B. Alan Wallace, 25 Nov 2024
Lama Alan emerged from retreat silence for a few hours on Dakini Day, November 25th, to offer his final installment of his lecture series entitled “Believers, Contemplatives, and the Future of Human Civilization: A Buddhist Response to the Current Metacrisis.”
In this final lecture in the series, focusing on the cultivation of spiritual intelligence, Lama Alan gave a commentary on Atiśa’s pith instructions on Mahāmudrā. The core of these instructions is realizing the actual nature of one’s mind—here and now—as the dharmakāya, and all appearances to one’s mind as the light of the dharmakāya. To fathom this, one must comprehend the mind’s essential nature, manifest nature, and defining characteristics. With this view, one meditatively rests the mind in its natural state, observing how thoughts arise from and dissolve back into the dharmakāya. Atiśa then goes on to present a concise description of the four yogas of Mahāmudrā, culminating in the perfect enlightenment of a buddha. He concludes his pith instructions with guidance on one’s conduct between formal meditation sessions.
By fathoming the actual nature of one’s mind, one comprehends the nature of all phenomena and the ultimate ground from which they arise. To actually realize this would be the culmination of spiritual intelligence, which transcends the limits of cognition and the divisions among the great philosophical and contemplative traditions of the world.
To provide context for this lecture, we encourage you to listen to Parts 1–6 of this series, although as Lama Alan explains in this talk it can also be a stand-alone talk.
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