B. Alan Wallace, 14 Sep 2015
Alan says the text’s next chapter 6 “Practice” may be over our heads as it assumes we have broken through to Rigpa. Our practices to date should have ‘softened up’ our experience of mind and the previous chapter on “Identification”, or pointing-out instructions, should make it easier to cut through. Alan describes the view from the awareness of a lucid dream state as a parallel to the view from Rigpa of the mind. However, we can generate a facsimile of viewing this conventional reality from Rigpa. For those who have had a taste of Rigpa, the question arises how to sustain it and deepen or purify the experience. The next chapter 6 “Practice” chapter is about that, and of course it is useful to know even if we’re not quite there. We can purify by the practice of alternating Shamatha and Vipashyana.
The guided meditation is on resting our awareness in the stillness, cognizance and luminosity of consciousness and observing the displays of Rigpa.
After the meditation, Alan says the practice dredges the psyche that can catalyses outer, inner and secret upheavals. These are but expressions of your own awareness of appearances and emergences. It is the view from resting in Rigpa, or resting in our best approximation of Rigpa. All phenomena arising should be considered as part of the practice of resting in the view from Rigpa – we have to “let it be”.
Alan starts Chapter 6 of the “Spacious Path to Freedom” text on page 125. He then returns to discussion of the scientific worldview since this is the dominant modern view of life, mind and the universe we are all subject to, providing an oral transmission (!) from one of his books (extract to be provided in weekly update of Retreat notes). He comments that this view of scientific materialism is toxic for what it does to us and our treatment of the environment.
The meditation starts at 24:02.
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