B. Alan Wallace, 24 Aug 2015
Alan discusses the approach in the meditation chapter of Santideva’s A Guide to The Bodhisattva Way of Life which develops shamatha by boddhicitta. Meditating on the equality of self with others develops equal worthiness of all to be free from suffering, both self-directed and then extending outwards by opening the heart in all directions. Alan indicates that approaching shamata practice via this technique is another ingredient in the Dharma soup of our practice. In our Vajrayana practice involving the uncommon preliminaries of Guru yoga, of viewing our Vajra siblings similarly and then of extending this view to all sentient beings, we are taking fruition as the path. This recognises or brings the nature of Buddhahood into one’s own nature, thus releasing our grasping of self-identification.
Alan comments on developing perspective on who is one’s teacher/lama and a root guru. He then discusses breaking down the barriers in developing pure vision for oneself and towards fellow Sangha who all share the aspiration of developing virtue for the greater good. In developing the equality of oneself with others, there seems to be a barrier of inside and outside. To overcome such a barrier, Alan suggests we need to rotate our axis of perspective so as to view all other sentient beings from their perspective. In so doing, we exchange ourselves with others as both sentient and as pure beings, without reification. In doing this we come to understand Santideva who said suffering has no owner.
The guided meditation is on developing compassion for the suffering of all beings.
The meditation starts at 36:00.
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