89 Do Not Look Outside Oneself for the Buddha

B. Alan Wallace, 21 Sep 2015

Alan begins this morning’s meditation by asking us to initially imbue our practice with taking refuge, of Bodhichitta and our guru devotion, and permeate it with pristine awareness. Then release all appearances and simply rest in non-meditation.

Following meditation practice, Alan comments we are choosing when taking refuge involving, among other matters, deciding which community, path, practice or method. However, if you can’t take refuge in yourself then how do you expect to find it in your choice? Refuge is not an intellectual thing, it is more intuitive. When we adopt practices coming from outside ourselves such as guru devotion, Avalokiteshvara and Lake Born Vajra sadhanas, you must have some confidence or trust in that practice and the guru. It comes back to being your choice. But what do you do when big questions arise? You can invoke and pray to the guru, but bear in mind this is of your own appearances. Alan says we should clearly articulate the question before meditation, then initially during meditation generate devotion, Bodhicitta and the indivisibility of body, speech and mind, followed by releasing the question and resting in non-meditation. If something comes up that looks like a response (perhaps nothing) to the question, then cognitively evaluate it. Is it contradicted or refuted by anything I know to be true? Does it have the taste of truth? Then pragmatically evaluate it in practice and life. This becomes a practical implementation of to not look outside of oneself for the Buddha.

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 / 34 MB)

Transcript

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