B. Alan Wallace, 17 Jun 2019
Note: We had to combine recordings since we lost the main microphone for brief periods, so you may hear some echo. Sorry about that.
Lama Alan reminds us that today we’re commemorating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinirvana (i.e. Saga Dawa). He comments on the life of Gautama and everything he had to do to be forever free of suffering and achieve enlightenment. Besides everything he had to give up, the Buddha had to learn that it was pointless to try to get as far away as possible from the body and mind, but rather understand the body and mind by way of vipashyana, on the basis of shamatha.
Lama quotes Geshe Ngawang Dhargye on how if you achieve shamatha, vipashyana is not that difficult, it could even be a matter of days instead of years or decades.
He mentions an anecdote from a woman who is very gifted at lucid dreaming. In her dream she was able to disarm a man by thrusting his knife into her abdomen, all the while knowing that that was a dream knife and a dream body, so there was nothing to be harmed. In the same way, an arya bodhisattva can give away limbs like we can away vegetables.
In the practice we’re doing right now we aim to be totally present with the mind and all its junk, and yet not suffer by way of it.
After the meditation, Lama Alan draws a parallel between this practice and the non-abiding nirvana of a buddha.
We then continue with “Core Meditations on the Path of Mahamudra”:
Meditation
Shamatha: Settling the mind in its natural state
Meditation starts at 28:28
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