Courses / The 4 Yogas of Mahamudra 2019 Retreat /

25 - Severing the root of dualistic grasping

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The 4 Yogas of Mahamudra 2019 Retreat

B. Alan Wallace
14 Jun 2019 – 21 Jun 2019
Shambhala Mountain Center

This retreat will focus on the four yogas of Mahāmudrā as explained in Karma Chagme Rinpoche’s Practical Instructions on the Union of Mahāmudrā and Atiyoga, for which the main body of his text has been translated under the titles A Spacious Path to Freedom and Naked Awareness. These four yogas constitute a complete path to achieving the perfect enlightenment of a buddha in one lifetime by providing practical methods for fully realizing the luminous and empty nature of consciousness itself, which is our own buddha-nature. Oral commentaries on these four yogas will be complemented with guided meditations on Śamatha, Vipaśyanā, and Mahāmudrā, also based of Karma Chagme Rinpoche’s classic text.

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B. Alan Wallace, 19 Jun 2019

Lama Alan starts by commenting on how in the small stage of the first yoga, mind wandering can still occur in between sessions. In the same way, in the second yoga the tendencies of reification can still occur in between sessions.

He also comments on the sensitivity one develops as one progresses on the path. The same mental affliction that can seem harmless for an ordinary being would be unbearable for an arya bodhisattva. We don’t even have an English word for the term klesha, and most popular translations fail to properly represent the term.

After the meditation Lama comments on the implications of realizing the emptiness of this sense of “I am”. If one severs the root of dualistic grasping, in between sessions mental afflictions become like a chicken with its head cut off, they have a very short longevity.

We then move on to the texts:

The Four Yogas of Mahamudra

  • Yoga of Freedom from Conceptual Elaborations
    • Medium stage
    • Great stage

Twelve Stages of the Four Yogas of Mahamudra:

  • Yoga free of elaboration
    • Medium stage
    • Great stage

Meditation

Vipashyana: Origin, location and destination of the mind that is observing.

Meditation starts at 10:45

Download (MP3 / 40 MB)

Transcript

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