2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 23 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan begins the session by emphasizing the crucial importance of realizing emptiness for the practices of stage of generation, stage of completion and Dzogchen. To realize the unfindability of the dualistic mind, its emptiness of inherent nature, is not simply to realize an absence; in that absence there is a realization of freedom, which is nirvana. This realization uproots the mental afflictions and liberates the mind. This truth has been experientially verified by yogis for more than 2,000 years, and is not simply a Buddhist truth, a religious belief, or a philosophical conclusion. Lama Alan states that the premise of Madhyamaka is that in order to realize the ultimate, actual nature of existence of anything, you first need to realize its relative, conventional nature. You need to know how it appears. In order to fathom the ultimate nature of the mind, emptiness, it is crucial to comprehend the phenomenological, relative, deceptive nature of the mind. As taught in the Satipatthana Sutra, the practice of the close application of mindfulness to the mind provides an experimental laboratory in which to explore the nature of the mind. Today’s meditation, as well as the upcoming mediation in Session 44, will explore two approaches to the close application of mindfulness to the mind: one is pragmatic (today’s mediation), and the other is ontological. Lama Alan comments that the practice of any of the 4 close applications (body, feelings, mind, phenomena) is sufficient to liberate you. Practicing the close application of mindfulness to the mind trains us to recognize when the mind is afflicted and when it is not afflicted. If you are able to quickly recognize mental afflictions when they arise, then you are positioned to follow Shantideva’s advice to: “be like a block of wood” until the mental affliction subsides. Lama Alan emphasizes that these mediations are where we live. Such grounding practices are especially important if the other practices we are doing are “lofty,” such as stage of generation practices. The meditation, which begins at 43:00 is a "pragmatic approach" to the close application of mindfulness to the mind in which we examine when mental afflictions (desire, aversion, loss of clarity) are present, and when they are absent. Even laxity and excitation are mental afflictions. The transmission of the text starts at 01:06:38 and near the top of page 163 and continues through the middle of page 165. The text enumerates the type of people who are not suitable vessels for Vajrayana and Dzogchen. This is followed by etymologies of synonyms for Dzogchen. Lama Alan encourages us to reflect and meditate on these passages. After the transmission, Lama Alan briefly returns to the theme of the parallels between modern physics and the teachings of Dzogchen.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 17 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan welcomes two new participants to the retreat and emphasizes the importance of friendship and empathy among all of us. Meditation follows on the topic of compassion. Alan explains that there is a meaningful sequence to the four immeasurables with profound wisdom. Loving-kindness involves a vision and action, it is not only an aspiration. We cultivate the causes of happiness for the sake of people to flourish. Elaborating on the topic of loving-kindness, Alan makes reference to the importance of Gross National Happiness of Bhutan versus Gross Domestic Product of USA. We need vision in order to see that samsara and mental afflictions are in the nature of suffering. With this, one needs to have loving-kindness, to know that one is worthy of happiness and to identify the roots of virtue within oneself, otherwise there is no hope. Compassion is about truly opening you heart to the suffering you experience and then opening your eyes to the suffering around you. What we attend to becomes reality. In order to cultivate compassion, there must be vision and hope that it is possible to alleviate suffering. Then, there is tremendous power there. Power to change the world and transform ourselves. Let’s practice dharma. Meditation starts at 21:50
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 14 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day Two, Session One
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 21 Aug 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Welcome to Thanyapura Fall 2014 retreat. This session outlined what will be covered in the retreat. The teachings are based on two texts: Padmasambhavas Natural Liberation, and excerpts from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence. The teachings focus on three of the six bardos (living, meditation and dreaming). Alan describes himself as a dharma chef, serving up a juicy offering. Shamatha is the starting point. There are 36 people on individual retreats at Thanyapura, but all crew members together - so be considerate to others. Now give up all attachment to this life and devote it to Dharma.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 30 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing at the nostril. Same instructions as before. Use introspection to attend to the flow of mindfulness. If there’s excitation, relax, release, and return. If there’s laxity or dullness, refresh, refocus, and retain.
In between sessions, let your default mode be perception of real phenomena as defined in the Sautantrika and release rumination. Also, check to see that your respiration is flowing naturally.
Meditation starts at 9:30
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 16 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan begins by acknowledging that this retreat may be a bit more demanding than previous ones so he’s asking us not to become discouraged. Since this is likely to be the only time he offers these teachings he wants to offer his very best. It’s important to have the big picture; while primarily focusing on practices that are at our level and from which we benefit right now we shouldn’t limit ourselves but sow seeds that will germinate later. We’ll soon have an interlude to focus on practices that are very relevant to our daily lives. In the upcoming meditation we’ll look inwards into how we experience ourselves. In terms of misapprehending our own identity there are 3 modes, ranging from coarse to subtle. The coarsest is grasping to oneself as being unchanging, unitary, independent. According to Buddhist philosophy, we’re not born with this delusional notion, it is acquired. The antidote is to recognise delusion as delusion: is there any evidence for this in our own experience among our skandhas, or outside of them? A subtler level of misapprehension is highlighted in the two hinayana schools (vaibhasika, sautrantika): the delusion that I stand apart and I’m not the same as my body or mental functions. I’m really here substantially, autonomously - an analogy is being the CEO among a group of business people. This is connate. We tackle it through the rigorous, sustained practice of the 4 applications of mindfulness to body, feelings, mental states, phenomena at large (causality). Do we see any evidence of there being such a substantial, autonomous self in charge? Or is the system empty of such (identitylessness)? In today’s meditation we’ll go to the subtlest level, the connate ignorance, the self-grasping at the very root of suffering and all tainted karma. If you cut this root, all mental afflictions will dry up: Grasping at our own identity as existing prior to and independent of any conceptual or verbal designation. The notion that we are already there, existing by our own characteristics, from our own side. Lama-la explains that the self-grasping exists and has causal efficacy but the self that is so grasped, the object, what comes to mind, that doesn’t exist at all (not even conventionally). While we’re cultivating an internal objectivity, observing mental processes without being enmeshed in them, can we identify experientially whether such a self exists? We first need to identify the self that comes to mind when we conceive of ourselves in that way. Can you identify the object of self-grasping, hold it in mind and then investigate whether it exists or not? Like wielding a scalpel. Remember, we’re not questioning whether we exist or not – nihilism is more detrimental than metaphysical realism. If we misapprehend ourselves, we will misapprehend others. This is the key to freedom. Meditation starts at 00:27:35. While resting in awareness, look even deeper into your experience of own personal identity - you - and see if you can detect a sense of a self that exists by its own characteristics, prior to and independent of any conceptual or verbal designation. After the meditation Lama Alan returns to the text: “Individuals who practice to actualize devas while holding them to be autonomous – along with the condition of grasping at objects as existing by their own characteristics – will actually realize only mundane beings; it is certain that not even one will be a jnanasattva.” (p.84) By the power of samadhi, conceiving, bringing all the conditions together, you could actualise these beings and you may be able to compel them to obey you, this was commonly acknowledged in ancient India. But if it’s still rooted in reification, it will not be liberative. In order to actualise an enlightened being there has to be an insight into emptiness and on that basis pristine awareness. Lama-la explains that existence and non-existence are not self-defining terms. There isn’t one right definition, there is no meaning until we agree upon it. Nothing has been determinate forever as actually existing or not existing. This is why the actual nature of your own mind neither exists nor doesn’t exist, it transcends all extremes of conceptual elaboration. Everything is illuminated through this refracting lens of mentation. First we impute it where it wasn’t and then we think it was already there, not noting the creative power of conceptual designation. This is the root of delusion. We do it for objects, subjects and ourselves. Lama Alan uses the analogy of a lucid dream where you actualise something that wasn’t there before through the power of conceptual designation but when you stop designating, the appearance dissolves back into the substrate. To know in the waking state that the phenomena we’re experiencing are not inherently existing our basic technology is the power of samadhi. Lama Alan ends by saying that if any of these insights are true, they don’t belong to Buddhism. These are truths that liberate by allowing us to enter the path to perfect awakening for the sake of all sentient beings.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 19 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Note: this is the only lecture for today, 19th May, because Alan will give a public talk at the University of Pisa. Alan starts with reading “The analogy of seeing a rope as a snake” from “Naked Awareness”, on page 91. Here a man mistook a rope for a poisonous snake and got frightened until a friend showed him that it was just a rope. Alan comments that there was no eye dysfunction. While the visual perception is always non-conceptual, in a very short time, the conceptual mind takes over, reconfigures, colorizes, dominates and reifies the experience. In the case of the snake this was clearly a false conceptual designation stemming from ignorance and delusion. “Out of Avidyā comes Moha”. Out of lack of awareness in the visual field comes the delusion of misapprehending the rope as a snake. In Dzogchen it is strongly emphasized that the rope has never been a snake and therefore the fear is not based in reality. Likewise, when we ask ourselves why our own mind is tormenting us with mental afflictions, a spiritual friend will point out that we are not a sentient being. We have to shift our perspective. Alan recalls what he learnt when he was in Dharamsala long ago: It is never too soon to cultivate Bodhicitta. Likewise, it is never too soon to be introduced to the Dzogchen view. Alan continues elaborating on the four reliances from the Kadampa tradition. 1. Don’t rely on the person, rely on the Dharma. Some people are having faith in the Dharma because the Dalai Lama is such a great being. For having faith in Dharma there are two entrances. People with dull faculties have faith into the Dharma by way of an individual. People with sharp faculties have faith in the individual by way of the Dharma. There is a great danger of reifying individuals which results in taking refuge outside our own mind streams and outside rigpa. 2. With respect to Dharma, don’t rely upon the words, rely upon their meaning. This means taking refuge in what the words are referring to, without clinging to the words themselves. 3. Do not rely upon the provisional meaning, rely upon the definitive meaning. The provisional meaning refers to a specific context and perspective. The Kalachakra Tantra states that there is no definitive description of the world. This is in line with the statements of Stephen Hawking and John Wheeler. All the teachings of the Dharma, like the four noble truths and the twelve links of dependent origination are provisional, except the teachings on emptiness. 4. Don’t rely upon conditioned consciousness, rely on primordial consciousness. Conditioned consciousness refers to the fifth aggregate, consciousness, which arises upon cause and conditions. It also refers to the substrate consciousness. Primordial consciousness refers to rigpa, which is always present and active. We also can use the term intuition, which is a way of knowing that is not simply an observation of a phenomena or deferred by logical reason. It’s a type of knowing which is primal, deeper and mysterious. Alan continues reading a passage from the “Vajra Essence” which explains the difference between conditioned consciousness and primordial consciousness. It will be in the notes of today. Alan put special emphasis on the last sentence: “What arises is closely held by conceptual consciousness; it is bound by reification, and you thereby become deluded. Knowledge of the reasons for this brings you to primordial consciousness”. The question on the origin of samsara can now be answered. It’s every moment. From the perspective of rigpa we don’t have a history of a sentient being. The meditation is on cultivating Great Equanimity. After the meditation, Alan recommends to shift our perspective from the hedonic aspects of life to the cultivation of eudaemonia, which isn’t binary, but rather a smooth spectrum, and culminates in the development of Bodhicitta. Alan reminds us of the verse from Atisha’s seven-point mind training: “Be always of good cheer” and recommends to welcome whatever arises to us. It can be a challenge for doing very constructive things that will bring about a meaningful change in the world. Alan concludes with the statement that reality rises up to meet us. Instead of simply experiencing the results of previous karma, which is merciless and without compassion, we could rise up to meet reality with equanimity. From the center of our own mandala and with respect to our own well being, we shouldn’t reify our own suffering and watching it from the perspective a sentient being, but instead shift our perspective. Meditation starts at 48:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 10 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
NOTE: only the first 50 seconds come from the back-up recorder, and the quality is not optimal. Apologies for that. Alan begins the session by commenting on the difference between the way phenomena appear and the way they exist. It’s very common when we are pointing the finger at something, at an object or a person, to reify that object or that person. But that object or person appearing really over there, from its own side, autonomous, objective, is a lie, it doesn’t exist. The meditation is on the emptiness of all phenomena. After the meditation, before returning to the text, Alan expands on Martin Buber’s explanations of I-it, I-You and I-Thou relationships. He then resumes the oral transmission and commentary of Panchen Rinpoche’s text. Meditation starts at 21:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 22 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan shares his aspiration for all retreats the conducts: that the students end it with confidence in both the examination of the theoretical part and in the practice, and with inspiration to practice. Lama says that a qualm could arise during the practice of taking the mind as the path: “this seems a little bit too easy”. And it is, indeed, easy to get complacent, creating a bad habit in the practice. To make sure that the practice is meaningful, if it is done in the context of refuge, bodhicitta, and guru yoga, it will be. Taking the mind as the path already has a flavor of effortlessness, even though it is not entirely effortless, because you are not resting in pristine awareness. Introspection is the way to make sure you are “polishing that jewel”. Lama also says that, to draw the full benefit of the practice, continuity in and off the cushion is key. Meditation 1, “Sera Khandro’s Pointing Out Instructions”, starts at 15:50. Meditation 2, “Giving Ourselves Away: Relative Bodhicitta”, starts at 40:10. Keywords: taking the mind as the path, Sera Khandro, Ultimate Bodhicitta, Relative Bodhicitta.
