B. Alan Wallace, 18 Nov 2010
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 and the practice of Shamatha. He gives clear advice on how not to make those powerful preliminary practices a quantitative practice just to cover a number of prerequisites in order to have access to other type of teachings and practices, by just becoming religious. So, for a western mind, it could be useful to practice Sutrayana first, because they are too a way of purifying obscurations and creating merit.
He suggests letting our faith increase so these preliminary too become meaningful and really transforming.
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