B. Alan Wallace, 30 Aug 2014

Alan gives advice on the practice of meditation regarding what to do when the mind feels so cluttered and agitated and how to overcome negativity. He emphasizes the importance to not make a habit of frustration in one’s meditation practice. Alan comments that a disturbed mind is a symptom of unbalance and disturbance of the prana system. Alan strongly recommends to work with the supine position until we master it. He further comments on a technique to stop the chitchat. Further on, Alan elaborates on the approach we are taking from Padmasambhava to meditate first, and later on it comes the view. In the trajectory of shamatha, which is based on relaxation, stability and vividness, we increase brightness and approach the unmediated clarity and luminous of awareness of substrate consciousness. With this practice of shamatha we may break through to pristine awareness and lucidity. It becomes a radical shift in the way of viewing reality from a lucid and awakened state (rigpa). Further on, Alan elucidates the two ways of ascertaining pristine awareness by comparing it with the two ways of becoming lucid in a dream. Alan concludes the session stating that if one really wants to follow this spiritual path he encourages to move on gradually to shamatha based on a strong foundation on ethics, purifying the mind and gathering virtue.

Meditation starts at 07:41

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