2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 25 May 2020, Online-only
Dedication Vision Quest
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 20 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan starts by reminding the importance of maintaining method and wisdom balanced throughout our day. He then returns to the Buddha’s discourse to the Kalamas where he discusses the disadvantages of the three poisons, the merits of overcoming these mental afflictions and the importance of ethical discipline. The discourse then focuses on the cultivation of the four immeasurables and their positive results. The meditation on Loving kindness begins at 00:49:40 where one dwells pervading the entire world with one’s heart filled with loving-kindness. After the meditation Lama Alan expounds on the practice of loving kindness, highlighting the idea of filling the space with the sublime virtue so it becomes immeasurable. He explains how this theme of filling the space is also done in other practices.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 21 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan talks about the fourth of the five obscurations excitation and anxiety. Excitation is associated with restlessness and agitation. Anxiety is also known as guilt, remorse, shame, or regret. Bliss and joy are the natural antidotes. But since these qualities cannot be called up at will, discursive meditation on the pros and cons of the practice (in this case, shamatha) can be helpful. As long as we have not achieved shamatha, we are subject to the 5 obscurations characterized as being: 1) sensual craving = indebted, 2) ill-will = sick, 3) laxity/dullness = bondage, 4) excitation/anxiety = enslaved, 5) uncertainty = lost in a desert tracked. Achieving shamatha is the ultimate retreat, makes both body and mind supple, places the 5 dhyana factors at our disposal, and allows us to truly help others. It also greatly facilitates the realization of bodhicitta, vipasyana, and for buddhahood in one lifetime according to Dudjom Lingpa, threkchö and thogyal.
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing per Asanga. If needed use oscillation as in awareness of awareness until your mind comes to rest in the center. As you breathe in, focus your attention from the nostril down to the navel, and without visualization, as you breathe out. Note the 4 stages: 1) inhalation, 2) pause at the end of inhalation, 3) exhalation, 4) pause at the end of exhalation. Note the end of the in and out breaths. With each out breath, total, complete release. With each in breath, just take in whatever presents itself.
Meditation starts at 30:14
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 29 May 2020, Online-only
Meditation "Integrating the 3 Phases of the Vajra Essence" begins at 3:22
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 31 Mar 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Yangchen la gives a general intro to the ‘sadhana of the Vajra Essence’ and the relationship of stage of generation practice in dzogchen and the new translation schools. The principle theme underlying stage of generation practice is purifying the habit of clinging to ordinary appearances (ཐ་མལ་སྣང་ཞེན་ | tha mal snang zhen | thamel nangzhen | clinging to ordinary appearances). The guided meditation on the peaceful mandala of the ‘Sadhana of the Vajra Essence’ begins at minute 24:20 After the meditation, at 1:04:45 Yangchen encourages us to bring meditative pure vision into post meditation.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 24 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama la started with a few adjustments from several of the prior day’s transmissions on pages 263, 264 and 265. He reread the beginning of a paragraph on page 265 and then added some commentary on the paragraph about the transitional phase of Dharmata. Then he started with discussing the different perspectives where people think that their way is the only way based on the belief of a starting premise that could be faulty. He then read a note from yesterday, with an excerpt from Yangchen la with her comments about how Tsongkhapa achieved enlightenment. Lama la started the aural transmission of the text at 00:12:32 with the first sentence in the middle of page 266, “After the inconceivable transitional phase of ultimate reality is completed, this is the way you go astray in the sixth, the transitional phase of becoming, which is based on karma.” Then he discussed that when the word “Bardo” is used, most people think about Tibetan Buddhism and how some schools view the word differently. He then read the following excerpt from the Pali Canon, “The Buddha asserted that three things are necessary for the emergence of a human psyche and the formation of a human embryo: the parents’ sexual intercourse; ovulation in the mother; the presence of a being in the intermediate state who has the karma to be reborn to those parents at that time.” [Majjhima Nikāya I:265-66]” He then continued with a few more excerpts about descriptions of the bardo from Peter Harvey, “The Selfless Mind” and [Poonam Sharma and Jim B. Tucker, “Cases of the Reincarnation Type with Memories from the Intermission Between Lives,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 23 (2) (Winter 2004): 116. Then Lama la discussed a documentary (The Mauritanian) about a devout Muslim who was at Guantanamo Bay on circumstantial evidence and after 21 years was let out and he as filled with forgiveness and his awe for his demeanor. Lama la then continued with the text adding about how skills in lucid dreaming can be of such benefit for being in the bardo, and how similar they might be if you can be lucid in the bardo, with nothing to fear and how our senses will be present. The next paragraph talks about what it might be like to be dead and still be able to hear, but with no one able to hear you, and then you realize that you have died! Lama la comments how the ill-prepared will be fearful. The text then shares what it might be like to be looking for where to go next, and “adopt a body quickly.” Lama la then shares more about “after death” from Socrates (Socrates declared that the truth of what happens at death—contrary to the popular belief in personal annihilation—is known only to those who have practiced philosophy. Lama la is lingering here because he said that all of us should be prepared for the Bardo of Becoming, because we all will experience that, and not all of us will experience the Bardo of Dharmata. This training is accessible. The meditation which starts at 01:03:29 sessions continue with further instructions from Padmasambhava after we settle Body, Speech and Mind. The session concluded with a silent meditation, allowing the words of Padmasambhava and the imprints to sink into us.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 03 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
