EP20 – Bodhisattva Vow – Will You Take It? – Part 1

Illuminated Mind is your podcast for exploring some of the deeper ideas about what it means to be human in today’s complex world. We cover topics from psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and hypnotherapy to find answers to life’s most interesting questions. Enjoy this episode!

Corey Benschop  00:00

Hey, what’s up, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you again for joining us this week. I hope you’re having an amazing day. And definitely good start to the week here with this episode. First of all, we’ve made it to Episode 20, which is just incredible. Definitely, I’m super grateful to have you here and really quite proud that here we are at 20 episodes. And I really feel like this show just started not too long ago. But we’re getting to a place now where we’re starting to pump out these episodes on the regular, and we’ve got some systems in place. I hope you’re enjoying this content. And you know, make sure you’re subscribed because we’re going to be producing a lot more episodes for you, as we continue to move forward. Today’s show is going to be really, really interesting, we’re actually diving into what’s called the Bodhisattva vow. And this is something you know, in the world of spirituality, something that’s very important, and really quite central to this idea of enlightenment and suffering, right? It’s the human condition, you know, that we suffer from? What does it mean to be human? Right? That’s what we explore in this podcast is the ideas that are deeper to the essence of humanity, and what it really means to be a human in this world. And why are we suffering? Why do we live a life where it seems like, everywhere we turn, there’s suffering involved? Well, that’s kind of what this Bodhisattva vow is all about. If you’ve ever heard of the Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva vow, then you might know what I’m talking about. But if not, that’s what we’re going to be covering in this episode. So if you’ve ever asked the questions, you know, what is a Bodhisattva? Can I become a Bodhisattva? What is the vow of the Bodhisattva? You know, who is Buddha? Right? This is where this kind of started from is with Buddha himself. And, you know, if you want to learn more about the story of Buddha, that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode, as well as what is enlightenment? Really? What’s the point of becoming enlightened? You know, again, there’s suffering happening all around the world. So is it really a valid pursuit to you know, have enlightenment as a goal of yours personally? What does that actually mean? Right? Are we moving towards a spiritual awakening personally? So individually? And or are we moving towards an awakening collectively as a human race? Can we actually get there? And is it really even worth it? You know, who are we truly as individuals, and as humans collectively? I know, these are big questions. They’re very profound. And they definitely can have different answers based on your perspective and your experiences. But that’s really what we’re going to be talking about today, or rather, what Matthew is going to be talking about today. Again, this is another past recording of a conscious community class, we’re bringing this material to you refreshing it and sort of putting it front and centre again, so that you can consume this because the material here is just absolutely amazing. But you know, sometimes it’s a little hard to consume, to sit down to a two-hour video. We wanted to make these into more bite sized episodes, keeping things at an hour or less, and leaving it in the audio form. That way, you can consume it passively. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this, you’re going to learn a little bit more about Matthew and his background, you’re going to learn a little bit more about the school in general. And then we’re really going to start talking about this deep spiritual teaching of the Bodhisattva in its essence, and what is the vow of the Bodhisattva. Again, thank you for being here. I really hope you enjoy this one. Let’s go ahead and jump right into it. 

 

Corey Benschop  03:34

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Corey Benschop  04:59

Welcome back to Illuminated Mind. I’m your host Corey Benschop, and this is your podcast for exploring some of the deeper ideas about what it means to be human in today’s complex world. We cover topics from psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and hypnotherapy to find answers to life’s most interesting questions. Enjoy this episode!

 

Matthew Brownstein  05:22

All right, welcome, everybody to Monday night conscious community class with me Matthew Brownstein. And we haven’t I haven’t done these classes in quite a while. So it’s really a pleasure to be here with you. Again, unfortunately, this came about because of COVID-19. And a lot of us, of course, are staying at home and we’re stuck at home. So it’s a nice opportunity for me to connect again with you. So we’ve been doing these classes since about 2011 2012. doing them on and off. So I’m going to give you guys a little PowerPoint tonight in case you’re new to the school. They catch you up with this you know who we are, who I am, and just how many hours of information we have just from these Monday night classes alone. It’s well over 400 hours of free hypnotherapy based training. But the difference in the Monday night classes, it’s a chance for me to be more me in the sense of the deeper spirituality that myself and our staff, but they are very much me because I’m the one who founded the school brought to this forum the underlying principles that are part of this school. We’ve always done topics for these classes. And while this is a first kind of introductory class for Monday night, the topic is officially the body safco vow which I’ll explain and interpersonal hypnotherapy which I’ll also explain to get us started I gave you the topic, the body, Safa vow and interpersonal hypnotherapy. Let me give you an overview of the school, first of all, just who we are and what we do. And we’ll take that long. And then everybody will be on the same page of knowing what this is all about what we’re all about. In case you’re new to who we are, we’re the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy, and also the International Association of interpersonal hypnotherapist, and these are our three websites just so everybody gets a sense on the left Institute of hypnotherapy.com that now has links for these Monday night conscious kinetic classes, as well, excuse me as a very active blog. And I hope you’ll check out some of the beautiful graphic design work, where my marketing team who’s knocking it out of the park, unfortunately had to cancel our conference or postpone this is a better way to say it was fun our conference, our country’s community classes, something that started this up again, that I did a blog called creating community during challenging times. And that was launching these classes again. So again, thank you everybody for being here. Just a little bit about me, in case you don’t know. And in case you want to know, I’m actually a religion and philosophy major. And then you know, all I want them to do honestly was to be a monk. But that didn’t really work out, unfortunately. But I did spend time about five years total in my life and not everything is listed here. But I’ve lived in different monasteries and restaurants. I lived in the Himalayas in Indian study with really great masters. So it’s a lot of what I like to bring to our school are again, these deeper teachings. So you see the first three bullet points or major places but not the only ones that I’ve looked at. I spent about two years in traditional Chinese medical school decided not to go into that path because hypnotherapy was just so much more my thing. So I spent years doing hypnotherapy trainings in various locations as well as neuro linguistic programming training. And that led to eventually a very successful career in hypnotherapy. 10 years in private practice. And now about 12 years running the schools our corporate name is on a hot education group by the heart is the heart chakra, CEO of that executive director and lead instructor of the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy which is the first and only school to be licenced by the Department of Education’s commission for independent education. So we’re quite a pioneer in the field. Also, I found it I’m still the current president of the International Association of interpersonal hypnotherapist, and I’m the author of five books. I shall show you a little bit more as we go through here. Again, we’ll go through this quick I want to go into class time tonight. The topics that we do cover up for these Monday night classes usually relate to spiritual growth, hypnotherapy and a lot of its deeper implications, meditation teachings hypnosis in the paranormal, healing and enlightenment finding inner peace creating community. And of course in miracles topic for tonight, the Bodhisattva vow and interpersonal hypnotherapy, we’re not going to go into what is interpersonal hypnotherapy tonight, at least not at the beginning, but the topic is based on that. So of course we’ll get into I want to focus more on the Bodhisattva ideal tonight and how hypnotherapist can really make a profound difference.

