19 - The case for shamatha

B. Alan Wallace, 18 Jun 2019

Lama Alan begins with further comments on the practice of shamatha without a sign, including the role of intention and agency and how we impute a sense of self onto that.

He comes back to clarifying how this is not still not vipashyana because there’s no explicit inquiry, we’re just looking very closely, although it does start to soften up the reifying sense of “I am”.

After the meditation Lama Alan comments on the importance of motivation (which in turn leads to intention) in order to achieve shamatha. In order to go all the way we need a really solid motivation that includes renunciation, and if we want to go all the way on the Mahamudra path, we also need bodhicitta. But we don’t only need that, we also need a pristine sense of ethics.

We go back to “The Path of Shamatha”:

• 9 Attentional balance
• Atīśa (982 - 1054 CE) (Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment)
  • (vs. 39)
• Prerequisites for achieving Shamatha
• The Achievement of Śamatha (Threshold to the First Dhyāna)
• Trait Effects of Having Achieved Śamatha
• The Importance of Achieving Śamatha

Meditation

Shamatha: Shamatha without a sign, focusing on observing the observer.

Meditation starts at 11:22

Download (MP3 / 59 MB)

Transcript

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