Session 55: Awareness of Awareness and Cutting Firewood

B. Alan Wallace, 18 Nov 2010

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 the practice, Alan invokes our Star Wars hero; “Be like Luke Skywalker going after the death star. May the force be with you…
… and the death star is TOAST.”

Other subjects include: the Dalai Lama and the book – The Good Heart, a great quote from physicist Anton Zeilinger, atheism, agnosticism, Stephen Hawking, and more. Listen for yourself. See for yourself.

Download (M4A / 22 MB)

Transcript

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

Discussion

Ask questions about this lecture on the Buddhism Stack Exchange or the Students of Alan Wallace Facebook Group. Please include this lecture’s URL when you post.