 

Matthew Brownstein  10:00

impact in a world that really needs us. And coming from the interpersonal hypnotherapy model, we have much deeper teachings and make what we do so much more fulfilling. But I’d encourage all of you to consider if you haven’t read my book that book called interpersonal hypnotherapy. If you’re new to this, to give you a really good feel for why we’re very unique, we do offer in case you haven’t dived in yet, four and a half hours of free hypnotherapy training, he says 10 hours of free other classes, but honestly, that’s over 400 hours. People are just intimidated by that many hours. So we said I want to give you 10 But the truth is, there’s hundreds of hours of free classes online with us right now on our website, and then a complimentary hypnotherapy training guide. Our overall training, there’s Danny who’s here right now and maybe Nick is here. Dan is our director in Tampa, renewed our director in Hollywood, Florida. We have locations around the country, you’ll see listed on the screen. And we are still around even though a lot of businesses had to close because of COVID thing God fortunately, we’re largely still here because we are largely online Institute. But we do have in house practical hours and we’ve had to redo our schedule for that. But everything is still scheduled and ideally moving ahead as plan our conference we did have to postpone the graphics were beautiful. Everything was looking so good. We’re so excited. I’m not going to do it online. It’s just too important that we all come together in person that’s so much more in their personal hypnotherapy is about the human connection. So when I scheduled it just as soon as we can, you can keep an eye out for that in the newsletters and on interpersonal hypnotherapy, calm and other social media presence. We do have many hypnotherapy, cu courses if you’re sitting at home bored doing nothing, just reminder, our graduates can do it their personal hypnotherapy training is 22 hours. I’m living therapy another eight hours, if you’re new to all of this is very new, and you want to really deep immersion and self hypnosis and meditation. That’s the new course is available for anyone, and psychic and intuitive development with our dear friend and colleague, Mary Hayes. You guys can check out on our website as well, probably next week, I’ll write a blog. And we’ll do a class on my book peace under all circumstances. It’s also an audio book, I plan to get that for free on YouTube very soon. Because the the graphics designed for that and their guided meditations as well. Most likely he’s put on youtube for free. So we’ll do a class on that next week for the Monday night conscious community class being at peace, no matter what’s happening in the world, which is very apropos right now obviously, opening the heart teachings. We’ll do another Monday night class on that coming up. These are products by the way. But I’m not really here to plug them as much as just to say these are topics that are important to me, that I’ve designed teachings on that are available for the public. They’re part of our hypnotherapy, skills training. And I like to make these topics that Monday night class topics. So we will cover opening the heart and working through emotional blacks, probably in the third, this being the first the third Monday night class. But let’s see how that goes. But this is an important topic, especially now with so much emotion that is being stirred up with what’s gone on in the world. My book, the sutures on healing and enlightenment. A lot of our schools training is based on these deeper teachings not just on healing the mind and healing the body. But on the Enlightenment process itself, which again is super valuable right now. And we’ll be focusing on that tonight. As we get into the body stuff. I do Monday night classes are going to the metaphysics of Mind Body healing. And again, just another beautiful graphic from a marketing team. While you’re sitting at home if you don’t want to sit at home Our school has and then I have this workbook available on our website, astral projection, the out of body experience. To me, these are very real, they’re not dreams. But now lucid dreams. They’re legitimate out of body experiences. And if you’ve never had one, it’s really I mean, there’s there’s no way to get into it. Tonight, we’ll do an entire Monday night class on this in the future as we’ve launched these again. And I’m always happy to share with everybody what out of body experiences are like if there’s anything that helps you to know you are a spiritual being. This is certainly one of the experiences that we’ll cover that in a future Monday night class. During this time, it’s amazing to start doing this kind of work Life Mastery and manifesting prosperity work. Again, for people I know part of this school. This stuff is available on our website, but it’s also just part of our school’s curriculum. If you’re not using your mind right now, to start to create a rock in your future, you’re missing an amazing opportunity, which again, we’ll talk about this I’ll stay home water. It’s honestly an amazing time for those of us who are using the power of our mind to make a better world to get a monk in a good place while you have lots of time to meditate. Now, we’ll do a course in miracles class at least once during these Monday night classes as we’re reading in stating them and I’ll talk a little bit about tonight of A Course in Miracles. Number two

 

