Sunday, June 14th, 1981

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

June 14, 1981

BUDDHISM: TANTRA

with Appendices: 1981 0614 Partial Transcript and Classnotes AB 1981 0614.

TOPIC: Buddhism

SUBJECT: Tantra

SUBSUBJECTS: Idea of Man, Soul-Nature-Body connection, Subtle Physiology (channels, winds, drops), Stages of Dissolution

CONTENTS:

Different grades of void and light

Reading and analysis from Alex Wayman's Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra

Discussion of how winds being yoked by light dissolve prakritis; yogin must close sense doors to dissipate prakritis

Detailed breakdown of the 80 prakritis into three groups (7, 40, 33), each group associated with a gnostic light; after distinguishing prakritis and lights, have to see their similarity

Reading and analysis from Herbert Guenther's The Life and Teachings of Naropa

Cognitive-isness combined with motility results in three reaction potentialities; essences combined with consciousness in Idea of Man give rise to drops

"Triad of consciousness" as three lights or three vijnanas; motility as potentiality to generate movement (Plato's definition of soul)

Interpretations and confusion about Guenther's presentation; question of whether prakritis evolve out of lights or lights illuminate prakritis; distinction between Wayman and Guenther presentation

GA's presentation of process of withdrawal from manifestation

Dissolution of earth, water, air, fire elements and their associated gnostic functions until you reach mind of 80 conceptions; this experienced as void/death by neophyte

Correlation with chakra system and subtle physiology: winds dissolving back into channels; dichotomizing process dissolving; gathering of winds at specific points (the A or Ham) and experience of white and red lights

Reading/discussing notes from Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism on fifth through eighth dissolutions

Mind of 80 conceptions divided into three groups; each group associated with a light but is not the light

Earth dissolving feels like sinking, solidity of being taken away

Water dissolving experienced as disorganized chaotic mental condition, spreading in all directions

When all 80 conceptions dissolve, you experience mind of white appearance; cause of appearance; looks like a huge white cloud, vital living and warm; emptiness of sublunar

Mind of red increase: cause of appearance; will scare you, think you're on fire; emptiness of planetary functioning

Don't take colors too literally, can vary

Mind of black near-attainment has two stages: 1) autumn sky, deep blue vacuity; 2) swoon, no contents; cause of appearance

Memory of annihilation from black near-attainment state; feels like selfhood extinguished

All-empty/clear light of death appears after black; freed from white, red, black appearances

This process always being repeated in sleep, death, yogic training

Reading/discussing Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, on wind process associated with minds of red increase and black near-attainment

Experiences vary; can have experiences from point of view of motility, sems, drops

First stage of mind of black near-attainment like clear autumn sky; why most people afraid of prairies; second stage felt almost as liberation

Signs of water and fire dissolution

Question about retrospection on life during death experience

Appendix 1: Partial transcript

Guenther's diagram of subtle body

Three levels (coarse, subtle, very subtle) of channels, motility, mentality, and creative potentiality; correlations with Samkhya

Body as microcosm; one body analyzed from three increasingly subtle points of view

Idea of Man working down through objective vehicles; drop enters cosmos first in inerratic, then through planets, elements; parallels building up of chart

Idea of Man in soul makes possible "mere I" in cosmic circuit; unit soul crystallized out through this process

Differentiation of elements out of drop in 8th house by Demiurge; individual differentiates drop into its four vehicles

Three lights in 9th, ether in 8th differentiating into elements in 9th-12th

Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra: prakritis, winds, and lights; winds at level of elements, 80 conceptions, and lights

Guenther, The Life and Teachings of Naropa: 80 conceptions evolving out of triad of consciousness endowed with light and motility

Essences combined with consciousness in Idea of Man give rise to drops

Problem with Guenther's presentation; question of whether prakritis evolve out of lights or lights illuminate prakritis

Appendix 2: AB class notes

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Alex Wayman, Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, The Arcane Lore of Forty Verses, A Buddhist Tantra Commentary

• Herbert V. Guenther, The Life and Teaching of Naropa

• Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism

• His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Kindness, Clarity, and Insight

• Rollo May, The Courage to Create

• Ars moriendi (The Craft of Dying or The Art of Dying), 15th century Latin text

DIAGRAMS appended to this transcript:

• FIGURE 1981 0614-1. Chakras, Petals, Dhyani Buddhas, Channels, and Vibrations.

• FIGURE 1981 0614-2. Diagram of Subtle Body based on H.V. Guenther's Naropa.

• FIGURE 1981 0614-3-AB. Three Lights and Levels of Cosmic Vehicles.

• FIGURE 1981 0614-4-AB. Table correlating Last Four Houses/Signs, Three Lights, Three Reaction Potentials, Eighty Prakritis, and Three Channels.

• FIGURE 1981 0614-5-AB. Process of Withdrawal from Manifestation.

• FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB. Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel.

Other diagrams also referred to are not with this transcript version. [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]

NOTES:

• Sunday morning class (at this time period usually devoted to Tantra).

• "Chip" is Gabriel Aiello.

• Scan File 1981 0614-09R16.PDF, the partial transcript for this class, has been appended because we are missing one or more audio files and it contains diagrams and a good summary of the whole class. All spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors corrected, one number spelled out in scan file.

• AB class notes have been appended because they contain diagrams and also because we are missing one or more audio files for this class. All spelling, capitalization, and punctuation corrected, abbreviations spelled out in AB class notes.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT (V12a) in 2022 from Audio Files using V11a as a basis. V12a has had another pass, with listening errors corrected; has been reformatted to current standards; has updated and expanded prefatory matter based on new conventions and new information (including completed Book List and updated Subsubjects); Scan File 1981 0614-09R16.PDF and AB class notes appended, including six diagrams and references within the transcript to these diagrams. In 2025, IT completes TOC, alters/expands Subsubjects, rearranges some diagram references within transcript. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1981 0614a. [Note 1: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files. Note 2: We only have one audio file for this class, we are missing the rest.]

1981 06/14 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Buddhism: Tantra

[Audio File 1981 0614a Begins]

SP: --the void with this white light and then they have what's called further void, which is the spread of light, and great void, which is the culmination of light. And then they have a universal void associated with the clear light and different grades of voidness.

[student assents]

AB: Then he said-- he said--

[Transcriber note: In the following two quotes, AB seems to be reading from some notes on the Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra by Alex Wayman.]

[Notes, AB reading]: "The pranas take a hold of these lights and join with the n-- and then join the vijnanas with the winds creates the sense-world."

MW: Say that again?

CDA: Please.

[Notes, AB reading]: "The pranas take a hold of the lights and joined-- joining the vijnanas with the wind creates the sense-world."

HS: Pranas take a hold of the light?

LR (simultaneously): I thought the pranas were the wind.

AB: Wait, let me get the actual quote from the book.

[short pause with faint background student talking]

AS: Yeah--

[Transcriber note: I am using Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, The Arcane Lore of Forty Verses, A Buddhist Tantra Commentary, by Alex Wayman, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1977.]

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "When 'knowledge' (jnana = the three lights) [AS reads: that is, the three lights] become associated [AB assents] with [AS adds: the] subtle-formed wind, then issuing from the paths of sense organs it grasps [('hangs on to')] the [sense] objects."

AB: Right.

AS: Ok.

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "At whatever (vein, nadi) the wind stops, at that one it sustains some prakriti (among the 80 prakritis). [AS adds: And] As long as (the wind) stirs up, the 'light' is not steady."

AB: Now read the middle one.

AS: Yeah I-- I read them in a different order because--

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "At whatever time the wind, having become a vehicle (for vijnana), is yoked by the 'light', at that time all those [AS reads: these] prakritis are completely dissipated."

S (faint): Oh, oh.

MW: You have to read that again, Avery.

S (simultaneously): Yeah.

GA: That's the other way around, [HS simultaneously: The commentary.] [one word inaudible] a different way.

S (faint): What [couple words inaudible]

AS: Hm?

GA: Yeah, when the light yokes the wind [HS simultaneously: Yeah, you're going the other way.] then the prakritis are-- (or) dissipate.

AS: Yeah.

S (faint): He thinks it's funny.

GA: When the wind grabs the light [couple words inaudible]

AS: Yeah, I think this was--

MW: And this is what we-- we've discussed this a little bit in the past, this idea that you have the light-- before we were talking about the light as being the-- the subjective principle and the-- the prakritis as being the objective and so when the light-- when the light is overpowered by the prakritis, then you're like [student assents] being carried along by the vasanas or whatever and--

AS (simultaneously): That's-- it seems that's what he's speaking of, he says more that--

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "…when those [AS reads: these] lights are free from the eighty prakritis, [AS: Ok. That's the condition of the three gnostic lights.] [and] when they are subjected to the eighty prakritis in which event [AS reads: eighty prakritis then] their 'light' is not steady."

AS: It says-- starting at the top one--

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "At whatever time the wind, having become a vehicle (for vijnana), is yoked by the 'light', at that time all those [AS reads: these] prakritis are completely dissipated."

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AB: There's a--

LR (simultaneously): When, Avery?

S: Soon. (laughter, student words)

AB (amidst laughter): In other words--

S (amidst laughter, faint): There's a fire.

S (simultaneously): Soon.

LR: No wait, wouldn't it still--

AB: When the wind is-- [LR/S(?) simultaneously, faint: Wait.] when the wind is yoked by the light, the prakritis are dissipated.

LR (simultaneously): The wind is yoked by the light.

