Awareness of Awareness: Deconstructing the artificial problem of mind and matter by going down to the root from which both emerge

B. Alan Wallace, 18 May 2010

Today’s practice, the second out of the four Awareness of Awareness methods that we cover in our cycle, is a very deep penetrating practice, encroaching upon VIpassyana territory. Alan starts with an introduction on the practice and its implications, relating it to the short discourse by the Buddha to the wandering ascetic Bahiya.

After this sublime practice, the outro deals with the Buddhist middle way (warning about drawing false conclusions from this practice) and then with “I think, therefore I am” and its shortcomings, which include the reification of ourselves and of all objects (which gets us into tremendous knots and loops).

Here is the brief Bahiya sutta, with the invaluable instructions that the Buddha gave Bahiya:
http://bit.ly/aalIo8 [as Alan said, perhaps someone will read this and, not unlike popcorn, become free! if you become free, please send us an email! :) ]

And this sunset was captured by Sara here at the Mind Centre!

Download (M4A / 19 MB)

Transcript

This lecture does not have a text transcript. Please contact us if you’d like to volunteer to assist our transcription team.