We started with a silent meditation with free choice on practicing one of the Shamatha practices. Then Alan gave some examples of the path of Shamatha. He joked that commenting on your daily meditation practice as being “bad” or “good” or having “highs and lows” is like the habit of coming home to a spouse and reporting on your day. Alan encouraged us not to measure and evaluate our practice in a hedonic way, but rather to think about what we can bring to our practice in terms of motivation, and...
Nov 18, 2010•34 min
We started with a silent meditation with free choice on practicing one or more of the Four Immeasurables. Then Alan gave a little bit of advice and encouragement to all the meditators about dealing in a healthy way with all kinds of obstacles that arises on continuous practice. After that there were 5 Q&A. The first one about the practice of the Four Immeasurables, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th about the three methods of shamatha that Alan has been guiding and the last one about controversial teacher...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 14 min
This evening we return to the practice of Immeasurable Equanimity, with some profound instructions drawn from Karma Chagme Rinpoche, a great Tibetan master and patriarch of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen lineages. Alan discusses the ways in which the Dharma we practice can be conditioned by our sense of personal identity, history and cultural context, and how achieving Shamatha and the Four Immeasurables allows us to free our Dharma practice from this limited context. He also explains the Four Great...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 33 min
In this session Alan made an analogy between the practice of visualizing a Buddha image in the first stages of shamatha and the clarity we can expect to have in the first stages of the practice of awareness of awareness. According to Tsongkhapa we should be satisfied with maintaining just enough contact of the image in the first stages. As we progress on the path of shamatha we develop greater clarity and in the final stages we can see the image as being tridimensional and as vivid as in a dream...
Nov 18, 2010•41 min
Alan explains that Equanimity is similar to the Serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. It’s not being indifferent. You remain calm. It’s a state cooled from the flames of Samsara, imperturbable. In Theravada Buddhism is a cultivated emotion. In the Mahayana tradition is an aspiration. Don’t judge people according to their appearances, because that’s where attachment and aversion come ...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 33 min
The point of awareness of awareness is NOT to prove that there’s no one who is aware because there is. Not finding any-specific-one who controls the attention and concluding that we don’t exist (and therefore no one else exists) is a nihilistic, not the Buddhist view. Unfortunately, it is exactly that close facsimile of the Madhyamika view that is most often picked up and allied with by the archetypical scientist materialist Alan likes to debate with. “We are just our brains. We are just the sum...
Nov 18, 2010•49 min
Alan reviews for us the process of cultivating empathetic joy. It is possible to find many rewards in this practice as he explores the unfolding of empathetic joy in its three flavors: Attending to the kindness shown to us by others, taking delight in one’s own virtue, and creating an aspiration for happiness for all sentient beings. You will especially enjoying listening to Alan’s own personal story of the way he discovered dharma near the end of the question and answer session.
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 29 min
If you want firewood, you can trim off all the leaves and branches and wait for the tree to die and fall over. OR you can cut the tree down at its base - at the root, and you have firewood now. Likewise for investigating the mind: you can go at it intellectually – using logic, forming hypotheses, picking off one idea after another or you can go for the root by way of direct observation, though direct experience of the mind at close range in the practice of awareness of awareness. Urging us on to...
Nov 18, 2010•54 min
Strong mental afflictions catch our attention. We do not notice good deeds as much as bad. This is especially true of the media. We need to make a conscious effort to have an antenna up for joy. In a single meditation session we can take delight in doing the practice well. Even if our mind wanders, we can bring it back joyfully. The meditation includes the Mahayana prayer: May we all never be parted from genuine happiness and the causes of happiness. Why couldn’t we? May we never be parted from ...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 29 min
Awareness of awareness is “the most profound practice” according to the Buddha, and he gave us this morning very meaningful advice on how to know we’re doing it correctly. You may wonder that if you’re doing such a profound practice, you should be getting profound results… But, nothing! This doubt comes from an expectation for deep results. How do you know if you are doing this practice of awareness of awareness correctly? You could ask the following questions: 1. Are you aware that you are awar...
