amount of visualizations. Each letter has meaning and a message. I don't know what to say. OM itself is a tremendously important mantra. I did give explanations of OM last winter retreat in the context of OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA. There is OM as mantra, as air, energy, as body. There are zillions of reasons. MANI means jewel. Sounds like 'money'. O money pay pay me hum. Jewel stands for love and compassion. Päma is lotus and represents purity. Although it grows out of the mud it doesn't have any fault of mud for whatsoever. So it is wisdom. HUM is union, the combination of both. Now you have the whole mantra. The union of wisdom and method may become the union of my body, speech and mind. There are a lot of explanations and visualizations on that.

In general, almost all the mantras are about bringing joy and happiness from the pure heart of yourself, giving it to all beings in the room with you, filling up the room, filling up the town, state, country, universe, beyond that, filling up every galaxy, touching everywhere, just by the touch of that light everything becomes pure. The land and inhabitants become pure. Their blessings are collected back and the light dissolves to you. That is the usual practice with mantras.

You can also have a deity figure in front of you. In case of OM MANI PADME HUM it is Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha or Bodhisattva of compassion. Light and liquid come from him, purify us and all sentient beings. That is another usual mantra visualization.

Audience: What are non-created phenomena?

Rimpoche: In Tibetan it is bum pei dok pa tak pa re. Space is not created for example. It always remains and is permanent. Every impermanent phenomenon is created, including the stature of liberty. We also saw that the World Trade Center was impermanent. Monuments are all impermanent, because they are created. Space is not created. The idea of a cup is also not created. The making a clock for example is impermanent, but the idea 'clock' is permanent. A clock is impermanent but 'clock' is permanent. 'Clock' never moves. It is never going to be 9 o'clock. I am joking.

Audience: Is formlessness a non-created or created phenomenon?

Rimpoche: Both. Formless beings are created phenomena and space is a non-created phenomenon.

Audience: If the mind is clear like the sky and the negative emotions are the clouds, how does that relate to the idea that when the mind perceives something part of the mind accepts it as part of the mind?

Rimpoche: I already answered that today. Mind's reality is pure. When impurity comes it cannot become a part of it. We do have that struggle there.

Audience: It is said that you become enlightened in the mind of the guru. How does that happen? Let us find out about that later. That is a very important vajrayana question.

Audience: To what extent is the mind individual and to what extent is there commonality between the minds of all beings?

Rimpoche: Until we become fully enlightened our minds are very much individualized. When you are enlightened, then the question comes up whether your mind is merging with the pool of enlightened mind and whether you lose the individuality at that level.

There is a great difference of opinion among the great earlier teachers, even between Tsong Khapa's main disciples, Gyaltsab and Khedrup, who you see sitting to his right and left [in Gaden Lha Gye ma tangkas]. Gyaltsab accepts that all enlightened minds sort of become a pool of enlightened mind. He does not separate all-enlightened mind from individual mind. But you can manifest out from that individually and you can dissolve back into the pool. It is the idea of coming from the sky and dissolving into the ground - like rainfall. But Khedrup-je doesn't agree with that. He says that the individual has been working and reached to the enlightened level and doesn't merge into a pool of enlightened mind. For me, I can't even say what happens then. I will only know that when I become enlightened.

Audience: Is the clear, lucid mind a description of an individual mind or is it mind in general?

Rimpoche: It is the qualification of mind in general. But if any individual mind is mind it should fit into that description. In other words, every individual mind has that quality. At our level our mind is not in an enlightened pool at all. We are not joined at the head like Thai or Cambodian babies [i.e: we are not siamese twins].

Audience: Under formless, impermanent, created phenomena you said that mind is clear, lucid, knowledgeable. Is this mind created?

Rimpoche: Buddha was asked, 'Is there beginning and end?' Buddha kept silent. That is also my answer. Mind is a continuation. We cannot figure out where the beginning is. We cannot find the first cause. Yet it is impermanent. So it is a continuation of discontinuity. That is Trungpa Rimpoche's expression. But every moment of that mind is the result of its cause as well as being itself the cause for its continuation. If you are looking for the cause before it began, I don't know. If you look from the continuation point of view, causes are there.

Audience: If enlightened beings can see the future, does that mean it could be unchangeable? What does that mean for our efforts to change ourselves and our future?

Rimpoche: I keep on saying that the enlightened beings not only see the future but also all the changes in the future and where it finally is landing. I said that twice this morning alone.

