UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript is provided in its raw, unedited form and may contain errors. We have not proofread this transcript, so it may include typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this rough transcript as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.
Andrew Holecek: Who we think we are right now is nothing more than this whirlpool That is an avatar. When we die, just like the nighttime avatar dissolving into your mindstream, we are going to dissolve into the stream of mind at large. That’s what death is.
Tami Simon: Hi friends. I’m Tami Simon, and since I was young, I’ve had a nagging feeling that I didn’t prepare properly for my death the last time around, and I don’t wanna make that same mistake again. Now, of course, maybe this was just a child’s imagination, but questions like, am I actually ready to die? Is there continuity after death?
And if so, what continues? These are questions across cultures and across time that have pushed inner explorers to inquire more deeply and learn more. Welcome to this special Insights at the Edge Series. Once more, exploring reincarnation and the gap between lives. Stay with us.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Andrew Holecek. Andrew is an interdisciplinary scholar practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and other non-dual wisdom traditions. He is a beautiful teacher and he has a gift for both understanding esoteric texts and teachings and making them accessible to people.
He’s the author of nine books and many articles on Dream Yoga, meditation, the Art of Dying and the Practice of Dark Retreat. Andrew is a friend. Many of his books and audio learning programs are published through Sounds True Most recently, a book, an audio book on reverse meditation, how to Use Pain and Difficult Emotions as a Doorway to Inner Freedom, and a book called, I’m Mindful Now, what On Moving Beyond Mindfulness to Meet the Modern World.
Andrew, welcome.
Andrew Holecek: Tami, so nice to see you
again and thank you for such a kind and generous introduction.
Tami Simon: This special series is Exploring Reincarnation. Cool, what we know, what we don’t know, and how an immersion in such a study might change us and might change how we live our lives. Prepare for our death and even go through the dying process.
And I know this is something you know so much about from your deep study of Tibetan Buddhism and all the work you’ve done to help people prepare to die. So here at the beginning to set the stage, could you share with us the Tibetan Buddhist map of reincarnation? Yeah. Whoa. Here we go. Let’s go to the deep end and, and spread it, uh, wide.
Andrew Holecek: Yeah. This issue of, of rebirth, um, amazingly a profound compelling topic that, that the Tibetans really have rolled with in an extraordinarily articulate and elegant way. And, and so as you, as you know, but perhaps for Ed edification with our listeners. This is part of what’s called bardo yoga. Bardo is a Tibetan word, B-A-R-D-O.
That means in between transitional process or gap. And as we’ll see, and this is where it will get important, I think, for us in a few minutes, it’s, it’s a, a wonderfully multivalent principle, which means what I’m going to share not only applies to what happens at the end of life and beyond, but just as importantly, perhaps even more so.
This process slash phenomenology, using some geek speak takes place moment to moment to moment. And so, um, briefly, this is a vast corpus of teachings, but they talk about the three, um, death bardos, the painful bardo of dying, which is what takes place when you. Either afflicted with a disease that will end in your death, um, or in a certain way, we start to slide into the bardo of dying, um, once we start, stop growing, stop growing up.
And so, um, at the end of that bardo then one slides into what’s called illuminous bardo, or dermato dermatosis. Sanskrit word that means isness, suchness or reality. And Tami, what it basically refers to, it’s, uh, the Tibetan way of talking about the non-dual awakened state, one actually descends or ascends depending on what, uh, metaphor image you want to use into the nature of one’s mind, into the nature of reality.
And then if one doesn’t have a level of recognition or familiarity with that space and without some kind of preparation, which is what Bardo yoga is all about, um, recognition does not take place. And so then one slides into the third bardo, which is called the karmic bardo of becoming, or the habitual bardo of becoming.
And this is where things get really interesting for the topic we’re going to explore today because this is where the process of rebirth from life to life is, is described in, in exquisite detail. Um, and I think just to make it practical for people so they’re not too intimidated by this Tibetan map.
It’s important to understand that, um, habit is, is a western translation of karma. And so basically what this, what this leads to, uh, I think in terms of an important point is a very, um, interesting topic that ties into, well, well, it is it that reincarnates. What is it that takes? Well, as you know, one of our mutual teachers, the radical, um, once said when he was asked, what is it that reincarnates.