AB: Ok, now let's say you're practicing these higher tantric practices and you're manipulating the winds in the channels, right, you're actually manipulating all these winds. You get to a certain point of practice where you manipulate the winds in such a way that it dissolves these prakritis that are obstructing the light and then the light shines through. 'Cause in a-- the next page he says--

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 197, AB reading]: "The implication of the [Manimala] commentary [AB adds: on this] is that as long as the winds are correlated with external objects, the lights of the three nadis are unsteady. Hence the yogin [AB reads: yogi] must close the sensory [AB reads: sense] doors to dissipate the prakritis associated with those nadis [AB reads: the channels]."

[short pause]

[Note: See FIGURES 1981 0614-3-AB, Three Lights and Levels of Cosmic Vehicles, and 1981 0614-4-AB, Table correlating Last Four Houses/Signs, Three Lights, Three Reaction Potentials, Eighty Prakritis, and Three Channels, appended to this transcript for the following discussion.]

HS: [couple words inaudible] this-- the thrust is that there's a-- the ninth house's formula you speak of in terms of-- of as light, ok, and now moving down the light now, we have to see how the light gets inserted into the structure, how it's capable of being taken up by the wind? Is that what this-- is that the point?

MW: Hm.

HS: Or are we moving backwards?

AS: Well-- Depends which way you're going, if you're going one-- if you're coming from the top down, seems he's saying the lights-- whatever these lights are, the lights of gnosis he says, these lights of gnosis--

HS: Which would be those three on the top there [diagram].

AS (simultaneously): The three lights at the top, three lights of gnosis, when they come down into these channels and get associated with those eighty prakritis, he talks about them as thought-coverings also. And prakritis of covering these lights. [student assents, very faint] And so the lights appear when these prakritis cease their functioning. But going down this way he says, when the lights are carried by the winds into the channels and get associated with certain of the prakritis, then wherever this wind stirs up and carries the light, the light is not steady and some of-- some one or combination of these prakritis gets sustained, gets sustained in the sense that they get associated with the light I suppose, and the light gets obscured. [HS: So that--] That's a very-- And then he says--

Alex Wayman [Yoga of the Guhyasamajatantra, p. 196, AS reading]: "When 'knowledge' (jnana = the three lights) [AS reads: that is, the three lights] becomes associated with [AS adds: a] subtle-formed wind, [then] issuing [AS adds: forth] from the paths of [AS adds: the] sense organs it grasps [('hangs on to')] the sense objects."

AS: Ok, that would be that the-- the s-- the grossest level, the winds that are actually activating the sense-organs.

LR: But how do the winds-- in the same way that the prakritis veil the lights, right, how do the winds veil the light(s)?

AS: I-- I didn't understand him to say that the wind veils the light.

LR: No, it's what--

S (simultaneously): It grasps. [one/two words inaudible] grasps.

AB: No, the wind--

LR (simultaneously): No, I know he didn't say that but--

AB: The wind is carrying you away from the lights [LR assents] 'cause it's carrying you out.

HS: No, but it's also taking light [couple words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): So it's carrying the lights.

SP: It's taking the lights [one/two words inaudible]

AB (simultaneously): Carrying the lights with it.

AS: And associating the lights with the prakritis, if I understand what he's saying.

SP: Yeah.

S (very faint): Yeah.

LR: It's the vehi-- so it's like a vehicle? It's bringing the (light/life) through all those-- or I mean it's the medium through which the light [AS simultaneously: No. And I--] associates with [couple words inaudible]

SP (simultaneously): They like it [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Do they have a list of the eighty-- or an indication of what those (eighty) are?

GA: (Yeah/Uh), he has here--

AS (simultaneously): Yeah he has-- There's a whole list of what--

SP (simultaneously): [few words inaudible]

GA: You have the--

AD: You got 7, 33, and 40, do they have any--

AS: Yeah, he has a list of them.

AD: What's the 7?

AS: I've got 'em here.

GA (simultaneously): 7 are--

AS: Got 'em there Gabriel?

GA: They're fun.

S (faint): Oh yeah.

AD: In their terms.

GA/S(?): In their terms. (bit of laughter)

S (very faint): According to them.

S (faint): According to them.

GA (faint): Now--

AD: And the three gnostic lights are associated. Is there any reference to what they mean by gnostic lights?

AS: There's some.

AB: But there's a whole bunch more on the lights [AS simultaneously: I think Guenther--] on 376.

GA: The seven are forgetfulness, mistake, non-speaking, depression, laziness, doubt-- (SP laughs) doubt, and middling desire. [Note: See Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism.]

S: Yeah. (SP laughs)

AD: Once more, Gabriel.

S (simultaneously, faint): Gabe, just [few words inaudible]

GA: Forgetfulness, mistake, non-speaking, depression, laziness, doubt, and middling desire.

AD: Middling.

GA (simultaneously): You have to realize that the nature of the black light is tamasic. It-- it's the wind that's the mount of the black light barely [AS simultaneously: Taijasic.] moves at all. [S simultaneously, faint: Non-speaking.] So you have-- (laughter) It's like barely, you know, it's just sluggish motion.

HS (faint): It's like my personality profile.

AD (simultaneously): Then, just a few of the 40.

GA: Ok, um--

S (simultaneously, faint, possibly part of background): Leave me alone.

GA: They-- Ok, the 40--

SP (simultaneously): These stay with taijasic kind of quality. Well, go ahead.

GA: No. Yeah, the 40--desire, adherence, great joy, middling joy, small joy, there's a lot of [AD simultaneously: Uh-hm.] the-- you know, rejoicing, rapture, amazement, excitement, contentment, embracing, kissing, stability, effort, pride, activity.

AD: I-- alright. (some laughter)

GA: Robbery. (laughter)

MW: You know those?

AD: And the 33? (bit of laughter)

GA: 33--great lack of desire, [S, faint: Wow.] middling lack of desire, and small lack of desire. (student laughs) Mental goings and comings, great sorrow, middling sorrow, small sorrow. Conceptuality, great fear, etc. Great at-- great attachment, etc, grasping, non-virtue, non-knowledge, hunger, thirst, so forth. Conception of a knower, conception of a knowing, conceptioc of an o-- conception of an object of knowledge.

AD: Alright. And Gabriel, you find anything on the three lights? They refer to them as gnostic.

GA: Yeah, well--

AD: Anything on that?

GA: See most of the stuff I have on the three lights is in terms of the yogic process. So it's not like an overview of well, what do they mean. But, they definitely distinguish the grades of light and motility su-- pretty much what we have here, such that the-- the mind of eighty conceptions rides on a-- a subtle but coarser wind, ok, than the lights. And when you go through the dissolutions, the dissolutions up to and through the mind of eighty conceptions, you're conceiving actually of the winds that are engaged with the elements and the sense-functionings as dissolving one-- they say one into the other. Actually as one dissolves into the other it's just that the manifestness of either the cognition or whatever, the element that's riding on that wind is withdrawn and the manifestness of the next, more subtle one comes out. But when you get into the realm of the eighty conceptions, something funny happens. They speak of these winds as dissolving into consciousness. And then they speak of a different kind of wind or a more subtle wind which is the mount of the three lights. And they-- [student assents, faint] they're very careful to distinguish, 'cause some of these systems mix up the lights with these eighty conceptions, very careful to distinguish the lights and their winds--

AD: So you say the dissolution of the eighty prakritis brings about a consciousness [one word inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Well it br-- it brings about a dissolution of these coarser winds into-- I-- what I believe must be taijasa consciousness. And it's not that all the winds have dissolved at this point, there are still more subtle winds that [AS simultaneously: That carry the lights.] the-- the mounts of these lights. But they're quite different in nature the-- then the winds that are the mounts that are similar to but are the mounts of the eighty conceptions. And then they-- then they turn right around, they say but you have to see how the eighty conceptions are of the nature of the three lights. And they're saying that-- after distinguishing the two then they make the point that you do have to inspect each of these 33 and 40 and 7 and see how they are of a similar nature.

SP: Yeah, they say that those prakritis can give you an intuition of the nature of those-- of the lights and that those 33 prakritis have a-- a receptive quality and the 40 have like a generative, more active quality and the 7 have a-- like a neutral quality and not-- not necessarily that-- that the culmination(,) consciousness(,) is indecisive or whatever but the indecisiveness can give you this fact that it doesn't go this way or that way or, you know, it's-- has a steadiness, like a centeredness to it.

AB: I think the reason why it's called gnostic, those three lights, is because they're subsumed under the subjective light and we also spoke of objective clear light previously.

[student assents, faint]

AD: I don't think so, Alan.

AS: That's a big question, I don't--

AD (faint): I don't follow that.

AS (simultaneously): He has a few little things on that in Guenther, I mean I don't know if you want to read them, you know.

AD: Yes, please read them.

AS: Um, [S simultaneously, faint: It's a terrible (time).] let's see. Here he's talking about the three reaction potentialities. Says--

[Transcriber note: I am using The Life and Teaching of Naropa by Herbert V. Guenther, Reprint, Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston, 1986.]

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, pp. 172-173, AS reading]: "The triad of the reaction potentialities [AS reads: They] cannot be called an entity in the proper sense of the word. Being [AS reads: They are] thoroughly dynamic and in a constant flux it is [AS reads: flux and] ultimately connected with motility and through it becomes split up into the eighty self-contained reaction patterns [AS reads: motility through which they're split into eighty]."

AS: Then he says--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'Although the triad of [pure] consciousness is not an entity having a foundation somewhere it is endowed with light, and although motility has no definite shape it yet [AS reads: yet it] produces movement; these two (consciousness and motility) are fused like oil with oil and in the twinkling of an eye become a light that shines [AS adds: out] everywhere, out of which in a fraction of a moment the (eighty) reaction patterns evolve, the one or the other in ephemeral ascendance.'"