Nov 18, 2010•53 min
Grasping the “real I” and “really mine” is at the root of suffering. How do we get rid of grasping? All of Dharma. After 8 weeks we may find that although our thoughts are still like a cascading waterfall of garbage, we don’t have to eat it any more. Even if we can’t stop it, we can cut our suffering by developing discerning mindfulness, by not reifying ourselves and our ruminations, and by not acting while afflicted by grasping. One sign of meditation progress is that our obsessive thoughts and...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 33 min
Alan starts the session with an explanation of mindfulness of breathing, saying that, with time and practice, there may be a moment where you do not detect the breath anymore, and you can no longer find any sensation. He recommended doing 2 things: relax more deeply as you are breathing out, and as you are doing so, attend sharply to pick up the sensation. Then, in the explanation of settling the mind, he said that the substrate is not a mere absence of thoughts. It is something that can be perc...
Nov 18, 2010•48 min
This evening Alan taught us more about the cultivation of compassion, but now going deeper, from the compassion for the blatant suffering of sentient beings to the compassion of the suffering of change which emerge from the 5 obscurations (attachment, malice, dullness, excitation and uncertainty) and he pointed out the unsatisfying nature of hedonism. Then he raised the questions: what is it dukha good for?; Can I make it meaningful? And the response is that dukha can be our best allied making u...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 36 min
Good Morning, This Mediation is settling the Mind in Its Natural State. Alan said that because he didn’t answer two questions last night he would answer them this morning. The first question was about the elements. The second question was about grasping. After the meditation, Alan said a couple of more sentences about the prerequisites before starting the practice of settling the Mind in Its Natural State. Darlene
Nov 18, 2010•43 min
This evening, as we return to the theme of Immeasurable Compassion, Alan offers an expansive and truly remarkable presentation of how the Buddhist approach to suffering runs directly against the grain of modernity’s approach to suffering, and finally how the bodhisattva’s response to suffering departs radically from that of a hinayana practitioner aspiring to the state of an arhat. Challenging, mind-expanding and deeply inspiring; one hour of Alan at his finest.
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 36 min
This can be a challenging practice. In today’s approach, drawing from the teachings of the Buddha to Bahia “In the seen let it just be the seen”, we applied it to the visual field, then the auditory, the tactile and finally to the mental. The main instruction for this practice is “without distraction and without grasping”. Distraction refers to the tendency to follow a chain of associations. For example, when we see an attribute of an object, like a color, we start superimposing concepts based o...
Nov 18, 2010•52 min
This afternoon Alan deepens into the subject of Loving-Kindness. He cites sources from the Mettā Sutta found in the Pali Canon; the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) written by Buddhaghosa , and, of course from the Buddha itself when he says we shouldn’t doubt the Four Immeasurables as explained in the Kalama Sutra. Explains that what we are cultivating an aspiration, that the object of this discursive meditation are all sentient beings. He then guides the meditation saying that we could ...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 11 min
This morning Alan raised the emotional issue of the warrior returning home from the front. Going down memory lane he recalled the various ways heroes have been greeted upon their return. Some were welcomed and accommodated with gratitude; others were left to paddle for themselves. And then he got to the point: how about those of us taking time from their lives to face the most noblest (and bloodless) of all battles – the one with our own afflictive emotions. How would we be received when the ret...
Nov 18, 2010•39 min
Alan reminds us that the practice of loving-kindness first begins with loving ourselves. As so often is the case in meditation practice, we often discover our own shortcomings rather than our assets. Being judgmental, feeling self-contempt and lack of worth leads us to further mental afflictions. He recommends that we attend to these faults (cravings, hatred, jealousy, pettiness, to name a few) and identify them as delusional obstructions to our own healing. The solution is to view these as mere...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 33 min
Alan discusses synergy this morning. In the “infirmary” this is experienced while one balances maintaining the initial state of clarity with deepening relaxation. With this practice alone one can dispel 95% of the troubles with meditation. In mindfulness of breathing with stability (focus on the sensations of the breath in the abdomen) discipline is introduced to strengthen stability and balanced with deepening relaxation and vividness. For those interested, today’s practice leads the way into f...