Your bad habits. It’s a stunning insight. And so the the power of habits, the power of a karma is the driver behind the process of rebirth or whether it’s moment to moment, night to night, or life to life. And so this is another thing to tie in, is how these teachings on the bardos and rebirth apply. Like I intimated earlier, not only do what happens at the end of this life.
Every single might. We have a kind of preview of coming attractions. We go through a concordant experience of these three bardos. We can talk about that. And then in an even more subtle kind of microcosmic, micro genetic expression, this process is taking place right now.
Tami Simon: So there’s so much here, Andrew.
Yeah. And I wanna make it very real and palpable. Perfect for people. Yeah. And as I mentioned, you’re a scholar practitioner, and I wanna zoom in on the practitioner. We could say the personal front for a moment and I’ll share personally in a. Way to invite you two. Okay. Which is I, I recently went through a really, really difficult period of my life where I would say I experienced something like a dis assemblage or a dying and a gap in that space.
And I’m now in a new process of becoming, and it gave me insight into what might happen, at least analogously metaphorically, through an experience of a dark passage in my own life. And I wonder if you could take this teaching of the Bardo yoga and apply it to a passage in your life that might help it be very real for people right here at the outset.
Andrew Holecek: This, this is so great, Tami. Yeah. Because these teachings can be a little bit esoteric. Almost otherworldly and, and part of my charter, if I had to retrofit. What I seem to be doing in this life is acting as a kind of cultural translator to take these amazing teachings from the alleged east and bring them into vo, a vocabulary and a set of experiences that we can relate to in the West.
So, spot on, so many examples, but one would be the end of, uh, relationship. I mean, when my first marriage fell apart. Boy, talk about painful bardo dying. You know, letting go is a euphemism for death. And so when that relationship fell apart, I was in a heap of hurt. Um, it was really difficult to let go.
Because I was forced to, I was, um, basically then sent into this very uncomfortable kind of open groundless space where all my usual habit patterns and reference points were taken away. The image really is, is uh, like the rug underneath your feet is just pulled out from underneath you, right? And you’re sent flying.
And we can talk a little bit more about this later. About how this particular image and I’ll share a story, um, can be quite revelatory and compelling. This idea of the ultimate rug being your very body being pulled out at the moment of death. But we can come back to that. So here I am, end of our relationship, really uncomfortable, sent into a very uncomfortable, indeterminate open space.
That’s bartel, that’s classic bardo. It’s neither here nor there. It’s very fleeting. It’s groundless, it’s uncomfortable. And so the way I was able to bring embargo principles here, Tami, and I think this is the point, is I notice the the almost relentless insatiable habit pattern of taking immediate rebirth.
In other words, boy, let’s find somebody else. Let’s get something to fill this space. Let’s get some ground underneath your feet so you feel comfortable. And so right here we see the power of habit coming in. Power of karma because if we’re not familiar with hanging out in this ambiguous liminal, groundless space, then all our patterns that are fundamentally driven by egoic agendas underneath come rearing roaring back into play.
And then this will then hurl us habitually into the karmic bardo of becoming. Where, Hey, let’s just, let’s get somebody else to fill this empty space in my bed. Um, let’s, let’s immediately take rebirth, and this is where in the bardo literature thing can become somewhat problematic because if we’re not comfortable hanging out in that open space, being more deliberate about our conscious choices, really thinking about what’s going on, well, what, what hurls us then, like I mentioned earlier, is your, your habit patterns will take over.
Another immediate example is when I lost a job. This is another one that takes place all the time. The only time in my life I was actually fired and it was like, whoa. Here’s a sudden death. Here I am. Just like, holy moly. I mean, I had a paycheck coming in every week. I had stability. I had constancy in my life.
Gone right there, sudden death bar dying. I was sent into wide open space. And so then again, geez, what am I gonna do? Do I rush out and take the very next job? Am I comfortable hanging out in that space, even flying in it? Um, if I can do that, if I can maintain a quality of openness, the ability to, um, kind of stand on the shifting sands.
