On Understanding Luminosity of Consciousness in the Tibetan Bön Tradition with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Fernando Ona: Tashi Delek, blessings. Thank you for being here and being present with us this evening. It's a special evening for us, especially for both Connie and myself. I don't even know where to begin sometimes with this. So we are here as a transformative inquiry department. And this department has been really committed to consciousness studies. And this is part of this work around consciousness studies. And it's connected to a deep lineage. And we have someone here who is part of the lineage I come from, partly, which is the Bön tradition. And this is an extension of our ongoing commitment at CIIS, at the transformative inquiry department. And amongst our beloved community, who is really connected to a deepening and understanding and presencing with consciousness. As many of you know, many of our professors, our students, our wisdom keepers, our ancestors, have been engaged with consciousness studies for quite some time. And we have animated, reanimated here in our department and in our work. And many of our students are reengaging and reconnecting to this work. And part of this is engaging with folks like Rinpoche and others who are at the forefront of really deeply presencing us, radically presencing us, with deep radical curiosity, with loving kindness and passion, to understand not only the human world but the beyond human world. And how we can better be stewards, be present with that, and love each other in deeper and loving ways. And in being in relationship with that, transform our world. And so without further ado, I'm so thankful that each of you are here and each of you are present with us. I'm going to have Connie, who's one of our senior faculty people here at CIIS, introduce Rinpoche. Blessing. 

Constance Jones: Yeah, thank you. That was Fernando. He's a phenomenon around here. He's new to our department. It's the transformative inquiry department. And I think you would be fascinated by what he's done. In any case, thank you, Fernando. So we're welcoming Rinpoche tonight. I have an introductory statement that I want to make about tying together what I do academically and in a scholarly way with what Rinpoche is going to talk about today. So I'll say, maybe you know, I think we all increasingly know that there are wisdom keepers, there are insights, pieces of wisdom that are constantly now coming out of Tibet. We know that all of the sources, the cash, the treasury, held in Tibet has not been uncovered yet. So as the discovery comes, as translations occur, as interpretations and commentaries are made, we're learning more and we're learning about ourselves in the process. So what I teach is self-inquiry and consciousness studies. And I want to say that I am learning by learning what the Tibetans say about consciousness and self-inquiry. So I want to concentrate on those two terms, consciousness and self-inquiry, because I think they are, in fact, not only the birthright, but the responsibility of each human being. So we're welcoming Rinpoche here tonight to talk about luminosity in the face of consciousness and self-inquiry, because we hear luminosity used quite often in the Bön tradition. And I want to know more about that. So I was going to say something about that tradition, but I asked him and he said he would spend a couple of minutes talking about the Bön tradition. So I'm going to leave it up to him. So I'm going to introduce Rinpoche. So here he is, and he's quite a well-established, popular, touching speaker. You'll find that out soon. He was born in North India of Tibetan parents who escaped the Chinese invasion. He studied with both Bön and Tibetan Buddhist scholars and at Tibetan Buddhist and Bön schools. And after an 11-year rigorous period, I understand he was awarded the title of Geshe, which is the highest title that one can get in the Tibetan tradition through academic pursuits. And after that, he was recognized as a Rinpoche, which is a high-level spiritual teacher. And now he is a lineage bearer. So he has all the credentials. And not only that, but he's just a lot of fun. So anyway, he went from that, then to come over to the United States and he has three organizations that I want to mention. Ligmincha, which is headquartered in Virginia, which is organized around disseminating properly the treasures of Tibet. And secondly, the Three Doors, which is an organization which teaches and reinforces practices of meditation. And then the third thing is the CyberSangha. The CyberSangha is this almost Alexandrian library of resources, podcasts, videos, lectures, articles, printings, et cetera. And all of that is accessible to people who want to understand more about the Tibetan lineages. And the three organizations met last week to have one hour with Rinpoche. And just to let you know how expansive his network is, there were, I think, 650 people that were on the internet connection. And there were five simultaneous translators, five different languages going on at the same time. So he not only has those three organizations, but he has specific centers, which are retreat centers where you can go and learn things about Tibetan Buddhism and Bön and learn meditation techniques, et cetera. So the whole idea of a philosophy plus a practice is what's being reinforced here. I also want to say that he has a connection here at CIIS. One of our dear, dear emeritus professors, Stephen Goodman, who was a Tibetan scholar, both of Tibetan language and Tibetan Buddhism, who just died a few years ago, was a collaborator with Rinpoche as an editor and as a translator in some of his work. So that gives you an idea of the broad range of some of Rinpoche's activities. I have had the good fortune to be at some of the seminars and weekends with him. And as far as I'm concerned, my self-inquiry has deepened. My understanding of consciousness is wider. And my notion of why we are here and my sense of interconnectedness has blossomed. So I hope that's a good enough introduction for you. It's OK.  