AD: Once more Avery, I think what he's saying there is something like this. If you think of the unit consciousness separate, you know, the cognitive-isness--

HS: What page is it?

LR: Yeah.

AD: If you [AS simultaneously: 173.] combine it with its motility, [AS: Yeah.] you get the three potential reaction patterns.

AS: Yeah.

AD: Go ahead, go over that.

AS: Yeah. This um--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'Although the triad of [pure] consciousness is not an entity having a foundation somewhere it is endowed with light, and although motility has no definite shape it yet produces [AS reads: yet it can produce] movement; [AS adds: when] these two (consciousness and motility) are fused like oil with oil [and] in the twinkling of an eye [AS adds: they] become a light that shines [AS adds: out] everywhere, out of which [AS: out of this light] in a fraction of a moment [AS adds: again] the (eighty) reaction patterns evolve, the one or the other in [ephemeral] ascendance.'"

AS: Either the consciousness aspect or the motility aspect, as I said.

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "This evolution involves a division into [the] subject-object polarity…"

AD: Yeah.

AS: Ok, and so on.

AD: Any more on it, I think-- I think I'm beginning to get a feeling [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] [couple words inaudible] Guenther (so--)

AS (simultaneously): 196. There's a-- oh there's a few of (those/them).

HS: 194.

AD: This is a real jungle, believe me.

S (faint): Well--

AS: Yeah. Well let me read [AD simultaneously, faint: It's a real jungle.] this first Herbert and then--

SP: Why-- [AS: Yeah.] why couldn't you think of this as-- as the light associated with matter in the sense of the gunas?

AD: Light associated with matter?

SP: Yeah, it asso-- you know, in a way that you might think of the gunas.

[short pause]

AD: I have a completely different interpretation Sid, I was thinking of the consciousness [AS simultaneously: Light of the soul.] or the motility-- Motility [AS simultaneously: The soul.] is simply another-- is another way of expressing the fact that soul-- (when) the soul has-- ha-- that the s-- soul's own principle is motion. They're speaking about motion and consciousness. All this must be coming from soul. The combination of soul or consciousness with motion, alright, is going to bring us all the way down, um-- Avery, read that once more. [couple inaudible GA words] I think I s-- I think you see what he's saying, I'm not going to agree with it at all. (some laughter) Yeah because the motion that he's speaking about is the essences combined with the consciousness, the way we would speak about it, the essences combined with the consciousness in the Idea of Man is what's going to give rise, alright, to the drops. Then these drops are going to be inserted. I'm trying to get the overall scheme before I go into the details.

S (faint): (Pretty interesting.)

AD: You know when we think of the Fifth House Idea, we say we have the unit soul, unit of consciousness, combining with the exaltations, which means the essences that go to constitute the Idea of Man [diagram]. These things will give us an individual man or the possibility, so that Louis won't get offended, the possibility and the actualization of the Idea of Man according to the soul. Now this is going to be transformed-- these essences are going to be transformed into motility.

S (very faint): This is [one/two words inaudible] realm?

AD: Yeah, in the Intelligible realm. Otherwise, if they [VM simultaneously: Oh you're still-- you're still in the Intelligible.] have no effi-- efficacy, no power then they're not going to ever get actualized.

VM: You're still in the Intelligible realm with this (statement).

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, I was still-- I'm still coming from there.

VM: How does this differ, Anthony, from-- of saying that the Intelligibles are both gnostic and fabricative?

AD: I don't know yet. [VM simultaneously: You're saying the fabricative has (it's own--)] I don't know that this-- No, that's all the way down.

S: What about [one word inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Couldn't you say that they already have a motility in the Body-- in the Body ring [diagram]? If the Body ring is the very potential motility of those essences, and that when the two reach, say, the-- the-- the ring of a Subjective Conception [diagram], then the two are mixed, the exaltation and the-- and the Body ring are mixed, and once they're mixed then the-- this light bursts forth.

AD (simultaneously): There is no Body ring there.

GA: Well that's the thing, see, the Body-- that's exactly why it isn't differentiated there.

S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] right.

GA: See what I'm saying? In other words, it's-- it's not until later when you have a maya body that you've differentiated those essences into a motility. And because there's no differentiation, there's no stability on that level. And as soon as those two mix, the essences with the motility, you go into the next house and those three lights burst forth. And then the eighty reaction patterns.

AD: I don't follow [one/two words inaudible] (at) all.

MW: Good, then we're all lost.

AD (simultaneously): (Well), we'll have to do the whole thing again. Look, let's take a breather for five minutes, ten minutes, [AS simultaneously: Well if you (couple words inaudible)] and continue? I want to-- Oh, before we break up, I want to speak, I just want to mention something for a few minutes. It'll only take two minutes. There's-- there's something we're going to have to-- [tape break] The fact that the Center needs always to be supported financially. [tape break] Try again.

S (faint): Fresh. (bit of laughter)

S (faint): This brand new [couple words inaudible]

AD (faint): Yeah, and you got a ten minute class.

[16½ second pause, faint background student talking]

AS: Want that one again from Guenther? Or [AD simultaneously, faint: Yes.] you want to--

S (faint): (Does he want it?)

AS: When he says--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'[Although] the triad of pure co…'"

AS: Well, he says "pure consciousness".

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'Although the triad of [pure] consciousness is not an entity having a foundation somewhere…'"

AD: What does he mean by triad, Avery?

LR (very faint): Yes. What does he mean?

AS: The triad of pure-- the triad of consciousness.

VM: Is he talking about the three lights as the triad of consciousness?

AS (simultaneously): I think he's talking [SP simultaneously: Lights.] about either the three lights or the three vijnanas.

[student assents, very faint]

LR: Which are?

AS: Which are-- the three vijnanas being--

HS (simultaneously): Alaya, mano and--

S (faint): The five.

AS: Alaya, mano vijnana, manas and the five.

LR: It is?

AD: Those are the three vijnanas, yeah.

AS: Yeah.

AD: Those are what they refer to as the three vijnanas.

AS (simultaneously): That's the-- see the three reaction potentials?

LR: Yeah.

AS: That's those. That's what he translates--

LR: I thought those were [S, very faint: I don't know.] the gunas.

AS: They're not gunas.

LR: [couple words inaudible] in theory?

AS: Well, maybe it's better not to call them gunas now, I don't know.

LR: Right [couple words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): It's better to think of them as minds. It's like--

AS (simultaneously): Three kinds of minds, yeah.

LR: I thought we were talking about something back in the ninth, Sagittarius.

GA: Oh.

AS: Well, there he speaks of them [S simultaneously, faint: Well--] as three lights.

VM (faint): Three lights.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): Yeah, s--

AS: Light, spread of light, culmination of light.

GA: Also call them mind of light, you know, mind of red appearance, mind of white appearance, mind of black appearance.

AS: And then clear light. The various kinds. [student assents, faint] Anyway--

GA: To--

AS: Yeah.

GA: The only difference be-- if you think of them as gunas in S-- in the Samkhya system, the problem is that those gunas aren't consciousnesses.

S (faint): (Yeah, right.)

GA: Whereas [LR simultaneously: Right.] here they're spoken of as minds. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with GA] When they-- when they speak of--

SP (simultaneously): Yeah, they aren't-- they aren't like-- there's a qualitative distinction between the clear light and the-- and these kinds of [one word inaudible] lights.

GA: Yeah.

AS: Yes.

GA: What?

HS: Yeah what?

GA: Yeah what?

AS: Well that's--

GA: Wait. If you say it does--

SP (simultaneously): Well, they don't speak about the clear light in terms of its, you know, association with winds and so forth, they only speak about these lights [couple/three words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): As the intermediary of that. That's, I mean that--

S: That's a big distinction (but--)

AS: True but--

HS (simultaneously): So but, you're saying that the-- these lights are the intermediaries between the clear light [AS simultaneously: And the gunas.] and the material-- and the-- the materiality, is that the point here?

AS: Well, it seems to be what we're trying to follow up if that's so, are these lights the intermediary of the clear light or the subjective soul and the-- its insertion of that light into the subtle vehicles that we've just gone ahead and described.

AD (faint): Ok, alright.

AS: I mean--

AD: Let's do the triad of consciousness.

AS (simultaneously): But, he doesn't s-- all-- he quotes this from somewhere, [student assents, faint] Sphzg. 11a in Sphzg, if you could look it up, Sid.

S (faint): 11a.

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'Although the triad of pure consciousness is not an entity having a foundation somewhere it is endowed with light…'"

JC: That's just his Buddhist propaganda (talking).

AS: Well, the triad of consciousness is the three vijnana systems-- (AD laughs)

VM (faint): Is that right?

AS: --which he says is endowed with light.

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'…and although motility has no definite shape it yet [AS reads: yet it] produces movement; these two (consciousness and motility) are fused like oil with oil and in the twinkling of an eye become a light that shines everywhere…'"

DB: Thanks. Avery?

AS: Yeah?

DB: How does mo-- what does this mean that motility produces movement even though it has no shape?

AS: Well like the mo-- the soul's power, the s-- just what we said, the soul is not in manifestation but the power of the soul is what produces the movement. Time. Time is the motion of the soul.

DB: So motility isn't movement but--

VM (simultaneously): No, no.

DB: --motility--

VM: The potentiality to generate movement. In fact if you just look it up in the dictionary, it's not movement.

DB: Uh-hm. It's this--

VM (simultaneously): It's the potentiality to generate movement.

DB: Oh I see.

S (faint): To generate?

AS: Well, I don't know.

AD: That's Plato's definition of soul.

AB: Avery?

S (faint): That's real helpful.

AB: The two pages before there's a whole of stuff on the lights.