Then I can make much more intelligent decisions. I can take rebirth consciously, volitionally intelligently, driven by insight and maybe even kindness and compassion for myself and others instead of born, you know, taking a form, so to speak, in a new job, in a new relationship, just to fill the space. So I think right there two big examples where these teachings were at my side and it really helped me.
Tami Simon: Very useful. I think everyone can relate to that. Now, you said what reincarnates? A question that I think, of course is at the core of a series that’s exploring reincarnation are bad habits. But let me ask you a question because in the examples that you gave, which I asked you to share, there’s this sense of
our awareness watching, oh, I wanna go get another relationship, ASAP. I need some kind of confirmation of my worth. And a new job. ASAP drive. There’s this sense of, oh, there’s awareness there. That feels personal in some form. Appropriated feels that way. Help me understand what the processing. Bubble is, if you will, is it a subtle body that’s mm-hmm.
Passing through the bardo where I am, let’s say in the suchness, the luminous bardo, and there’s an observation of some kind. Is there like in life of the bardo of Becomings?
Andrew Holecek: This is such a great question. So Ken, do I have permission to venture briefly into the deep end of the pool? And to actually give people, we’re gonna swim all over into, we’re going into the ocean.
Tami, let me do this with a, a contemplation so that, don’t take my word for it. Check out what I’m going to see against your own experience. And so what I’m going to share here comes from, it’s kind of a, um, juxtaposition of the Bardo teachings. And I earlier said how they’re related to sleep and dream.
So I’m gonna share a little bit about how this connects to what’s called Dream Yoga, which I’ve written about, as you know, and also what’s called Sleep Yoga Connected to Yoga Nija. Um, and let me show you how this works. That is really interesting and really revelatory. And again, you can see this for yourself.
So you got up this morning and probably without reflection, you look back over the night and said, whoa, man, I slept great. I had some great dreams. I slept solidly. I woke up. Wow, this is awesome. Well, this is a complete illusion. This, this notion that I fell asleep, I had a dream, I woke up. Is is a complete illusion.
And so let’s see how this really works and how you can test this out. And the only thing, so to speak. That ever goes through. There is, there is no Tami. There is no Andrew. There is no individual self that falls asleep, dreams and wakes up. It seems like that. Whoa. Sure as heck seems like that. But appearance is not in harmony with reality, Tami, and this is why we suffer.
So this contemplation that’s related to dream yoga, which by the way, this tradition of dream yoga. It came about principally as a way to prepare for death, which they call the dream at the end of time. How interesting is that? So check this out and then test it. The only thing that actually happens there is no you that goes through this journey, even though it sure as heck seems like it.
The only thing that ever is and you, you intimated. This is complete formless and therefore deathless awareness itself. That’s it. What creates the illusion and this ties in and this starts in beautifully to like, what is it that reincarnates? What creates the illusion that there’s an eye that’s I’m awake.
There’s an eye that’s dreaming, there’s an eye sleeping, an eye waking up. Nothing more than various levels of contraction and expansion upon this formless awareness. And so let me just pause. I’ll say a little bit more and then we can talk about this right now. We are in the most contracted of all states.
The state that is the most condensed to our space, time causality, the very sense of self arises, and we think we’re fully operational. When we fall asleep, all that starts to relax. So right now, this is the mudra for the awakened state as we fall asleep, and again, think of dying. It’s the same thing. We start to partially relax as we enter a partially open dimension, what we call the dream state.
Well, space time causality, they’re softened, they’re open, they don’t fully, they’re not fully operational, which is why we can do all these magnificent, miraculous things in the dream fate. And by the way, if we’re lucid to this space, parenthetically. This is what Thoreau once said, in dreams we are our truest life.
Awake. You’re actually more in contact with the nature of reality if you’re lucid in the dream state. So there’s one more step from here fully awake, which your, this is your, your, your right In a fist. You’re your, like you said, awareness is so contracted. Awareness is so appropriated. Awareness is so solid.
We, this is what we mistake to be our very sense of self, so falling asleep and dying. They’re the same, virtually the same process occurring at two different steps. Basically, you start to come apart. You start to open, you start to relax. If you don’t relax, you’re not gonna fall asleep. If you don’t relax, you’re not gonna have a good graceful exit when you die.