Rinpoche: So good evening, everybody. Happy to be here. Honored to be here. I've been here quite a number of times and always kind of nice to be back here. So I would say a little bit about the Bön, but not too long. So the Bön tradition is the indigenous tradition of Tibet. So according to oral tradition, not historic, historian version of history, but the oral tradition of, traditions, says, goes back 17000 years. So I don't know about 17000, but for sure, very, very old tradition. It's the root of all the Tibetan civilization, even all the unique taste of Tibetan Buddhism. As you can see, Tibetan Buddhist is very unique, different from other Theravada or Thai or Indian, Japanese Buddhist. They all kind of flavor of the indigenous tradition of Bön tradition. So it's a very rich tradition from very shamanic earth, earth, earth elemental spirit, knowledge to the yogic movement breath to subtle awareness. All different layers, they call nine ways of Bön. It's a very rich tradition. In Tibet probably it's one of the maybe second or third largest group of school, because it kind of stands its own rather than four or five Buddhist schools. So in my own background, my father was from Geluk tradition, my mother was from Bön tradition, but between my father and my mother, my mother was a stronger, taking care of me, so I became Bönpo. So, yeah,  that's kind of more or less the history or a little bit information. Then online, you know, if you want to know more, you can learn a lot more things, yeah.  

Fernando: Thank you for that Rinpoche. So as you know, my grandmother is Tibetan from Western Tibet, and it's from the Bön lineage, from the Bön tradition. And this first question is really around luminosity. So my grandmother would always say, you have to experience, like, so often luminosity, at least in academic circles, has framed it as a metaphysical experience, right? And my grandmother would be like, no, I'm inviting you to actually think of it more differently. In our tradition, it is not, it's not in your head. And I'm curious how you would describe luminosity within the Bön sort of framework to someone who's not familiar with luminosity in both the Bön tradition, but also in Tibetan Buddhism.  

