What We’re Really Doing Here: Practice, Perception, and the Path Beyond Therapy

In this session, Umi opens the study of Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra 2.9 with a clarifying overview of the prior arc—from non-possession through prajñāpāramitā to the embodiment of Buddhahood. A deep conversation follows on wangxiang (妄想) and the difficulty of translating delusive mental constructions into English without distortion. Umi also names the core structure of ODZ’s training: awakening depth, liberative degree, and practical breadth. The distinction between sangha as spiritual training and sangha as therapeutic circle is sharply drawn, while honoring the value of each. A rich Q&A explores emotional support, container specificity, chasing peak experience, and the role of jhāna training in transforming hope into method.

*transcript generated by AI

All right.

Welcome, everybody.

Today, we begin our new section.

In section 2.7, we were looking at a progression of perspective shifts of insights that occur in practice.

We go from non-possession to non-characteristic to, as illusory, different types of absorptions to ways we see reality.

And then from that, abiding in Prajnaparamita, liberated from the extremes.

And then finally, into the body of the Tathagata, the embodiment of realization as Buddhahood.

So that was the focus on 2.7.

And then there’s a little section 2.8, which is kind of just a little conjunction there.

It’s just a few lines.

I almost translated it for fun.

And then I realized that that’s not really how this works.

So went straight on to 2.9, which begins kind of a deep investigation of how… Yeah, I guess kind of the causes, it opens with the causes and conditions of how we have a sensory experience.

So that’s kind of the opening here.

It’s only partially translated right now.

And then hopefully I can keep getting further along with it a little bit ahead of where we are in our conversation.

So that’s about where we are in our arc.

Does anyone have any questions, comments, concerns about what we’ve studied up to this point before we’ve begun any new material?

Oh, yeah, Umi, you know, I realized a while back, you brought up the notion of that one Chinese term, nakchuk or wangchun or something.

And you were hoping to kind of land on something that made sense about that.

And I’m wondering if we… Have you done that?

Have we done that?

I haven’t felt like a singular English term has shown up to take care of that particular idea.

Unfortunately, so it is still wangchun, which is, again, the formal definition that I have written out is delusive mental constructs arising from karmically perfumed tendencies.

Well, that’s essentially ego, right?

No?

No, the ego would just be the subjective experience of that.

Oh.

There’s also the objective experience of that.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Yeah, it remains somewhat elusive in terms of getting a singular English term, at least for me, do you have any suggestions?

Projection is one of the common ones, erroneous conceptualization is another common one, and I just, they all are wrong in specific enough ways to point us in the wrong direction.

I don’t really want to do that, you know, for example, projectionlessness or projection kind of puts us in the, it’s either a very mechanistic type of way where there’s a screen and something’s being projected onto it, but there’s a purity of the screen involved in projection, while Wang Xiang says that the screen isn’t some pure thing that we’re projecting onto, and it also, projection to me has a feeling of like light leaving the eyes, like we’re creating it and there’s nothing out there that’s reverberating back to us, you know, so it ends up being kind of a unidirectional process when we use the word projection, and that’s not what the Yogacharans are saying either, it’s a truly non-dual thing that happens when our consciousness mistakes its activity as accurate and real, and that there’s just too many fractal layers of that to put it into one singular word.

Yeah, it sounds like it’s almost like the desire, the ongoing desire for existence, like real subtle, like there’s something in here wants to claim insight and credit for all of this or something, you know what I mean?

Yeah, a little bit, and actually, you know, what we’re about to get into in 2.9, in a certain way, it doesn’t say it so explicitly, but in a certain way, is really talking about this, how does Wang Xiang happen, you know, that’s kind of one of the meta-questions that we can be thinking is being asked and answered in this coming section, and maybe through this we could end up coming to a, even if we make up a word called yabba-dabba-doo, yeah, right, so, and anything else up for anybody in terms of Lanka study?