So you partially open and relax. And then you keep opening and relaxing until you’ve completely open into the full, deep dreamless state. This is analogous to the luminous baru of Dharma ta in this space like Raman Maharshi. Just very briefly, a wonderfully profound but somewhat cryptic statement that which does not exist in deep dreamless sleep isn’t real.
In other words, what exists in deep brainless sleep is complete, am empty, formless awareness itself. But because we don’t recognize it, and here’s a rebirth thing. Think not only night to night, but life to life because we’re so identified with contracted solidified reified form, partially identified with the dream state.
We think they’re still a dreamer, but we’re definitely not identified with the complete formless open dimensions of. Mind when we fall asleep or when we die, there’s a little thought bubble that says, Hey, wait a second. That’s not me. I’m not nothing. I’m something. That’s not me. I’m not nobody. I’m somebody.
And so therefore, then the habit pattern of what we are the most familiar with, which is this Wake State kicks back into gear. And what does it do, Tami? It contracts against this space. It contracts against this open awareness that contraction then is precisely, and the metaphor. The metaphor here is really quite beautiful.
What is it that delivers us in this world, the contractions of our mother? What is it that gives birth to our self self-sense moment to moment, the contractions of grasping? And so here at this deepest. On a philosophical level, our inability to recognize rest and relax in this fast, infinite open space.
We whiplash in our collision with the infinite, and we contract back into a dimension that we are familiar with, and this is where we’re going to take rebirth, life to life moment to moment or night to night. We’re going to take rebirth into a dimension, the degree of openness. We can tolerate. And so if we can’t tolerate complete infinite openness, and most of us can’t because there’s no place for personal identity there, we contract away from it.
Contract, contract fall, fall into a dimension we are familiar with form, body, self. And then we say, yes, that’s me. And this is where we take rebirth. This is what we wake up to every morning according to the Tibetan view. This is what we’re going to wake up to after we die. And so you can get a very powerful preview of coming attractions to watch how your mind falls asleep, dreams, and wakes up every single night.
So, I know this is subtle, I know it’s a little bit deep, but this is also something you can start to practice as a contemplation. Is it in fact true? Do I actually fall asleep? Dream and wake. WTF is going on. You can feel this. That’s why I like the, the use of the word contraction and openness. And so then you can start to see for yourself, wait a second, this is bloody interesting.
Now pause there, because the next step would be to see how this happening moment to moment. ’cause it’s a little, it’s a little deep. Uh, we’re right, uh, in the right vein here,
Tami Simon: Andrew. Now. You mentioned dream yoga and which sounds true, you’ve published a book on Dream Yoga, and if I understand correctly, the first phase has to do with lucid dreaming.
And the question I have for you is the awareness that one has in a lucid dream. How would you describe that? Is that some type of, sort of transitional place where I, I’m influencing things and I’m acting, and how does that relate? To being in the luminous bardo.
Andrew Holecek: This is such a great question. Yeah. So E, exactly right.
So lucid dream, just like you said is, is when you’re dreaming and you know that you’re dreaming something clues you into the fact like, wait a second, I can’t do this. And waking like, I must be dreaming. You wake up and you’re still in the dream. And so parenthetically, Tami, this is precisely. What this tradition says will take place when we die if we’re not lucid to or aware of the process.
In other words, our lucidity or lack thereof at the dream, at the end of time in the bardos is precisely what’s going to kind of drive the rebirth reincarnation process. And so this, this is such a great rich bridge you’re talking about because take a look at your mind tonight. If you don’t wake up to become lucid in your dreams, what controls your dreams, your habits, your karma, your unconscious mind, which is why my dear friend Bob Thurman says so brilliantly.
It’s not safe to die as long as you have an unconscious mind, because that’s what’s going to dictate the rebirth process. You can see this every night, so you’re an lucid dream to come back to your question. Well, what distinguishes Lucid Dreaming from Dream Yoga? Lucid Dreaming, you can do all kinds of things for entertainment.
You can fly, you can have sex, you can do whatever you want. But what they don’t tell you is, um, whenever intention is involved, even at the level of a dream, habit or karma is created. So what Dream Yoga does is it uses Lucid dreaming as a platform and instead of fulfilling your wildest fantasies and creating bad habits in karma.