Rinpoche: So, so this, I mean, if you use the word luminosity, so I use that word a lot, and so word luminosity, basically referring to a light, right? So, so if you think about in our tradition, luminosity means, it means many different layers of understanding of it. This is a light, sunlight, many different, you know, UV light, infrared light, and many, many different forms of light. And people in the modern science, people believing that you need to be exposed to the morning light because of, to set up your circadian rhythm, very, very important factor of your health and well-being, vitamin D, and so on. So the light, exposure to the light is so important, especially to your eye, to set up. These practices, I mean, modern science, nowadays they talk about this, in terms of this, particularly sleep hygiene and so on. So ancient time, when I was growing up, we have quite a few older monks, every morning, every evening, they would go when the sun rise, when the sun set, at least three, four hours of meditation. They just go in the sun, and look like that. And of course, it not just look like that, but it's many different ways, different postures, different breathings, different gazes, different ways, many ways of exercising light. So they basically, it's called practices of light. You look at the sky, just a clear sky, you look at the sun, not direct, but you go like this, you look at the sun, and you look at different posture because how your body, if I sit like this, my clarity is very different. If I sit like this, my clarity changes. So you have to energize the level of clarity when you're exposing to the sun to exercise that luminosity, outer luminosity, right? Or then you have practice of luminosity going into the dark room. So when I was a teenager, I went 50 days, 5-0, no exposure to the light, no light at all. And my mom used to say, you know, after I came out, I was very hyper, you know. So when I came out, I was like calm and quiet, she used to say, I want to put all sisters into the dark room. Because, yeah, they did not force me, my teacher or my mom did not force me, because when there was something new to do, I was curious to do it. I wanted to experiment. So I went there, so I had many different visions in the dark room. So you can hear, they might call it, we call it vision, but here they call it hallucination, whatever you want to call it, right? So, but, so these all are practices of luminosity, in the environment, circumstances, posture, breath, sun, moon, sky, dark, you're activating your light inside, or then including sleep. So there's a term called, in Tibetan tradition, we call Ösel. Ösel, it means, Ösel means clear light. That's, it's a term that we use. Luminosity is kind of, we have kind of turned and make their understanding more loose, understanding of their Ösel. So what is a Ösel means? There are four vessels. One they call Rangjung-gi vessel, means natural clear light, natural clear light. So for example, natural clear light will be something like this very moment. If you are, we all are in this moment, together, but not necessarily we are all are in the same state of mind. Right? We agree with that. Some of, one person might be very much deep into the disconnected wound, trauma, pain, conflict stories. Another person might be not so much like that. Another person might be taking life quite easy, very open, relaxed and easy. Another person might look at life in situation very optimistic, everything is good, everything is wonderful, everything is like that. You know, so you can see many different ways. Think about it from worst to the best. So what would the best would look like? Best would look like, let's talk about this in all. What would the best would look like? Best would look like something that your sense of yourself, you are no one. You are free. Like in the weekend. Do you like weekend?  

Crowd: Mhm. 

Rinpoche: Do you like Friday afternoon? 

Crowd: Yes 

Rinpoche: Yeah. Do you hate Monday morning?  

Crowd: Absolutely, [laughter]. 