Would you mind just reviewing really quickly the 30-second synopsis of liberation from extremes?

Oh, so prajnaparamita in this scheme that we just did is basically, you realize that there is no you to have anything, that’s non-possession, then you realize that nothing that you’re experiencing has its own self-existence, everything that you’re experiencing is made up of other things simultaneously co-arising, okay, that’s non-characteristic, and then from there, going a little bit further, you come into as-illusion samadhi, and as-illusion samadhi basically just says that everything is happening in one’s own mind, kind of like a lucid dream, or like an illusion, and all of these different altered states, all the different jhanas, including our normal waking consciousness we’re experiencing right now, is illusory in the sense that it is not what it seems, and you have a persistent experience of that, and then through that, okay, and this is where it gets interesting, so through that, you realize that the absolute stillness of deep meditative absorption and a lucid dream and the conversation we’re having right now are all essentially the same, that there is no fundamental difference between the absolute stillness of nirvana and the chaotic movement of samsara, so absolute and relative collapse, and prajnaparamita transcends all of the this a not a, both a and not a, right, neither a nor not a distinctions, boom, we pop out of all of that dualistic framework and see it all as the wetness of reality, okay, and that’s liberation from extremes, it’s all, it’s all the same wet, whether it’s hot water or cold water, it’s all wet water, got a lot of wet, we got a lot of wet right now, it’s like 100 percent humidity and 85 degrees today, so we are familiar with the quality of yes, what’s a whole thing right now.

Thank you, that’s what I thought it was going, appreciate the explanation.

Of course, thank you for asking.

Okay, so before we further dive in and really start 2.9, I do just want to, as usual, pause to see if anyone has anything up in their life practice that they’d like to run by the sangha or to ask me about in terms of yoga, charn, zen, and depth, breadth, and degree of practice, or to ask me about in terms of yoga, charn, zen, and depth, breadth, and degree of practice, and all of these things that we’re doing here, right, we’re studying the lanka, but ultimately this is about living life, being and becoming in a harmonious process.

Anybody got anything?

Well, yeah, I, you know, I would like to discuss when, you know, when I was two years old, my mother yelled at me, and I only have 64 pages in my journal on this, which I could get through very quickly, and then I could open it up for questions.

You probably need a daisan for that one, Michael.

We’ll save that for a one-on-one time.

Really, really good therapist.

Yes, she really laid into you, huh, Michael?

Mildly, mildly excessively stressed.

I’ll take that as a vote against that, so okay, thank you.

That does, that does raise an important point here, because, you know, one of the things we’re not doing here is therapeutic deconstruction and re-narrativizing and all these types of things, but however, in a way, the expectation is that this work will be the resolution of anything that requires therapeutic support, because of the way it radically alters the way we perceive and relate to the cognitive, emotional, and somatic experience of that condition, and so one of, I don’t quote Junpo a lot, for lots of different reasons, but there is a quote that I put on the home page of our website that fundamentally informs what we’re continuing from this teaching.

We are wholly conditioned entities, therefore, to become liberated, we can and must be reconditioned.

Right, how do we do that from this container?

Well, we see through the conditioning to understand the mechanism by which we, not the conditioning we received, but the mechanism of conditioning.

Understanding the mechanism of conditioning, we can begin to play with the mechanics of causes and conditions to radically alter our behavior and our experience and all these things.

That’s where our depth of awakening, i.e., our ability to see through our conditioning and our selfing, directly informs our degree of liberation, which is the cutting away of unskillful habits and the building up of skillful habits, and that’s really what we’re doing here.

We’re deepening our awakening through our study and our sitting, and we are enhancing our degree of liberation by using that insight to actively recondition ourselves according to what we determine to be skillful.

I add a third axis, which is breadth of depth and degree, which basically means how much of your psyche, how many different roles in your life are doing this work, because we can be really deep and really liberated when it comes to showing up in sangha and among our spiritual friends, and then there may be an eye structure that shows up in different parts of our life that has no clue what awakening and liberation even means.