Audience: Regarding the perception or imprint that is imprinted and adjusted with memory, with proper understanding of Dharma, what should and what shouldn’t arise?

Rimpoche: I am not sure if the imprint is left with the memory or not. The imprint should just be left on the consciousness. What should arise is all positive deeds. What shouldn't arise is all negative deeds. Whether that actually happens depends on the individual.

Audience: You said that there is no beginning to mind. Later you said that the lucid quality of the mind was born together with the mind and that it will continue if the mind ends.

Rimpoche: You caught me red-handed there. But what I really meant was whenever the mind has started it came with its own nature as it is, which is the lucid quality. That sounds like a contradiction. You are right. But that is no big deal. To say 'whenever the mind was born' is more an expression.

Audience: How do/did negative obstructions arise within the pure mind?

Rimpoche: Within the pure mind - that is the question. Negativities do arise because of conditions and terms. It is very clear. We can see the negativities like anger and obsession pop up all the time. But whether that arises within the pure mind or not I doubt it. I have often given the example of the mind as clear lamp shade and the negativities like light bulbs coloring the lamp shade without changing the clear nature of the lamp shade. Apparently, Geshe Rabten in his 'Treasury of Dharma' says it exactly the same way. Neither did I copy from Geshe Rabten, nor he from me. It must be coming from our teachers. So the negativities don’t really rise 'within' the pure mind. How the negative faculties pop up and how the influence the mind is another issue.

The negative thoughts are mental faculties. They are coming from mind. In Tibetan they are even called sem jung. [mind-arisen].They are not the principal mind but they are coming out of it. Whenever the mind is influenced by positive, negative or even neutral thoughts, certain mental faculties pop up. Whether you call that 'within' the pure mind or not, that is a question. I can't say. But they do rise within the framework of our mind. They just pop up like toast out of a toaster.

Audience: Where do you find the mind apart from the thoughts it is perceiving?

Rimpoche: Remember this morning's discussion between Milarepa and the shepherd? Could you go back and listen to that part? That's what it is.

Audience: Is thought formless?

Rimpoche: It's got to be.

Audience: But when you said, 'Mind is opposite of form', did you say that mind is not formless?

Rimpoche: That was probably said in a debate context, using Indian philosophical language. Whatever I said, but mind and thoughts are formless.

Audience: Which mind are you referring to when you speak of mind [as in body, speech and mind of refuge objects]?

Rimpoche: When you are praying, seeking blessings, asking for grace, you are not separating so much in detail. You are simply looking through the body, speech and mind combination of the object of refuge, rather than specifically addressing certain aspects of the refuge objects. But sometimes you are focusing on mind, sometimes on speech and sometimes you are focusing on the body too. But when you are focusing on mind you are probably focusing on the pure aspects of the mind of the object of refuge. I don't think you are dividing between mind and certain mental faculties.

Audience: I rather meant that from my own point of view.

Rimpoche: The primordial mind may or may not be present, but it is not at our disposal.

So it is only the gross mind, not the mental faculties. Whenever we refer to mind in general, that mind has to be joined with the 5 constantly following mental faculties. That is not the primordial mind but the gross, big mind.

When we did our first summer retreat, we went to a place called 'heaven'. The first person to bless that place was Locho Rimpoche who gave the Yamantaka initiation there. Professor Thurman was the translator. Locho Rimpoche said that sometimes we visualize too many hands. He gave the story of that one monk who visualized 16 hands. He was on duty to serve tea to the monks. He went into the kitchen and asked the cook, 'Which hand of mind should carry the tea pot?' So the cook got a little stick and hit him on the right hand and said, 'This horrible hand of yours.' That's the answer.

Audience: Is mind actually light or light-like?

Rimpoche: Light-like.

Audience: What's the difference between bad luck and bad karma? Does the idea of luck imply a certain amount of random-ness?

Rimpoche: Bad luck is an expression we use. But it is a consequence of bad karma. It is random in the sense of not being permanent. Rather it comes up occasionally.

We spent this whole session with questions and answers. But these questions are very important. People thought a lot about it. Thank you. But I would like you to think about these points more often, not only during this retreat, but wherever you go. I am trying to establish here that we can get effects from the efforts we put in. The mind is something very important. We all have it, but we don't know so well how it functions. At least now you have a little better idea than what we normally think. We will next consider the relation between energy and mind and I may even go a little further than that.

Thank you so much.