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 15 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day Three, Session One
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 24 Apr 2020, Online-only
Today Lama Alan will return to a central meditative practice ‘taking the mind as the path’, which we will look to over the next few days. He says that many of us are not in full time retreat, even though we may currently be in lock down due to COVID19. Many of us are socially engaged in a variety of ways while doing 2-3-hour meditation per day, there’s nothing trivial about that. Others are doing more. Some portion of one’s daily practice should include shamatha, vipashnya and compassion. If you are doing 24 min per day, what are you doing in that time that can also then continue to sow the seeds throughout the day. So, rest in inner solitude, in inner silence, cultivate a metacognitive awareness of which thoughts, which desires and so on are presenting themselves in your mind. Watch how wholesome thoughts lead to virtuous states of mind and unwholesome thoughts lead to unvirtuous states of mind. Often we are not aware of the desires that come up because we fuse with the thought and immediately identify with the referent rather than seeing the thought as a mental event.
Lama Alan refers to Paul Ekman’s book highlights ‘Emotions Revealed’ based on rigorous research, he says it is of great value to cultivate the ability to be aware of the emotion arising in your mind before you express it, including facial, bodily and verbal expression. This way you can make wise choices about which emotions to express and how. This cultivates emotional intelligence to make wise choices about when and how to express your emotions. Lama Alan says there is also conative psychology that does not seem to be as well researched at present. Lama Alan asks what is more important than our aspirations, motivations and desires to be free of suffering and how to cultivate and search out wellbeing? He says this 24 minutes per day can therefore be very important to be aware of which desires are sublime and which desires are toxic as they will lead us to either genuine happiness or increase our suffering. Ekman says that we are not naturally gifted in observing our own mind and awareness of emotions and aspirations, but we can cultivate it. Lama Alan likens this capability to having a dashboard for our mind so that we are aware of what we need to check on. He also referred to other research that found it is more damaging to a persons’ psychological integration to be unaware of metacognition of one’s own mind than to have sensory deprivation or physical disabilities. Lama Alan encourages us to develop our capability for metacognition.
Meditation starts at 22 minutes.
After the meditation Lama Alan returns to the text p.21 under the heading ‘How Meditative Experiences and Realizations Arise’. Lama Alan says that this section refers to what happens when you take the mind as the path, and you do the meditation that we have just done a lot, as continuously as possible. This section outlines the ‘nyam’ or experiences and realizations that come with this practice.
[Keywords: taking the mind as the path, shamatha, metacognition, meditative experiences (nyam), realizations. ]
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 05 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
The meditation starts immediately and it is silent. The practice is the full-body awareness of mindfulness of breathing. Questions: (1) Is there a written account of Asanga’s specific technique of Mindfulness of Breathing? (2) A clarification of the meditation object in this specific practice of Mindfulness of Breathing (3) Since I’ve started the retreat, I’ve been experiencing lots of mental chatter & physical discomfort. I’ve shifted my practice to “Taking the Mind as the Path” now, is that a good approach for that? The meditation is silent (not recorded) ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 12 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Given the time constraints of retreat and of the urgency of achieving rainbow body in this very lifetime, Lama la reiterated the need to keep all questions specific to the text/theory raised in classes. Lama Alan will not be available during his own full-time, indefinite retreat to answer follow-on questions so we must keep clarifying questions as focused as possible. - Question 1: Lama-la discussed the ways in which the practice of stilling the mind on the cushion can then amplify awareness of thoughts and sensations off of the cushion. In order to prevent feelings of overwhelm, it is important to cultivate a base of stillness and relaxation when receiving these new experiences. However, the silencing of the rumination can also slip into feelings of dullness - reapplying curiosity and clarity is essential to ensure practice doesn’t become sluggish. - Question 2: 'What is the difference between awareness of awareness (Shamatha without a sign) and the quality of introspection' The first is the vinyana kasina - 10th of the 10 casinas. This refers to settling attention on raw, pure and primal awareness. Introspection, meanwhile, is more of a monitoring intelligence - introspecting if the body/mind is being used in an appropriate manner. One monitors the body, speech and mind to understand if there is laxity or excitation to trigger intention to remedy the situation. - Question 3: 'In terms of posture, what should those with back injuries do? Is it safe to practice?' With back conditions, it's important to get creative and attentive with the type of cushion, bed or platform used when meditating. Zero gravity is one brand that could work that supports the contours of the body. Experiment with what works for your injury. Doing so isn’t dangerous at all provided that you are comfortable and that the spine is straight. - Question 4: 'If Shamatha involves prana gathering in the central channel, what happens to prana when authentic Vipassana (the realisation of emptiness) is experienced? Is there a difference between how tantra/sutras describe this?' We should not take time away from the material in front of us with questions such as this - this is more a matter of curiosity rather than practice. However, in tantra - highest yoga tantra - you are realising emptiness with the very subtle mind. In Dzoghen you realise this with pristine awareness, meaning pranas are going into the indestructible bindu at the heart. Lama-la could not say if this is the same from the sutra perspective. - Question 5: 'Can we continue with our existing methods of Shamatha on this retreat or go back to the ’square one’ of settling body, speech and mind in natural state?' If you’re already engaging in a practice you find helpful then Lama-la suggests you definitely continue - there are many avenues of skillful means or enlightenment, just as the Lake-born Vajra specifies. However, previous practices can be enriched by taking a fresh look at settling body in natural state. Hardly anyone teaches setting respiration and inner-speech in their natural state, for example. Lama-la emphasised that this is the foundation for making your Shamatha practice sustainable. - Question 6: 'My main issue is dullness - I believe what’s missing here is clarity. Do I just work on that or on settling body, speech and mind in the natural state?’ Lama-la advised oscillating between settling body, speech and mind and applying clarity and interest in dullness. After the first 4 stages of Shamatha comes the 12 stages of Vipassana - practice of mindfulness of breathing only gets boring when you lose clarity, something needed along the entire path. Developing the faculties of mindfulness and introspection - sharpening these blades - will serve you well throughout the path via enhanced and vivid awareness. - Question 7: ‘How do I tackle chit-chat when it restarts to congratulate me on my practice?' Lama-la describes how the mind, which we never find, always has something to say. We are addicted to rumination even when there’s nothing to think about - regardless of how repetitive or toxic they are. Cultivating silence is one of the hardest things we can do when addicted and attached to stimulation. Mindfulness of breathing can really help here because so much of thinking is just useless and exhausting. We must keep releasing our thoughts no matter their referent or the affect associated and start really enjoying what occurs after the release - the clear, quiet, calm and peaceful quiet. Obsessive, compulsive and delusional thinking is never helpful, but realistically ‘planning’ based thoughts are inevitable during meditation. - Question 8: ‘How do we address our teachers by name? Is the Long Life Prayer for the Dalai Lama referring to him as a sentient being?’ The Long Life Prayer for the Dalai Lama is recited in English: 'In the land encircled by a ring of snow mountains, Is the source of all happiness and benefit, All-knowing Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso. May you stand firm until samsara ends.' This is not recited for the Dalai Lama as a human being but as an emanation of enlightened beings and the protective deity of Tibet. We don’t wish for the Dalai Lama to go on living in this human form until Samsara ends, but we wish for his blessed continuation for the benefit of all sentient beings. Using honorifics for our teachers is to remind us that they are beyond the level of sentience and our relationship with them is not person to person but pupil to true wisdom. Calling the Lama by their first name grounds this relationship between sentient beings - this is not useful for the student as it does not reflect the transcendence of the Lama or their position as an emissary of the Buddha. - Question 9: 'What is the difference between attending to empty space and awareness of awareness? Is awareness an appearance itself? Does consciousness have its own characteristics?' Releasing awareness into space involves looking into an empty 3D space or vacuity. It still appears to you. The substrate exists and has qualities. But in awareness of awareness you are not attending to the space, but the subjective experience of being aware and not the space of awareness itself. The salient features of consciousness are that it illuminates (makes manifest) and there is cognisance (you know what is being made aware - ‘I know this is silence, visual appearance, a thought etc). Appearances means ‘manifesting’. Even in the perfect sensory deprivation tank, we wouldn’t fall unconscious. You can always be aware of being conscious - this is lucidity. The triad of bliss, luminosity and non-conceptuality is only encountered once Shamatha is achieved. - Question 10: 'Is there any additional advice on releasing tension on the back of the neck?' Lama la discusses how, when tension arises, it is important to never continue what you’re doing as then you’re just making a habit of being tense. We must never push too hard - never try to meditate via ego or ambitiousness as this will cause successive tightening and tension. Therefore we must never take tension casually but instead find some effective way of releasing it. The path of Shamatha is characterised by getting more relaxed (less tension), more stable (less fragmentation/distraction/rumination) and more clarity. This is a gradual path, however - if we suddenly got zapped by the intensity of clarity associated with Shamatha while in a tense state, we might blow a fuse! - Question 11: 'Certain lineages of Buddhism seem more ambitious/ broad in scope than others. How do we reconcile the Pali canon and foundational teachings with Dzogchen? If awareness is so important, for example, is there a Tibetan term for it?' Hardly any Dzogchen teachers will talk about Sutrayana/ Pāli Canon, so questions that compare lineages won’t be answered from now on. However, Lama-la emphasised that Buddhism is not ‘Lama-ism’ for a reason; Dzogchen is rooted in India and Vajryana Buddhism and that is to be respected. No lineages are better than any others, but when it comes to wisdom teachings so much is concentrated on a lack of identitylessness - the roots of so many of our kleshas. We must not reify our five skandas if we want to achieve arhatship - we need to have more insight into the way things are beyond just ourselves. We must practice the 6 perfections, but some lineages would reject guru yoga or Vajrasattva practice in so doing. In fact, from some perspectives, Dzogchen looks like mumbo jumbo - it would feel like a joke or insult to believe we can achieve enlightenment in one lifetime by sheer relaxation. Seeing sentient beings - including ourselves and our Lamas - as Buddhas also makes no sense when viewed from other lineages. That said, Dzogchen is called 'the great encompassment’ because it does try to reconcile all wisdom traditions, including materialism. It can achieve consensus where religion, philosophy and science cannot and pushes forward individual self-knowledge to a wider world view of reality. There is a Tibetan term for consciousness: ‘vidyā’ - it is imbued in the first of the 12 links of dependent origination, for example, where Avidyā means to ’not know’ which espouses delusion etc. This is the root of all suffering. Vidya, meanwhile, is also translated as many things, including knowledge. Vidya then takes on qualities of pristine awareness and clear comprehension. Samprajanya (introspection), meanwhile, is inward facing knowledge rather than broad or outward facing. Lama-la also emphasised that monks that still introspect on the arising of various kleshas - whether or not they bother them - are not Arhats even if they have achieved Shamatha. Craving for hedonic pleasures is eliminated through true Arhatship. - Question 12: ‘Am I right in thinking that the way of reconciling cognitive vs purely materialistic views is that the role of the observer/ conceptualiser is to animate appearances from what otherwise would have been a dead continuum of matter? By removing the participation of this false agent, do we then suspend the construction of our reality?' Lama-la pointed out that this is not the right phrasing: there isn’t a juxtaposition between the cognitive and material. Space-time does not exist in the fabric of nature, meaning matter is not objectively real - there is no container for them. Nominally, these aspects exist - we ask for the time, we ask for the distance between locations etc. We allow the external world back in but only with a nominal status. After all, these conventions have causal efficacy - they’re still important. Lama-la specifies how this process is not a matter of animation - appearances aren’t static, they aren’t having the breath of life given to them once they’re noticed. Consciousness manifests them, but this doesn't constitute bringing them to life. There’s no dead continuum of matter either - that infers that it used to be alive and now it's not. When we suspend the conceptualising mind, information is not packaged up, it is merely discerned at the subtle level. However, conceptualisation can occur with and without language - as can objectification (the example of Helen Keller is given here; she conceived and recognised objects consistently even without language). Suspending conceptualisation, as described by this question, and our clenching into subject-object dualism only gives us a brief reprieve, however. This was accomplished prior to the time of the Buddha. The real challenge, therefore, is to completely eliminate this process, maintaining knowledge of emptiness in a sustained fashion. We must completely eradicate reification - realise and know this emptiness of mind and of all phenomena to the point where it is uprooted completely.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 06 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. When experiencing a painful feeling, develop great compassion for beings who fixate on feelings, totally identify with them, hold them close, misapprehend them, and ruminate about them. Let the feeling arouse compassion. One may also use a wisdom approach by inquiring who is the one who experiences the feeling? By gaining insight into the emptiness of the experiencer, one penetrates the entire system of simultaneous interdependence with the object and the feeling as mode of experience. Finally, one views feelings from the perspective of rigpa—i.e., peaceful, pure, and luminous. The first step is recognizing the feeling as a feeling, by being able to distinguish between the stillness of your own awareness and movements of mind. Only then, can we choose to react wisely, such as following Shantideva’s advice of remaining as still as a log of wood in the presence of klesas.
Meditation: Silent session with mindfulness of feelings following the compassion or wisdom method outlined above or another practice of your choice.
Q1. You’ve taught 3 methods of shamatha. It appears that in all of them, the practitioner takes the throne of awareness, and only the objects differ. The practices could be called awareness of the breath, awareness of the mind, and awareness of awareness. Upon achieving shamatha, is it possible to focus on any chosen object without effort? What is the role of the counterpart sign? Is it reasonable to switch back and forth between the 3 methods?