Matthew Brownstein  15:00

And some of its themes that are relevant right now with what’s going on in the world. also the author of two different books, but two of them are on this page is sacred geometry meditation. The meditation system will do a Monday night class in the future as I start scheduling them then full on sacred geometry, and just how powerful that can be. You’ll see a lot of those glyphs in our current marketing. In fact, it’s kind of always been in our marketing, but our marketing team has finally figured out a beautiful sacred geometry so you see it more and more in our schools. Graphics will cover some you’ll get philosophy and psychology that has a lot to do with open heart teachings. But honestly, I was never my religion, philosophy studies, a huge fan of Western psychology. When I learned about Eastern psychology, Eastern mysticism, it became really clear there’s a lot out there that’s so valuable. And so here is a hypnotherapy school. This graphic says because we are way more than hypnotherapy training. You’ll see behind the person standing there is a image of a person in meditation, which a nice sacred geometrical images. And we’ll get into that tonight in a word can deep meditation really do for you as a tool to help you and help the world right now, we’ll cover some Zen Buddhism and Taoism and this again related tonight’s topic, the Bodhisattva vow and interpersonal hypnotherapy, just so everybody knows there are some classes posted on the link below. It’s in our conscious community section. So once you find out the recording for the past classes of this Monday night, you’ll see the most current two different marketing videos on helping our graduates to succeed. So if you’re in graduate school, you’re working to build your practice if you haven’t watched those videos, yet truly priceless information. And so absolutely check those out. And that is our final slide. And this is a new graphic from a marketing team compassionate service to all beings until all beings are free from suffering, which basically is the Bodhisattva ideal, or the Bodhisattva vow. So we’re going to go into tonight’s topic, and at any time, just feel free to use the chat pod. So let’s talk about bodies happens. In case you don’t know that word. You guys our bodies have this body SAP. Let me not even define it yet. I’ll tell you a story, a story that a lot of you probably know, about 2500 years ago now was about 500 bc in that timeframe. 600 BC, a man named named Siddhartha Gautama live, and he became known as the present day Buddha. So most people who understand who is know who is the Buddha, that’s the man named Siddhartha Gautama, not the big fat galley Buddha You see, and a lot of Chinese restaurants for those of you who really don’t know anything.

 

Matthew Brownstein  17:46

Buddha was a man who was brought on most likely into royalty into probably a prince type existence. And his father as the story goes, the king. At this point, he left hurting he realised that astrologers and other you might say, soothsayers that whatever, predicted that Buddha was going to be a really great being, he would have to be a great king, or he would renounce the world and become a monk, and be a great religious leader. The King didn’t want that for his son to be a religious leader, he want him to be a great king. So supposedly, he sheltered him from everything that was uncomfortable birth, sickness, old age and death, the Buddha wasn’t allowed to see but eventually he did see the phenomenon especially when I left the kingdom of the palace. As the story goes, I’m seeing sickness and seeing suffering. And right now that’s the this topic is, I don’t want to say more relevant than ever, in human history, but in our lifetimes, it’s probably more relevant than ever, right? I don’t need to tell everybody what’s happening right now in the world and how there’s a lot of sickness and suffering and death, right. So that’s right in our faces and it was right in Buddha’s face. No, Buddha left his ability to become a king he renounced to everything including his entire family. And when it became a monk, he renounced his princely clothing. He took on the robes that was called a Hindu saying yes, this is happening MDS and ask the Hindu holy person so while wearing monks robes, Buddha is basically meditating, our days and days and days, hours and hours, just everyday doing what are called, you might say, Hindu or semiotics, aesthetic practices, practices involving really intense mortification of the flesh denying oneself all the pleasures of life, and what it was working to do is to find a way to relieve all human suffering, all suffering for all sentient beings. After the short story of this after six years of intense practice, you realise it’s really extremely this once into work and he didn’t he never reached his goals. No matter how deep his meditations went, no matter how much Blessed he could feel. He realised he still had suffering, and there were certainly still suffering and the

 

Matthew Brownstein  20:00

So the story goes that he sat under the Bodhi tree for about six months. And he had left his kingdom, his princely life at the age of I believe 29. And then he was officially in like in after about six years. So by the age of 35, that was relatively young man, he came voice, the enlightened sitting under the Bodhi tree. Now, the idea why this story is so relevant right now is because in Buddhism, the earlier schools were all about achieving something called Nirvana. This isn’t necessarily new to the Indian continent, right? In Hinduism, they knew about meditative yogic disciplines for 1000s of years before the Buddha. And the whole idea is to escape this cycle of samsara, the cycle of birth and death. So that there’s and that you could say is happening over lifetimes. Why don’t you just say it’s happening day after day, right? Every day, there’s human suffering, and it just keeps going on and on and on again. So in that model of trying to escape, and that’s a key word here, escape samsara, or get out of this cycle of suffering, the cycle of birth and death. It was to achieve nirvana or another Sanskrit would be Moksha, or liberation. When the Buddha attained, that he didn’t to actually just ascend up into heaven, and not be part of this world anymore. He stayed in, he taught until he was about I believe, 79 years old. So he spent 40 plus years teaching the Dharma teaching the way teaching a path that will relieve suffering. But inherent in a lot of that was this idea that you will do intense spiritual practice, you will achieve enlightenment. And you’ll be done with this planet, you can ascend, you can transcend, you can leave. That’s it.

 