And so we also want to look at our breadth, how broadly are we applying this practice to our lives.

So these three things together are kind of the root of what we’re doing here.

In this two-hour practice period, we do embodied meditation and insight practice for depth of awakening and then contextualizing our insight so that you are more powerful as you go about cutting and cultivating, cutting the unskillfulness and cultivating the skillfulness.

So that’s, I don’t know if I’d ever really said that in this container.

So I guess it just felt like it was time to actually say that in this container.

So that’s what I think we’re up to when we practice zen together.

Any questions about that?

I guess my only caveat to that would be that like, you know, if a sangha member were to show up and be like, oh my God, I had a death in the family and I’m super strung out about it.

Super sad.

This is horrible.

I’m having a really hard time.

I don’t, no one here is going to go, well, that sucks.

Goodbye.

There was a line in there, something about emotional support or emotional something that was off the top of my head.

And I looked at that and I went, yeah, but we definitely are that.

It’s just not.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Well, the right, the there’s a line in the homepage that this isn’t the place for emotions like that in the political support group.

Right.

And I think there’s a difference between being a sangha that supports each other and what we’re going through and being a place of emotional support.

Right.

Which is, I think are a bit different.

I’ve been in circles where the whole purpose is to be an emotional support group.

And then everyone comes in and vomits their psycho drama all over everyone.

And then everyone goes, oh, wow.

Oh, and we all hug and we cry and we sing a song and we tell them it’ll be OK. Gotcha.

And that’s and that’s just reinforcing the structures that are incapable of dealing with the emotion.

Right.

So that’s that’s the kind of the distinction that I’m making there that could probably be clear on the website.

No, that’s an interesting.

Yeah.

No.

First, would not be a fan of second.

Definitely.

Yeah.

But yeah, absolutely.

Sangha is here to support each other.

And that includes the stress.

Yeah, for sure.

How do you feel about that?

I mean, because that’s that is actually super relevant because some Thursdays after like an hour break, like that’s what I get into as one of those types of circles where you get your usual cast of characters who have like, you know, they have their shares, they have their, you know, their life drama that they want to get off their chest and receive support and all that.

I’d be interested in, like, kind of how you see that, because right right now, kind of where I kind of fit myself into that.

Circle is I’m not showing up to therapeutically, you know, vomit my my life out to everyone else and receive a bunch of shower of nice words and stuff like that.

But like, I also recognize that, like, you know, for, you know, right.

Right.

Speech requires, you know, like, right.

Listening, I guess.

Right.

You know, like to to act to actively, you know, that sharing has to have both parties like I kind of view myself as a I show up, you know, to to broaden the audience, you know, and just to be to receive people who need to share, you know.

But it’s like it’s such a stark contrast to like, you know, to what we do here, you know, like, you know, and a lot of it’s just, you know, you bite your tongue, like you have like maybe your your opinion or you think you have your wisdom to share.

But like, it’s not that’s not really it really is not the place for it.

So so I usually am a very quiet participant in that and that’s that circle.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I just be interested to get your general characteristic of those types of environments, you know, because I do find myself in that for for a variety of reasons.

But.

Yeah, well, I think that if that’s the purpose of the container and everyone knows it and that’s what they’re looking for, then that is a beautiful thing to do for people who are seeking that kind of support.

And there are many people who do not have lives where they have intimate partnerships or dear friends that they can do that with.

So they need to go find a support group and they need to have that kind of emotional connection and reception.

And so so that’s critically important.

And it’s also critically important to understand that not everyone is interested in living their lives through the lens of a wisdom tradition.

And so to tell them that, you know, OK, but you’re your own God.

So if you don’t like it, live your life differently.

Yeah, you’re you’re lost in thought.

It’s a bit inconsiderate to their worldview.

And if they’re not soliciting a wisdom perspective, then they don’t want one.