Nov 18, 2010•34 min
In the prelude to this afternoon’s meditation, Alan reminds us that mainstream society is in a frenzy to consume the earth. We are categorized as consumers and told to get spending to stimulate the economy. In the thrust of modernity, one may consider himself special if he meditates 20 minutes a day. Are we devoting our time to what we value? In the meditation we expand on the resources that are not earth depleting or competitive. We tap into the internal, boundless resources of our Buddha natur...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 25 min
We are starting for the 3rd time the cycle of meditations starting with the Infirmary, this wonderful practice to get grounded and enhance relaxation. In his opening 20-minute lecture, Alan talked this time about the parallelism between Shamatha and the 4 Immeasurables on how the former leads to realizing emptiness and the latter bodhichita. Both are the 2 “supernovas” on our way to enlightenment. He also shared in detail his point of view, according to the Geluk tradition, on Ngöndro Practices ...
Nov 18, 2010•47 min
Alan makes two important points about equanimity and balance. Alan’s first point is that equanimity is the balanced foundation needed to achieve Bodhicitta. Just as Shamatha provides the cognitive balance needed for Vipassana, equanimity provides the affective balance needed for Bodhicitta. Alan’s second point is that a balance between faith and intelligence is extremely critical. This sacred tension between faith and skepticism is part of our practice of equanimity. Alan leads us in a meditatio...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 32 min
Alan’s introduction was very interesting. He explained to us that, according to the teachings of Padmasambhava, this practice is designed to go straight to the nature of the phenomena of consciousness, “the space of awareness,” the relative space of the mind. He shared with us that years ago some scientists were trying to investigate and research yogis, and how these people practice Shamatha and Compassion. The scientists wanted to study only the brain, but the yogis refused to take part, becaus...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 4 min
This afternoon Alan delighted us with his lecture. He gave us advice in how to continue practicing after one has finished a retreat and has to go back to the usual activities of daily life. He questioned, how does special bonds of special relationships fit with the ideal of equanimity? And the answer to that is to take out the threads of attachment attending to the needs of the other person, deepening the sense of loving-kindness. Furthermore turning the hedonic concerns into eudemonic (genuine ...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 32 min
Good Morning to All Human Beings, This is the third morning for Awareness of Awareness Shamatha Meditation. Alan was speaking like a wrathful deity this morning. He is wrathful about the way some scientists (as well as the journalists who report on scientific studies) use words to describe the functions of computers and the brain. They use language that would suggest that neurons and computers are “smart” and can “communicate” and “detect” things, but at the same time disempower human beings by ...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 18 min
This afternoon we look at Empathetic Joy – the aspiration for all beings to never be parted from happiness and its causes – and explore what this means from a wisdom perspective. Ultimately we look at it from the perspective of ‘Path,’ and what it means for one’s life to become Dharma. Following the meditation, Alan answers questions related to the practices of settling the mind in its natural state and awareness of awareness, as well as some very practical guidance related to the practice of lu...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 30 min
In this session we practiced awareness of awareness. According to Padmasambhava, by doing this practice you may realize Rigpa or Pristine awareness. Alan talked about the differences between coarse impermanence and subtle impermanence. He referred to the individual stream of consciousness as one which is impermanent yet never terminates. Rigpa, however, is beyond change, it does not arise upon causes and conditions and it’s a dimension of awareness that transcends the concepts of permanence and ...
Nov 18, 2010•45 min
The third Immeasurable attends to actuality; it is not an aspiration like the first two: Loving-Kindness and Compassion. Empathetic Joy is rejoicing in the well-being of others. Isn’t that extraordinary…? Choosing to feel right! First, you sweep through your life and reflect on the kindness you received. You rejoice in their virtue. You delight in what brings meaning to life. Then you can raise the question how can I repay the kindness that I have received from the world? Then you can think of u...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 29 min
WoW! Alan was on a roll this morning. He went from discussing Shamatha and how to gain confidence in it (using awareness of awareness as an example), through the different ways of viewing the Universe according to Buddhist cosmology, only to end on demonstrating when practicing Shamatha may not be Dharma. So in brief: How do we gain confidence in our practice? - By cultivating it. Doing it and knowing when we are doing it correctly. How did the Universe originate? – Well, there’s the long-time a...
Nov 18, 2010•1 hr 1 min