Rinpoche: So you just, you know, I always joke about it. You say Monday morning, 9 o'clock, statistically, if it is true or not, I'm not sure, but I've heard more people die on Monday morning at 9 o'clock than any other day or time of the week. Because nobody likes Monday at 9 o'clock. That's not a good timing. Right? So just imagine Friday. What does a Friday mean? Your professional pain identity, it clears in the Friday afternoon. Just like, [heavy exhale], off. I'm free. I have nothing to do. I'm so happy. Or I will do some fun things. I will do some what I like to do. You know? So that kind of energy. Just imagine intensifying that Friday afternoon into maybe a thousand times. That means you're not only, I mean Friday afternoon is only professional pain identity freedom. Not family obligation freedom. You know? If you have a kid, and I know, especially my wife knows, that school holiday comes, we don't like it. When she goes, when the school starts, she goes to Tibetan Khata, you know, scarf. She goes to the teachers. I don't know how you guys handle these kids. Thank you so much. Right? So imagine you are in the situation where you are free from all the things, family obligation, professional obligation, stories, conflicts. Just think about it. Freedom, everything. Then it will look like similar to something called natural clear light. That you are so free, so clear, so open, and so connected. And that's called natural clear light. Okay? I mean these are examples. Probably none of these will kind of really truly represent what I am trying to say that. I don't know anything, any other way to say that than talking about the Friday afternoon. Right? So that's one thing. It's called natural clear light. Second thing is called meditative clear light. Meditative clear light is when you, when people do a meditation, that basically means first steps of the meditation will be trying to stop your thinking, ruminating. Right? You just, whatever object you are focusing. Nowadays everybody has a very short attention span. Right? But imagine you look at one object, sit there for three hours. Like imagine like you are a sniper or older person who is putting thread in the needle like you go... Three hours. Because that intensity of attention is the key. Because if you do like this, you are falling asleep. But nobody fall asleep in the middle of the process of trying to put the thread in the needle. No sniper will fall asleep that last second of, they are going to use the trigger. They don't. So the same way meditation is similar intensity for three hours. When you do that, in the beginning, it stops you all your thoughts. And then gradually when it stops your thoughts, stops your thoughts, and then not only it stops thoughts, but then you begin to get used to that state of connectedness. It gets easier. It's easier. You feel more comfortable. Your ease becomes more natural. You really begin to like it. They say you like it because like a bee sitting on a flower, like sting in the flower, sucking the nectar. It's a pleasure. It's a joy. So it's like looking at whatever object you are looking at, it's a flower. It's a deep sense of warmth and bliss. And then eventually what they call non-object, you say attention, focused attention, and open awareness. They call it open awareness. Open awareness is when you take away the object of the attention away, then you feel like some kind of unbounded luminous space, effortless unbounded luminous space, that deep experiences of freedom awakening, of light. So that's called the meditative clear light. That means during those meditations, you… What is the main thing there? There is this awareness. That awareness of attention, focus, open awareness. So the open awareness is called luminosity. Okay, let me explain. So the luminosity, defining the way of luminosity means no thoughts. It's not a thinking. It's not a conceptual mind. It's not a thinking mind. It's not even emotion. It's not, you might feel something out of it, but it's not even a feeling. It's just called pure awareness, luminosity. So that's meditative luminosity. Then it's called clear light of sleep. So in the West when you think about dream and sleep, you don't talk so much. I mean, there’s nobody talks about it as far as I know. If they are talking about it, there might be some influence from the East. But in science, neuroscientists, sleep experts, nobody talks about it. So you have a wake, you have a light sleep, you have a deep sleep, you have a REM sleep. That's it. So anything happening, it's very difficult to say, probably anything happening, probably somewhere in between light and deep sleep. There might be a space where it could be called... I mean, again, this is my speculation, some ideas, but I don't know scientifically, I cannot say exactly any research saying, okay, this is the definition of clear light, sleep of clear light, and this is the brain activity. It looks as if it's happening right here. There is nothing like that so far yet. But probably in the future it could be something like that. So it happens during that time. And so there are, you know, I wrote a book called Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. So there are exercises, many different ways of exercises to introduce that state within the sleep. So anyway, I'm not going to go into it. So that's the third one. And the last one, the fourth one, is called Clear Light or Bardo. So clear light, Bardo, means when people die, you know that there are thousands of cases of near death experiences, that people are seeing light, people are seeing tunnels. And so those, usually, you know, other than that, there's not much explanation what that light is and so on. So according to this Tibetan ancient tradition, you encounter this inner light during death. So when you experience this light, inner light, during the death, you have the opportunity to recognize them. You will only recognize them if you are familiar with what that light means to you. The only way to become familiar with what that light means to you is that you have some experiences with the sleep when you are alive. You have some meditative experiences during the waking life. And so if you are familiar with these moments, then waking to sleep, then Bardo, that recognition can come. So that's what, in short, clear light means the pure awareness. Internally, clear light means outside, means vision. You see a lot of vision. You see light in a dark, dark region. You see like a movie. But these lights are somehow related to the internal light. So it's not a hallucination sense that's okay, you're getting deluded. No, we don't see that delusion. We see these lights are connected to inside. If it's a delusion, this is delusion, this is delusion, this is delusion, we are all delusion. But there's nothing that this is delusion and this is something that is real, nothing like that. It's all same, connected with luminosity.  

Constance: Are you ready for another question? I want to pick up on what you said about pain identity, because at one point you said that the pure awareness, which is without thought, is luminosity. So, and so that's freedom. It's freedom from Connie or whatever is holding me back, which is the pain identity. So are you saying then that pain identity is something that we, that covers over the true nature, which is pure awareness and where we can actually train the attention to go there, and where the pain identity is lost or not used or whatever… 

Rinpoche: Sure. 