You use this liquid, empty fluid dimension of mind for the purposes of waking up for spiritual transformation so that you can eventually attain complete lucidity in the dream state and therefore complete control. And this is what allegedly the Great Wisdom Masters from any tradition. I mean the Buddha, the awakened one, the ultimate lucid dreamer.
Any ultimate lucid dreamer from any tradition has such a heightened level of awareness and therefore control that they literally, they literally never black out. They maintain a 24 7 type of awareness. Exactly the type of awareness that can be cultivated with this little dream contemplation we did. But the practice here, and then I’ll pause is with Dream Yoga, you engage in a series of steps.
I outline them in the book Dream Yoga that I published with you guys. Developing more and more refined, um, abilities to control the dream, which is what, what is a dream made of? It’s made of your mind. It’s just a way to control your mind. And then that very proficiency extends naturally in, into the death space.
Umma, the great master who brought Buddhism from India to Tibet. He sort of, well, sort of, he says slash guarantees that if you can attain lucidity. The nighttime dream seven to nine times. This is an archetypal number. Tami, don’t take it literally, it just represents some level of constancy and proficiency and, and lucid dreaming and dream yoga.
He says that you will then wake up in the dream at the out of time, the bardo, and therefore be able to take control over the entire journey because if you don’t. What’s gonna take control? Just like in your dream last night, your habits, your karma. So I’ll pause there because there’s more to say.
Tami Simon: Well, I think I’m still, I think I still keep coming up with this question.
Okay. What or who is in control or influencing a decision making process at that point? When you’re in lucidity, I still don’t understand that. Yeah. So there’s degree. This is God, these Christmas is so great. So it depends on the degree of lucidity, right? So if there’s no lucidity, right, what takes control?
Like it, several mentioned several times I, the bad habits I feel I have a very good grip on. Yeah, I see. We’re familiar with our habits. We know that. Yes.
Andrew Holecek: Well then what happens, Tami, that’s so awesome. Is through the process of retreat, literally retraction stepping away. You mentioned earlier this notion of the witness, um, in, in Hindu language.
This is called TRIA the fourth. Developing this type of witness awareness that allows you to, um, dispassionately but compassionately watch the entire display. This is an incredibly important but still provisional. Step and into the full fruition of this journey, and this alone is colossal. If you can develop this capacity to witness whatever’s arising in meditation.
Now to witness in the Lucid Dream, it’s literally called Witness Lucid dreaming, witnessing what takes place in the dream without getting swept into it. This is huge, and so there’s the reason I say there’s one more step to go because the witness, this gets super subtle. The witness still implies a very subtle duality because if there’s still a witness there, there’s witness and witnessed, and so therefore you still have something perceiving something else.
There’s still Tami, a very subtle contraction taking place. There’s still a very subtle referencing, and you always know this when you either feel or say to yourself. I’m saying that, I am hearing that. I’m thinking that even your languaging reveals this. So when the mind continues to open, mind, body, heart, whatever, when your mind continues to open, even the witness fundamentally, completely relax, relaxes, opens and dies, and then that basically like a wave dissolving back into.
A river or a whirlpool dissolving back into a stream, then you, and everything here is in quotation marks because there is no you. Then you dissolve into this formless stream of awareness, this formless dimension of mind. And so in order to understand who is perceiving what at this point, one literally has to change the way one thinks.
And this is not easy. So I’ll pause here to see if you want to go here because we I do. I I’d like to understand this. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, whether we know it or not. We think in terms of things, it’s, it’s literally called thing thinking. This is a type of thinking that you can trace back. Too Aristotle. I mean it’s not, he’s not the sole generator of this perverse way.
Obviously you have Descartes and all these other Western massive thinkers, but we think in highly concretized, reified things, we think in terms of products not process. So in order, and this is a great, lemme say you this, this is a great line. This comes from the Nobel physicist Laureate Brian Josephson.
I love this line. We think that we think clearly. That’s only because we don’t think clearly. It’s fantastic. I mean, that’s, that’s like just the way we roll. It’s called axiomatic. It’s a given. Well, it’s not a given, it’s a hand me down. It’s a construct. We’ve been taught to think this way. So in order to enter the domain of what we’re talking about here, and this is where the great wisdom traditions really step in with a massive helping hand, both Hinduism and Buddhism engage, and I’m sure you’re familiar with this.
