B. Alan Wallace, 12 Aug 2015
Alan introduces the meditation with a reminder of the benefits of the preliminary practices, namely building a sense of trust, the development of bodhicitta and enabling us to draw closer to the Dharmakaya to supplant our samsaric selves with something better, purer and non-reified.
The meditation is on observing the appearances in the space of the mind.
After the meditation, Alan expands further on Buddhist epistemology and in particular the dhatus of the six consciousnesses. Of the six consciousnesses only the mental consciousness domain is able to embue all other domains of consciousness. For example we can direct our mental consciousness to visualise a “Mickey Mouse” on top of a person’s head. However the visual consciousness, as other sense consciousnesses, is unable to direct any of the other domains of consciousness in this way. Alan explains that the domain of the mind is considered to be the Dharmadatu, in the same way that our conventional nature obscures ultimate nature but is also part of the ultimate truth.
Further, the substrate or alaya is a relative level of knowing that obscures the ultimate level and therefore has the same qualities of emptiness. Alan therefore advises that between meditation sessions we continue to cultivate stillness and view all appearances as arising from the Dharmadatu and dissolving back again.
Meditation starts at 13:28
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