Constance: Stands by the side?  

Rinpoche: Sure. So, again, if you think about luminosity, luminosity means clear. Pain identity, it means not clear. So identify with pain. Therefore, in definition, you're not clear. So if you, when we think about any process of any healing, what you're trying to do is you're trying to process unprocessed thoughts, emotions, trauma, feelings, whatever is there. That's what you're trying to do. So when you clear that, it does not guarantee that you have cleared the root of those things. The root of those things is the identity underlying that. Because it's like, I don't know, you might, with a desk or something, you can clear them, but you might not clear where it's coming from. So pain identity is, in our tradition, pain identity is the main point. So let's go, I mean that's theoretical. So let's think about a little bit more practical sense. If you look at it in your life right now, one thing we all know, you wanted to be happier, right? And you, we all have stories, right? Do you have stories? Stories with the family, stories with the relationship, stories with the jobs, stories with the health, whatever. We have stories. So if you look at a story, there is, somebody is composing, creating these stories. Who is that? Who is that? Very often, we always think about how to resolve the problem. We don't think about who is, who are, creating the problem. We don't think about that. I mean if you look at it, if you look at it even globally, even look at international conflicts, you can very often see even the way people resolve conflict, you would see that right now the war and all the negotiations happening in Pakistan. So agenda is just kind of, you go with a clear plan. These are our demands, and they have their plan. You have to somehow come to somewhere in the middle that everybody, the weaker side will have to give up more, the stronger side will have more leverage. And that's called negotiation, resolving some problems. But the problem is not resolving, for sure. I mean that's one of the very big delusions. I know this is not a politic, we are talking here. But it's the same human problem. Is we think we are resolving something, you are not resolving anything unless you address the root of these issues. Then you can clear, when it's clear, it clears for once and forever. Same thing, if you look at a couple's relationship, you might have a problem of, you know, where to go holiday to, you have a big argument about where to go holiday. That's not. Then you can finally come to a decision and say, okay, we go holiday somewhere. You agreed on it. That's not a problem. The problem is between two people. There’s a deeper issues. So even in yourself, you can say, well, I'm happy today. Well, maybe you are happy today. You are tired of being suffering, suffering for a long time. Now you are tired of suffering. Now you are happy. That doesn't mean you will not suffer tomorrow. The cause of suffering is there. You will create, very soon you will create another story. As long as you know there is someone deeper than the story, there is someone deeper than these thoughts, these feelings, then you have to address who. When you address who, that is what I call pain identity. In Buddhism they are trying to less emphasize on that. I emphasize that a lot more in the West. In Buddhism they will emphasize not on pain identity, they will emphasize on luminosity. In the West when I am talking about luminosity, I have many friends that say, what are you talking about this luminosity for all these years? No matter how much I explain, it goes back to the same place. I don't get it. But if I explain about the pain identity which comes out here, oh, now I get it. Now I get it. I know who I am not, but I do not know who I am. So that's good enough to be curious about, I want you to know who I am not and why this who I am not is creating all this story. I'm dedicated my life to figure out that. That's my spiritual journey. If you think that way, you are already on a good track.  

Fernando: Wow, that is, and this is, you know, when you are speaking about this, I feel at least for me and communities I come from, right, there is the distraction of the stories and the practices to try to detach from or practice non-attachment to those stories, right? The challenge though becomes we are constantly being barraged by stories after stories after stories and it becomes an inculturated sort of cycle of violence or repetition. And I am curious about, in the experiential awareness of light, right, what are the practices that bring us back into that deeper presencing moment of that liberated space of, oh, in that awareness, away from that pain, right, that there is a lot of attachment to. Like what are the, you know, talk about the practical ways, but in the world where we are barraged by, not only the accumulated stories that we have, but also the stories that are coming at us consistently.  