Matthew Brownstein  21:56

Eventually, in Buddhism, there are two schools of thought that came about one was called the Mahayana. And the other is called the hinayana. Essentially, the Maha Yanis that came up with these times, because my honour refers to the greater vehicle in Indiana usually is the lesser vehicle. Now, obviously, that’s a bias by the caveat us who came up with that idea. And let’s say the Mahayana is the ones who are suppose they’ve been more evolved in their thinking. And it took a while for these teachings to come about I honestly, I think it took about 300 years, you know, hundreds of years before they started catching on to this idea that individual enlightenment is a meaningless concept. The idea that one person can sit in meditation, achieve, which we can talk about tonight, deep meditative states called sumati Mergent, at absolute bliss consciousness, but you can do which I can do, which I can guide you to do in my classes, and we’re going to do that. We’re going to move into Samadhi states and we do that in our schools, training. Everything you guys think to hypnotherapy school, and it is a really good one, to be honest, but it’s a funnel guiding you through hypnotherapy, eventually into clinical hypnotherapy, which goes into some guided metaphysical teachings, and then eventually into transpersonal hypnotherapy, which helps to light you up about who you are as a spiritual being and all the cool implications that go with that, which we can find through altered states like hypnosis. Yeah, once you go deep enough into the transpersonal teachings, we eventually get into the deep meditative teachings on Samadhi. The idea in this deep yogic and even Buddhist sense of how to meditate is if you can reach a state of Samadhi. A state of Shinya, which is a word in Sanskrit that refers to empty or emptiness. But if you say something’s empty, to say, I’m the one that in Buddhism and things like Course in Miracles or yogic philosophy, and almost every tradition, Penny I look at it, empty is empty of ego mpms separate itself. So the Maha Yanis who are meditating eventually realise, you can go as deep as you can go, but people are still suffering. Animals are still suffering sentient beings, those who feel are still suffering. Think getting out of school and in a very basic understanding was meditate the way Buddha did achieve your own personal salvation and you’re done you’re free to tell her well we don’t understand this in you know, light metaphorical language is more in the Judeo Christian model that you have physical death occur and us spirit you float up into the clouds up there with us at St. Peter, I think because at the gates and you say, Alright, I graduated, I’m done. Whatever that means, you know, whatever model but in St. Peter says, Yeah, you did great. Come on in. And you go into heaven, and that’s it. And you forget about everybody else was on the planet. Right then now they’re suffering down. That is you graduated to heaven.

 

Matthew Brownstein  25:00

There’s people on the hill, you’re going to heaven. That’s the very basic understanding of what it means to have individual salvation, the Mahayana, not just philosophically, intellectually, but their their own. You know, years and years of meditation, it got to the place where they realise, not only are they still suffering, they’re still subject to all sorts of human agonies. Right, they can still get sick, they can still have emotions, they can still lose loved ones and feel pain. So no matter how deep they went into, we’ll call it Samadhi, than the deepest possible meditative states, with no ego in the very deepest state of Samadhi. There’s no individual ego, but your body doesn’t die. Nor do you even if you learn how to have out of body experiences, which I can teach you how to do, you still leave your body. And then you come back, and everybody to the Supreme Court and had a bad experience, including near death experiences, I’ve done that, I if you leave for good, you don’t come back. We don’t get to talk to you in that same way. But when you do come back to your body through meditation or out of body experiences, or near death experience, you do come back and you realise, wow, I still have decades left on this planet. And even though you may be self realised, now you may have ascended to the top of the mountain, you might know what the deepest Samadhi states are and the highest cosmic conscious mystical experiences, you still come back that so the Bodhisattva vow is it now. And it comes about, again through the Mahayana Buddhist traditions where they said, You know what, the idea of individual salvation is really meaningless. Until all beings are free from suffering. I’m never free from suffering I’ve never done and if we ever as a human species got that idea. It’s now isn’t it right? We’re all being asked to stay at home. We’re all realising this, what the hashtag alone together now, and they’re talking about how we’re all in this together. The Bodhisattva vow is the idea that we’re all in this together. So it’s a horrible time, right? There’s enormous amounts of pain and sickness and death and loss. And that’s real. It’s, you know, if it hasn’t hit you yet. Last time, I checked a 1.2 million people who had Coronavirus COVID-19 over 70,000 people at least I was like when I checked this morning that had died. I live in California in the mountains now. And there’s about 10,000 people live in my town, another 10,000 town next to us, and 20,000 Hanover that’s like as if the entire top of this mountain where I live, but everybody just died. And then

 

Matthew Brownstein  27:42

if you just start to grasp the people that is it, that’s it’s a serious wake up call. So now what’s happening? were being asked to stay at home everybody can but a lot of us who are hypnotherapist like massage therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturist, hairstylist, I don’t know what to do about my haircut.

 

Matthew Brownstein  28:01

gone to the barber now either. So not only all these people are employed, right, which is another huge loss that’s occurring. But a lot of us who are caregivers are being asked to stay at home. And to me as a family, you know, I can I wear a suit and whatnot. I’m a mom. You know, my head would be shaved, if that was socially appropriate. And I wouldn’t be living in a monastery if that were something I was dynamically meant to do. But I keep being led to be in the world. Yeah. So I’ve accepted that. But being a yogi being a monk at heart, I live alone in the mountains now, the primary place where I live, and I do spend hours a day meditating. Now, I say stay at home and like, wow, honestly, that’s really easy for a long to do. Let me say if you put a Westerner in solitary confinement, you will go insane but if you put an Easterner in solitary confinement, you will come in and

 

Matthew Brownstein  28:56

so the question is, how are we as hypnotherapists or as caregivers as healers, as anybody I imagine everybody here tonight or watching this recording, you have a good hope you care about helping the world. So I feel inspired to talk with us tonight and guide us in some meditations about what it means to be in an awakened state what it means to go into solitary confinement or into kind of a monastic setting or living in a cave or literally and figuratively, going to the top of a mountain and meditating for hours doing in one inspire everybody tonight who’s interested to really consider something called sadhana seven man’s spiritual practice or sometimes translated as spiritual discipline. Without hypnotherapy school and all these related teachings. We had teachers we have phenomenal teachers on staff and bring on board for some of these Monday night classes. We can teach you so much about altered states meditation, healing your mind healing the body spiritual awareness, psychic and intuitive abilities.