Meditation starts at 26:30
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 25 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Some of the text from this teaching was revised so please listen to the teaching, Wherever You Start, Follow it to the Ground, and it’s Perfected (April 27) for clarification. Lama Alan begins by discussing how crucial the sustainability of practice is, not just in the short picture of one lifetime, but as we look ahead to our own individual stream of consciousness that will never stop and the continuity needed to carry us through the bardo and connect us with our rebirth in a pure land or as a human being with a life of leisure and opportunity. Taking refuge in the Mahayana context is from now until enlightenment - a huge commitment. You cannot do anything sustainable without faith, confidence, trust, belief and commitment. Leading into meditation, Lama Alan discusses the ways to come to faith. One way is when the medicine you are given works for the mental afflictions that you are experiencing now and you wonder if you can go deeper. He also compares that medicine to these practices Yangchen has been leading which are designed to dispel a disease you didn't even know you had. In the last meditation session we used the pragmatic approach of the Buddha Shakyamuni's pith instruction on the close application of mindfulness to the mind where you identify for yourself which impulses are afflictive or not afflictive, wholesome or unwholesome and from this, answer the questions that you are already asking. Lama Alan then connects this meditation to all of the Stage of Generation and Completion and Dzogchen teachings that he and Yangchen have been giving. Because if all of these teachings are to be meaningful, transformative and liberating, they have to be rooted in the Middle Way view. You must know the emptiness of all apprehended objects out there and of the mind in here. For this, go back to Madhyamaka and Nagarjuna, “King of Reasonings” for realizing emptiness: dependent origination. Today the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta meditation which starts at 1:14:10 concludes with '..how one abides reviewing the mind as the mind.' We re-view the arising and passing of mental events and look more deeply into dependent origination. Having completed the meditation of etymologies of Dzogchen previously, Lama Alan continues with the text at 1:39:00 on pages 166 and 167. He concludes by showing how science saved the world from eternalism, bringing it to one where all causes can be seen. One extreme turned into another where we now live in a mindless, meaningless, parched world of nihilism that causes much suffering from depression, despair and anxiety. The medicine has turned into the disease. We are wise to keep our eyes open and find the Middle Way, which is a remedy for our deepest mental afflictions.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 23 Apr 2021, Online-only
The Four Greats and Bodhicitta
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 16 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan returns to the classic Indian approach of Asanga to mindfulness of breathing through mindfulness of the body with the Dzogchen approach. Lama Alan reminds us that whatever approach to mindfulness of breathing we take, we need ensure that the breath flows freely. A key element of getting a good night sleep is the quality of breathing when in deep dreamless sleep and the body breaths for itself without our ego in the way. This week Lama Alan’s teaching will move into taking the mind as the path, which requires settling the mind in its natural state. Lama Alan said that the awareness that you have right now is a ray of pristine awareness. Rest in that and it’s our closest approximation of the dharmakaya. Next week we will take that approach to meditation allowing whatever arises in the mind without being entangled with it. This meditation is the prelude to that phase 1 where we will watch our mind like a cow herder watching a herd of yaks from the distance, with beautiful tranquil wide sparkling clear skies. Lama Alan likened todays meditation as a ‘trailer’ to when we really immerse ourselves in this practice next week. So, practice just allowing whatever arises, emotions, thoughts, images without fusing with them, without grasping them as truly existent and without trying to stop them or change them in any way. With practice of resting in your current awareness you have the sense of just hovering there and you start to see the thoughts, images, feelings, desires, distraction, dullness, you see it coming and don’t get caught up in it. Learn to sustain that quality of awareness without exerting any effort at all they just release themselves. We watch the mind heal itself of all mental afflictions and find that the healer is our own pristine awareness. Lama Alan leads us to more and more deeply settle the body, breath and mind in its natural state through the Asanga approach of focusing the awareness on the space of the body and notice the subtle energies, the prana flows settle and become crystal clear as the energetic system heals itself.
Meditation starts at 34:41
Keywords: Asanga, mindfulness of breathing, prana energy flows.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 20 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
After invoking Guru Rinpoche and taking refuge in the way of the Lake-Born Vajra Sadhana we rest for a few minutes in silence. As there will be no formal meditation today, we continue to explore the sadhana with meditative awareness. Yangchen-la focuses today on the visualizations that come with the recitation of the verses and the mantra, thereby relying also on the text of the Vajra Essence, of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's commentary and Gyatrul Rinpoche's commentary of The Generation Stage In Buddhist Tantra. Yangchen reminds us that Stage of Generation practice takes a lot of conceptual work in the beginning, which will later serve as a basis for deep practice. Yesterday we visualized ourselves as the Lake-Born Vajra in union with Mandarava, and then merged the jnanasattva with the samayasattva. Now we continue on page 8 of the sadhana text with homage. We as the Lake-Born Vajra make offerings in form of sentient beings to the deities of the mandala, and they respond in blessing and purifying the offerings — in this way a dance of primordial union unfolds. For a more elaborate form of the offering one can go to the Vajra Essence, Phase 4, page 131 [236]. Detailed explanations like this one can serve as a basis for visualizations during long mantra recitations. We also find an explanation on how to transform the joy of sensory experiences into offerings by way of visualizing deities dissolving delicious substances into our sense consciousnesses, so overcoming ordinary view. This is the inner offering. As for the secret offering, Yangchen reminds us that the depiction of the union of male and female deities has nothing to do with sensual pleasures, but is a skillful means pointing to the immutable great bliss of the union of emptiness and primordial consciousness, which is evoked by subtle energy practices. In the next verse, “The ecstatic union of great bliss… is the great freedom”, the offering of liberation takes place. Then we move on to the praises, where the holy being we have transformed into is praised by the deities of the mandala, and praises them back in a divine way. The first verse refers to the three kayas. Yangchen elaborates on the awe in which the lines of this praise have been spoken first by the king of Zahor, when he realized the divinity of Guru Rinpoche, who manifested the lake of Tso Pema instead of being burned by a bonfire. The second verse is praising the holy body, speech, and mind. The third verse is a praise on the three roots. Yangchen then reads and explains the first verse of the Quintessential Yoga of Recitation. We visualize our body as of light in a subtle red glow. The jnanasattva in the heart is depicted as a golden vajra, we as the samadhisattva in the form of the letter Hrih in its center. The root mantra circles around it, and depending on our level of practice and visual abilities, we can imagine the circling mantra syllable by syllable, or as a ring of fire. Yangchen-la elaborates on the advantages of Tibetan or Sanskrit spelling of the mantra for the visualization. Yangchen explains that the recitation of mantras tones our pranic systems as a preparation for the Stage of Completion practices. Finally Yangchen reminds us that "to fully integrate the Dzogchen view within this sadhana we know that even the mantra recitation is revealing that which is already the case, it's not approaching in order to accomplish. There is no meditation with this teaching.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 10 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
This morning we were listening to Bob Newhart’s “Stop It” skit that Alan had talked about a while ago. So everybody out there with wandering minds, low self-esteem and all the like, take this advice to heart. As for today’s practice, Alan was front loading the session again with Padmasambhava’s pointing-out instructions, giving us the seeds for the silent, non-discursive meditation. Your own distinct awareness is pristine awareness, don’t look outside of yourself, but give up all attachment to and identification with your own body and mind. After the meditation Alan discussed the two strategies to deal with distractive thoughts, emotions etc. in shamatha practice. In Taking the Mind As the Path, you just let them self-release. The other strategy is that, when these distractions come up, to just cut them right off. You can do the same in lucid dreaming when something unpleasant happens. Finally Alan compared the images used by Dudjom Lingpa in his Vajra Essence when describing how sentient beings emerge from the ignorance of the ground with the way Roger Penrose describes light rays. Silent meditation cut out at 26:00 min
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 16 May 2021, Online-only
This session begins with Lama Alan reviewing a part of the text in terms of what it means to take refuge, pointing out that in Dzogchen, one takes the “natural radiance of pristine awareness that is present as the ground dharmakāya as your outer, inner, and secret object of refuge”. However, for those who need more ‘to hold onto’, the text outlines what it means to take refuge in the context of the stage of generation practice. Firstly, here we take refuge in those who have already actualised the teachings, so the outer objects of refuge are the three jewels – buddha, dharma, and sangha. Then the inner objects of refuge are the three roots, your lama, yidam and khandro. Finally, the secret object of refuge is ultimate bodhicitta, the indwelling mind of clear light, primordial consciousness, which in the stage of completion, is realized by way of the channels (nādi), vital energies (prāna), and vital essences (bindu). Lama summarises, that all of these objects of refuge are refining us as suitable vessels, in body, speech and mind, as we progress through the stage of generation practices; and ultimately, they are skillful means for us to confidently realise and dwell in the mind of clear light, which occurs at the stage of completion. Lama Alan advises that by really fathoming these outer, inner and secret objects of refuge sequentially, so that we get some sense of the profundity of the stage of generation and completion practices, then we will have the opportunity to see that the ultimate taking of refuge in Dzogchen alone, the direct route, encompasses them all in utter simplicity. Continuing on in the text, we are reminded that all the appearances that we experience of buddha, dharma, sangha, and guru are all appearances of our own minds. The Lake-born Vajra then details how, in the stage of generation practice, the guru is seen as the synthesis of all outer, inner and secret objects of refuge, as we view the guru’s body as the saṅgha, the guru’s speech as the dharma, and the guru’s mind as the buddha. In this way, the guru is seen as the root of all blessings, and together, one’s guru, yiddam, khandro, dharmapāla (dharma protector), are all considered ultimate objects of refuge. Lama Alan emphasises that in this way, the guru is the entryway to the grounds, path and fruition, because the guru’s essential nature is emptiness, dharmakāya; the guru’s manifest nature is luminosity, dharmakaya and saṃbhogakāya; and the creative expression of the guru’s compassion is the supreme nirmāṇakāya. Lama concludes with reminding us of the enormous blessings that flow from always living in the presence of the three Jewels and your guru, not only in this lifetime, but also in the bardo and beyond. Lama invites us to put these teachings into practice through the guided mediation which starts at 01:02:39.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 12 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan gives his and the Dalai Lama’s commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in verses 105-112 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Just as the mind does not come into existence, in the same way, we come to certainty that no phenomenon comes into existence. That which we perceive cannot be more real than our perception of it. Two objections are discussed. 1) If conventional truth doesn’t exist, then does nothing exist at all? If phenomena are just apparitions to a confused mind, then wouldn’t whatever anyone says be true? According to the Madhyamaka, entities and non-entities (e.g., a rabbit’s horn) are both conceptual designations—i.e., neither exists from its own side—but entities i) have causal efficacy and ii) can be established by verifiable cognition (incl. both perception and understanding). The mind which conceives and the object conceived are simultaneously interdependent, so neither is inherently real. An action depends on an agent, and an agent depends on an action. 2) Wouldn’t the analysis of that which is analyzed lead to infinite regression? Awareness that apprehends the emptiness of an entity is focused on emptiness, not the entity. Inverting the analysis upon awareness, one establishes that awareness is empty and emptiness is empty. There is nothing more to analyze.
Meditation: Mindfulness of phenomena preceded by mindfulness of the mind.
1) mindfulness of the mind. Let your eyes be open, gaze rested evenly. Simply be present without distraction, without grasping. Withdraw attention from all appearances and rest in the knowing of being aware. Probe into the nature of awareness. What is the thing that performs functions such as being still or following after an object and has these attributes of luminosity and cognizance? Can you find this awareness separated from all appearances? Know that absence and sustain that flow of knowing.
2) mindfulness of phenomena. Return your attention to objects of the 6 sense domains. Focus on one object, and probe its nature. What is really there from its own side? Rest in emptiness and sustain that flow of knowing
Teaching pt2: Alan speaks about William James who understood that introspection was the first and foremost method for the scientific inquiry of the mind. Although his vision has been ignored by much of the modern mind sciences, the contemplative observatory in Bangalore will offer a setting for contemplative knowing to engage with modern scientific knowledge.