AS: Yeah I know, I just want to finish this one.

MW (simultaneously): It doesn't tell you the color.

[students assents, very faint]

S: Oh I just lost--

AS: Ok, anyway, let me just finish this one and then-- So anyway--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'…fused like oil with oil [AS reads: fused with oil like oil] [and] in the twinkling of an eye become [AS reads: it becomes] a light that shines everywhere, out of which in a fraction of a moment…'"

AS: Which I guess is longer than a twinkling of an eye, I don't know. (some laughter)

VM: Three twinklings.

AS (simultaneously): I don't know if that's a technical [VM simultaneously: It's three twinklings.] measure of time. (AS laughs, laughter) But anyway--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'…in a [AS reads: the] fraction of a moment the (eighty) reaction patterns evolve, the one or the other in ephemeral ascendance.'"

AS: Now, the triad of consciousness is the three vijnanas that he speaks of. He says they're associated with light or it's endowed with light. And the motility, ok also--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "'…has no definite shape [AS adds: in itself] [it] yet produces movement…'"

AS: So I take it that this light in the movement, the light in the motility, originally are not associated with the vijnana systems or with the actual movement in the cosmos. But that when-- when the light-- that the light gets associated or gets-- or endows these vijnanas, and the motility which has no shape in itself yet produces movement is what produces movement in the whole system. And when these two are fused, then in the twinkling of an eye they become a light that shines out everywhere, out of which the eighty reaction patterns evolve.

JC: Yeah Avery, I don't-- I mean I like to understand the distinction as being made through the three reaction potentials on these lights. I mean I don't know that that's what's being said, we might disagree with what's being said [one/two words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Right, I don't have any idea Jeff, I mean I'm-- I-- I mean I don't know which is which.

AD (simultaneously): Well so far, so far [AS simultaneously: But this seems to be a distinction.] it seem [one word inaudible] it seems that if the eighty-- the three reaction potentials and the eighty prakritis evolves out of this light which is com-- you know, the result of combination of the power of motility and consciousness, alright, then all of a sudden we got a confusion because we've been thinking of the eighty prakritis as located in the cosmic circuit.

VM: Yeah, sure.

AS: Right. [student assents, faint] And so are the vijnanas.

JC: So are the three reaction potentials.

AD (simultaneously): And so are the vijnana.

AS: But the light, it's not clear what the relation of that light to these three vijnana systems is. And I don't think he would--

AD (simultaneously): You remember that book I recommended, Courage to Create?

S: Rollo May, yeah.

AD: Yeah, try to read it and you'll see-- you'll understand that a certain amount of anxiety is always attended with your attempt to understand. So understand what you can as you go along and just hold it in a suspended solution. But have it there. Then the moment (will) come when you can take out a hammer and strike, but until then you gotta live with the anxiety. So go on.

AS: Ok. And then he says--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 173, AS reading]: "This evolution involves a division into subject-object polarity…"

AD: You see, he just-- he just took one leap right across the universe.

GA: Yeah, well--

S (very faint, possibly part of background): [three words inaudible]

AS: Ok. The only other thing he says a little later is--

Herbert V. Guenther [The Life and Teaching of Naropa, p. 196, AS reading]: "The actual practice of [the] light as [AS reads: on] the path is the emptying of [AS reads: from] consciousness from [AS reads: of] every content."

AD: Yeah, I just went from Park Avenue to Orchard Street, come on. (some laughter) Got more quotes?

AB: Well-- see these-- he talks about it more in the previous page when he says the triad has the character of light shining in every direction. So he's saying that these three groups of p-- reaction potentials have different types of light associated with them and he's been getting into whether the light is prior or [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You see, if-- if-- if he's saying that that is knowing, willing, and feeling, alright, and that becomes the light and that shines in every direction, I can follow that. [student assents, faint] That will make sense.

AS: But if he says it becomes the prakritis--

VM (faint): That doesn't make sense.

AS: That's another story.

AD (simultaneously): That doesn't make sense. If that illuminates the prakritis and where, let's say, it associated with a prakriti, then you have a mental state, that'll make sense.

AB: Right, or the other way around you could say is the prakriti veils the light.

AD: Well sure you could say that. But that's not going to-- I'm trying to find a logical order the way this man is talking and all I keep getting is like an excerpt from page one of this novel, [AB simultaneously: Yeah, I don't think there is a logical order.] page two from that poem, page three from that play, and page four from something else. [student assents] I mean I know the words follow one another but the thoughts I can't follow at all. I feel like I'm building a Frankenstein. [VM, faint: Yeah.] One idea from this system, one from that system, and then I put them together I'm supposed to get something.

HS: Anthony? I didn't understand what didn't make sense (here). I mean what-- what's not making [one/two words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Well, and let's say that the-- in what sense do the prakritis which are part of the cosmic circuit come out of or evolve out of the lights?

HS: Oh ok, rather than-- ok.

AS: Rather than the lights get associated with these [S simultaneously, faint: Prakriti(s).] prakritis and then they get manifested, the prakritis get manifested. That's more like what he says in this Guhyasamaj thing.

SP (simultaneously): But I don't-- yeah but Wayman doesn't present it as the prakritis evolving out of the light.

AS: Right.

AD: How does he present it?

SP (simultaneously): (He presents) it [AS simultaneously: Well we-- that's what we read.] as very separative nature.

AD: Very--

AS: Separate.

GA (simultaneously): Separate.

SP: Separate in nature.

AD: Nature?

AS: Yeah. See, in these things we read here he says, wherever-- the wind carries the light and wherever the light stops it gets [GA assents] associated with the prakritis that are there.

SP (simultaneously): Yeah, he says they [GA simultaneously: The problem--] have an affinity, that the prakritis have an affinity with a certain light.

AS: Right.

SP: You know, or vice versa, whatever, but the-- but they're not like an evolution of one-- [GA: Yeah.] (of/from) one [AD simultaneously: Ok.] thing.

GA: I think the problem with the Naropa book is if you have a system where there's an alaya-vijnana, everything is seen as evolving out of that. [student assents, faint] [AS: Right.] So that we have this very subtle level that isn't really very subtle, it's really the-- the seeds in the alaya-vijnana. So that everything that is really say (with any/within the) other system will-- would be outside the cosmic circuit is seen here as being in it, as evolving these-- you're seeing the evolution of the World-Soul rather than the individual. Then they're mixing the two up.

AD: Ok. You got some things on light?

GA: Well, I've s-- I-- I think I could out-- outline the way they-- they take this [AD simultaneously: Go ahead.] in a reverse order.

AD: Go ahead.

GA: Because this is-- this is just coming from the yogic experience.

AD: Which yogi?

S: Yeah.

AD: Excuse my skepticism.

GA: Only a certain type that would see it this way.

AD: Alright. (some laughter)

MW: I think it's-- it was Fred, wasn't it?

GA (faint): That was him, oh boy.

AD (simultaneously): You know, that's-- that's like going to different doctors, each one gives me a different terminal illness. (bit of laughter)

S: Why not?

S: (Not even.)

MW/S(?) (very faint): Go away.

AD: You got this done? (some laughter)

MW: He has down all the confusing points.

GA (simultaneously): Hold this suspended in your imagination.

AS: Draw the picture?

GA (faint): Well of--

CDA: Yeah, he's--

GA (simultaneously): The fir-- I don't--

CDA: This is-- he's--

AS: He's helping.

[Note: See FIGURES 1981 0614-3-AB, Three Lights and Levels of Cosmic Vehicles, and 1981 0614-5-AB, Process of Withdrawal from Manifestation, appended to this transcript for the following discussion.]

GA (simultaneously): I mean they speak of these different appearances, you know, the fireflies, and the-- the butter lamps, and the smoke and so forth. And those are all in terms of our-- our diagram [drawing] where we have the fourfold body [diagram]. [AD, faint: Uh-hm.] And you have the motility, you know, from each level and there's a sense-consciousness associated with each and-- and particular functionings in the physical body and everything. So that you have both the gnostic and the fabricative as like identified with the body one at a time. The potential to manifestness of that gnostic faculty or that bodily functioning is withdrawn. And it's withdrawn into the next level. So you have, you know, what is earth and water and air, fire, how-- whatever level it is, withdrawn one into the other, ok.

AD: Until you get to--

GA: Until you get to the eighty prakritis or the mind of eighty conceptions.

AD: By the way, that-- that is experienced as the void for a-- a [GA simultaneously: Ok.] neophyte.

GA: Ok, that's-- are you going to-- yeah, I'm going to bring that in.

MW: Where, at what point?

GA: This-- [AD simultaneously: Right there.] at this point right here [diagram], you experi-- this is experienced as a vastness, [AD: Uh-hm.] ok. Like you say drop into the heart, at this dissolution there's say a dropping into the heart. But it doesn't feel like a little seed, like they-- to the mustard seed, it's actually experienced as a void. And what-- what it's empty of is it's empty of all this functioning. The bodily functioning and the-- and-- as well as the gnostic faculties working through the senses. When you're-- that's the first empty.

AD: You follow?

GA (simultaneously): It's empty of that functioning.

AD: You follow what he's doing?

GA (simultaneously): You actually experience this vastness or this vacuity of that functioning. It's like a void.

[student assents, faint]

AD: In other words, accompanying the functioning that's going on, if you subtract the knowing of that functioning in all four of these elemental levels, you [AD snaps fingers] immediately experience what they call a vastness. The neophyte in mysticism experience this as void, he thinks he's reached the World-Mind.

GA: Actually I should-- I'm sorry, it doesn't happen here, it happens here [diagram]. The eighty-- you have to dissolve the eighty conceptions too.

AD: That's almost equivalent to like an organized conceptual system.