 

Matthew Brownstein  30:00

Long Distance healing I mean, we can talk about what is the place of spiritual mental emotional healing when it comes to COVID-19 because no hypnotherapy as far as I know, you know, saying, Oh yeah, I know how to cure that, right? We have a different lace in the world’s healing, when it comes to what we can offer. So sadhana being a spiritual discipline is very much what the Buddha did. And if somebody says to a spiritual aspirant, stay at home, okay? They mean meditate more, you mean merge into the bliss of my true self more, take more time to cultivate inner peace? I open my heart to more love is more intimate with who I am in the fact that there is human suffering and what does that really mean? selling our limpid is at a monastery, and I’m very immersed in Zen philosophy. And when you meditate in a Zen practice as admin sittings, then simply it’s just meditating in a Zen fashion. But most Zen practitioners, I like to call it meditation, your sittings in walking zen, talking, zen, eating zen, every moment, zen, when you’re just sitting, we go into that very deep space of being very present very here. Now, in zen, it’s not just sitting to relax, or sitting to calm your heart or sitting to work, your emotions, it’s a matter of life and death. But I heard that in my early 20s, in intense Zen practice, this is a matter of life and death. Now, I was like, why why would me sitting in meditation, being about life and death. But when you understand the body SAP of that is the essence of all these teachings, then you start saying, well, maybe being a monk, maybe being a meditator, being a yogi being somebody, like, whatever you guys call yourself, you know, maybe you don’t call yourself anything, which is great. But I’m sure a lot of you are here tonight, you know, part of our school very interested in me healing in the mind. So you have your own role in this kind of thing. I believe that’s why we’re having this discussion or teaching, then I don’t know if it becomes a matter of life and death, there’s a way to understand the importance of the deep meditative type teachings and spiritual teachings in all the world’s wisdom traditions. In zen, there’s a story of two nuns who are sitting in stone. And the first man says to the second, how do you sell and she says, oh, when I put the needle in, I breathe in. When I put the needle out, I breathe out. The second and I know ask the question, so how long I’ve been practising Zen. He said, Oh, 20 years, to 20 years. And that’s still how you sell. And the first nun said, Well, I had you. So he said, when I put the needle in, I’m saving all sentient beings. But I put the needle out in sustaining universes, something like that. I don’t remember the exact answer. But it was like a glorious enhancer, about every breath is my way, every mindful breath is my way of saving all sentient beings. So the Bodhisattva vow, which I’m not saying you have to take, but I do joke that all of our graduates are Bodhisattvas. And that’s simply stated, someone who’s dedicated their life to relieving suffering. But it’s a little bit deeper than that. Because the voting staff is technically somebody who’s highly self realised highly enlightened, hasn’t necessarily made it to the very final stage yet, but it’s happening even care about whatever that final stage is, doesn’t matter. Because he’s saying, I see a problem right now, sentient beings are suffering there is suffering when the Buddha was enlightened one of his first lectures, maybe not his very first, but you know, his first real documented lecture was the one noble truths. And the first noble truth is the truth of suffering, there is suffering. A lot of people don’t like that. So don’t get into Buddhism, because it is our Buddha said life is suffering that’s so pessimistic. Believe it just opened his eyes when he was awakened. They said, What happened to you? And he said, I woke up, it says, what does it mean to be Buddha is that I’m just awake. I’m just aware. And that’s so profound. And I hope to guide you in meditations tonight, that will move us more into that state of being awake, being clear, being present being now is again the month that none. So breathing in, breathing out, but realising every breath, every needle is saving all sentient beings, because that’s what about a stuff that does, it’s a full time job, even if I ask you to sit at home, you’re still doing deep spiritual practice. You know, like, a lot of us have gone through the hypnotherapy training. We have our own unique trainings and teachings that we follow. This is what we’ve trained for. Right? This is that moment where I’m going to say enter person, I have not the habit. So it has to culminate all the knowledge and wisdom, maybe going to retreat for a little while because we’re asked to do that which is a good thing, and then launch that in the most amazing way. Because we’ve been training for this our whole life. So the buddy Sappho that Oh,

 

Matthew Brownstein  35:00

says sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. You don’t have to be gloriously enlightened. You don’t have to achieve what Buddha did under the poetry in Sanskrit that’s called 100 Tara sagnac sam Bodhi complete planets out awakening as high as you can go in the midst of all teachings, okay? sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. But to do that, I only have to be healed healers ourselves. So I said, I’d acknowledge a bit of course, in miracles tonight, you might be relieved that of the I want to talk too much about what A Course in Miracles is. Tonight, we can do a future class and that there’s 365 lessons in A Course in Miracles, basically, one for each day, and one of the lessons says, need do nothing. Now keep in mind, this isn’t a course on miracles, miracles meant to heal the mind to basically heal everything, miracles that are rooted in forgiveness that are rooted in love, that are really made for what’s called the atonement, the add one within the collective freedom from all suffer, you could say, when all beings are free of suffering, that’s the atonement, that’s the one month here requires everybody do their part, because in the Course of Miracles as well, salvation is not an individual process. It happens for all of us. And again, this all in it together theme, of course, in miracles teaches that we all grow up together, we don’t go at all right, you can list down in meditation, and not be aware, they have the intimacy of all things if you go into deep meditation, and then you just turn on the news. And you hear about how many people have just died a very slow info death by you know, not to be too morbid tonight, but to be real. dying of COVID-19 is like this horrible, painful drowning experience. I don’t know exactly. But I’ve heard enough to say, you don’t want that. So again, stay at home. So person medical says the idea I need you enough. At that time I save all sentient beings. So when I first heard the Bodhisattva vow, I was like, No, that’s really intimidating. I’m gonna I’m supposed to I’m asked you as something is like, there’s kind of a should in deep spiritual literature, about not the rampant shoulds here. But you know, this like idea, this highly recommended idea that you say, I’m going to save all sentient beings. That sounds like a lot of work. And I didn’t take the vow for a long time. So I didn’t understand it. And when you do take the vow, like really in a monastic setting, it’s a serious thing. Right? You will spend seven years of intense spiritual practice. And then you just like in the monastery, it’s like seven days of isolation meditating on that now you’re taken as taken publicly. And you mean it. You say there’s four levels to the battle, not levels, but what aspects of it and the first one that travelled in tonight sanchin beings are numberless meaning beings who can feel are numberless. I vow to save them all. It is impossible that you can’t ever achieve it. But you must, because we’re all in it together. And again, that’s not just a new thing. They’re saying on the news. That is a intrinsic deep metaphysical principle that you do not ever achieve liberation just by yourself because there is no yourself. There’s no individually you there’s a big sea of atoms doing this thing called life, right? this thing called evolutions, they call creature, whatever you want to call it. It’s happening. And however you want to add students, of course, email me and say, Well, what is your take on what’s going on? Now? I my honest responses, you know, there’s probably a lot of spiritual answers going around right now about

