Courses / Fall 2015 Stage of Generation, Shamatha, Vipashyana and Mahamudra /

02 Short Version of the Eight Week Retreat

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Fall 2015 Stage of Generation

B. Alan Wallace
30 Jul 2015 – 24 Sep 2015
Araluen Retreat Center, Queensland, Australia

This eight-week retreat will focus on stage of generation, shamatha, vipashyana and mahamudra.

Participants in this retreat should have a sound understanding of the Sutrayana teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and have experience in the practices of shamatha, the four applications of mindfulness, and the four immeasurables.

Please read the text, A Spacious Path to Freedom: Practical Instructions on the Union of Mahamudra and Atiyoga, by the great 17th-century master Karma Chagmé (from the chapter “The Stage of Generation” up through “Mahamudra”). The book can be purchased from SBI here.

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B. Alan Wallace, 31 Jul 2015

Alan starts with a question - is the traffic noise a fortunate or unfortunate circumstance? Ultimately for the Vidyadhara, whatever appearances arise are displays of pristine awareness.

Meditation is on awareness resting in its own place with 20% peripheral awareness of breathing.

After meditation, Alan talks about how to get from here to enlightenment. Resting in the awareness of being cognizant, is marking the spot. Awareness is a glowing ember that melts right down to the substrate consciousness revealing bliss, luminosity and non conceptuality. If you can rest there without grasping at any of those three, then you have a chance of cutting through to rigpa. It punctures the reified membrane of our consciousness. That is the short version of the eight week retreat for those who are gifted.

Questions: 1) When thoughts or memories come up, do we release them or stay with them? 2) It seems like awareness and awareness of awareness are different, is that correct? 3) Is there a correlation between chakras and awareness?

Meditation starts at 20:52

Course notes, other episodes and resources for this retreat are available here

The text for this retreat can be purchased via the SBI Store.

Finally, Please contribute to help us afford the audio equipment we rent to make these, and future podcasts freely available.

Download (MP3 / 41 MB)

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