Wanwa, did you raise your hand?

Yeah, that's a hard one to let go.

scientifically, like you'll see articles about, you know, the interrelatedness and universal consciousness.

And if we were brought up in a Christian tradition, um, that plays a factor as well.

The letting go of a creator God thing was easy, but the universal consciousness part is hard to let go

Do you want to share something?

Just real quick, do you think there's a difference, though, between a bird and us as human beings? They don't have the mind that we have.

to study Dharma, to try to improve our lives, to rationalize and conceptualize.

Wama?

Yeah.

I really like the idea of, um, softness reducing conflict and creating harmony.

Um, I've seen so many situations where you encounter them, and how you react changes the outcome, of course.

But just having a soft approach can take a, a situation that's way up here and bring it down to a manageable level.

Um, so yeah, I really like that idea of using it to reduce conflict.

Bye-bye, Venerable.

Bye, everyone.

Wang Mo?

Yes, I have a question for you, because I was thinking about this when I was bracketing.

Are people born with different levels of goodness or is it all learned? You know, you think about some children, they're just sweet and wonderful from the time they're little.

And then there's those other kids that are constantly in trouble and you can just look at them and tell their trouble.

Do we inherit goodness or is it something we develop?

It, it certainly could be.

Yeah.

My question to you is, what is your opinion, since you were talking about, like, talent, what about the fact of, like, carrying over the karma that you've created through dharma? Like, for example, if you're a practitioner in this lifetime and you devoted your life to studying and progressing towards awakening, you pass away, do you believe that there's then a propensity for you to be born in a place where the dharma will present itself to you again, or, um, you'll have a mo- auspicious birth because of you lived a virtuous life, those kinds of things?

Wama, you have a question?

Yes, I have a question.

So do you, do you don't think that, like, near-death experiences or, like, children who can remember things of a past life are proof of rebirth? Like, I just watched this video, a documentary the other day, about a woman from 1970.

She had surgery, and the surgery they did, they had to stop her brain from working for, like, four minutes, and she was able to afterwards describe to them everything that was done to her in that four minutes.

And doctors today are still trying to argue about how that was possible.

So anyways, with that said, would you like to, uh, take us through meditation, Ms. Wangyal?

Sure.

Thank you, Venerable Tarpa.

Okay, so today we'll be engaging in calm abiding meditation on breath cycles, and this is a wonderful technique for those with very busy minds.

In this meditation, we focus our attention on one breath cycle at a time from the beginning of an in breath to the end of its corresponding out breath.

The benefit of this technique is that rather than trying to sustain our whole attention for-- our attention for a whole session, which is only possible for advanced meditators, we instead shorten our aim by focusing on one breath cycle at a time.

This gives us much more-- a much more attainable goal, while helping us to gradually build our capacity for sustained attention.

Wangmo?

So what do you guys think about that short piece on how the mind works? Did it answer your questions, Wanmo?

It did, but what's fascinating is that he would come up with that moment-to-moment view.

Like you said, you, you can say like a camera, but they didn't even have those then.

Do you know what I mean? Isn't that fascinating to have that image of moment to moment at a time when he didn't even have that reference point?

Ms. Wanmo.

Yeah, um, Taka, are you gonna talk at all about, um, our ability to control our minds and, or, um, and also the important, uh, importance it has in the process of awakening, or are you gonna do that when you talk about awakening?

Wang Mo.

Sorry, it's always me.

Um, [laughs] so how do you feel about things, like, that aren't about necessarily choices? Since karma is a cause and effect, like for example-

So it's a cause

...

when you're talking about somebody who, say, gets sick when they're older, do you believe even things like that are, f- are related to karma? It might be that they ate food that caused cancer, or they lived in an environment where the air was bad.

It's, is, is that n- do you see what I'm saying? Is that still-

Ms. Walmo, please.

I was going to say it makes total sense because I don't know if anybody else does it, but I have conversations with myself in my mind where something will come up and I have to make a decision.

And I really talk back and forth.

Those different parts of your mind actually do like literally conversate.

And I'm one of those people who maybe because I grew up watching too much reality TV, I narrate everything in my mind.

So I literally have like... conversations in my head when I make decisions, but that's good to me because before I wouldn't even take the time to stop and have those conversations.

You just do out of habit.

Ms. Wanmo?

It's a joke

...

I really love the, um, when you said, uh, uh, func- like, uh, thoughts, emotions, and feelings happen here.

That was great.

Um, the thing that, the thing, two things that made me understand this the most was, one, realizing and starting to view myself as a continuous process.

Not just processes happen to me, but I am a process.

That was one-

Oh, okay.