And this elegant, threefold pedagogical approach, this Indic approach. Um, this is super important here, Tami. Um, from of hearing, contemplating, and meditating, hearing is what we’re doing here. I’m flapping my lips. You’re reading a book, you’re ingesting information. This is an issue today of TMI and an issue because we confuse information for experience.
Well, to go deeper into the contemplative of arts. You hand off the baton, so to speak, to a more subtle dimension of contemplation. This is dropping into the more wisdom refined, uh, dimensions of the body. This is where you start to digest the material. You start to reflect on it. You chew on it, and you test it.
Is it true what this guy is saying? Is it true what the Buddhist said? Is it true what these amazing masters said, kick the tires, look under the hood. Check it out for yourself as you work down through this pedagogical approach. It’s kind of a filtration and purification system. ’cause you start at the level of concept, which is still, you know, um, reified full of, um, things and thinking dualistic, you start to drop down.
It filters away concepts. The experience becomes increasingly non-dual, less conceptual, and more embodied. And so contemplation, that’s what we’re doing here a little bit. And when people leave, they may think, whoa, this is really interesting. They’re engaging in this, this digestive part. Well, the real crux is the following, Tami, the final step of, of meditation or full bodied incorporation, when you metabolize the teachings, ingest, digest, metabolize.
And so what I’m saying, therefore, and this is, this is not a a cop out, this is something you can see for yourself if you engage in this approach. You literally hand off these teachings, these more subtle dimensions of your being, and it is only in meditation. In deep, non-conceptual gnosis, literally that you say, aha, I got it.
And so I say that because we can go all the way to the edge of this diving board. We can get super subtle in our conversation, but if we transition in order to transition from thing, thinking into a thinking of what Buddhists refer to as emptiness, which is not nothing, but no thing. One has to literally transform the way one thinks and then transcend thinking altogether.
So I’ll pause ’cause this may seem like a facile cop out, but it’s not. It’s an invitation based on the great wisdom conditions. Yeah.
Tami Simon: I’m, I’m following you. I’m following you Andrew. And I think thing thinking Yeah. Is subject object thinking dualistic. And when I heard the term self cognizing. For the first time.
It was a moment. I mean, I know it just sounds a little odd, but anyway, I’m a, I have my own like nerdy streak. It’s sort of strange and personal and not a neuro conforming, nerdy streak, but it’s nerdy nonetheless. So when I heard that word. Yeah, self cos it answered this question for me in a certain kind of way as a different kind of cognition.
And I wonder if you could, uh, ex you could explain that for people.
Andrew Holecek: Yeah. Oh, woo boy, here we go. This is, oh, this is so great. Yes. So, so what we’re talking about here I is, is literally, um, a transformation and dare I say, revolution. The way we know and the way we perceive in geek speak, this is called epistemology.
And so you’re asking a deep question. I’m gonna try to ping a correlative deep answer. So in order to transition from dualistic thinking, normal ways of knowing into this non-dual or sometimes called tantric epistemology were subject object. And the consciousness no longer really abide. The only way to do this is to go through this approach until you get, and I can give another example.
I will, I will leave listeners with another way to look at this. So it’s not just rhetoric, you literally transition from not, not really the type of cognizance that you’re talking about. ’cause that’s a, that’s a, a wonderful introduction, but still provisional step. You transition into what the Tibetans refer to, um, as, uh, reflexive awareness.
In other words, boy, it’s so hard to put non-duality, um, into dualistic terms. Even languaging, this is difficult, but it ties into like who dies, who is experiencing this, who basically takes rebirth? Well, fundamentally, it’s not a who. It’s just like I mentioned earlier, awareness in different, um, renderings of contraction and expansion.
And so at the deepest level, to come back to your earliest question, when the witness dissolves into that, which is witness, now you’re talking about non-duality. This is when awareness fundamentally rests in its own nature and it, and it knows itself. It’s just, it’s such a mind f from a Western perspective.