Rinpoche: Sure. So I would think about it as two ways. One, if you think about this, like for example, we are in our life, we are very disconnected with the nature, right? So we are very, yeah, concrete buildings, traffic, cars, and all those things. So being in the nature, imagine you are in the jungle by yourself for one week. Can you imagine that? Imagine. Okay. If you cannot imagine, then imagine. Right? And then imagine what can happen there. So you go a little crazy. People coming from the city, you go a little crazy. You feel lonely. You feel like without your phone you feel like you are missing something, lack of stimulation, lack of person to talk to, lack of person you can complain about. Or you want like, you know, all those problems. But then you go through the past couple of days. You get into the maybe third, fourth days. You find in the beginning, wow, actually this is nice. It takes some time to enjoy silence. It takes some time to enjoy stillness. It takes some time not to be stimulated all the time. It takes some time. But who are the people who are able to give those time? There are not that many people. Compared to a big, large population, very small group of people are able to take that. So that's one problem. So otherwise, okay, let's say, let's go from one week to half an hour. Okay? Half an hour is manageable, right? Can you imagine, for example, as a routine, which I do, just even if you like your cup of coffee, you make your cup of coffee, you make a discipline, you get out of your house. Even you can be out. You walk, take your cup of coffee, or sit outside if you have a little window, open the window, even a little garden. Just make sure you sit out there, look at the sky, look at the light, and enjoy your coffee. But take half an hour to do that. Who will do that? Okay? I'm not saying who would like to do that. I got here. So it's different than ideally wanting to do something. But doing something is very different. Taking time. Or whatever it is. I went this morning, 7 o'clock, I went up in the golf course, and I just spent two hours there practicing my golf. Taking time there, rather than thinking, it passed through a few moments. Because I didn't know I was meant to spend two hours. I meant to spend one hour, then I was waiting for my friend to join. So it became two hours. So I'm thinking, okay, well, I'm an action guy. So in two hours I could be doing a lot of things and making a lot of things happen. I'm just sitting here in the golf course, you know like... That little thought went through. But I said, this is important. This is important. I'm alone. I'm breathing deep. I'm focusing on a sphere of light, a Thigle, a golf ball, I call it a Thigle, in the Bindu. So I'm focusing on my Thigle. I'm holding my posture. I'm breathing my, breathing. I'm making sure that at the last moment my full attention is at the Thigle. Because very often, at the last moment, people lose their attention. People force. It's a practice. And this is valuable. I'm looking at the sun. I'm beautiful sky. I'm getting my elemental practices here. But that means the ability to give that time to myself, to the sun, to the sky, okay? It doesn't have to be golf, as I said, just a simple thing. Just a cup of coffee, sit outside. Or be alone, quiet. Look at the sky. Actively look at the sky, if you're looking at your social media. The sky is your social media. Right? So if you do that, that day will be very different. I guarantee you. If you sit gazing at the sky, exposed to your eye, your body, to the light, that day will be different. Even before I come here, my son has knee surgery, so he was lying down the whole day inside. I have to kind of push him to come out, so I have to out, in the outside, to get some sun, get some light. That's luminosity. So you really need to get more exposure to the nature, especially sky and the sun. Then you will feel the differences. That's one, I mean, simplest way to do it.  

Fernando: My question also is thinking about how do we not get distracted, even when you're in that space? So I was swimming today in the light. And I do, I don't know if anyone here does this when you do a swimming meditation or any kind of activity that you may engage in. I'm here going, okay, my grandmother taught me Om Tare Tuttare Ture, so the Green Tara mantra, I've been trying to do this. But things creep in. I don't know, you know, I'm intentionally, deep intentionally trying to be present in the water with the lights shining in the morning.  

Rinpoche: Beautiful. 