If you believe that the mind is the brain and you’re unwilling to change your opinion, you should not listen to this - otherwise your world view might be shattered. Alan gives a brief historical overview of how the mind was viewed in the scientific community from the 1900s up to today. Starting with William James the mind was off to a promising start: James emphasized radical empiricism and was therefore open to include introspection in psychological research. However, soon after his death John B. Watson, a pioneer of behaviorism, declared that psychology should never use, refer to or in any way work with the concept of consciousness. He simply banned it without giving any empirical reasons for doing so - and people believed and followed him. Later people such as B. F. Skinner argued in the very same vein and such views still dominate academia and the press today. Luckily, there are also some fresh voices out there, such as John Searle, Christof Koch and Paul Ekman, who all (to varying degrees) allow for consciousness to play a vital role and do not simply equate it with the brain. At the end, Alan emphasizes that this is not a case of “Buddhism vs. Science” or anything the like - it really is simply a battle between open empiricism and dogmatism. Meditation starts at 08:29
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 13 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1. Alan completes the 2nd cycle on the 4 greats with great equanimity. Literally, it refers to freedom from attachment to the near and aversion to the far. There is nothing closer than our own awareness. Thogyal—direct crossing over or leaping over—means traversing the bhumis in leaps and bounds to complete enlightenment.
Meditation. Great equanimity preceded by mindfulness of the mind.
1) mindfulness of the mind. Let your mind release all thoughts about that which has already happened and not yet happened, and let your awareness dwell in the fleeting present moment. Awareness is still, naturally clear, and rest in the flow of knowing of being aware. Can you identify from where it emerges? If it doesn’t arise from anything, it is unborn. Can you identify where it is to be found? If it cannot be found, it is non-existent. Does awareness cease? If it does not cease, it is ceaseless. Rest in awareness that is unborn non-existent, and ceaseless.
2) great equanimity. From that perspective, inquire 1) why couldn’t all sentient beings dwell in great equanimity free from attachment to the near and aversion to the far? 2) May we all dwell in great equanimity. 3) I shall bring all beings to great equanimity. 4) May I receive blessings from all the enlightened ones and the guru to do so. With every in breath, blessings in the form of light come in from all directions. With every out breath, light of purification flows out in all directions, dispelling all obscurations.
Teaching pt2. Despite India’s unparalleled history in exploring the mind, modern scientific materialism has become the dominant paradigm in its leading institutions. Modern science lacks testable theories of the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of consciousness. The practices of shamatha, vipasyana, trekchö, and thogyal lead to direct experience of primordial consciousness and its energy, putting the following theories to the test. Does primordial consciousness give rise to substrate consciousness which in turn gives rise to individuated consciousness? Does the energy of primordial consciousness—non-dual from primordial consciousness—give rise to life? Does the dharmadhatu—also non-dual from primordial consciousness—give rise to the environment?
Meditation starts at 7:30
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 07 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
After opening prayers, Eva la goes onto commentary and explanation of two versions of the dissolution mantra, which precedes the emergence of pure phenomena in any sadhana. These versions are the one we are more familiar with (Om svabhava shuddha sarva dharma svabhava shuddho-haṃ) and the one she has been reciting lately (Om shunyata jnana vajra svabhava atmako-haṃ). In terms of their essence and core meaning they are equal, as Tsongkhapa states. She chooses to go into a detailed explanation of each word in the "Om shunyata jnana vajra svabhava atmako-haṃ" mantra, as taught by Tsongkhapa, and highlights how in this case his teachings touch the Vajrayana in peculiar ways, unusual to his style within the Gelugpa tradition. The meditation focuses on the peaceful mandala, primarily on the self generation as the deity (Vairocana), going into its details, qualities and symbolism. It starts at 23:25. Regarding the commentary of the text (pages 141-144), Yangchen first brings to our attention that there are similarities between the practice of liberation and a ganachakra ritual. After this, she goes back to the paragraph that begins with "For the restoration of the rudra[s ...]" and delves on the way we represent our enemies or maras to ourselves. She also comments on the fact that any representation stands not only for our own rudras, but for any rudra causing harm to any sentient being; hence this practice aims at freeing all sentient beings simultaneously of their rudras. She goes then into the paragraphs of the following two pages, interpolating here and there with small comments. About the practice itself, Yangchen comments that while visualisation can happen instantaneously, actualisation can take eons from a sentient being's perspective. Emptiness of time allows this time to shift to an instant from a highly realised being's point of reference. Blessings and liberation are in fact flowing from the dharmakaya, while we plant the seeds to be able to grant those things to sentient beings at some point in our path. Yangchen continues with small interpolations and ends the commentary of the text with a further analogy to the ganachakra ritual, to finalise with dedication prayers."