Meditation starts at 57:03
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 30 Apr 2021, Online-only
We return to Phase 4 of the Vajra Essence (“O Teacher, Bhagavan, can one become a buddha simply by knowing the mode of existence of the ground in this way, without needing to meditate?”, p.94) Lama Alan makes the point that understanding the nature of the ground (emptiness) is indispensable but not sufficient. All phenomena all the way up to the omniscient mind, including the buddha and Samantabhadra, are empty of inherent nature. They come into existence on the basis of prior causes and conditions, their attributes and the key that actualises phenomena, which is the act of conceptual designation. Does that mean that there’s nothing out there and God is just a projection of human beings in the vein of Ludwig Feuerbach’s theory? Is Samantabhadra just a figment of our imagination as sentient beings? Dharmakaya is non-conceptual. Samantabhadra does not conceptually designate himself as existent but is timeless (there are no prior causes and conditions). Is he a whole imputed on many attributes that are not Samantabhadra? If not, then is he inherently existent? Lama Alan stresses that it’s crucial to recognise the issue of perspective here: dharmakaya does not conceptually designate itself, it transcends the eight extremes of conceptual elaboration. In the self-knowing primordial consciousness that is dharmakaya there are no concepts of existence versus non-existence. And therefore, from dharmakaya’s perspective, dharmakaya is neither inherently existent, nor is it a conceptual designation, nor is it non-existent. It transcends all the categories including the distinction between existence and non-existence. From the perspective of those of us who are seeking to understand by way of hearing, reflecting and meditation, when we bring to mind Samantabhadra, we conceptually designate him through our own minds. Samantabhadra is inconceivable, ineffable, transcending all signs, symbols, so we’re taking refuge in an ultimate being, a ground of being that transcends our imagination. What we conceptually designate does not exist independently of the conceptual designation but that doesn’t mean it’s a mere figment of our imagination and that Samantabhadra has no causal efficacy. From the perspective of sentient beings conceiving of the divine, the ultimate ground of existence, whatever comes to mind is seen as existent but does not inherently exist. If we then reify it, this could be seen as a form of idolatry. We continue with the text (“even if you know the way”, p.95). Lama explains that in the Pali canon, Vajira recognised the emptiness of herself as a person as well as external phenomena (e.g. a chariot) but she still believes suffering to be real. From a Mahayana perspective suffering is only suffering if we conceptually designate it as such. We will soon see that we have a choice on whether to appropriate suffering as suffering. According to these teachings of the Lake-born Vajra we need to recognise the emptiness of all phenomena, including the fact that we’re not inherently sentient beings. If we leave untouched the ontological assumptions about the nature of all phenomena then we will not surpass the insights of a shravaka. Lama Alan explains that the sharavakayana can be enough for a person with sharp faculties to realise emptiness and buddha nature – this person would then be a Dzogchenpa. Conversely, using the examples of the Arhat Nagasena and Arya Asanga, Lama-la explains that it is also possible that one has full realisation but uses skillful means to benefit others. Lama Alan reminds us of the Buddha’s maxim that individuals cannot evaluate other people, only a buddha has this insight. We don’t know whether others are sentient beings or the emanation of a buddha. We also don’t know who is a bodhisattva or not. What we can see are people’s manifestations, their body and speech, not their mind which is a black box to us. The main point is that people of sharp faculties will gain realisation no matter what teachings they’re exposed to. Lama then elaborates on the meaning of “ethically neutral state”. Some scholars of the Pali canon consider nirvana to be cessation and annihilation. Others say that this is nihilism, identified by the Buddha as one extreme. The Buddha refers to nirvana in positive terms (as a safe haven, as bliss, as virtue) and not just as a cessation of samsara. Nirvana is not subject to change, according to all schools of Buddhism. Lama-la explains that an arhat can simply slip into a non-conceptual awareness of nirvana at will. Nirvana is not created by the arhat meditating but is already there. Lama-la elucidates that if the nirvana realised by an arhat vanishes when he dies, then it would be like everything else in samsara. This annihilationist interpretation of the Pali canon must therefore be wrong. How can the fruition of our deepest longing be to become nothing? We should be able to do better than that. If nirvana is still being realised after the arhat has passed away, then who or what is realising it? If the five skandhas have terminated, and if the nirvana realised by an arhat does not cease with an arhat’s death then it has to be experienced by something. The only thing that makes sense is that it would be experienced by a dimension of consciousness that is unborn and unceasing. One may realise the emptiness of this or that, but one may not connect the dots to realise that that emptiness, nirvana, dharmadhatu, dharmata, is the ground of all being, of all samsara and nirvana. If emptiness is nothing than the mere absence of inherent existence, then that’s ethically neutral. In that case our understanding is not complete and we’re reducing the ground of being to an ethically neutral state. What benefit can we get by a sheer absence, a simple non-affirming negation? Lama Alan makes the point that when an arya bodhisattva realises emptiness, the tremendous benefit from realising emptiness comes from the mind that realises emptiness rather than the emptiness itself. The same applies to the mind that realises impermanence or identitylessness. It’s the mind that’s the source of the virtue, not the emptiness, impermanence or identitylessness. Lama-la ends by saying that what we’re seeing here are the two extremes and by setting them aside. Once the extremes are set aside what remains is the middle way view. Ascertaining this with pristine awareness is the view of the Great Perfection. The meditation starts at 01:06:33 and is on resting in awareness, releasing all “signs” and approaching liberation through the door of the absence of signs.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 25 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan draws the teachings into the 21st century by dedicating this session to a brief history of science culminating in the view according to quantum mechanics. Early scientists like Galileo were devout Christians who attempted to understand reality from God’s perspective. The real world must be out there because 1) stuff happens when we’re not looking and 2) there is a commonality of perceptions. Modern physicists debunk this view. Anton Zeilinger said that reality is based only on information we receive. John Wheeler spoke of the participatory universe where its (physical world) come from bits (information). Based on bits, the conceptual mind makes the its. Andre Lindt asserts that perception is primary and that consciousness is needed to explain the physics observed in the real world. Stephen Hawking speaks of the quantum world which is in a superposition state (in probabilistic mode or realm of possibility). He notes being inside (causality and linearity) or outside the system (quantum world where observer creates both past and future). Without an observer, the universe is frozen. The observer breaks the symmetry of the quantum world, giving rise to the classical world. In sum, both the observer and information constitute essential links in understanding the world.
In buddhist epistemology, a cause which can never be seen cannot be inferred based on the effect. Appearances of the 5 sense domains arise in the substrate, not in physical space. We can only see the qualia of the 5 senses, not the things is physical space which are unknowable. Samsara arises from not knowing (avidya), reifying the its and not recognizing that come from the bits. In terms of Vajrayana, the ordinary self lies inside the system whereas rigpa lies outside the system. We can go outside the system by realizing the emptiness of self and phenomena and dissolving mind into rigpa. Just as in quantum mechanics where there is no absolute time, from the perspective of rigpa, Ground, Path, and Fruition are simultaneous. Given the indivisibility of primordial consciousness (yeshe) and dharmadhatu, we can know simultaneously who we are and how reality is.
Apologies, there has been a cut in the recording at: 29:13 and 1:10:38
There is no meditation today, rather a really interesting talk.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 08 Apr 2020, Online-only
Synopsis coming soon
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 01 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan reminds us the pointing instructions of Padmasambhava when he repeatedly said “observe your mind, observe your mind”. For some people that may be sufficient, for others perhaps just observing the mind is sufficient, but for most of us while we observe this ordinary consciousness of the present, that is what he is referring to, saying this is the same as the Buddha nature, rigpa, this is your ordinary consciousness of the present moment. At the same time it’s perfectly true that we can be aware of being conscious in the present moment and not have realized rigpa, our Buddha Nature. While our Buddha nature is hidden in plain sight, it’s right there where we are looking, because you do not have to look anywhere else, we don’t have to believe anything, we don’t have to add something to it, nevertheless it is hidden in plain sight and then we can ask “what is it that hides it, what is that veils it?” As Alan mentioned before there are cognitive obscurations. Last week Alan referred to cognitive obscurations as the acquired or speculative delusion or ignorance of thinking that only the things that scientists can measure exist, and that’s exactly what materialists believe: that the only things that exist are material phenomena and their emergent properties because that’s exactly what scientists can observe. But then beyond that there is of course conate ignorance, that which we were born with - grasping onto the true existence of everything that we see, everything that we experience, myself, my mind, my body, other people, the environment and everything else, because phenomena appear to us as if they were inherently existent, and then we trust these appearances. Why would reality lie, why wouldn’t it exist that way? Coming back to our own perception, why haven’t we yet realized our own rigpa, our own pristine awareness, really cut through to the ground pristine awareness? First of all it’s by reifying ourselves. That I am the subject, I’m really in here, I am really someone and then I look outwards upon anything else and everything else, including my mental afflictions, other people, my own body, everything appears as if it’s truly existent and therefore we grasp onto that. We reify subject, we reify object and out of the reification of subject and object then the two appear and are grasped as being entirely separate, inherently separate, each one inherently existent. That’s conate ignorance and we cannot blame anyone for that, we were just simply born with that. And so, in the strategy suggested by Padmasambhava, he takes us through the very coarse, to medium, to subtle objects of meditation within shamatha culminating in shamatha without a sign, resting in awareness itself, inverting, enhancing awareness of awareness, releasing, enhancing, releasing, oscillating, and then we see that as we are controlling the attention, we are doing something, we are not just being, we are doing something, and that is this focusing, this inversion, accentuation of the attention in upon itself and then this release out into space and then seeing that “nobody is making me do this, I chose to do this, I’m continuing to choose to do this, I’m doing it again and again and again, and so I’m the agent, someone is doing that and it’s me. I do have a sense that I’m doing it and I’m not a robot, and so since we have that, the practice is entirely phenomenological, is not ideology driven, not aimed at getting the right answer, and that is as you are oscillating your attention in that way just look carefully, as you invert, invert more deeply, and see just what is your experience of being that agent. Because that is what is reified, that is where the natural reification comes in, the conate reification comes in: I’m doing this. And this happens of course not only when you are sitting quietly in meditation but also when you are doing anything else. I did that! And what comes to mind when you say, “I did that?” “I did a wonderful job, thank you for congratulating me, I’m so proud. Whenever we say I, I, I, we are taking it very seriously and it is reification. But as long as we are operating within the context of reifying ourselves as the subject we will naturally reify everything else which means we will be always in dualistic grasping and that completely obscures rigpa, because rigpa completely transcends any type of reification, any type of dualistic grasping. There is only one subject that realizes rigpa and that’s rigpa. Nothing else can realize rigpa. Rigpa can realize rigpa but you cannot get it inferentially, or intellectually, you cannot see it with your eyeballs, rigpa only sees rigpa. But the very nature of rigpa transcends dualistic grasping, and so as long as we are enmeshed in dualistic grasping then rigpa cannot see itself from our perspective. Because our perspective is in the clouds and rigpa is in the sun. Following Padmasambhava’s instructions in Natural Liberation, Alan takes one step further in his teachings on shamatha without a sign and that is we are not always doing something, at least not deliberately or consciously, voluntarily, sometimes we are just “being there” we are just quietly observing. We can do that like in the lovely Dzogchen metaphor of “the shepherd watching his flock spread on the plain, seeing them from afar”, or the one in the Mahamudra tradition of “an old man watching other people’s children play”. There is no sense of possessiveness; it’s just a sense of pleasant, serene and totally relaxed presence of an old man watching and enjoying seeing other people’s children play. We are emulating that quality of awareness, of just being present, just observing, when we practice settling the mind in its natural state, but then when we are doing that and we are just quietly resting and watching what is coming up, not reacting, not judging, not modifying, not doing anything, do you then have a sense of being the one who is watching? Do you have the sense as if the thoughts were over yonder when you are watching them, as if from afar, as we are encouraged to do? Do you have the sense of being the one over here, the quiet observer? That’s where Alan will take us in the next session of guided meditation. And when we are just resting there, without doing anything, not even doing the oscillation of the attention, just when you invert your awareness in upon itself see what comes to mind. And the crucial point here is don’t look for what doesn’t come to mind, don’t think you are so clever and come out with the right answer “Oh I looked for myself, I didn’t find it! Was it right?” No, you were not right at all, because that was not the question. The question wasn’t “do you exist as an observer?” Of course you are an observer! As I’m talking, I’m listening, you are listening, and you are an observer. But Alan is not asking that question, is not asking if you are or not a person. Of course you are a person. We are assuming that you are an observer and that’s a meaningful statement, but now when you sense yourself, when you experience yourself as an observer, as you do that what comes to mind? What is your sense of being the observer? In the guided meditation Alan invites us to Look for the Observer. After meditation Alan reminds us that in between teaching sessions we have a rich array of practices to avail ourselves of, from the Four Immeasurables, to the Guru Yoga, Bodhicitta, we have an array of shamatha methods and he invites us also to introduce in our practice whatever understanding we have of emptiness, the illusory nature, the dream like nature of phenomena. Alan is like a music teacher and is giving us a broader and broader repertoire of pieces - sometimes jazz, sometimes classical, sometimes heavy metal if you are up to it, which is “cut them off”. Alan then explains a nice parallel between the shamatha methods and the four classical modes of a bodhisattva’s enlightened activities. Meditation starts at 12:52 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 18 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan elaborates on some points from his translation of Asanga’s explanations for mindfulness of breathing, as advice for people with heavy rumination. Asanga mentions 4 stages in mindfulness of breathing: 1) inhalation, 2) pause at the end of inhalation, 3) exhalation, 4) pause at the end of exhalation. He notes 1) overly lax or 2) overly forceful engagement. Asanga also presents training in counting as support: 1) counting individually (at end of inhalation/exhalation), 2) counting pairs (at end of exhalation of 1 breath cycle), 3) counting forwards (either practice in ascending order), and 4) counting backwards (either practice in descending order). The point of this training is to cultivate an ongoing flow of knowing, covering all 4 stages of one breath cycle.
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing per Asanga. Settle respiration, by releasing deeply without preference nor control. Set the mind at ease, without concerns of the 3 times. Let your awareness be still, illuminating the space of the body. Be aware of the space of vital energy (prana), in particular as it flows between the nostril and navel. Mind should be especially still at the end of each out breath. Experiment with counting if you wish. Monitor posture and mindfulness with introspection.
Q1. You mentioned that we should view the space of the body from the perspective of the substrate. Since we do not have direct access yet to the substrate, do you mean from the coarse mind?
Q2. This mindfulness of breathing practice per Asanga is required more attention than usual, in particular catching the pauses. What the difference between awareness and attention? Is it true to say that only attention moves and that awareness does not? My idea of oscillation in awareness of awareness means that something is moving.
Q3. In observing the space of the mind with eyes open, forms are present. Is this clarity of mind?
Q4. In settling the mind, you gave the analogies of a scientist and a movie critic.
Q5. I find it hard to be focused on the space of the mind between sessions. Either I am disengaged from the environment or I’m not focused on the mind at all.
Q6. In this mindfulness of breathing practice per Asanga, please explain the interim breath. Are vital energies equivalent to the tactile sensation of the breath moving throughout the body? If Asanga does not mention the acquired sign nor the counterpart sign, how is shamatha achieved?
Q7. In awareness of awareness, we should be focused entirely on awareness, yet appearances of the other senses still arise.