Fernando: But I got distracted. I'm often distracted. And I'm distracted because, hey, I have to do this work here at CIIS. The litany of things that our everyday life sort of seeps in. And then I'm going, okay, I return, do the return back to the light, clearly in that space. And yet I let it, I still, it creeps in still. And in practice, and then afterwards I'm like thinking to myself, well, what is going on here? You're talking about the root of pain, right? And I'm going, what is at the root of this practice today that brought me always out of that light? I'm in the light. I'm in that sort of process. But here I am reflecting back on it going, I was distracted, there was a distract, it was pulling me away from the monastic.  

Rinpoche: So that's kind of normal, right? So you can say that's okay to have those experiences. It's normal. But the key is you have reflected, you have recognized what you did and what you could have done. So those reflections are called practice, right? But imagine you are able to see that what you did. And you know you could have focused more. But there are a lot of other people who swim in that probably the same pool. That's their normal routine to get distracted every time. They're only there to their doctor, told them to physical movement. But they're not there to contemplative reasons. So you have to set up your also reasoning, especially, and I know experiences of in the water, light coming down, talking about the luminosity, it's a beautiful experience, you know? So your water element, the light and so on. So looking that these are as active, engaging with luminosity in the light, in our awareness.  

Fernando: And then what happens is I'm curious about how, so I can engage in that, but I'm in a pool of other swimmers who are maybe not engaged in that. And what is the curiosity become for me collectively? How are we, how can, given everything that's going on in the world, I wonder how we can be together in light, in luminosity.  

Rinpoche: So when one is connected, it tells other people to connect.  

Fernando: And do you feel like there needs to be an active engagement with that? Or do you feel like it emerges when you are in practice?  

Rinpoche: If you're trying to, for example, if you are in a state of awareness, you just imagine, you include everybody around you, it's impacting them. You're holding, we call it, we say that, right? I hold you in that space. You can say I hold you in that light. And that clearly has impact. So, but I mean, actively trying to make everybody do something that will not work, right?  

Constance: Well, that's sort of the question that I have, because I kind of get a sense of how there's a luminosity of mind, which is this freedom being away from this constant barrage of thoughts, which is chaos, and how spaciousness and silence and stillness can help that state come about. And I also see how my thoughts and my identification keep that away. So, and I certainly, well, I don't understand, but I certainly hear you when you say that there's the bardo situation of luminosity. My question is, you know, that we've talked about luminosity of mind, luminosity of meditation, luminosity of bardo. Is there a luminosity that occurs in a field? Because you were talking about a group. Is there such a thing as a field of luminosity so that we can join together in something that maybe is even a higher state of consciousness?  

Rinpoche: Yes, so there is something called pervasive rigpa, and they're called conscious, pervasive rigpa, conscious awareness, pervasive awareness. So there's some kind of luminosity. It's matter, mind, being. It's pervaded everywhere. It's the truth. It's the basis of everything. So it's everywhere. But that's the truth. That truth does not help so much unless you are aware of the truth. So when you're aware of the truth, then you can bring that awareness more collectively. So between two people, they can say we, you know, for example, let's say this way, a simple way, kind of simple way to talk that will be between a couple that if they are able to go beyond their pain identity, their stories, some place they can merge as a union. There's a couple who think about a union. So somewhere you merge in more union. Union, not the ultimate, ultimate union, but union in a sense like respect. We respect each other. That's union. We love each other. That's union. So you are in that space, but in the space of love and respect. So there you have peace. There you have healing. There you are connected. But many times in relationship, that space is not there. Right? So I always tell stories that, you know, as a father I can say that. As a husband I can say that. You know, sometimes as a couple we talk about different ideas or different things. So in the end of the day, you know, at home I prefer to agree everything with my wife. Even intellectually I know something, maybe, well, in this thing I think I have some experiences of my efficiency, you know. You might be not right. I have those thoughts. But when I hear those voice in me, I say, no, that's not important. Here, what is important? You respect her. Whatever her opinion matters more than my opinion. So I have to let go of my opinion, my efficiency, my smartness and just have to say, I love this person. So you go that identity, and that's where you become one with someone. Or with the children. Same thing. You know, you say, I'm older. I'm 65. You're only 19. I have a lot of experiences of my life. You should have been supposed to be doing this. You have a lot of advices. But at the end of the day, of course, but the fact is at 19 I'm 65. 65 will, advise will not work on 19. I forget about it, you know. I think the transmission should go on. So at some point I have to realize that it's not what I think is right. You know, it's more, I'm trying to respect the individuality of this boy. This is born in India, grown up in California, American school. This is the environment he's growing up. He's trying to shape some identity from this. I shape my identity from my monastery. Two different thing. So I just have to respect that individuality. Not to think about I have wisdom, I have some advices, nothing like that. I have to just, it's almost like I'm saying it's fine. Just you have my blessing. Just be careful. Go ahead. Explore. Take a risk. Just be careful. You need something, I'm here. I respect you. So when I'm able to say that, then I become one with him. So it's not like becoming one with someone does not mean somebody has to agree with you. Most of the time it's the opposite. You have to completely let go of yourself. You agree with someone, especially with loved ones.  