 

Matthew Brownstein  38:40

that, you know, like, I’m trying to give us consolation for why we have COVID-19 right in the olden days of religion and would have been some kind of moral problem, right? We must have seen we must have done something wrong in them. So I don’t know. I don’t know that right. There’s no scientific proof that we all stand and therefore it’s happening when angels are doing this to try to bless us to help us come back to Hey, don’t know. Right? Why are you know, it’s a karmic, I don’t know, if you’re really honest. You don’t know why this is happening. Nobody’s ever though. Who’s awake, who’s clear who sees and of course, in miracles, one of the lessons is above all else I want to see. I saw a bumper sticker wanted said, if you’re not appalled, you’re not looking. And I don’t mean apart from its quoting the bumper sticker. But I mean, if this doesn’t move you to intense compassion, you’re just not lucky. When you meditate, when you got when you call it deep hypnosis, but my experience of meditation is it goes deeper than most of the hypnosis teaches. Hypnosis is a really nice way to learn to get and we’ll do a little bit of a nice way to get centred and clear, but down the rabbit hole does go a lot deeper. All I can say is no matter how deep you go down that rabbit hole, you always come back to the here and now in your human body with human body having this human experience realising

 

Matthew Brownstein  40:00

sentient beings are numberless. And they’re suffering. So when Buddha said life is suffering, he’s just saying kind of like a de, they’re suffering. And it’s not something to laugh about, really. It’s just their suffering. And then he said there’s a cause of suffering. There’s a way to eliminate the cause of suffering, and he gave a way to do it. There’s many ways to do it. But I’m encouraging those of us who are interested in this now is to plunge into those kinds of teachings right to utilise all your spiritual hypnotherapy, NLP life coaching, whatever resources you have, and it’s like gathering our energy right now until we go out there and mess and I know there’s a lot of online hypnotherapy going on. Now, personally, I haven’t given a stance on that yet, from our association, I’m still kind of feeling out the waters, about what is our take about online sessions. But honestly, part of why we had to cancel the conference, of course, was COVID-19. But why we’re not doing it online, like I said earlier, is the connection for all of us to come together in person to hug each other, to support each other. Interpersonal hypnotherapy was always rooted in two people sitting down in the same room. And in my Sutras, on healing and enlightenment book and in the model of interpersonal hypnotherapy. It’s ideally you being in this the Course of Miracles turned life healed healer, somebody who understands I need do nothing, I can be perfectly present in the moment. And I’m asking to do that now kind of meditate with me now as we’re having this discussion be really present right now. And when you sit down in front of your client who is suffering, you are so incredibly empowered with the teachings We have to do something wonderful for them. So I’m not saying that we is interpersonal hypnotherapist in the school. Theatre formerly tape buddy Safa, vous it’s a very deep personal thing that you might consider doing. But if anything, I hope this beginning talk and we got some meditations here and open to q&a, we definitely look at the chat pod invite you to use the chat pod in a moment to go through some meditations and really help us to be something that we embody. And one of the medications I’ll guide you on tonight, which some of you may have done with me before I’m sure a lot of you have no it’s a meditation that comes out of the NLP tradition neuro linguistic programming called the healing states of the masters. I’ve modified that lab, I’ve written about it in my book, interpersonal hypnotherapy, and in many ways, a lot of medications we do and can do even tonight, our journeys up to the top of the mountain, which is kind of metaphorical for transcending the whole human experience right on the top of the mountain, everybody down there might be suffering, but it’s okay. You know, I literally live on the top. Now, when I go down, like literally down from the mountain, I am aware of just how much suffering is out there. How much poverty is there much sickness is that violence? Is there? No, again, like we try to be all rosy and peachy about things in a school like this. But the truth is that I suffering and it’s still there. And what else can you do except find out who you truly are like the Enlightenment teachings are to know who we truly are. And that does take an inner journey in the book conversation with God, the lion is if you don’t go with him, if you go without, if you don’t go deep inside of yourself and find the peace and the joy, the love that bless this experience of oneness inside your own being. You’re missing something huge, and a big part of and then you don’t have that to give. So we teach question miracles idea, we teach what we are we teach what we are if you’re sick, you teach sickness. And so like right now, thank god yeah, I’m not sick. But I’m aware that other people are, that makes me want to be of service right now. I’m financially secure, financially free. A lot of people are not right now. That makes me want to be of service, I get to sit at home in a beautiful home in the woods in the mountains. A lot of people aren’t having that. It makes me want to help those who are homeless than those who are not as privileged. I get that shows. I’m encouraging guys to exercise now that you’re at home, a great care your body get in great shape, get in better shape that will be for a lot of people or not. But when you are you feel motivated to help others to get in shape. A lot of what we teach in the school is the Life Mastery course. It’s a major part of what I do with this go on I introduced in that PowerPoint. It helps you to find success in every aspect of your life. So spiritually, are you really fulfilled? Do you have that to give to others, mentally, emotionally really healthy as your heart open. Like I said, we’ll do one of these Monday night classes on opening the heart and clearing emotional blocks. This is a chance for us and I’m honoured to be the one who’s guiding us to do these classes to help everybody. I’m talking to you.