And so they do what they do.

Right.

And so I think that it’s really container specific.

And I say that this is not the container for that.

Right.

There is a lot of value in containers for that, as long as that’s the explicit consensual agreement of the people participating in that.

Yeah.

And I just want to point out, I noticed in today’s reading is that that’s was addressed towards the end of the verse where he says, you know, you discern the teachings that are needed for the beings that are in front of you.

And, you know, the Dharma can be, you know, stress relieving, emotional regulation work is all the way up to non-dual.

So it’s the, you know, you’re applying the medicine for the illness in front of you.

Yeah, I love that.

That’s one of the one of my favorite things about this sutra is how much like that is really just spotlighted that like, it’s like, it’s so effective for not getting wrapped around the finger, you know, pointing at the moon, like, yeah, it’s like, yeah, you know, it is immediately cuts through the, yeah, but you said earlier, you know, like, you know, no, drop it, you know, so I love that it is.

It’s like, it’s the ultimate, like, you know, way to cut off that line of thought is like that these teachings are specific, you know, to the, to who’s receiving it, right?

Yeah.

Anyway, I yeah, so I guess, like, you know, well, never, I could, this could turn into a longer thing, but like, it’s, it’s immediately what I leave this, you know, space, and then I jump into that space.

And it’s such a stark contrast.

And sometimes I’m like, what am I doing here?

And I’m like, Oh, I remember when you’re like, compassionate, understanding.

Ah, multiple ways.

Yeah, you’re, you’re, yeah, this is show up to be like, you’re heard, I hear you, you know, like, you’re not alone.

Yeah, super powerful, and really important.

And, and it’s also, I think, a key to the yoga charn, one of the things I love about the yoga charn methodology is that it lays out 52 steps from, I have no idea what the fuck is going on to Buddhahood.

And some of those steps in there are just like, kind of like clearing out your emotional space.

Yeah, you know, like, there’s, there’s, it’s a long arc, I don’t have all 52 stages memorized or anything like that.

But, you know, yoga charn tradition fully anticipates that people come to practice because they’re suffering.

And there’s a long way to go between the first time they interact with a teacher and even like their first meditation period.

You know, a lot of times, I think the earliest stages have to do with like, are you organizing your life in a way that’s spiritually informed?

Like right livelihood?

How are you making your money?

You know, like, let’s take care of that first.

You know, and, and so I think that even if we, even as we grow and expand and other things are happening, that’s all part and parcel of what we’re doing.

And not, and again, this is where I kind of say not everyone is on that, right?

So to come into a space that’s explicitly set up as a, as an emotional support container, unless there’s something in the context that says that this is like part of a developmental path into the wisdom traditions, then it’s kind of our job to do the emotional support thing when we’re there.

And, you know, that, I think that is beautiful.

And then along the way to like, what just came to mind is like this quote, that the entire Dharma realm is preaching the Dharma.

And so it’s also like, you know, it’s also like to sit in there and like, and, you know, just get this display of like, here’s all the ways we get sideways, you know?

And so it’s also, it’s also, it is helpful for me at times, but anyway, yeah, different circles.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And all the same circle as we get, as we get deeper, we get more, more better at dropping in wisdom in those moments that doesn’t jar the participant and slowly seeds the field, you know, thinking in the long game, these seeds might not ripen for two or three more lifetimes, but they get to drop in and nugget here and there without being uncompassionate or, or forcing them into something that they’re not ready to hear.

Slight.

Well, we’ll let that there.

Because I don’t want to like, like super all about me question.

We should probably, yes.

But no, so you and I had the conversation the other day on like, Hey, I had a really good set on Monday.

I had a nice, like switched off, switched back on moment.

And now I find myself, which is annoying to me personally.

Now I’m chasing that.

Yeah.

And well, so that, which I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing.

No.

The annoyance part of that comes in where if I have a sit where it doesn’t happen now, now I’m like, Oh, well, that wasn’t productive.