Fernando: Thank you for that. And it's so challenging. I just have to say, I can't do that. I mean, it's interesting because I, you know, many of us work in high conflict spaces. You know, and especially in the world we're in right now, it feels like there's a lot of polarization, a lot of tension. And in the encounter, the relational encounter, there's an activation, at least for me in these spaces, that to be able to encounter, it's one thing to tell my grandkid and go, oh, yay, you know, be beautiful in this luminous space, right? It's harder when I'm triggered by, you know, in these deep spaces of conflict to be in that, you know, that and even in the practices that I learned from you and I learned from others to engage with a different kind of relational space in that radical awareness. That's the challenge, right? It's the how, you know, and collectively how to practice...  

Rinpoche: So one thing I think is important to understand is, you know, sometimes when we say the very conflicting situation, challenging, it's, again, there's the same story here. The situation challenges you. Then we talk about the situation. We are not talking about the one who is attracted to those situations, right? Because the situation is equally, we all share the same world we're living in, but we don't share the how we respond to the same world we're living in. Why is sometime we are more interested in a conflict than some good event things happening? You know, for example, in society, today's society, if you think about even the government, you know, like if you think about people say, oh, you know, administration, this and that. But scary is not one person. Scary is the half of the majority who are elected it, right? If you think about that sense. Or if you think about... So it's a very collective thing. It's not, I mean, even though we're trying to narrow down into one thing or group story or something like that, even stories that we are sometimes... It's just there. All the stories are there. But you don't have to get involved in that way. You can accommodate. You can trust. I'm always trying to do that. I think one of my ways of having some peace in all this situation in life is that I say, when I say I'm having a difficult time with it, basically it means I'm judging the situation. I'm saying it's wrong. Right? I'm saying it's not supposed to be like that. I mean, it's wrong. But how do I know it's wrong? Do I really know it's wrong? There must be some bigger reasons why something is happening. I know so many times in my life, some things did not go my way. In the end, they turn out to be better than if it has gone my way. So maybe whole life is always like that. Is there some bigger story that I don't know? So I hope there is some better story the reason this is happening. Even the war, I hope we have to go through this. Then there will be a greater peace in the future. At least I'm trying to process that way.  

Fernando: I hope too. So we are at time Rinpoche, and I just wanted to sort of really deeply thank you for being here and being deeply present with us today. It has been such a blessing to be in this luminosity and our community, our beloved community here as well as online, are deeply appreciative for your wisdom. So are there any things that you want to say in the last minute that we have?  

Rinpoche: Take it easy.  

Fernando: Take it easy. Okay. Thank you for that. So thank you everyone for being here today. Thank you for joining us at this public program here at CIIS. Feel free to, this will be available on our public programs website as well. Feel free to visit our department, the Department of Transformative Inquiry, both Connie and myself and Rinpoche, appreciate your presence here this evening. Blessings. Tashi Delek, everyone. Take care. 

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