72 Apprehending the Clear Light of Deep Sleep

B. Alan Wallace, 02 Oct 2014

Alan started the teaching this evening by posing the question why we should venture into these practices of apprehending the clear light of deep sleep at all, when he repeats all the time that this is meant for people who have achieved shamatha and vipashyana. According to one advice he has received, one should spend around 75-80% of the day’s practice on something one is familiar with, that corresponds to the actual state of maturation one has reached, and from which results an observable effect in our daily life. But about 25% of the practice should be spent on what we are not quite ripe for at the moment, but which gives us a vision of where we are aiming to go. Then Alan emphasizes the importance of taking our body seriously, to give it a chance to calm down, to heal in our practice. This is often overlooked in all schools of Buddhism, while the Buddha himself found it important to first get his body back into balance again before he was determined to totally go for enlightenment. And to achieve this healing of our body he again recommends Mindfulness of Breathing, with having a special eye on the phase where the breaths become short, they can be either deep or shallow during that time, since this is the phase that is most soothing for the energies and for the body. During this phase we should be releasing deeply into our breath. After the silent meditation we went on with Padmasambhava’s Natural Liberation. During one meditation session of apprehending the clear light one should focus the awareness again at the heart, and without losing the sense of indivisibility of luminosity and emptiness just slip into deep dreamless sleep, and the clear light will be apprehended. For those who find this just too simple and who want to go for something more elaborate, he then recommends another meditation session where one apprehends the phases of dissolution of the elements, starting with earth dissolving into water etc. This same process happens during the dying process, so again this practice provides the ideal preparation for dying lucidly. Alan then draws a parallel of the end of this dissolution process, where air dissolves into the conditioned consciousness, and then the conditioned consciousness dissolves into the clear light, with the last phases of Settling the Mind, called absence of mindfulness and self-illuminating mindfulness. Questions: Q1: How does a dream arise out of rigpa?

Silent meditation cut out at 27:52 min

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