Meditation starts at: 29:06
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 12 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan picks up the discussion with the text which says “recognize that all phenomena are your own appearances.” He points out there is nothing left to know and suggests that no other wisdom is more important to us than this before we die. Furthermore, with this awareness that all nirvana and samsara are great emptiness, this is the knowing that liberates. This Madhyamika realization leaves us with no view to defend because it demolishes all extremes. The text describes how the actual nature of the mind is clear light. The energy-mind exists on a continuum that has a cognitive aspect (mind) and a physical aspect (prana). Dissolution of the energy-mind (both coarse and subtle) occurs when you reach samatha. Subtle prana dissolves into very subtle prana located at the indestructible bindu of the heart chakra. This is the very subtle correlate of rigpa and primordial consciousness. Next Lama Alan talks about the presentation of severance or Chod which is practiced in all schools of Buddhism with distinct methodologies. Such cutting through or severance is rooted in all our previous practices of samatha, vipasyana, the identification of rigpa, and the view of great emptiness. The Dzogchen view is that Chod consists of severing your clinging to appearances of the three realms-the desire, form, and formless realms. All appearances illuminated by pristine awareness arise from dharmadhatu and dissolve back into dharmadhatu. Lama Alan goes on to discuss a fundamental question: Is the theism of the great Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) fundamentally incompatible with the Madhyamika view, the view of Great Emptiness? Many say yes and dismiss the question without a thorough investigation. We should realize, however, that Christianity, for example, has been influenced by several non-Christian philosophies such as Plato and Aristotle. St. Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas and Process theologians still regard themselves as Christians despite having very different views of God. Lama Alan asks us to wonder whether Nagarjuna’s philosophy could be applied to Christianity and Christianity still emerge as theology after that application. He references the study and work of Evan Natanya who contributed to last year’s retreat as someone who is rigorously examining the interface of Buddhism and Christianity. Lama Alan then goes on to examine theism in the context of Dzogchen. He compares the ground of the three realms as ethically neutral, lucid and clear (the substrate) could be conceptually designated as Ishvara Maha-God the creator. The argument is that on the basis of the substrate you may legitimately impute a God. Continuing, Ishvara’s body appears as the desire realm, speech as the form realm, and mind as the formless realm. The parallelism continues through the sense faculties, the gods and demons, and the types of consciousness. The cause of this deity dwells in the substrates of sentient beings. Thus, the Dzogchen view is far from treating Ishvara as a superstition. There can, of course, be legitimate critique of the theistic view as best modeled in Shantideva’s 9th chapter, the wisdom chapter, in Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Shantideva critiques in a very precise way the notion of Ishvara as the creator which you can explore in that chapter. Lama Alan, hence, implores us to recognize the complexity of the original question is theism fundamentally incompatible with the Madhyamika view and to reject the simplistic dismissive rejection of the theistic view as is done by many Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike these days. Lama Alan reads from the text passage which reminds us “all phenomena are preceded by mentation”. This is followed by the delusion of reifying these conceptual designations and actually seeing them. He then describes a book that inspired him years ago by entitled Buddhist Meditation in Theory and Practice (available as a free download). In it, the Sri Lankan monk author describes the process of meditating on kasinas first as a preliminary sign. Then after imprinting the kasina representation on your mind stream an acquired sign arises. Further samadhi which then leads to the counterpart arising in the form realm and the achievement of samatha. Then, if mastered, various paranormal abilities occur. Lama Alan cites others who have achieved or described these paranormal abilities, such as Burmese yogini Dipa Ma (see The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master) and Buddhaghosa’s The Path of Purification (also a free download) making the point that our scientific truths based on physical reality have contributed nothing to our knowledge about the fundamental nature of the mind. Lama Alan looks to the Nalanda tradition in India and Tibet to understand the nature of mind and consciousness. All of this is a prelude to the presentation on Chod. Meditation begins at 01:10:07 and is about the first phase of samatha without a sign as taught by Padmasambhava in Natural Liberation. Lama Alan closes with a plug for Samatha, quoting the Buddha that “the skillful monk is mindful and introspective and acquires the sign of his own mind.” So, Lama Alan concludes the sign of the mind is the substrate or the Bhavanga. That’s the mind you want to use to pursue Vipasyana most effectively to liberation-this finely refined, focused, and purified mind.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 05 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Eva la starts with advising that today in India is the day that the monastery of Dudjom Yangsi Rinpoche is celebrating his 49’th day after passing, and this is why in particular we would be reciting at the end of the session dedication prayers for his swift return. She explains in detail the meaning of prayers offered to a highly realised being. She decides not to add much today in terms of new material, but to talk more specifically about the Offerings as presented through various sections in Vajra Essence until now. For most of the session she answers a number of questions sent by email. In the context of a discussion on the seed syllables, she advises that we will receive a document with these in sanskrit and tibetan. She refers to and recommends that we read Ven Gyatrul Rinpoche’s book "The Generation Stage in Buddhist Tantra". She explains that all elements and beings in a mandala are emanations of pristine awareness in a unified field. Regarding practicing stage of generation, there is also value in exploring doing it in shavasana posture as well, which she discusses. With regards to generating the mandala, it is important to stay centered and not get lost in details initially, as it is a process of discovery rather than building. Yangchen also explains how shamatha can be achieved through stage of generation. She gives a strong warning not to bring our mental afflictions along into the sadhana and reminds us of Manjusri’s sword cutting through self-grasping as the sharp precision of the perfection of wisdom. A final advice pertains to immersion in practice without loosing one’s grounding. Regarding the Tzog (Offerings) topic in the text, she refers to page 12 of phase 4 by reading a paragraph on the preliminary practices where it is said that so long as ego-grasping produces appearances, these need to be transformed in a continuous stream of offerings, so in fact the practice of offerings is a direct antidote to grasping. It is also a most profound practice of gratitude. In the Dzogchen context, the offerings are a symphony of freshness, variety, but also specificity. Offerings should be made often to the guardians and local spirits, especially when immersing in deep retreat. At conclusion, the dedication prayers are recited as initially advised. There is no meditation with this teaching
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 17 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day Five, Session Two
Alan gave a talk about the result of the US election , 09 Nov 2016, Sakya Foundation, Spain
Tonglen Meditations
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 13 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan begins with a brief clarification of what he meant by "revolution" in the context of the "Four Revolutions in Outlook/Perspective." Unlike some of the violent revolutions that have taken place throughout history, the revolution he has in mind aligns more with the revolutions in humanity's perspective on reality that took place after the findings of Galileo, Darwin, and others.
Lama Alan then turns to the 4th of these revolutions, which concerns the truth of actions and their consequences (karma). Lama Alan first explains that from the Buddhist perspective, each action of body, speech, or mind plants either a good seed or a bad seed, and reaps either a good harvest or a bad harvest. In other words, virtue leads to wellbeing and good fortune and non-virtue leads to suffering and struggle. He then comments on how this view is diametrically opposed to the materialist assumption that the universe is amoral, and that morality is whatever you decide it is. He further explains the Buddhist perspective speaking to the three primary mental afflictions of ignorance-delusion, craving-attachment, and hatred-aversion, noting that all negative experiences of the mind arise from these afflictions. Moreover, it is ignorance-delusion that is the direct cause of the two secondary afflictions of craving-attachment and hatred-aversion. Therefore, he draws the conclusion that since all non-virtue arises from afflictions, and afflictions arise from the primary affliction of ignorance or delusion with respect to the nature of reality, then that which is non-virtue can actually be understood as that which arises when one is out of touch with the true nature of reality. On this basis, we can then say that morality is built into the fabric of existence and that virtue aligns with reality and non-virtue clashes with reality. He draws on the example of environmental destruction and its consequences as an example of this in the natural world.
Lama Alan then offers Shantideva's advice that when afflictions arise, we should be like a piece of wood. That is, we should not express them, but "quarantine" ourselves until we are restored to mental balance. Crucial to this practice, however, is the ability to recognize mental afflictions as mental afflictions, which Lama Alan speaks of as one of the greatest skills we can master.
The meditation begins at 26:30 . . . and is on resting in awareness and noticing the arising of afflictive states of mind, followed by tonglen.
After the meditation, Lama Alan answers a question about exactly how the fulfillment of Dudjom Lingpa's prophesy of one hundred disciples achieving Great Transference Rainbow Body would be of benefit to the world today. In the context of his answer, Lama Alan mentions two books that give us a peak into 19th and early 20th century Tibet, a world where high spiritual accomplishment and the displays of siddhis was far more commonplace than in our present culture: Blazing Splendor: The Memoirs of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal.
Outer preliminaries for Dzogchen from Lama Alan, 13 Apr 2020, Online - Originally part of 2020 8-week retreat
13 Apr 2020 Lama Alan begins with a brief clarification of what he meant by “revolution” in the context of the “Four Revolutions in Outlook/Perspective.” Unlike some of the violent revolutions that have taken place throughout history, the revolution he has in mind aligns more with the revolutions in humanity’s perspective on reality that took place after the findings of Galileo, Darwin, and others. Lama Alan then turns to the 4th of these revolutions, which concerns the truth of actions and their consequences (karma). Lama Alan first explains that from the Buddhist perspective, each action of body, speech, or mind plants either a good seed or a bad seed, and reaps either a good harvest or a bad harvest. In other words, virtue leads to wellbeing and good fortune and non-virtue leads to suffering and struggle. He then comments on how this view is diametrically opposed to the materialist assumption that the universe is amoral, and that morality is whatever you decide it is. He further explains the Buddhist perspective speaking to the three primary mental afflictions of ignorance-delusion, craving-attachment, and hatred-aversion, noting that all negative experiences of the mind arise from these afflictions. Moreover, it is ignorance-delusion that is the direct cause of the two secondary afflictions of craving-attachment and hatred-aversion. Therefore, he draws the conclusion that since all non-virtue arises from afflictions, and afflictions arise from the primary affliction of ignorance or delusion with respect to the nature of reality, then that which is non-virtue can actually be understood as that which arises when one is out of touch with the true nature of reality. On this basis, we can then say that morality is built into the fabric of existence and that virtue aligns with reality and non-virtue clashes with reality. He draws on the example of environmental destruction and its consequences as an example of this in the natural world. Lama Alan then offers Shantideva’s advice that when afflictions arise, we should be like a piece of wood. That is, we should not express them, but “quarantine” ourselves until we are restored to mental balance. Crucial to this practice, however, is the ability to recognize mental afflictions as mental afflictions, which Lama Alan speaks of as one of the greatest skills we can master. The meditation begins at 26:30 . . . and is on resting in awareness and noticing the arising of afflictive states of mind, followed by tonglen. After the meditation, Lama Alan answers a question about exactly how the fulfillment of Dudjom Lingpa’s prophesy of one hundred disciples achieving Great Transference Rainbow Body would be of benefit to the world today. In the context of his answer, Lama Alan mentions two books that give us a peak into 19th and early 20th century Tibet, a world where high spiritual accomplishment and the displays of siddhis was far more commonplace than in our present culture: Blazing Splendor: The Memoirs of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Terton Sogyal.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 25 May 2021, Online-only
We return to the Satipatthana Sutta on the application of mindfulness to phenomena, reviewing phenomena as phenomena in terms of the seven factors of awakening: mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, enthusiasm, joy, tranquility, concentration, equanimity Lama Alan introduces some comments from Anālayo Bhikkhu. He highlights how mindfulness is the basis for the other 6 factors, and how investigation, enthusiasm and joy are particularly appropriate when the mind is sluggish, while tranquility, concentration, and equanimity are suitable for those occasions when the mind is excited. On the note of balancing our practice of mindfulness, Lama Alan recounts the Sona Sutta. Returning to the Satipatthana Sutta, Lama Alan expounds on the practice of reviewing phenomena as phenomena in terms of the four noble truths and the results of applying oneself to the four applications of mindfulness. This concludes his presentation on the four applications of mindfulness. The concluding meditation is on mindfulness of breathing and starts at 00:42:20
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 04 May 2021, Online-only
Lama returns to the text of the Vajra Essence and the chapter entitled The Actual Nature of Good and Bad Deeds and Their Consequences Lama Alan first touches on the meaning of merit and its relation to the nature of the kayas. He highlights that every act of virtue is an expression of the enlightened activity of the buddhas, rays from the devine, from Sugatagarbha. He continues with the text, commenting on the different examples given about how merit is and is not accumulated. Lama Alan continues with quotes from A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, that point out that the very essence of all Dharma activities is to cultivate the mind. Coming back to the text of the Vajra Essence, he highlights the idea that every virtuous act is a creative expression of ultimate reality. He comments on generosity as being the entryway to the path of liberation. Then, Vajra of Pristine Awareness asks if intention alone can transform a nonvirtuous act into a virtuous one. The Bhagavan explains the meaning of intention and clarifies that virtuous and nonvirtuous acts are not merely due to conceptualization. Lama Alan highlights the importance of intention and discerning recognition. Finally, he comments on the question of Vajra of Pristine Awareness which is related to the nature of thoughts and the distinction between thoughts that produce happiness or suffering. Meditation starts at 1:05:20 with taking the mind as the path and then introspectively following and recognizing the courses of the activities of the mind that are beneficial and those that are unbeneficial and differentiating between observing and appropriating them.