It’s like, I, I don’t even know what that means. Well, let me give you a brief example. You may have to walk away with this. Most importantly, Tami, you may have to sleep on it. Um, but this is a powerful way to see this for yourself. So, can I hand out a, a brief dream yoga contemplation on this? Please, please, please this for yourself.
So, so, um, imagine any dream. You can close your eyes for just a second and reflect back on any dream. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be lucid. Just any dream when you’re in that dream in a completely unexamined way, sure as heck seems to be a dream object there. You can’t contest that I’m having a dream.
I’m experiencing all this stuff in the dream. Yes, I see that. And even in the, when you’re in the dream, it sure as heck seems like there is a dreamer. Yes, yes. We wake up in the morning and we say, I had a dream. So when you’re in the dream and you have this, this is what just parenthetically is called threefold impurity.
Dualistic knowing subject, object and consciousness. I am perceiving the dream. Sure. Heck seems that way, doesn’t it? And when you wake up the next day, we can do it now. And you look back upon that dream. This is classic dream yoga contemplation. You can start to ask yourself and inquire to some really interesting investigations from this perspective.
Looking back on the dream, yes, sure as heck seems to be the dream. I remember it. But from this perspective, the question is where’s the dreamer? Can you find the dreamer? If you take a very close look, there isn’t one, and I’m going through, going through something rather quickly, that can take a little bit of practice.
There isn’t a dreamer, not finding is the best finding. So what’s going on here is this type of reflexive, knowing there’s still something being perceived, but there’s no perceiver. WTF is going on. The dream knows itself. There is no dreamer. And so in exactly the same way, when you ask who is it that dies, it’s the same thing.
No thing emptiness, right? So I’m gonna pause here ’cause it’s like, whoa, we’re getting really subtle. We’re, we’re going to the very limits of what dualistic language can do. Hence the invitation to do the contemplation, the investigation, the query, sleep on it, dream on it, reflect on it, and then perhaps one day you’ll go OMG.
There really isn’t a dreamer. There really isn’t a self experiencing this dream. And so here’s, here’s, let me just say one last thing about this Tami, and this is really cool. So this is, this ties in and then I’ll pause ’cause I get so excited. So when you’re in a dream, this is another way similar type of, um, contemplation, but I think even more revelatory.
When you’re in a dream, you can call that dreamer the dream avatar. There’s, there’s a feeling that, yes, I’m experiencing the dream, right? I’m a dream avatar, right? Well, we all have that. When we dream the dream, we create dream avatars every night. The little whirlpool. Remember I used that image half an hour ago.
This is a little whirlpool in the stream of your own mind. That’s the avatar. Well, when you wake up tomorrow morning, you don’t wail and weep and moan. You don’t write an obituary. You don’t call your friends that the dream avatar, oh my God, the dream avatar has died. Well, the dream avatar does die every morning when you wake up.
What does a dream avatar do? It opens reassociate into your stream at large. But you don’t go wailing, weeping, and moaning when the dream avatar dies. And, exactly. Tami, I cannot overemphasize the importance of this in exactly the same way. You can extrapolate this insight to what’s going to happen when we wake up or when we, when we die in this life.
Who we think we are right now is nothing more than this whirlpool to which we identify and clothe as Andrew and Tami. That is an avatar. When we die, just like the nighttime avatar dissolving into your mindstream, we are going to dissolve into the stream of mind at large. That’s what death is.
And if we can’t relate to and identify with that infinite stream, I’m not that big.
I’m not that majestic. I’m not. I’m not everything. What are we gonna do? We’re gonna whiplash, we’re gonna contract, we’re gonna create a new whirlpool farther down the stream. This time I’m not going merrily, merrily down the stream, but merrily merrily down the karmic toilet because we’re unable. To basically relate with this fundamental relaxation and the death of this avatar in relationship to the mind at large, in exactly the same way that our dream avatar every night dissolves back into our own mindstream.
If, if we really settle into this and reflect on this, not only does this have tremendous explanatory power. It helps us prepare for the end of life by preparing, um, by looking at what happens every single night when we fall asleep. Dream and wake up. Does this land with you? Does this collect it? Does it?