Oh yeah.

Failed on that one.

Any, any thoughts on how to productively chase that without like the negative, you know, if you don’t hit it or have, you know, any kind of cessation or Samadhi experience to like, still come out of that sit on a positive note, rather than like a, Oh, well, yeah, definitely could have been a much deeper meditation.

Definitely could have been a, you know, a Samadhi experience rather than just a, yeah, you sat there, you still had a nice quiet mind and it was still, you know, yeah, the same, but it could have been deeper.

So the, the two things that have helped me with that for one, I remember how many sits it took me before I had that peak experience.

And then I think, well, it should probably take me about that many sits again before I have another such experience just by statistics right now, I’ve got a sample of one out of, you know, a thousand hours of sitting.

So, okay.

I’ll get one in sometime in my next thousand hours of sitting.

So that helps me just kind of put it in the, in the context rather than expecting like, Oh, I did it that time.

I shouldn’t have been able to do it every time.

Right.

Yeah.

Cause no skill that actually works that way.

Yeah.

You don’t play it.

You don’t play a perfect song on the guitar and then like get bent out of shape that you make a mistake on the same song.

The next time you play it, it’s just too complicated.

You’re going to miss a beat or something.

Right.

Right.

So when we put it in the context of any other skill, then it’s like, okay, that’s fine.

The other thing that I think is really important and especially salience in terms of the Lankavatara Sutra and what we’re doing here and the overall arc is we have to remember that the peak experience is not the point.

There is no altered state that is liberating.

It is what that altered state does to our ongoing perspective and how we understand reality and the function of mind that is important.

So if the peak experience didn’t actually change anything about the way you see reality, then it really wasn’t that great of a peak experience anyway.

And if it did, then you don’t need another one for a long time because you still have to integrate all of the way that that changed the way you understand your own reality.

So it’s good that there’s space now.

Touche.

Can I add in there too?

Because I’ve gone through this as well.

And one of the things that really helped me with that was hearing it in the words of grasping at becoming.

It’s another form of grasping, a higher order of grasping.

So that is part of my cue to drop when I’m chasing in the first place and realize that it comes when I’m not seeking.

And then the second part that I heard there was like it creates these notions of good and bad and choosing one is good and one is not good and all that.

So it just becomes more abstraction and conceptual thinking that further blocks the no-mind space.

So I found those to be, at least that’s in my practice, I found those to be helpful.

No, I think that’s a very good point.

Because even thinking about it, I was not aware of it at the time until the light switched back on and it was like, oh, so that was it.

That happened.

All right, I’m going to have to process that for a little bit.

But there wasn’t any, it wasn’t a conscious chase at that point.

And then you come out of it and you’re like, okay, that was kind of wild.

But I figured that this was going to be the follow-up to that.

It was like, oh, yeah, you definitely weren’t looking for that at all.

It happened.

And I was like, oh, sweet.

Yeah, more of that.

You know, keeping the grasping in mind is definitely, that’s an excellent point.

I like that.

Thank you, Matt.

Those were both really good points.

And I think that that’s one reason why I really like to teach the jhanas is because what it does is it takes our meditation from a sit down and hope to a process of shifting our consciousness into increasingly subtle states on a methodological basis.

And so then it’s like, well, now you’re doing a process.

And you can still get a little bit of frustration because like, okay, well, I sat in the second jhana didn’t come up, like the bliss quality didn’t arise.

What the fuck?

But usually, there’s very clear reasons.

Well, the bliss quality didn’t arise because the access concentration wasn’t sharpened.

Well, do your access concentrate, like it turns the whole thing into like a step by step kind of process of shifting.

And then it’s just like, oh, well, I didn’t I didn’t get that step right.

Right.

Okay.

Again, right.

Yeah.

And now I’m excited for my next step.

Process.

Yeah.

So I hope that’s one of the reasons why I love teaching that method.