 

Matthew Brownstein  45:00

watch these videos to be spiritually clear, spiritually, really, really turned on and connected. But however you see that but as Abraham Hicks tuned in, tapped in plugged into whatever she says, Abraham says that tapped in turned on to be in that state, like most of the time consistently there most of the time because if not, you’re teaching something else. mentally emotionally healthy again, most people know how to deal with their emotions, they suppress their emotions, they block their hearts, they cause a lot of psychosomatic illness. We, as interpersonal hypnotherapist have the way to resolve that. And we have the ability to get people spiritually mentally emotionally aligned, which is the greatest that we can do for our physical health. And then we have all the tools and techniques, hypnotic programming, neuro linguistic programming, whatever, motivate us to take great care of our bodies. So to exercise to get in better shape than ever been in your whole life. I’m doing p90x, you can look into it. It’s awesome. It’s intense. It’s not for everybody. It’s like an hour a day of really intense every kind of fitness you can get into. So I’m doing that now that I’m stuck at home, eating impeccably drinking a whole lot. So that’s being spiritually mentally emotionally alive. Then career and finances, even though it’s a challenging time with our Life Mastery course and manifesting prosperity course, which you know, available for our students. It’s available on our website, you can dive into those teachings and start to get your mind in the right place, create an awesome life. And, you know, quantum physics teaches us there aren’t particles out there that waves out there. There’s probabilities out there. I don’t know what’s out there. It’s just a big probability field. It’s a field of infinite possibility or probability. I can’t guarantee I thought 2020 is gonna be awesome. But it doesn’t matter when we set goals. It was no unrealistic goal, only unrealistic timeframes, sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all. Well, when’s that gonna happen? I don’t know that I’m not going to stop until it’s done. I know, if we set a goal 2020 all beings are free of suffering. If it doesn’t occur, it’s not gonna occur. Then we just move the gold the date forward, right? So if your goals for 2020 kind of got bashed, then we set up for 2021 but we never stop because what else you’re gonna do, right? You’re either evolving and improving or becoming a tadpole. Again, you know, it evolving, going back into her. Right? There’s either yin and yang to harmonise with it get to a place where they balance out again, or death occurs. Right and that’s just Taoist philosophy. Yin and Yang, male female, your homeostasis your harmony with the environment must occur or death occurs. And we’re seeing that now if you can’t maintain homeostasis, the environment if your immune system can keep up with what’s going on, you know, this is in some way a massive metaphysical thing people are dying all around us is their systems. I’m strong enough to keep up with that. Again, one of the best things we as interpersonal hypnotherapist can do is be of healers be with a strong healthy immune and digestive system. Because again, when you’re not again, the centre schools, teachings and against anatomy, physiology, basic stuff, when you get stuck in fight or flight mode, when you’re stressed when you’re afraid when you’re anxious with a lot of people on right now, to have your bodily systems must get compromised. So you can go into that fight or flight mode. The two systems that compromise when you get stressed your immune system and your digestive system, of course in miracles that teaching is peace is health, peace is health, how many people are at peace right now. So next week, my class will be peace under all circumstances. I’ll make my book available. I had to say it verbally because I have not doing it. But now I’m giving you my words I’ll do it. I’ll take my book, the audio book a piece under all circumstances but on youtube for free and I’ll put the meditations there as well. And I encourage you to listen to them and they work I’m not saying I’m at peace all the time. But those of you know me I’m pretty consistent with this stuff. But anyway even if I’m not there I just practice well teachings that I’ve learned over the years and get back to a state of peace so peace is health. I was saying and then I move on you know Life Mastery course we have major levels of our being we work to make successful spirituality. To me that’s a high priority, the highest priority, mental emotional health. Again, we are really powerful because in the heart teachings for that other yogic psychology teachings in that great hypnotherapy teachings, and then physical health, financial freedom, career and financial health, relationship health, let me encourage you by during this time, the model there is only loving and harmonious relationships. And none of us here doing anything that’s gonna be hurtful to anybody in any way. And that’s really the essence of our school. Again, it’s loving services, compassionate service. What this relates to all of our relationships, right? So your significant other, your family, your friends, and anybody can be of service to during this time. Want to feel that one too.

 

Matthew Brownstein  50:00

You can feel successful in the relationship category. And then other categories like your home, your education, your transportation, travel, vacation, we want to be successful as categories. But when one has to stay home, why not nourish the spiritual, the mental, the emotional, the physical health, they created finances, even if you’re just laying the foundation for future success, and your relationships. So those are the top five. So with that said, I’m going to go the chat pod. I said at least one question there went up and up anybody else who wants to type ask questions? And then again, a few meditations I’m not sure how long connects class will be I decided not to determine that just to see how it goes organically. So one of our attendees said it this is before I’m not sure if I know exactly what you’re saying. Is it like a Bible parable? A command to save but you know, she said not totally possible except maybe with help everyone doing their part to help get you I’m not sure which biblical Hannibal you might be referring to Yeah, I’m a student of world religion. I my main thing in college even though you can make a great living with this, I think on that path is I’m a religious scholar. You know, I still to this day, study this stuff in depth. And again, every tradition matches one fell. All I can say is if you study the deep Judeo Christian Islamic teachings, they’re all about service to others and their knowledge. So no biblical you just a little bit again, just pulling from many traditions tonight in the Bible, in Genesis, there was a problem that occurred in the beginning, Adam and Eve did something not so good, I guess. And they went along with guilt trip, and there’s been a lot of suffering ever since. And of course, in miracles it says there has never been a collective awakening. Since that time everybody fell asleep like it needed to literally Bible a deep sleep fell upon them. And nowhere is it written of a collective wake awakening for all beings. Yet, the idea of awakening is the means of enlightenment, the means of the atonement, that means that the app

 