[student assents, faint]

GA: These [diagram]?

AD: Yeah.

GA: Yeah. Yeah, it's anything that drops into here is automatically gonna be organized according to your-- your way of thinking. So it's already-- it's like the imagined-- you know, say you dropped into here [diagram] and got an insight and you come back into the mind of eighty conceptions, your insight in the subtle imagination is already organized for you before you could [AD: Yeah.] come back into your regular consciousness. So it's like your predisposition to understand in a certain way or imagine in a certain way is already--

AD (simultaneously): Let me remind you, this is for most-- this is experience of death.

VM: To experience the eighty or above [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] the eighty conceptions?

AD (simultaneously): When you go to earth, water, air, fire, and then you go into the eighty prakritis, it's the experience of death.

S: Into the-- to through that-- into that level?

AD: You think [GA assents, faint] you're dying and you [GA simultaneously: Yeah but--] will-- you will think yourself dead.

GA: So that bodily organs would actually relax, the functioning of the bodily organs would relax, the-- you know, there'd be complete relaxation of all the muscles and everything would shut down, the heart might even stop beating for a moment, the breath would stop. Everything would shut down at-- once these eighty prakritis are--

HS/S(?): So then--

S (faint): Indistinct or--

MW (simultaneously): But wait, are we saying-- I just the-- going from the knowing associated with fire, which I don't know what that is yet, but there--

AD (simultaneously): Whatever gnostic function is associated with any element, alright.

MW: Ok, from there to the next step, that would be what is experienced as death.

AD: No, no, from fire to the eighty prakritis. [MW assents] When you get into the eighty prakritis, all functioning has ceased and you experience death.

MW (simultaneously): But are-- are-- [student assents, very faint] Is there in fact a functioning that you can't be aware of at that point if you're untrained?

AD (simultaneously): Oh yes, but it's so minute you can hardly notice it. You'd have to hold a--

MW (simultaneously): Because they do say then the eighty prakritis dissolve, right?

AD: Yeah. But believe me, that's enough.

MW: Ok that's-- I just want to make sure that's what you're saying.

AD (simultaneously): That's enough.

GA: It's like as this-- remember we had that [drawing] chakra system here [diagram], alright. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-1, Chakras, Petals, Dhyani Buddhas, Channels, and Vibrations, appended to this transcript.] And as each of these elements and the gnostic function associated with it is dissolving, there's a s-- an organic system in the body that's shutting down as well as a sen-- you know, one of the senses shutting down. And each time that happens, the winds that are-- the di-- dichotomizing winds in the outside channels are dissolving back or-- I'm sorry. The winds that flow from these outside channels are dissolving back into those outside channels, ok. So that from here to here [diagram], the whole dichotomizing process, whether it be of, you know, the eighty conceptions associated with this structure as well as the struc-- the fourfold structure itself, is dissolving back into the-- this--

AD (simultaneously): The channel.

GA: Channels [S simultaneously, faint: Channel.] on the side. [student assents, very faint] So that, once you-- then what's going on from here to here [diagram] is that these winds [drawing] are now gathering at the-- what's-- the-- what is it, the A or the Ham, Sid, the A I think it is [S simultaneously, faint: Ham.] here?

SP: Oh no, [AD simultaneously: Ham.] Ham.

GA (simultaneously): Ham, [S, faint: Ham.] ok. [drawing/writing] The white drop at the-- the head. And you have the A which is down here, the A Ham [diagram]. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB, Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel, appended to this transcript.] It's at that point that that first light, the white-- the mind of white appearance dawns. So that this is where the first vacuity takes place and what-- what you're empty of is empty of all this functioning below here. And once that emptiness has taken place, there would be the possibility of recognizing this mind of white light.

HS: And then it would be like-- according to that [diagram], that would be like a prelim-- a-- just a touching in of the inerratic sphere, something like that, according to that diagram? [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-3-AB, Three Lights and Levels of Cosmic Vehicles, appended to this transcript.]

GA: On the other diagram--

AD: No, wait, [GA simultaneously: Yeah.] wait. Well let him go through this way.

[Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB, Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel, appended to this transcript for the following.]

GA (simultaneously): Actually they say these winds gather here [diagram] and they descend to the heart center [drawing] and the point where they-- they hit the heart center but they haven't entered, they just hit it, this light dawns.

SP: Well isn't-- I-- I thought like the white is when it touches at the top and the [GA simultaneously: No.] bottom and there's-- and the red is like the descent. It's not?

GA: No, the red takes place once it touches the A, and as the A ascends to the heart the red takes place all the way from here to here [diagram] whereas with the white it doesn't dawn till you hit the heart. Don't ask me why, I don't know. That's the way they describe it.

SP: And then the black is, so to say, starting to go into the heart?

GA: Both of them are dissolving into the heart. So-- so that-- Here-- these are all-- these are all coarse [diagram]. [drawing] And, these coarse wi-- these coarse winds and minds have a certain luminosity. And I-- what I think is as each one of these winds dissolves into the next, or its ability to be manifest dissolves into the next, its luminosity is seen. That is-- in other words, its manifestness is actually dependent on this luminosity but you never notice a lot-- luminosity 'cause you're-- you're involved in the bodily function. So as its manifestness dissolves into the next higher wind, the luminosity that always was making you aware of that wind, you know, whether it be fireflies or the appearance of smoke or whatever, suddenly becomes manifest. So when they speak of the lights that appear in these stages, I believe that those are the-- the luminosities involved with these coarse winds. Now there's subtle winds that are the mount of the eighty conceptions. And then even subtler winds which are the mount of the next-- [drawing/writing] the white, the red, and the black. Um-- Well, let me just read what they say. Says--

[Transcriber note: I don't know where GA is reading from in the following ten quotes, seems to be his own notes/summary of the fifth through eighth dissolutions in Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism by Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, needs to be verified.]

[GA reading]: "The first to appear are the eighty indicative conceptions, which are divided into three groups. There are thirty…"

GA: Well, we know the 33, the 40.

AD (simultaneously): Ok.

GA: Ha-- they-- they speak about having the nature of white appearance, the 40 having a nature of red appearance, the 7 having the nature of black near-attainment.

[GA reading]: "The eighty conceptions are not sense consciousnesses. They cause various things to appear to the mind. They help, harm, and in dependence on these, enemy, friend, remembrance of visible forms, sound, odors, tastes, tangible objects, remembering your past work and the work yet to be done…"

GA: All these things are carried on by the mind of eighty conceptions.

VM: Excuse me Chip but the-- the breakdown into three divisions of that mind of eighty conceptions is associated with the red, black, and white?

GA (simultaneously): Yeah, the-- yeah, the breakdown of this into the-- the 7, [writing] the 33 and the 40, are associated with the nature of these lights. [S, faint: Oh.] But they aren't those lights. [VM: That's curious because--] And they aren't evolved from those lights, they're-- in fact they're evolved all-- they're evolved-- from anything they're evolved only from this light [diagram]. In other words, the motility that is the mount of these, if it's evolved from anything, it's evolved from the motility that's the mount of this light [diagram], not of these two [diagram]. There's a definite hierarchy there. If that makes any sense I don't know.

CDA: What do you mean the nat-- they're associated with the nature of the three lights?

GA: Well I'm just read-- I don't know. I mean I was (coming--)

VM (simultaneously): It's very strange (because--)

AD (simultaneously): Evidently the 7 with the black or the [GA assents] 33 with the red and [GA assents] 40 with the white.

GA (simultaneously): They would say-- the nature [AD simultaneously, faint: Yeah, yeah.] of this black light is tamasic. [drawing/writing] Its motility is very sluggish, [S simultaneously: It's like--] very-- its vibratory nature's very slow or its potency to create activity is-- is of a slow nature. They're--

VM (simultaneously): Why is that turned upside down then, Chip?

GA: Well--

AD: It doesn't matter. (We'll/Well)--

VM: I thought this is a hierarchy you were drawing.

AS: Yeah it is.

GA: Um-- It is, [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with GA] goi-- it's a-- it's the hierarchy of going into manifestation. In other words, um-- what--

AD: He wants the tamasic down at the bottom.

S: Yeah well I--

GA: Yeah, [VM simultaneously: Makes him feel better.] you want that-- [AD simultaneously: Makes him feel better.] you want the tamasic drawing of that [VM simultaneously: Hey, that's where it (got us).] whereas-- instead of keeping you from rising.

VM: Or whatever, that's always a problem.

AS: No, but even in the-- even in the scheme we have of the ahamkara, the bhutadi is the Moon and then is the rajasic one the Sun, [GA simultaneously: Which comes (here).] and then is the-- and then is the Mercury, which is the vaikriti, [GA: Right.] which is the sattvic [diagram]. So I mean if you-- it does follow the order in that way too, whatever that means.

S (faint): Ok, well--

MW: Hey Chip, could you go over again, when you were s-- you were talking about the-- the functioning of the eighty prakritis withdrawing into the side channels and then going up to-- some of them you say are associated with that drop at the top and some at the bottom. I'm not sure, where does that process fit in with what you're describing?

S: [one/two words inaudible]

GA: Um--

MW/S(?): (Eventually) by me?

GA (simultaneously): I'm starting there so I need to back out [one word inaudible] yeah.

AD (simultaneously): Well he's describing the process of withdrawal from manifestation.

MW: I know that's the general framework.

AD (simultaneously): So this is a description.

MW: I know.

AD: Now, what do you want?

MW: I just want-- I just want the description.

AD: No it's like a scientist, he's giving you a description.

MW (simultaneously): No, I'm just asking for the description.

AD: Don't a-- don't ask for an explanation.

MW: I've heard that we don't have one.