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 22 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan started by bringing back the theme of the ultimate nature of mind, citing some approaches: (1) recalling the foray we made into an ontological probe into the nature of mind in terms of origin, location and destination - a classic vipashyana practice, especially in Kagyu (Mahamudra) and Nyingma (Dzogchen) traditions; (2) Karma Chagmé Chapter on Insight in "A Spacious Path to Freedom", that draws the conclusion that mental appearances emerge from emptiness, their location and destination are empty, referring to the emptiness of inherent nature of mental phenomena themselves as well as the emptiness of inherent nature of their origin and destination; (3) Nagarjuna (Madhyamaka) in his ontological analysis of causality, the tetralemma: phenomena do not arise from themselves, they do not truly arise from other, they do not truly arise from self and other, nor do they truly arise from neither self nor other. So, this particular approach - origin, location and destination - is designed for people following the Mahamudra and Dzogchen path in which you first achieve shamatha in the nature of the mind, and then you rest in the substrate consciousness - the bhavanga, subtle continuum of mental consciousness - which is not configured as a human mind, it is like a stem consciousness - called conventional or relative nature of mind by Panchen Rinpoche, and essential nature of the mind by Düdjom Lingpa. And then we investigate whether this raw specimen truly originates, is truly located anywhere and truly goes anywhere; the conclusion is no, no, no and you've realized the emptiness of the mind. Karma Chagmé comments that once you've realized the emptiness of that by which you apprehend any object, the nature of these objects of the mind must also be empty, like a domino effect. On the other hand, there is the phenomenological analysis of causality. In Buddhist philosophy it is stated that all conditioned phenomena arise from a substantial cause or something that transform into it, like a seed that loses its identity and transforms into a sprout, following the conservation principle. This transformation has to be enabled by cooperative conditions like water, sunlight, etc. in the case of the seed-sprout transformation. And then Alan brings this to the mind, the central focus of Mahamudra, Dzogchen and this retreat. As we take the mind as the path, having already investigated the emptiness of its origin, location and destination, we take the space of the mind as the meditation object - like the interval between mental events - and we ask simple phenomenological questions: is it flat or tridimensional, black or transparent, does it have a center, shape, periphery, size, and so forth? We can also directly observe whether it is a dead space or it is more kind of "effervescent", not static, like a quantum soup, ready to erupt at any moment. Alan suggests then this hypothesis: is it the case that phenomenologically this formless space of the mind takes on the form of mental appearances and then they dissolve back into the space of the mind? Actually, when we phenomenologically analyze a thought, we don't have many options: does nothing transform into it? Impossible! Does physical matter like neurons transform into a nonphysical thought? Implausible! Neurons, synapses, electricity may certainly function as cooperative conditions for mental states to emerge. So, by a process of elimination, mental events must be arising from something non-physical - the space of the mind is transforming into these mental events which then dissolve back into it. Is this something we can observe? That could be very interesting! Similarly, subjective mental impulses must arise from something non-physical - a propensity (vasana in sanskrit) gets catalyzed by some event and an emotion, for instance, arises. When Alan was studying physics, he was very interested in the energy of empty space. Let's say, as a thought experiment, that we take a volume of space and take all matter and all energy out of it, including gravitational energy, everything. Now you examine theoretically and empirically: is there anything inside that volume? Yes: the energy of empty space. Space itself has its own energy - the zero point energy. And if you calculate the density of this energy, you will find that it is infinite. As an analogy, in this quantum field theory, energy is permeated by the space and there occur quantum fluctuations, and configurations of mass-energy will emerge and then dissolve back into it. Many years ago, His Holiness engaged with world-class physicists debating the notion that space itself is not a smooth continuum, but it is composed of space particles, or quanta. The universe emerged from space particles. His Holiness related this to Kalachakra, where there is the view that space consists of particles; these particles of space take on form and the universe emerges from them and expands and then contracts back into them. And the cooperative condition is the karma of sentient beings that triggers these space particles to manifest in a world inhabitable for the sentient beings whose karma co-created it. The Big Bang was not accidental. Before meditation starts, Alan commented that although cooperative conditions for waking and dream appearances are different, they are made of the same stuff; waking appearances are not more real or substantial than dream appearances. When we really are viewing reality this way, then things start to change. Meditation is silent (not recorded). ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 03 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
In an enormously compelling and emotional talk Alan once again tackles how scientific and contemplative communities have tackled “the hard problem”, that is how one can explain the relationship between qualia and its neural correlates. Alan first looks back on the 8th and the 14th century to show how Tibet was once a barbaric force that was then completely transformed by Buddhism. This brought about an immense contemplative culture and tradition that now reaches our Western/modern civilization by way of e.g. Gyatrul Rinpoche teaching Padmasambhava’s text “Natural Liberation” to everybody who is filling to listen with faith. All the while the European civilization was in relation to its philosophical tradition still nowhere! That it didn’t exactly “get better” in Europe shows the dominance of behaviorism in the 20th century and scientific materialism. Furthermore, Michio Kaku’s book “The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind”, which sounds very promising and is all the more disappointing and - if anything - proves that a theoretical physicist with no training in psychology, neuroscience or any kind of mind science should not write a book about the mind. As it turns out, Michio Kaku boldly states that there is a smooth continuum of consciousness from the thermostat (as the lowest form) to humans (the highest form). Thus, the human brain is nothing else than an extremely complex thermostat - which sounds very much like Aristotle’s theory (which is equally unempirical) that the brain is nothing but a refrigerator that keeps the body cool. Taken the absurdity of that argument (especially because it’s not backed up by evidence), it might come as a surprise that there are even more people who share that opinion. One of them is Daniel Dennett, a philosopher, who argues that humans are simply largely autonomous robots with no qualia at all! This is exactly what Descartes once assured Europeans of in relation to animals. That very view was then used as a justification for treating animals in such cruel ways that leave most of people speechless. The same view was then used to justify the violence against black people, Native Americans, Jews, and with every other group of people that somehow stood in the way of the dominant in-group. And as different as the historical contexts might be in all these cases, the argument always ran: “They are not like us, they don’t feel the same way we do, they are just animals”. The view that Dennett and the like represent is what Alan calls human racism as the whole of mankind is being treated like mindless robots. One does not even want to think about what atrocities could be justified with such a view of people as robots… Alan, however, ends on a positive note by quoting John Searle and most and foremost Shantideva to inspire us all to do our best to change the world for the better. Meditation starts at 00:13
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 15 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Q&A In today`s Q&A teachings, Lama la answers the following questions: - A question about the practice of resting in awareness while observing the activities of the mind: when doing the practice correctly one is able to observe different states of mind from drowsiness to chattiness while dwelling in luminous cognizance. One observes the activities of the mind without being trapped in them. The mind releases itself from coarse to subtle to very subtle – this is not done actively but rather observed. - A request to Lama la to consider adding a colophon to the text "A Lamp for Dispelling the Five Obscurations". Lama will consider this in case he publishes the text. - What triggers the appearance of images when meditating without an object? All kinds of habitual propensities (vasanas) are triggered by karmic energies (samskara). - How to conduct onese if with non - Buddhist family and friends, especially regarding entertainment? We can transform it into Dharma. We start by looking at them with love and compassion, in our role towards them, and with the responsibility that comes with this role. We can, in every situation, cultivate one of the Four Immeasurables. Since nobody else has the power to waste our time we take responsibility for ourselves. This is the approach of skillful means. Lama la then reminds us of Atisha`s advice to look upon all phenomena as dreamlike, and at oneself as an illusory being, so cultivating ultimate bodhicitta. - How is the Sambhogakaya as the luminous manifestation of pristine awareness the embodiment of enjoyment? Lama explains that a more accurate translation would be the embodiment of experiencing: the luminous quality at its perfection in experiencing appearances. - The via negativa, the process of elimination to recognize an object, as described in Buddhist psychology, is not plausible for the person asking. Lama la clarifies that this question will not hinder us from practicing correctly. Regarding the process itself: firstly, objects appear towards mental perception directly. What is talked about here is a process of conceptual recognition, first described in Buddhist Epistemology by the 6th-century scholars and mahasiddhas Dignaga and Dharmakirti. It stood the test of time until today, and in this time span was verified by many brilliant scholars and practitioners such as Tsongkhapa and HH the 14th Dalai Lama. The process of elimination is done by categories, in a subliminal way within milliseconds. The software of face recognition works in the same way: within seven steps of elimination of facial features, it has a success rate of 99 %. To make this process more plausible, Lama introduces us to a parlor game in which 20 questions are asked to identify an object one person is thinking of. Here the process of elimination is used in smaller and smaller categories until the searched-for object is identified. Lama goes on to describe the relevance of Quantum Physics to other fields of science, such as Neuroscience. This relevance was at first denied, but now the whole universe is seen as a Quantum system. The pinnacle of Buddhist philosophy, Prasangika Madhyamaka, states that nothing is there from its own side at all, all we perceive are appearances. This resonates with a statement based on Quantum Physics, that the whole universe is observer dependent. A variation of the 20 questions game is introduced by John Wheeler, called negative 20 questions. Here the questions posed determine step by step the object which each person individually and secretly chose, and continues to choose after each answer...eventually (but not always) leading to a final answer/object that everyone can agree on. According to John Wheeler, this game reflects the nature of the Quantum world – there are no entities out there already, and the questions determine what is observed, so coming to consensual agreement. This is in radical contradiction to the view of metaphysical realism which was held up by Western religion and science until the discoveries of Quantum mechanics in the 20th century and still is widely held up. Science grows with an increasing body of consensual knowledge. Lama exemplifies this with the example of a shifting view of the sun and the moon with growing consensual scientific knowledge. Different world views can be valid while seemingly contradicting each other, each determined by a specific frame of reverence. The dominance of the world view of Western science, which denied the millennia-old wisdom of other cultures like China or India, is on the cusp of crumbling, with the world waking up to the rich heritage of Eastern cultures. Lama la, as a monk in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition studying Physics, was a pioneer in finding common ground between these seemingly contradictory world views.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 09 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
“I’m in the mood for weaving” - with these words Alan begins the morning session. And he does weave together - loving kindness, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, Shakespeare, Shantideva and much more… Loving kindness stems from the primal drive of caring. Insofar as the mind rests in its natural state, this flow of caring is unimpeded - says Alan. If we rest in this state and someone is in pain or experiences great joy - our heart is moved. We care even for beings that are not real - movie and book characters for example (here Harry Potter fans may be interested to learn that Alan was truly saddened by the death of professor Remus Lupin…). It would therefore seem that the prospects for immeasurable loving kindness, great loving kindness and bodhicitta are good. However, barriers come up that impede this natural impulse of caring. What creates those barriers? Of course: grasping. Attachment and aversion. Conflating the person or a group of people with what they are not - behaviour, attitude, appearance. Alan quotes Paul Ekman saying that one of the fundamental errors is to equate a person with the behaviour. But we do not need to develop loving kindness for behaviour or attitude. They are not sentient beings. Words, bodies, institutions, political parties etc. are not sentient beings. Loving kindness and caring is for sentient beings. There is always a story behind a blocked flow of caring - continues Alan. And we tend to have the sense that our version of the story, our take on a person is right. Alan quotes William James who pointed out that we are prone to see our conclusions as the only logical ones. Alan instructs us to see who comes up during meditation and what barriers arise. He draws our attention to the fact that these appearances are always painted by our mind, with our colours, they have no existence outside our mind. The same is true for the sublime beings, like HH the Dalai Lama or the Buddha, and for the people we have difficulties with. They all are painted with our colours, by our mind. So when we find resistance to the flow of caring, it is because we are reifying appearances that do not exist outside our minds. We grasp to our version of the story as the only true story. Here Alan weaves together our personal histories with cosmology and quotes Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog’s paper on the “top-down” approach. According to Hawking and Hertog, bottom-up cosmology is possible only if we know all the initial conditions. But we don’t. Instead, our approach is top-down, meaning that our assessment of the past is based on the present. The resulting histories (plural) of the universe depend on the questions asked and the methods of measurement. They depend on what is being observed. Every possible version of the past exists in a quantum superposition state. The same is true about our personal histories - claims Alan. We think we are reconstructing history while in fact we are constructing it, making it up. We should therefore throw out the idea that there is one single true story. Our past with any person is a construction, a story that grew over time. If this story blocks our heart we should rewrite it, come up with a new one - advises Alan. And to conclude he reads two famous quotations - one from Shakespeare (“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…”) the other from Shantideva (“My enemies will not remain, nor will my friends remain. I shall not remain. Nothing will remain…”). The meditation is on loving kindness. The meditation starts at 29:30 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 06 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
This morning, Alan integrated all theories and practices we've been doing during these last five weeks. He started by coming back to the pith instructions from Panchen Rinpoche yesterday: examine very closely the way of existing or the way of abiding, the way you appear and the way you apprehend yourself. And then he explained that the way of abiding and the way of appearing are different things, giving two examples: (1) Robert de Niro, as a very gifted actor, appears in many different ways - a villain, a loving father, a father in law - but there is a certain way of his acting that abides as his trademark; (2) fire manifests in many ways - red, yellow, blue, torch, candle, supernova - and yet, it's always hot, burning. We ourselves appear in many different ways even in one lifetime, let alone in many lifetimes - some very agreeable, pleasant and others just repugnant. But in all cases, what is the common denominator? What is abiding, every single day, in all of our manifestations, from the most angelical to the most demonic? What is abiding in each of us individually? In a dream, there is nothing but the appearances of our own minds - what is the commonality? And then, Alan related this to Loving Kindness. Like in a lucid dream, but in the waking state, when you're a vidyadhara, viewing all phenomena from rigpa, all sentient beings you see are you - all sentient beings, in the whole spectrum, from hell realms to pure lands, are creative expressions, effulgences of your own pristine awareness - all beings are seen with equal purity as displays of yourself. Alan highlighted one element of Buddhaghosa's analysis of the Four Immeasurables as enormously important to anyone who wishes to more deeply and more broadly experience loving kindness - what is the proximate cause, what is that triggers, catalyses, arouses the sense of loving kindness? It is seeing the lovable quality, the lovableness, the endearing quality, the quality of the other that makes the person worthy of affection, of warmth, of love, of loving kindness. Alan says that we should memorize this for the rest of our lives. If we don't see that, we may go through the routine and we can behave altruistically without being altruistic. Shantideva highlighted that the six perfections are always an inside job, they are qualities of the mind, not qualities of behavior - what we see externally is only the manifestation of that. Where is the lovable quality? What abides? If we point any of the greatest villains of history, they are never grotesque all the time - think of one of those people when he or she was 3 years old, and maybe falling in love, or tending a garden. Nobody can be that constant and nor can we. We can get in really bad moods but not all the time. So where is the lovable quality? If our loving kindness is going to be based upon the way of appearance, then it is going to be a fair-weather loving kindness. It will never be immeasurable loving kindness if it's responding to "how are you appearing today?" It can't be that way. It has to be something deeper - the way of abiding. In the Mahayana tradition we have two routes - Maitreya / Asanga and Manjushri / Shantideva. Viewing all beings as our own mothers works very well for people who believes in reincarnation and also that all beings were our mothers in past lives, but in the West it may not work so well. Even if we accept, it can get very abstract. So there is this other route. Shantideva starts out arousing the sense of the equality of self and other, proceeding to Tonglen and so forth. Then we come back to Panchen Rinpoche teachings, the wisdom track, examining close how you abide - what is constant from moments of your worst behavior and your most sublime behavior? Those are all appearances, come and go - what abides through the course of your life? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has pointed to it: our deepest impulse is caring. In the most sublime and worst moods you're doing what you're doing because you care, and that's hardwired, you can't change that. Our consciousness will still be caring even in the bardo, and it's a common ground. Sometimes the way we express our caring is very harmful, very biased. But caring is right down to the core of buddha nature. The Buddha achieved enlightenment, stood up from his seat in Bodhgaya and set out in his long walk because of caring. Europeans went to Africa in the XIX Century, enslaving, killing, torturing because they cared about their families, not about the Blacks, of course. But when we see a person expressing caring without being disfigured on the way out we say: look! This person is so caring! And when a person like this comes to mind, loving kindness comes, because it is a lovable quality. And then we see other behavior that is still driven by caring but it has got toxified and we find it horrendously evil. But it's coming from the same. So Alan wrapped up. We can develop loving kindness in shamatha, achieve shamatha by way of loving kindness - it is a loving shamatha, we achieve shamatha in a subjective mode of viewing that is loving. Alan gave the example of a mother gazing at her child sleeping peacefully, and then love, warmth, caring flow effortlessly. She may just linger there. She doesn't need to think 'may you be happy, may you find the causes of happiness'! All techniques are really to bring forth what she's already got, she's already resting in shamatha in loving kindness, for some minutes. Then, she looks to another bed in the room and her child's best friend is there for sleep over. And this child is so similar to her child, equally precious, and naturally gazing to this child, loving kindness is there. Maybe she goes to the window and looks people walking up and down the street and loving kindness is flowing there. And then she sits quietly, with nobody in mind, and she can still dwell in loving kindness. Whoever should come to mind is already a recipient. She has really broken down the barriers - someone who has treated her harshly comes to mind and she sees right through the mode of appearance to the mode of existence. And this person too is worthy of loving kindness. It's a matter of depth. Caring is always the common ground and it is deeper than the outer displays, which are like the weather - they come and go. Loving kindness is rooted deeper in reality. Now merging vipashyana with loving kindness: can we direct our awareness inwards and see someone who is worthy of loving kindness? Yes! We can penetrate through the myriad modes of appearances to the way we deeply abide, and we see it's just pure caring, and we are deeply caring persons, everyone is, and therefore lovable. Robert de Niro, Buddhaghosa, Panchen Rinpoche - shamatha, vipashyana, loving kindness, bodhicitta - all the same story. Meditation is on loving kindness towards what abides in ourselves and starts at 41:08 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 20 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begun this morning Dharma talk with one of his favorite parables (Naked Awareness p.93), and it is about a king who asked an illusionist to create an illusion as a means of causing his son to be drawn to Dharma. Alan pointed that just as the prince couldn’t recall the very first moment of falling into that trance – otherwise he would be lucid –, we are never able to recall the first moment of a mind wandering – otherwise we would be aware and able to say “hello thought, good bye thought” and not lose our minds. The same goes for non -lucid dreams. Dharmakirti has defined something that exists as something that is fit to be known. Similarly, Heisemberg said “let’s not attribute reality or existence to what is unknowable in principle”, referring to quantum measurements you haven’t done yet, as what you measure arises relative to your system of measurement and in response to the questions you’ve posed. So, the first moment of a mind wandering or, if we take it seriously, the first moment of samsara, as we were unaware, is not knowable in principle – samsara has no beginning. The implication here is that we’ve literally had infinite lives, meaning we’ve had infinite opportunities to meet spiritual teachers, like the Dalai Lama, Gyatrul Rinpoche and so forth, and reach the path, and yet, here we are! This leads us to cultivating a daunting resolve of leading all sentient beings to complete freedom from suffering. And for this to be serious and meaningful, we’ve got to have a clear vision of the path. So – make it personal – today, as you’ve encountered such Dharma, such teachers, spiritual friends and so forth, what is your strategy to move from here to enlightenment? How rare is it? Before meditation, Alan shared a bit of what happened in his lecture at the University of Pisa yesterday. His gracious hosts were a professor of Information Engineering and a neuroscientist and Alan was asked to give a bold presentation on “A Radically Empirical Approach to the Study of Consciousness” and so he did. After his (certainly brilliant) presentation, including his comments on Contemplative Observatory and the possibilities of having scientists and very well trained meditators together right there in Tuscany, they said “thank you”. Then, an elderly professor asked Alan to comment on the viability of robots being conscious and having feelings. Alan demolished this notion and said it was pretty much science fiction. And then the professor turned to Alan´s presentation and said “everything you said is science fiction. All the progress humanity has made has been made by Europeans.” And that was the end of conversation. A neuroscientist spoke to Alan, after his presentation, saying that if there was a neuroscientist that agrees with him, he would lose his job. It really is an environment of fear. When Alan was leaving, a very gracious woman told him, away from everybody else, that she was so grateful to hear his words on consciousness because she had experiences that resonate with what Alan was talking about, and he showed she was not crazy. But, at least for that professor, all the logical arguments that Alan presented made no impression. His Holiness said some years ago that if we achieve shamatha we will be able to display some siddhis and, in many occasions, he said that some of us should really practice and achieve shamatha. Alan commented that pratyekabuddhas make the resolve of achieving their own individual liberation in those eras of history from the time of one Buddha to the next. Maitreya for instance will not appear until the teachings of Buddha Sakyamuni have completely vanished without trace. This will be a very dark age for Buddhadharma, and for this reason, teachings on the Four Noble Truths will not even be heard. But it will be possible to make an impression by demonstrating very high tech siddhis to people, like levitating, let flames burn from the top of the body and let rain fall from the bottom of the body, all simultaneously. This could catch the attention of this primitive arrogant people. First this Buddha will have to blow their minds and then saw the seeds of Dharma. Atisha said we can’t develop paranormal abilities without shamatha; therefore strive in shamatha. Then we’ll accrue more merit in one day than in a hundred lifetimes. So, what do you want? Do we want do the plan you had yesterday or would you like to do everything you possibly can to become a siddha? Let´s start a Revolution; let’s start a Renaissance, for the benefit of all sentient beings. The meditation on cultivating the extraordinary resolve starts at 50:45 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 13 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
After a very brief introduction, Lama Alan returns to the text on page 154 with the paragraph beginning "The three kayas are taught… The aural transmission begins at 00:02:30. Lama Alan indicates that, while prana and breath are closely related, they are not the same. Prana is linked to life itself and carries the "spiritual DNA" from life to life. He then provides a brief explanation of the bardo of dying and the bardo of becoming. While the substrate consciousness is not dependent on the brain, Lama Alan hypothesizes that certainly it must have physiological correlates. The yogi who has achieved shamatha and a person in deep, dreamless sleep are experiencing the same state, viz. the substrate consciousness. It will be interesting to see what neuroscience finds when comparing the two. Ninefold expulsion is necessary to eliminate "corpse prana," which is the result of self-grasping and mental afflictions. Because we get so caught up in our day-to-day existence, our nadis become knotted and our prana gets trapped and dies. According to Lama Alan, the more we can let body, speech and mind rest in their natural state, the less likely we are to trap our vital energies, and therefore to need to practice ninefold expulsion. Lama Alan explains that prana is what links immaterial thoughts, intentions and emotions with the material body. If you don't understand prana, it is impossible to understand the mind-body relationship. This was widely recognized across multiple cultures and spiritual traditions until the materialists "came along and stole the show.“ Samadhi is by far the best technology for exploring this relationship. Within Vajrayana Buddhism, although there is great deal of commonality, details of the subtle energy body differ across various tantric traditions. This is because the nadis, chakras and bindus do not inherently exist, but arise dependent on various views and types of samadhi. They are not objectively real, but exist pragmatically; i.e. they have causal efficacy. According to Lama Alan, "Prana is as real as stones or grapefruit.“ Lama Alan continues with the text on pages 154 and 155 at 01:09:50 with further details of the ninefold expulsion and the subtle energy body. There is no meditation with this teaching.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 10 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Going back to the beginning of phase one, which is „Taking the Impure Mind as the Path“, Lama la explains that the topics presented in The Vajra Essence run against almost everything what we hear in the western world. He highlights that the practice of taking the mind as the path is a completely naturalistic approach and that we are not taking a religion, a philosophy etc. as a path. Moreover, he emphasizes the importance of seeking the authentic path—a path that is in accordance with reality and explains the two interpretations of the practice of taking the ground as the path which follows after the mind has dissolved. He then goes on to discuss the question posed by Bhagavan, "Tell me which is the unchanging autonomous sovereign," and the answer. He elaborates on the importance of the mind and supports this with quotes from both, the Pali Canon and Mahayana sutras. Lama la then turns to the subject of scientific materialism and shows its historical development since Copernicus and Galileo. He discusses its main drawbacks and disastrous effect and the three problems or facts it cannot explain: Consciousness, Qualia and Introspection. He shows how hardcore materialists deal with these problems by simply ignoring or negating them, and he shows the good news that the ship of scientific materialism has already been sunk by 20th and 21st century physicists and cognitive scientists.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 06 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Before beginning the meditation, Yangchen offers a couple of points of clarification from her previous talk: 1) the seed syllables do indeed disappear as they transform into each element; and 2) the seed syllable HUNG purifies the moment in the bardo of becoming when the mind/energies are about to re-enter cyclic existence. She also indicated that, even though she won't review all the symbolism involved in the visualization in order not to overwhelm us in detail, it is vital for the practitioner wishing to practice a sadhana to be able to fully relate all the elements of the visualization to their symbolic meanings. The Meditation on Both Mandalas begins at 11:00. Following the meditation, Yangchen explores the extremely complex topic of karmic seeds and their attendant propensities. She notes that from the point of view of dzogpa chenpo, where every sentient being is endowed from birth with fully manifest buddha-nature, the roots of virtue can always be activated. If a practitioner tries to look at the paths of awakening according to human notions of fairness, almost nothing looks fair. But this is a very narrow perspective, and the Lake-Born Vajra cautions against thinking in this way. It is advisable to acknowledge the limits of our capacity in the present moment, but also permissible to anticipate what it would be like to be a mahasiddha, no matter how inadequate such an anticipation might be. Yangchen then turns to an explication of the text beginning with the first full paragraph on page 140. (Note: in the edited version, it is mis-numbered as 141; it is obviously the page that follows 139.) She explains that, having previously set the boundaries of the practice and expelled all enemies and malevolent beings from within the boundaries, pure perception prevents their return. She offers a discussion of the incarceration box ('brub khung) and the ritual dagger (phur pa or kīla), noting they elements are common of many sadhanas. She also touched on the transmission on the life, the transmission on the life of the six classes of beings and three kinds of restoration. Yangchen reiterated several times Lama Alan's instruction that we are NOT to engage in these particular practices at this time. She concluded the teaching with the text the top of page 142.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 26 Apr 2021, Online-only
We return to Phase 4 of the Vajra Essence where Vajra Pristine Awareness asks whether it is enough to have ascertained emptiness in order to fathom the ultimate nature of pristine awareness. The Lake Born Vajra answers that it is not like this, since knowing the actual nature of reality – emptiness – is the basis for all vehicles that takes one to liberation. This is so because one cannot be liberated without knowing reality as it is. Lama Alan raises the question if our civilisation knows the true causes of sustainable well-being, and sadly, by observing the state of the world with mass extinctions, economic inequality, the rise of mental illnesses, consumerism and so forth, we must admit that these are expressions of an delusional view of reality. Natural sciences are still searching to describe an objectively real environment, with very few exceptions in quantum physics, and mind sciences still seek to understand the mind and mind-related phenomena like meditation through studying brain functions. The actual nature of the internal and the external world remain a mystery to modern society. The Lake Born Vajra tells us that even virtuous meditations - if they do not lead to an understanding of reality - will bring us only fortunate circumstances within the cycle of samsara, but not to liberation. This is because any path that seeks liberation has bring us to an understanding of reality. According to the different constitutions of seekers, there are nine different yanas in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism that lead individuals to liberation. Although commonly viewed in a hierarchical way, with Dzogchen being the pinnacle, Lama Alan refers to the renowned Buthanese teacher Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche, who explains that each vehicle that suits a practitioner is his or her own Great Perfection. Yet Dzogchen, which is also called the Great Encompassment, embraces with its view all the views of the other yanas, whereas the so-called lower yanas cannot make sense of the teachings of the so-called higher yanas. Then Lama Alan quotes Padmasambhava on the many ways that the mind, with luminousity and cognizance as its main characteristics, can be viewed and named, all of them pointing to its unfathomable nature, the ground of all of samsara and nirvana: „It is a label, for it is named in unimaginable ways.“ Padmasambhava's view includes non-Buddhist approaches to fathom the nature of reality, for example the search for Atman, which is a middle way view between the extremes of nihilism and eternalism. This wide view is shared by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who never tries to convert people to Buddhism but rather encourages them to go deeper in their own traditions. Then the Lake Born Vajra continues with the explanation that the view of the Great Perfection is great emptiness seen as the constant creative play of primordial consciousness (which was explained in detail during last year's 8-week retreat). The text continues with describing a primordially free being that has never dwelled in the realms of samsara or nirvana and that has never been stained by dualistic grasping, and it is given the name Samantabhadra, or Vajradhara, or Adi-Buddha. Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri form a divine couple, their basis of designation are two aspects of ultimate truth: primordial consciousness and the absolute space of phenomena. They are the ultimate objects of refuge, prayer and aspiration, and they are depicted in human-like forms in Buddhist art such as thangkas and statues. Here Lama Alan raises two questions: Is Ludwig Feuerbach's thesis that God is a father-like projection of the human mind similar to the Buddhist personification of Samantabhadra? And: Since Buddhism is characterized as being non-theistic, how can then the ultimate ground, basis of all the myriads of worlds of samsara and nirvana, be personified as Samantabhadra? Lama Alan then draws on his background and PhD in religious studies, where he found the approach of many contemplatives in theistic religions to know God's face through contemplative practices. Picking one example, Lama introduces us to the 15th century Christian scientist Nicolas of Cusa who made discoveries in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and theology, which later inspired scientists such as Galileo. After reading to us some quotes of this great contemplative, which point to a notion of God beyond all sensory experiences and intellectual concepts, Lama Alan raises the question if there might be a Great Perfection within Christianity, within the Vedic tradition, the Islamic tradition, the Jewish tradition etc to be rediscovered? And might there also be a Great Perfection within Modern Science? Meditation starts at 01:11:30: While resting in awareness, cultivate empathetic joy in the myriad paths leading to liberation and perfect awakening.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 05 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1. Alan begins a new cycle on the 4 greats. While the 4 immeasurables don’t require a particular world view, the 4 greats are firmly rooted in the buddhist world view. “With meditative equipoise, one sees reality as it is. When on sees reality as it is, the bodhisattva develops great compassion.” The liturgy contains four lines. 1) Why couldn’t we all be free from suffering and its causes? It is helpful to consider all sentient beings as referring to all those we encounter. 2) May we be free from suffering and its causes. There is no time limit on this aspiration. 3) May I free us from suffering and its causes. This intention is realistic only from the perspective of rigpa. 4) May the gurus and buddhas bless me, so that I may be enabled.