Matthew Brownstein  52:08

is I believe what we’re all asked to do every spiritual religious tradition and go on and on about the deep mystical branches of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Taoism, you get into Sufism, Zen Buddhism, Kabbalah, all these teachings all speak about knowing who you truly are. So again, I’ll lead us in some meditations tonight that are really essentially designed that idea of awakening. And if you do read my book, the sutras on healing and enlightenment, it’s not just about healing the mind to heal the body to heal the world. It’s about the Enlightenment process, which is a very deep psychological interview, inner process, I don’t have a better word for that when measurable legitimate, you know, very real shifts occur, where you’re not who you are before you started. So they say, That’s not to begin that journey at all. But once began, that or finish and I know many ways I’m preaching to the choir here about people who are on a spiritual path, who realise it’s not just about your own personal liberation here. There are a lot of sentient beings so again, what is happening is that all sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them All right, thank you that was from Amanda talking about the role of the buddy Safa Yeah, not sure which biblical parable again there but thank you for engaging with me. I would just say even though the word buddy Safa or the word like saints, sages, the Christ, you know these beings, they are awakened to who they truly were, and their lives have always become service to others, even the monks who are sitting alone in Himalayan caves right now. And believe me, they exist. I’ve meditated with them like that real. There are monks in the Himalayas meditating right now, you’ll never know who they are, but they are blessing this world. Here’s one teaching to go into that might be helpful on the stay at home order and deep spirituality in the yoga sutras of Patanjali, which I like to do a whole class on at least an aspect of it. It’s a pretty deep book that could take many Monday night classes, but in the oven stitches up at times, really, and we have what’s called a Shang yoga, you hear it in the West pronouncing Ashtanga Yoga. The A’s are a little extra when they transliterated in the West, so Stein yield

 

Matthew Brownstein  54:19

means the eight limbs or eight branches of yoga practice this stuff. The Buddha was practising way back when the yoga sutras officially were written down until about 200 ad, but it was around five to 600 BC, however, those yoga teachings were there and that’s what he was practising. Alright, so in the other Sutras, we have the eight limbs and the third limb. A lot of you know this word is called Asana, but more properly pronounce Austin. Austin means seat, or posture, is when we simply sit down, don’t move, and just meditate. So I hope those of you who are still here and grooving on this class is kind of

 

Matthew Brownstein  55:00

form of a meditation at least guiding you into deeper states as well progress. Just sitting being right here now like looking into my eyes, if that was kind of hypnotic, right? Look into my eyes. But seriously be with me right here now just being fully present with each other letting letting go other paths, letting go the future, you’re just right here. Whatever position your body is in, just become aware of that right now. I am not sitting in a lotus position like I would if I was in formal deep meditation is sitting in my office chair talking to you, but I’m aware of my body posture, that’s going to happen. So the asanas you hear about in yogic practice are all the stretches. But all those stretches the ancient Yogi’s knew women to keep you healthy and strong, give you balance, get you relaxed. But all of that was designed to get you to sit for a long period of time in meditation. So when you come into the present moment, you take this seat, the posture of assuming the position is assuming the position of meditation, you just sit. There’s a lot of things that are happening when you’re just sitting, you’re not lying, you’re not stealing, you’re not killing, you’re not misusing your sexuality. You’re not doing things that harm other people. So just sitting when you have a month just sitting in a cave, like what did they ask us to do when the most horrible thing ever happened, you know, in our lifetime, right. And I think COVID-19 is arguably one of most horrible things that ever happened, certainly our lifetimes, and what they ask us to do, stay home and do nothing. That is the deepest spiritual teaching Course in Miracles again, I need to do nothing. In the yoga sutras of Patanjali. The way you achieve enlightenment, one of the eight ways is sit there and do nothing. In zen, when you practice the deepest teachings of Zen practice as them, the deepest meditative teachings, it’s the teaching is called shaken ties, and she can pass him it’s just sitting and to just sit is the enlightened state, you don’t achieve enlightenment. You are Buddha right now. You are awareness right now. You are consciousness right now. You are spirit right now. You are peace, love, bliss, joy, pure power, pure potentiality. Right now, again, I like to say if anybody tells you otherwise, they just haven’t gone on that journey. You are pure peace right now. In all of your powers right here now. And if you’re just listening to my words, all of you is here right now. And you are that being in Hinduism. They say top pharmacy, thou are that in Sufism, the great mystic of a lodge. I’ve said this one a while. Oh, hello said when he realised who he was he declared on Oh hoc. And in Islam, you don’t say that? I know hoc means I am the truth. I am the supreme reality. You don’t say that in the Judeo Christian Islamic traditions on the surface, but you got other deeper mystical branches. They’re all saying the same thing. kamasi thou art that you are the part of God happening to you. And that makes you extremely powerful. Without like, in hypnosis, you narrow the field of attention, right? I say look into my

 

Matthew Brownstein  58:07

kind of stuff. I’m capturing your attention. I’m distracting you from anything else. Like we look right here. Not really doing it, but maybe I am.

 

Matthew Brownstein  58:17

There’s a kind of a conversational hypnosis idea. But why wouldn’t you want to be hypnotised into being happy? Or being joyful being free in the midst crate? having us here tonight much? When the state what’s called Jeevan Mukta de vida Look, the virginiana looked in deepinder yogic philosophy as a fully liberated being somebody who’s completely free. How can you teach that if you don’t have that, right? But by being fully present, you realise you are free, because you are student you are conscious, you are aware, and you are free to move into that state, which again is peace and peace is health, then we can teach it and we teach what we are. 

 

Corey Benschop  58:57

All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Illuminated Mind podcast. If you haven’t done so already, make sure you subscribe to our podcast because we release a new episode every week. And also please leave us a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us get found by more listeners just like you. Plus, we’d love to see your feedback! Let us know if there are any topics or ideas that you’d like us to cover on this show. Finally, if you’re interested in pursuing hypnotherapy as a career for yourself, make sure you head over to our website https://www.instituteofhypnotherapy.com. We’ve got a lot of free resources, our blog, and conscious community classes there that you can check out, and every couple of months we’re starting a new certification course as well. So check out all of that at our website https://www.instituteofhypnotherapy.com. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, choose happiness my friends!