S (very faint): No.

MW: But--

GA: Um--

MW: I just want to know about the description. (MW laughs a bit) Because he was talking about the light of white appearance was when, I don't know, that these-- is it the prakritis as--

GA (simultaneously): These-- these eighty prakritis--

AD (simultaneously): Just go over-- just go over that, yeah, just go over that.

GA: Ok, these eighty prakritis and-- and the winds that are [MW assents] spoken of as their mount, ok, dissolve. Now what do they mean they dissolve? They mean a different thing than they mean here [diagram], something very different goes on, and I'm not sure what it means. But here they speak of the manifestness being withdrawn, each into the other, ok. It's not like one thing that becomes another. [MW simultaneously: Right, I un--] It's just the manifestness of earth dissolves and water becomes more manifest, [student assents, very faint] and so on. Until you get into here [diagram]. [MW assents] When the manifestness of air or fire is withdrawn, then it's the mind of eighty conceptions that suddenly becomes most manifest. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-5-AB, Process of Withdrawal from Manifestation, appended to this transcript.] Ok?

AD (simultaneously): You don't turn into water, Michael. But you just have this sinking feeling when you're dying, a sinking feeling.

GA (simultaneously): Yeah, they say that's the earth dissolving, you have this sinking feeling.

AD (simultaneously): The earth dissolving. Everything that the solidity of your being all of a sudden is taken from you, like-- do you ever feel like a wet towel? (laughter) Alright. Then the next one the same thing. It isn't that you become air. But you experience a very disorganized chaotic mental condition, alright, and it's like you're spreading in all directions. That's what they're speaking about.

MW: Ok. (But) how--

AD (simultaneously): So it's really a description. Ok.

MW: Now when he-- [VM, faint whisper: Ok.] He got this break down--

AD: Do you see why they do that, when they say the-- if earth is represented or symbolized by solidity, and all of [MW simultaneously: You had--] a sudden that solidity is withdrawn, [MW simultaneously: Yeah. That's--] alright, you feel like you're sinking. That's why they speak about it as the dissolution from earth into water. So you gotta see that symbolical significance they're trying to convey which you experience as feeling. And since you have no effective knowledge, alright, you will simply experience the feeling and not be able to do anything about it.

MW: Yeah, I think the lower four, [AD simultaneously: Are-- ok.] think it made some-- some sense.

AD: Alright, now, the middle one, the eighty?

MW (simultaneously): Alright, now he's got this 46, 33 and 7.

AD: Eighty prakritis, yeah.

MW: Right. And it seems that we're saying that the light of white appearance is associated with, I don't know, the dissolution of the 46?

S: 40.

AD: Go ahead.

MW: 40? Whatever the number is.

AD (simultaneously): Oh come on, this--

GA: No, they say e-- there's those associations but when that mind of white appearance actually dawns, [MW: Yeah.] ok, they're saying what has happened, the factor that's dissolving is [MW assents] the eighty conceptions.

MW: All eighty.

GA: Ok?

AD: Yeah.

GA: All eighty.

MW: Oh.

GA: Not just the ones having to do with the white.

MW: Oh. Ok, that's why I was confused then.

GA (simultaneously): This is the definite difference between this and the Guenther. And this is the difference I think you'll see between a Yogacara system, Tantra system, and a--

AD (simultaneously): The white-- the white you actually experience, it looks like a-- a cloud, a huge white patch in front of you but is vital and living, and even possesses a certain warmth. Again, this is a description.

GA: And they say at this time the cause of that appearance is that the winds in the right and left channels above the heart enter the central channel at the top of the head.

AD: Uh-hm.

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1981 0614a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

GA: --becau-- it's again it's a matter of manifestness. They no longer appear therefore they're said to dissolve into.

[GA reading]: "The mind of white appearance is then said to dissolve into the mind of red increase and the mind of white appearance vanishes. And the mind of red increase now appears. When the mind of black near-attainment appears, the mind of red increase vanishes."

GA: So that-- and, same formula.

LR (faint): And what's the experience, Chip?

GA: Well, we're going to--

AD: The red'll scare you.

GA (simultaneously): We'll-- we'll try and-- we'll try and go [LR simultaneously, faint: What's the experience, Anthony?] along that. The red-- (bit of laughter) the red is caused by the winds [drawing] below the heart going down--

AD (simultaneously): The red'll scare you, you'll think you're on fire.

GA: --and coming up into the A which is at the navel, ok, and uh--

LR: How could you--

GA: This [GA indicates on diagram] is where I think the-- the-- well-- Here the vacuity would increase considerably. Rather than just being empty of your normal conceptions, now you would be like empty of even your like association to earthly existence. I think they would speak of an emptiness now relating to the planetary system, because there's like a vacuity of the planetary functioning. Like you would know-- you're no longer coming under-- no-- you're no longer manifesting the influence of the planetary spheres. (Now) have you left behind the eighty conceptions on the Moon. Now the vacuity is vast.

HS: Yeah.

LR: Why do that-- why does that go down to the navel? Just remind.

GA: Well--

LR: Is that all the way up at the top level?

GA: These winds were only the winds above the heart [diagram]. There's like a division between the winds above and below the heart center. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB, Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel, appended to this transcript.] [LR assents, very faint] And they describe it as the winds above the heart [drawing] accumulating and dissolving into the central channel at the head. Then they describe it as the winds below the heart in the channels accumulating and dissolving into the central channel at the navel. Um-- But yeah, I don't know why, that's just the way they describe it. But then there's a vacuity as well as a light. The light they speak of as the mind of radiant red increase. And the vacuity as the-- well they have the empty, very empty, and very very empty. But I think that that corresponds to the-- [AS simultaneously: And very (one word inaudible)] you know, the emptiness of the sublunar, the emptiness of the planetary, and the emptiness of--

AD: Don't take those colors too literally 'cause sometimes it's not exactly black, it's brownish. (bit of laughter)

MW: No well--

GA: Huh, yeah.

S (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): Yes.

VM: I'll remember that. (some laughter)

AB: You better.

S: This can't be the black.

LR (simultaneously): So if you sense a little brown--

S (faint): Yeah. (bit of laughter)

GA: They say the-- the appearance [couple inaudible VM words simultaneous with GA] of black near-attainment has two parts, one following the other.

[GA reading]: "First there is the appearance of night or autumn sky pervaded with darkness."

GA: Which they describe as a very very deep blue, very deep clear blue.

VM: Where is this again, Chip?

[GA reading]: "And in a later period…"

GA: This is-- we're getting into the next--

AS: Third one, the black.

LR (simultaneously): Black.

GA (simultaneously): The black light.

[GA reading]: "The latter period of this same appearance one--…"

GA: It's as if one swoons unconscious and there's no lo-- is no longer mindful of anything. In other words, there's no con-- [S: As if--] there's not even now an appearance [S simultaneously, faint: Then how do you do it?] of a-- of a deep blue vacuity, there's just no content whatsoever.

DB (simultaneously): Chip what was that-- where are you talking about right now?

GA: Now we're talking [AS simultaneously: Talking about the black light.] about the black, we're talking about the black. [S simultaneously, faint: What's (that--)] And they say the black has two stages.

DB (faint): Oh.

GA: The first stage is this appearance of a deep clear vacuity which they compare to say an autumn sky which is very very deep blue. [S: Hm.] And then in the second stage, they compare to almost complete, you know, a swoon or unco-- there's no contents of consciousness, even that appearance has now withdrawn. That's--

LR (simultaneously): What does that feel like, Anthony?

AD: You're-- you're extinguished.

GA: Yeah. This is like going through the bindu. See, what's going on then is you're being compressed completely. As you're going-- see this [drawing] drop in the heart is in two parts, the white and the red [diagram]. And as the-- the-- as the dissolution takes place through these drops into the heart center, you have this bla-- light-- this appearance of the-- of the near-attainment. But as it actually dissolves into the subtle mind, very subtle mind and wind in the heart center, it's like nothing can appear 'cause you're being compressed right in-- into this-- this-- into the center.

LR (simultaneously): Oh that's that-- that's the heart center?

GA: Here you're penetrating [diagram].

LR: That's the black one?

GA: So everything disappears. There's no possibility of any appearance there 'cause the dissolutions taking-- these things are just-- or, the manifestness of these grosser forms is being-- been completely taken away.

AD: I think we have a memory of that, you know, insofar that if you ever had the experience that death was annihilation I think would be a memory of that-- that state right (there/here).

S: Hm.

S (faint): What?

AD: That your consciousness-- any kind of selfhood that you know is completely cancelled out, extinguished. Alright, I think we have a memory of that, you know, and [couple words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): That's why the fear.

AD: Yeah, one of the fears.

LR: Well is that-- is that then gone through to something else or is that--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah that-- yeah, you go beyond that, you (would/can) go beyond.

LR: In that same [S simultaneously: (Yeah.)] exper-- I mean--

VM: It's called a black hole.

AD: Wait let-- go ahead Gabriel, continue.

GA: Ok, um--

AD (simultaneously): You-- you come out on the other side.

GA: Yeah.

[GA reading]: "Following this…"

LR (faint): [three/few words inaudible]

VM: Next week.

[GA reading]: "Following this, the all-empty appears."

GA: Ok, this-- this would be the great void.

[GA reading]: "This is an appearance freed from the three polluters--the white, the red, and the black appearances. It is called the all-empty or clear light or mother clear light."

GA: Ok.

JC: Clear light of death in this book.

GA: Yeah, in that book the clear-- clear light of death.

S (simultaneously): (With/It was) a natural death.

GA: Um-- Ok.