Meditation. Great compassion. Establish meditative equipoise by settling body, speech, and mind and mindfulness of breathing. Dissolve your ordinary identity by reflecting on the emptiness of your own body. In its place, your primordial consciousness crystalizes into an energy body. 1) Why couldn’t we all be free from suffering and its causes? Reflect on the whole world and specific people who come to mind. Draw the conclusion that freedom is possible because all sentient beings have buddhanature. 2) May we be free from suffering and its causes. 3) May I free us from suffering and its causes. Imagine your own buddhanature as a small white orb of light at your heart chakra. With every in breath, make resolve to free self and others and imagine others’ suffering in the form of darkness converging at and extinguished within the white orb. 4) May the gurus and buddhas bless me, so that I may be enabled. With every in breath, light from all enlightened beings come in from all directions and fills your body and mind. With every out breath, light flows out to all sentient beings, relieving their suffering and its causes.
Teaching pt2. Nothing can be said to be inherently virtuous. Motivation is key, and coupled with great compassion, the shamatha practices we’re doing here can also be quite virtuous.
Meditation starts at: 24:33
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 02 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan begins by setting the scene and explaining the schedule. He suggests that this practice of settling the body, speech and mind in their natural state would be an excellent preface to any classroom or boardroom situation. He explains that in the center of our mandala, external events are what we make of them. If we can relieve afflictive stress, this will help alleviate symptoms of all diseases. Lama Alan then touches on the lineage of these teachings which he has received, a treasure which opened up to him.
Our human tendency is to reify and think that things are enduring; the current pandemic is an example. Stress comes from ‘collapsing down’ to ‘my group’ versus ‘other group’. Don’t let the awareness contract into a fist of anxiety. Meditation is a preventative medicine. (Meditation & medication just one syllable apart) We don’t know who we are. What is the referent when you say ‘I’? We tend to identify with our bodies, a ‘habit we need to kick’. Lama Alan encourages us to practice as if we had never heard these instructions before. When we are doing this meditation we are attending closely to the physical sensations but none of these sensations are ‘mine’. And yet we fiercely identify with them. We superimpose the idea, ‘my body’, and yet it was never really mine. This meditation pulls the rug out from under our delusions and is a direct antidote to the root of suffering. This practice is the foundation but continues to be the basis of the path through to fruition. No collapse, no contraction, no stress!
Lama Alan concludes that we need to fundamentally reassess HOW we are present in the world. We can be fully present but not caught up in the drama. This retreat at this time is a chance to re-engage & refresh in an unprecedented way.
Meditation starts at 33.40
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 13 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan starts by saying that this retreat has been embedded in the Buddhist teachings. It would be meaningless to teach Mahamudra in a secular way. It’s been wonderful to be totally immersed in a way of viewing reality and a way of practicing and leading our lives that have these three elements, profoundly integrated: the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of virtue and the pursuit of understanding or knowledge. In the Medieval period, the pursuit of genuine happiness, eudaimonia, was not conceivable without virtue; and the highest virtue is knowing reality – these were completely integrated. In Modernity, this integration was shattered – natural philosophy became science, religion became a matter of faith and the pursuit of happiness became more hedonic. Then Alan pointed that nowadays, for many people, achieving and sustaining emotional balance is very difficult to. As many of us know, Alan has been championing a mental balance model based on four balances – conative, attentional, cognitive and finally emotional balance. Alan briefly addressed emotional balance before coming back to the Four Immeasurables. His way of presenting these balances is describing all types of imbalances. The hyperactivity in terms of emotional balance is overreacting, oversensitivity, lacking stability, ungrounded. Emotional deficit is being dead within, out of touch with emotions. And emotional dysfunction is responding in a way entirely inappropriate, harmful to the situations. In terms of practices, modern psychology has contributed with many ideas, theories and interventions, and some of them has been incorporated in the “Cultivating Emotional Balance” Program, as advised by Paul Ekman. Alan has contributed with the Four Immeasurables as emotional balance practices, and he has been criticized because some of them - Loving Kindness, Compassion and Equanimity - are not emotions (well, at least, Empathetic Joy is an emotion!). These practices could be included among conative balance practices. But he gave us a metaphor: if someone drops a stone in a cup of water, and if you are a little insect on the surface, that would feel like a tsunami, the end of the world. In a swimming pool, the same stone would only make a ripple; in a lake or in the ocean, the same stone would make a ripple that wouldn’t even be noticeable – the same liquid, the same stone. We are deeply habituated to having thoughts, desires, emotions, anticipations and all mental activities – I, me , mine – swirling around , like bees swirling around the hive. During the course of one day, “I, me, mine” thoughts are far more frequent than “the other person” or “all sentient beings”. “I, me mine” is one cup. If all we’re attending to is only this little world, than when adversity strikes, in other words, life happens… “Oh, I can’t handle this”, “I can’t meditate today”, “I can’t believe it – someone criticized me!” It´s big deal! Emotional balance will never happen, because reality was never meant to be user friendly. So, what can be done? Get a bigger cup, trade it for a lake, and then, trade it for an ocean. And to do that, you just have to attend closely to all those around you - in their sorrows, their disappointments, their fears, their struggles – with your heart and your mind, with your eyes and your wisdom. If you attend closely to their suffering, inevitably you feel it and you care – and your cup gets bigger. As all the suffering we watch on the news becomes real for us, empathy and compassion start to break down the barriers. This can be overwhelming! Then, to balance it, we have to be more attentive to the joys and virtues of others, and let them become real for us. Thus, our hearts become larger. When we go to the Four Greats, then we can view the suffering of sentient beings from the perspective of rigpa, and the resolve “I shall liberate all sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering” makes sense. But as long as we view all the suffering of the world from the perspective of a sentient being, the only hope is collaboration, networking, sharing vision and encouraging each other – a kind of “Sangha” restoring the balance on the planet, serving humanity and all sentient beings. Meditation is on Empathetic Joy and it starts at 24:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 16 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan reminds us that these teachings are to help us know more deeply the nature of samsara -– this deceptive reality which we take so seriously. Without knowing this thoroughly, we may never make our way to the reality that transcends deceptive reality. Some examples are we must train ourselves to know when our mind is concentrated and when it is not, when obscurations are suppressed and when they are not, when you’ve achieved access to the first dhyana and when you have not, and when you have achieved access to the form realm and when you have not. It is easy to deceive ourselves and in these degenerate times, many believe they have reached stages along the path such as the first dhyana and have not. Still, there are authentic teachers in all the traditions. Lama Alan points out we are drawing on the richness of the teachings from the early sangha and from the living sangha which has been built upon from texts of pundits, and experiences of siddhas and yogis for the past 2500 years. He explains two terms: javana and vasana. Javana refers to karmically active mental processes or movements of the mind we can perceive. Javana is like kinetic energy. Most people don’t observe these processes, but as contemplatives we are training ourselves to do this and they are observable. However, when we enter deep dreamless sleep, or, when waking, a certain type of energy such as anger, does not appear in our mind, it is not gone. It is now called a Vasana or a mental imprint or propensity which is stored in the bhavanga or substrate consciousness. When awake and cooperative conditions appear, this vasana, or seed of energy will ripen and change the potential energy to kinetic energy – javana and we will, again, be able to observe the mental event of, for example, anger. So, you can see, the lack of an observable mental energy (an obscuration, for example), does not necessarily mean that you’ve realized, as some think, the first dhyana. It is easy to make a mistake. The mark of the first dhyana is the ability to sit in perfect samadhi for 24 hours straight continuously free of the five obscurations. The need for a spiritual friend is greater when one is involved in intense practice so as not to make errors in assessing where you are on the path. Meditation begins at 00:34:19 and is about going deeper by exploring the mind and noticing the kinetic energy, or javana. Then, though you cannot see the potential energy, notice the relative stillness ¬– a facsimile of the bhavanga or substrate consciousness.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 14 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
This morning Alan moves on to the four close applications of mindfulness, focusing on the body and feelings. The Pali word “Vedanā” refers to primal feelings like pleasure, displeasure and neutral. Feelings are not included into the mental factors of the close application of mindfulness to the mind. Instead they are examined separately, since these are the ones we care about most. We don’t want pain and we want pleasure. In the first of the four noble truths, the Buddha recommends to understand these feelings. Alan emphasizes that we normally don’t want to understand the feelings about pain, but rather just get rid of them. In modernity we have been very successful to get rid of the unpleasant feelings and pain by means of anesthesia, work, and entertainment. Analyzing the feelings in the way the Buddha taught in the Pāli canon is immensely important because it gives insight into the factors of origination and dissolution of feelings. Alan continues explaining that the five sensory consciousnesses (visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and tactile) have their own separate and non-overlapping domain of experience. In contrast to these five, mental awareness has its exclusive domain of experience and moreover can poach into the sensory fields of awareness. Mental awareness piggybacks on the other five awarenesses. Alan emphasizes that during developing samadhi by attending to the body, tactile consciousness is the carrier whereas the the real work is done in the mental domain. Returning to feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral), Alan states that they are always present in any experience. Its crucial to note that tactile sensation are always unpleasant if they are too intensive. Too much of the earth, wind, fire and air element is experienced as painful, like too hot or too cold or too much earth like bumping into things. Often we attribute feelings to the object: in the example of the fruit durian, there are people that experience smelling and eating this fruit as disgusting while others like it. This clearly shows that the feeling is not an attribute of the fruit. Feelings also exist in the mental domain. Alan elaborates that the mental awareness fuses with the various modes of sensual perceptions and in so doing can easily override the sensual feeling. Alan exemplifies this with a football player who painfully collides with an opponent while scoring a point on the touchdown line. Here the physical pain is overridden by a feeling of joy. This ability is the basis for “Lojong” practices like taking suffering, illness or death as the path. The mental experience can override the physical experience and even alter the somatic effects. For the meditation Alan invites us to take Mindfulness of Breathing as the baseline and then piggybacked on the somatic sensations, observe and analyze feelings. Are we able to modify the way we apprehend the object? The meditation is on the Close Application of Mindfulness to Feelings. Meditation starts at 37:15 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 23 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Yangchen begins with the response to a question of how to respond when bliss arises within the context of the stage of generation practice. Without hope or fear, attachment or aversion, really observe and recognize whatever experiences arise from this practice. Recognize what is happening and in that observation, you can get a glimpse of appearances dissolving. Whatever bliss arises recognize it as empty. Don't follow the bliss or get carried away by it. Yangchen uses Lama Tharchin's commentary to provide the meaning for the syllables of the root mantra for the Lake Born Vajra. This explanation is also found in her notes for today. She then provides information regarding how to properly use the mala and recite mantras. She provides commentary on the longevity practice. The actual purpose is deathless life not just for a long life in this lifetime. Yangchen also provides the meaning and context for the longevity mantra. The meditation and visualization with the two mantra recitations begins at 1:06:24