Tami Simon: It does. It does. And for a moment, I wanna ask you a question though, about this. What or who reincarnates. And it’s our bad habits. And I thought to myself, well, isn’t it also our good habits? Like all of our habits, just all and it? Or is the fact that we have our habits running our life, uh, should we. Call that bad because we’re run by habits and even whether they’re good or bad.
But I guess, you know, you, you, you hear about people who, oh, that person has such quote unquote good karma. Yeah. Look at their, look at their life. They were born into a family where they encountered wisdom teachings that had privileges of all kinds in terms of their early education, where they were loved or not.
And I’m curious how you see in the reincarnation process the. The blueprint, if you will, of somebody’s next life, the challenges that they have, the opportunities that they have. Sometimes people say, well, you know, I felt like there was a, a meeting that happened before my incarnation and I raised my hand for certain sacred assignments or something like that.
And I’m curious how the tradition. Looks at it and how you look at it.
Andrew Holecek: Yeah. Again, boy, these are suchs questions. So this, this ties in just parenthetically very briefly to that statement that I mentioned earlier from my dear friend Bob Thurman, when he says, so compellingly, it’s not safe to die as long as you still have an unconscious mind.
Why is that? Well, because that, by the way, and the numbers here, are really quite powerful. Not Check this out, Tami. Minimum. Minimum, 95% of what we do. Is dictated by these unconscious processes. Talk about forgive them father, for they know not what we do. They what, what they do. We, we live our lives basically buffet around by 95% of our minds.
And so what happens in, in the process of awakening and purification. And the Western depth psychology really helps here. The work of Carl Jung and individuation and that kind of thing is bringing unconscious processes into the light of consciousness to establish a relationship to these contents so that we can relate to them instead of from them.
That’s archetypal non lucidity. And as we do that, several, two things are happening connected to your question. One is you in fact are bringing more of these unconscious processes into the light of consciousness. In geek speak. You know, this is the, for the Buddhist who may be listening, this is the storehouse consciousness coming up and being in a certain sense, emptied out and purified.
So in association with that, um, as those are being brought up in purified. Cleanse, the karma is being, um, released and opened simultaneously. Um, bad habits are being replaced with good habits. Bad karma is being replaced with good karma until fundamentally, the fruition is no habit, no karma. Only a Buddha from any tradition is habit free.
Only a Buddha is karma free. Buddhas come back just briefly. They come back not driven involuntarily by unconscious impulses of greed and passion and aggression and ignorance and jealousy and pride. These are the forces of the dark side that form us. The awaken ones. Come back and, and this is important because in, in the Buddhist tradition, the point is not to get outta rebirth.
The point is not to get out of reincarnation. The point is to get out of involuntarily, karmically driven, habitually driven reincarnation. So the fruition is to come back. You know, this term as a voluntary rebirth or a tuku one who takes on form voluntarily out of love. Kindness and compassion. The great beings from any tradition do this.
And so we can aspire for this kind of fruition stance because we have the same minds as the awakened ones. And so when we’re engaging in, in kindness and compassion and love, it’s like, uh, the Dalai Lama and also llamas of JE say so beautifully. Loving kindness or the awakened heart mind, what’s called buddhi.
Tita lays down a red carpet for you in the bardos because if you, if you stuff the ballot box, so to speak, with these noble good qualities, and this is really important for people who are not interested in Buddhism, they’re not interested in Hinduism. They just wanna have a good death. Well, you wanna have a good death and a good birth lead, a good life.
Because this is the type of, it’s like, it’s like, I, I, I sometimes say this, it’s like, uh, coming to the mafia and, and saying, you know, oh, I’ll take care of it. Or, or coming to Mother Teresa and saying, I’ll take care of it. Well, you’re gonna take care of it in different ways. And so if, if you can follow my, my metaphor here, my analogy, if we take good care of ourselves.
If we take good care of others, will love kindness and compassion, then it is in fact those good habits that will then rebirth. It is those good habits that will rebirth moment to moment, life to life and dream to dream. You see this in your dreams. You see this maturation and developmental process take place on the dreams as nightmares eventually diminish and cease.
Bad dreams are replaced with good dreams. Even good dreams are replaced with dreams of teachers and teachings, and then eventually, believe it or not, at a certain point, all dreaming ceases.
Tami Simon: Please join us next week for part two