[GA reading]: "Death is the point of the clear light, the beginning of the interme…"

GA: Well-- Ok, there's-- then there's of course there's a reverse process and they're speaking in terms of the death of--

VM: And now this is re-entry after this?

GA: Then there's a reverse process of coming back through this. Like some people describe the lights in a different order and are black, red and then white. I think probably they're seeing the reverse process of this. [AD/S(?), very faint: Uh-hm.] 'Cause these lights-- they may-- you may go right through this and not see anything, not have any of these appearances or only have them appear for an-- you know, an instant or just vaguely or--

AD: Fitfully. This is [GA simultaneously: Ok.] only a person who's really practiced back and forth can-- can describe it.

GA: Yeah. So you know--

LR (simultaneously): Do they practice in a class?

GA: You might-- you might go through them in the vertical order and not even notice them, go right into the heart. And then coming out you might notice them or you might just notice one. I think usually, I think [drawing] the one that's noticed on the descent is this [diagram]. I think people usually don't even notice these two [diagram]. And it's here that you start to become aware [diagram], when the ahamkara-- [drawing] when the bifurcation of that ahamkara starts to take place, you see-- that's like what you remember. Prior to this, it's very hard for memory to capture anything. The imagination can't describe it.

[few seconds of faint background student talking]

S (faint): Go ahead.

GA (faint): Go ahead, yeah.

LR: Do they speak about that, do-- you know how he always speaks about the green light that you could experience?

AB: Red light to green light (to blue) light. (bit of laughter)

S: Vic--

MW (faint): No, I (didn't).

LR: When you fall asleep?

AS: No, they got that one, green--

MW (simultaneously, faint): The green?

S (simultaneously, very faint): (The green light.)

AS (simultaneously): The green light.

S (faint): I never heard about-- what?

AS: They got this in Sufi book, the [S simultaneously: Oh.] green light. You could read it.

LR (simultaneously): Anthony? You know how you've used the example a lot of times about the green, that you experi-- the flash of green that can be experienced at the point of falling asleep?

AD (faint): I didn't know it was a green light.

S (faint): Me either.

VM: I never heard of green light.

MW (faint): I never heard of it.

LR: You think I just made it up?

CDA (simultaneously): I have, [S simultaneously: I think you--] I-- I-- I remember this one.

VM: That's the Ruth school.

S (simultaneously, very faint): (She'll) try again.

AD (faint): Yeah, remember the people on television, color television, right?

S: Yeah. (S laughs)

AD: In black and white.

LR: Ok. You experience-- if you can hold your consciousness, be very aware of the process of falling asleep?

AD (faint): Yeah but, I (didn't know about the green light).

LR: What-- but you spoke about--

AD (simultaneously, faint): And it's not-- it's not green.

LR: --some kind of light that you-- is that what color light is (of)?

AD: But you're repeating that.

LR: Right, yeah.

AD: You'd be repeating that. It's the same [LR simultaneously: So that would be the light?] thing like if you died or if you went into this kind of training, or if you go to sleep. You go through this process all the time.

LR: Which light were you describing, is it any of the three today?

AD: Well for most-- for most people they never get any of the lights.

LR: Usually I'm impulsive but what if you-- (bit of laughter)

AD: No, no, no, let's continue, let's continue.

AS (faint): You want to read?

GA: Um--

S: What's the time frame for these, I mean is this an instant or-- I mean, (bit of laughter) it'd be absurd or-- or is it days or--

AD (simultaneously): Let's continue.

GA: Ok.

AS: Depends.

AD (simultaneously): Got a nice book in the library, used to be called The Craft, [S simultaneously: Oh really.] or the Art of Dying. [S simultaneously: Buddhist, yeah.] And somebody evidently is practicing it. (AD laughs, laughter) [Note: Ars moriendi, translated as The Craft of Dying, or The Art of Dying, was a popular fifteenth century work intended to guide the dying man and his family in Catholic religious practices.]

S (amidst laughter): (Is it a) good book?

S (faint): Real expensive. [GA assents] I don't know.

GA: Um--

AD: Go ahead Gabriel.

GA: Yeah I'm-- I'm trying to go ahead here. (GA laughs a bit)

VM: You have to translate? [MW simultaneously: Yeah.] Is it written in Tibetan?

GA: I've got-- but yeah, let me just go through a little bit of the winds again that-- [short pause] in-- Now they say when-- when we're down here [diagram] [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB, Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel, appended to this transcript.] where the winds are accumulating at the-- the navel--

[Transcriber note: I am using Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism by Lati Rinbochay and Jeffrey Hopkins, Foreword by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Snow Lion Publications, Inc., Ithaca, New York, 1985.]

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 43, GA reading]: "[GA adds: So] With respect to its cause…"

GA: And this is the-- the mi-- the mind of red appearance.

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 43, GA reading, brackets part of text unless otherwise indicated]: "…the winds in the right and left channels below the heart have entered the central channel through [GA reads: at] its lower opening [at the base of the spine or in the sexual organ]. Through the force of this, the knot of the channel-wheel in the jewel [sexual organ] and the knot of the channel-wheel at [GA reads: in] the navel gradually loosen. Thereby, the red drop that is obtained from the mother, which [GA reads: and] exists in the form of the [GA reads: a] single [vertical] line of a short a [GA reads: of an a, the a]…[GA adds: is] in the middle of the channel-wheel at the navel, comes upward. Until [GA reads: When] it arrives below the six-circled knot of the right and left channels [GA reads: channel] at the heart…"

GA: In other words, these channels go-- circle around the central channel and at each chakra they circle around and sort of form a knot or a pressure point where the channels come together in the chakra. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-1, Chakras, Petals, Dhyani Buddhas, Channels, and Vibrations, appended to this transcript.] So at first when these winds come in they loosen these two lower chakras [diagram] and then the drop that is in the navel chakra can go up. But it can't enter the heart yet [GA taps on board] because there's another-- the right and left channels form a loop around the central channel at the heart [diagram].

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 43, GA reading]: "Until [GA reads: So when] it arrives below the six-circled knot of [GA reads: at] the right and left channels at the heart, a red or orange appearance arises. Thus, this [GA reads: It] is not the case of…"

GA: Well, you don't see-- Um--

[Transcriber note: I am unable to find the following quote but it is probably from the same book, quote needs to be found.]

[GA reading]: "It has the nature of heat."

GA: And I think this mu-- and this is Hopkins I guess, must have something to do with connection with the digestion that takes place in the stomach.

S: Oh.

GA: (Thing's) way out there, (I know).

LR: Is this-- Chip, is this after the appearance of the all-empty states or--

GA: No, [MW simultaneously: No, this is back.] no, I'm working [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with GA] back up to it 'cause [LR simultaneously: Oh, oh, ok.] we skipped some of the description.

BB: Are you-- are you going through like the lowest chakra first or something?

GA: Well first, we've already had the-- the chakra at the head with this-- with the white drop has already descended to the heart and is waiting.

BB: So you're coming back down from that one [one word inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Now, now I-- now the winds in these channels [diagram] have gathered and are coming up to the heart. [Note: See FIGURE 1981 0614-6-AB, Winds Above and Below Heart move into Central Channel, appended to this transcript.]

BB: Where-- where are you on your chart there, the line [couple words inaudible]

GA: On the chart here we're trying to describe the motility aspect that's behind this red appearance. Now as we describe the red appearance in terms of what appears in the mental, now we're trying to describe the-- what happened with those winds, that motility that's behind this red appearance. There's (just/these) two aspect, the sems, the light, and the--

BB: Are you going to experience this other thing or is this, you know--

GA (simultaneously): Well, you are in a sense experiencing it. But you're experiencing it as light. If you experience the motility you might experience like all-- consciousness of your inner organs. You know, you're never aware of your digestive processes or any of that stuff. [S simultaneously: I think that's (one word inaudible)] At this point as these winds are flowing through here, you might suddenly become aware, conscious, of all those functionings as they're shutting down. Can you imagine that, what that motility, that experience might be like, suddenly being aware of your various organs functioning? I don't know if you can imagine it, so--

VM (faint): Sounds like indigestion.

[student assents, very faint]

GA: But-- [BB simultaneously: Ok, (then) maybe I'll take a--] oh usually just a-- a stomachache is the best you can do usually. (bit of laughter) [one inaudible student word] Here. If-- it depends on the inclinations of the person. [MW simultaneously: So you're going to be sick all over. (MW laughs)] One person just might experience a light and not experience anything else, another person might experience all the things that are going on in the body, you know, one by one, very distinctly.

BB: Go ahead, I-- maybe-- maybe [couple/three words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Ok? So now we're taking the point of view of this motility, which actually is the operative, you know, principle in the bi-- in the biology and trying to describe what's happening in it. You may or may not experience that. You see what I'm saying? Some people do. And so the yogi could, you know-- could describe what is happening with the life currents. Another one might take the point of view of only the drops and say well, you're resident in this chakra, then you move to this chakra, and then you move to that chakra, and explain it completely in terms of deities and lights and things of that sort. [S: Could--] Or another one just might describe it in terms of various voids or lights appearing. [S: So--] So there's going to be two or three descriptions of the same thing according to that schema that we had of motility, sems, and drops. Is that-- it's all too much at once? No, keep going with--

BB (simultaneously): Just-- no go ahead. Why don't you go ahead and do what you were-- talk about what you were going to talk about there and then if-- if I get confused then I'll (stop).

GA (simultaneously): Ok, we're trying just to-- to go back through these three lights, we described what happened at the white. Now we're describing the motility side of what's behind the red appearance. [MW assents] And now we'll get into the black. Um--

S (faint): Say.

GA: Now when-- when that light appears, there's also the-- the possibility of the appearance of the very empty because it's devoid of the mind of white appearance, and the winds that serve as its mounts. Now the next dissolution--

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 43, GA reading]: "…the mind of increase, together with the wind that serves [GA reads: winds that serve] as its mount dissolves into the mind of near-attainment. [During] the first part [GA adds: or the period of mind of near-attainment] there dawns a vacuous black appearance, like an autumn sky free of [GA adds: any] de…"

GA: You know, autumn sky, they always use autumn sky 'cause there's like there's no dust in the atmosphere.

AD: There's plenty--

GA: There's been lots of rain. You know, it's-- you try to imagine it, you know-- you know how on [S simultaneously: Oh.] a clear day you can--

AD: After a heavy rainfall, [GA: --have--] a clear day and (there's) no particles, no clouds.

GA: Yeah. Um--

AD (faint): Most people are afraid of prairies, you ever notice that?

[student assents, very faint]

LR (faint): Priorities?

AD: When you're out in a prairie and you're looking at that sky.

GA: Um-- [students assent, very faint] Yeah, the sky's big in the prairie, real big. (GA laughs a bit)

[student assents, very faint]

HS: Gabe?

GA: In fact I think when you're going-- 'cause I remember going across the prairie that-- just looking at the sky starts to cause these experiences to happen. (GA laughs a bit, bit of laughter)

AD: You put your foot down right on the gas. (GA laughs a bit, bit of laughter)

LR: That's how they go through there at a hundred and thirty miles an hour. (bit of laughter)

AD: How many (dollars) of gas you got? (bit of laughter)

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 43, GA reading, brackets part of text unless otherwise indicated]: "The upper and lower winds inside the central channel have gathered within that channel at the heart, and through the force of this the six-circled knot of the right and left channels at the heart is loosened. Thereupon, the white drop that is above [in the aspect of the syllable ham upside-down] descends, and the red drop that is below [in the aspect of a vertical line] [GA adds: a] ascends. These enter into the middle of the white and red indestructible drops that exist in the [GA adds: a] manner of a closed case in the centre of the central channel at the heart. Due to their meeting, the radiant appearance of near-attainment arises; thus, it is not a case…"

GA: Oh you'll hear what he says, how it isn't a case of darkness from the outside or the Sun shining from the outside. Ok.

AD: Now you're free.

GA: Ok well, that was the first part.

AD: Yeah [one/two words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Yeah.

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 44, GA reading]: "The first part of the mind [of near-attainment] is accompanied [GA reads: accomplished] by a sense of an object…"

GA: There's still a subtle dichotomy. Ok, there's still some sense that-- of an appearance appearing to something.

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 44, GA reading]: "…but, during the latter part, one is not mindful of any object, as if swooning unconsciously, confounded in [GA adds: the] darkness. Then all the winds and minds that adventitiously arise from the very subtle wind and mind cease."

GA: So as all these things are going back to their source, the manifestness of all these various types of vitality and various types of mind or citta all cease.

BB: Chip, what's the difference-- I guess I'm not sure what the difference was between what you just described in that thing on like the eighty, you know, that one-- there's two-- you're talking about two different kinds of voids or something like that, now what would be experientially the difference?

GA: Well-- um-- I think it would be like our system of, [drawing] you know, we have the sublunar, we have the planetary spheres, and then we have the--

BB (simultaneously): But experientially what would be the difference?

LR: Ask someone else, Bob.

BB: I mean you're [S simultaneously, faint: (That's right.)] really-- you know, you're talking about something that's, you know, so abstract, I mean, but [GA assents] in terms of a concrete type of experience, what-- what are they saying that's any different from the one that they talked about like with the eighty there?

GA: Well, that's--

AD: I'll give you--

GA: You'd have to--

AD: I'll make an appointment for you with Mrs. Ybor [elderly mystic residing in cottage at WG]. (bit of laughter) Try to find out from her.

GA: You see--

LR (faint): She's very--

S (simultaneously, very faint): Yeah. Uh-hm.

AD (faint): She could explain it. They're two totally different [GA simultaneously: They're-- yeah.] experiences, the last one is almost felt as liberation.

S (faint): Right.

S (very faint): Uh-hm, yeah.

AS: Felt as liberation.

S (faint): Clinical [student assents] [one/two words inaudible]

MW: Is he referring to the clear light of death?

S (faint): Uh-uh, no. That's more [one word inaudible]

S (very faint): No.

AS: Well that's [MW simultaneously, faint: Yes.] where he'd be next, [GA simultaneously: You haven't-- that's the next up.] that's where he is next. He's going-- [MW simultaneously: So--] he's going through that bindu that he talked about [GA assents] into the heart and the swooning.

MW (simultaneously): And that swooning is what he's-- [LR simultaneously: So then (one/two words inaudible) the heart cen-- I mean the Overself?] can be experienced-- If you don't have the fear you might think you're going to have a [one word inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Saying that's not a void.

LR (simultaneously with MW and AS): You will have the Overself at this point?

AS: Is that [S simultaneously, faint: (Well no.)] the second void or the-- which void is this?

AD (simultaneously, faint): Before you go into that [one/two words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): This is the third--

AS: The third-- what?

MW (simultaneously): Wait, wait.

S (simultaneously with AS and MW): Sh, sh, sh.

S (faint): Wait.

GA (simultaneously): After you-- well, after--

AD (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] drop, you hear the twinkling of a bell. [AD snaps fingers] That was it. Ok, I think we did enough Gabriel. We'll continue next week, go over this and try to go in further.

VM: And bring the bell.

S (simultaneously, faint): What'd he say?

S: Anthony? (laughter, student words) What is Jeff's book I used, they didn't have it [three/few words inaudible]

AD: He's not going to tell you.

S: He speaks--

VM: Secret--

[tape break]

[Note: What follows seems to be from earlier in the class, not clear why it is out of order on the tape.]

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 36, GA reading]: "…one can no longer hear [GA reads: one no longer hears] external or internal sounds. …the ur sound inside the ears [GA reads: and the ur sound (in your ear/and you hear) is] no longer arises."

S (very faint): Chip what is that?

HS: The ur sound?

S: [couple words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible]

AD: Don't you have that buzzing going on all the time?

GA (simultaneously): Yeah, buzzing, yeah. [student assents, laughs] Sitting there, [AD simultaneously, faint: (one word inaudible) you see(--/?)] nothing's going on and suddenly you listen and [S simultaneously, faint: Can you hear it?] you're just buzzing.

HS (faint): I thought it was my chainsaw. (laughter)

AD (amidst laughter): How long have you been living with yourself?

S (faint): I thought it was [couple words inaudible]

MW: I thought it was the ocean.

S (faint): (Ask him.) (laughter)

VM: It is, the cosmic.

AD: You mean you sit down to meditation and you don't know these things?

LR: Well he knows how we ask these questions.

S: Chip [couple words inaudible] the fire one.

AD (simultaneously): But you-- you should [GA simultaneously: The fire--] want to get it for yourself.

LR: Well, you always say if you get it and you don't know-- don't have the understanding then you just ask.

AD (simultaneously): Well now you got the understanding, go get it.

GA: Now you can-- (bit of laughter)

LR: Well that's--

GA: Now when it happens you go "Oh".

LR: Well that's-- keep going.

GA: Ok, and the fire--

LR (simultaneously): So you dry up and then--

AD (simultaneously): The fire, yeah, tell her the fire, this way she knows. (bit of laughter)

HS: It's not going to go away.

GA: Ok, and there's appearance of smoke at this point, things get kind of hazy, ok.

LR (simultaneously): From water?

AD: Yeah.

GA (simultaneously): No, no, before the-- as we're dissolving the fire [LR simultaneously: Well first you see the smoke.] things get kind of hazy, ok, then-- (some laughter, student words)

AS: Where there's smoke there's fire, see.

S (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously with AS and S): One-- then as [AS simultaneously: It's an actual--] the fire's dissolving you can no longer digest [one/two inaudible AS words simultaneous with GA] food. You're no longer mindful of the affairs of close persons. Even your relatives can be-- kick by and you don't care anymore. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter, faint): Wait so, (after all) my brother's still going to be [one/two words inaudible]

AS (amidst laughter): That's a yogic state? (laughter)

[few seconds of laughter, student words]

GA: You can no longer remember the names of close persons.

S: Keep going.

AS: That's a yogic state?

GA (simultaneously): He's facing senility.

S: The senility. (laughter)

S (faint): No.

LR (amidst laughter, faint): Senility is the [couple words inaudible]

GA: Um--

LR: This is going into fire now?

GA: Fire is dissolving.

LR: Fire is dissolving.

AD (simultaneously, faint): The emotional detachment (is going).

GA (simultaneously): The manifestness of fire, [student assents] ok, is dissolved.

Lati Rinbochay, Jeffrey Hopkins [Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 37, GA reading]: "…inhalation…is weak [whereas the] exhalation is strong and lengthy…"

GA: You ever see people who've had a heart attack, they go [GA breaths in quickly] and then they have this long exhalation?

S (very faint): Who said?

S: Uh-hm.

AD: What do you say Steve, shall we meditate now?

S: Yes. (student laughs)

AD: Good.

MW: I have one other question.

LR (very faint): Well I could do [one/two words inaudible] (bit of laughter)

MW: I-- this might not fit in here but-- You know like in PB when he's describing the death experience and he speaks about that retrospection on the-- on the life and seeing, [AD: Uh-hm.] you know-- you can see with more penetration exactly what it is that your life was about, what you have done and all that. Where does that come in this (course)?

AD (simultaneously): (No/Well) not yet.

MW: It's beyond that?

AD (very faint): Uh-hm, yeah.

[Audio File 1981 0614a Ends]