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 01 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan starts discussing the perspective from which it makes sense to talk about self- compassion. Both empathy and compassion for oneself, he says, makes sense because awareness is not a person. He then discusses what is specific about the Buddhist conception of compassion. Usually, we feel compassion only when we see blatant suffering. But, from the perspective of a being who knows the real causes of happiness, every happiness based on grasping and attachment is worth of compassion. Buddhist conception of compassion is summarized by the sentence: “May you be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.” This perspective is able to see how people can perpetrate the worst actions out of delusion. As Shantideva said: “With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy.” Seeing that, a deep compassion arises. But because the fundamental ignorance of self-grasping can be released and every being has Buddha-nature, there is hope. Meditation starts at 35:12. Keywords: compassion, Shantideva.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 01 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins by recalling Padmasambhava’s pointing out instructions presented earlier, stating that if one is extremely gifted, ripe, that could be sufficient to cut all the way through to rigpa, primordial consciousness. We are now going deep into vipashyana territory. Alan then comments on the practice we did earlier, which engages in the search of the mind with questions. For the meditation Alan reads Padmasambhava’s Pointing Out instructions from Natural Liberation to identify awareness (rigpa). After meditation, Alan gives a brief recap of Panchen Rinpoche’s text. We are now about to venture in the vipashyana methods as taught by the Gelug tradition, after having presented the insight practices found in Mahamudra. In the second part of his talk, Alan quotes a text he translated recently with the encouragement of HH the Dalai Lama, showing the interface between Mahamudra, Dzogchen and Madhyamaka which will be posted on the Retreat notes for today - the anthology will be published in the near future by Wisdom Publications. Meditation starts at 33:08 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 15 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
In order to explore the differences between shamatha and vipashyana, Alan begins explaining the meaning of the term bare attention coined by the great German scholar and practitioner named Nyanaponika Thera, the primary teacher of Bhikkhu Bodhi, one of the finest scholars and translators of Theravada Buddhism and the Pali Canon. Alan and Bhikkhu Bodhi never met but they have a long correspondence on the nature of mindfulness and its relationship to vipashyana. Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote to Alan: "Nyanaponika himself did not regard “bare attention” as capturing the complete significance of satipaṭṭhāna, but as representing only one phase, the initial phase, in the meditative development of right mindfulness. He held that in the proper practice of right mindfulness, sati (mindfulness) has to be integrated with sampajañña, clear comprehension, and it is only when these two work together that right mindfulness can fulfill its intended purpose." So bare attention is not a placebo; it's the first stage, baby steps, prior to shamatha and vipashyana, and if it's presented as that it's very beneficial, very good for stress reduction. But the misinformation comes from equating it to mindfulness, to vipashyana, states that are not dhyana to dhyana, experiences that are not stream-entry to stream-entry. This is counterproductive and undermines the integrity of Buddhist tradition. Mindfulness has become big business as yoga already is, secularized, commoditized, consumer-driven, devoid of any relation with ethics or any path of liberation. But there are very authentic yoga teachers and there are vipashyana teachers who teach with integrity, knowledge and with context. So Alan did not make a generalization; he is just cutting misinformation away. The problem was summarized in The Economist in a much better way than Alan ever saw in Buddhist journals: "The biggest problem with mindfulness is that it is becoming part of the self-help movement—and hence part of the disease that it is supposed to cure. Gurus talk about "the competitive advantage of meditation". Pupils come to see it as a way to get ahead in life. And the point of the whole exercise is lost. What has parading around in pricey Lululemon outfits got to do with the Buddhist ethic of non-attachment to material goods? And what has staring at a computer-generated dot got to do with the ancient art of meditation? Western capitalism seems to be doing rather more to change eastern religion than eastern religion is doing to change Western capitalism." Ref: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21589841-western-capitalism-looking-inspiration-eastern-mysticism-mindfulness-business' Alan has also quoted an explanation made by Sujato Bhikkhu: "Just as if, Nandaka, there was a four-legged animal with one leg stunted and short, it would thus be unfulfilled in that factor; so too, a monk who is faithful and virtuous but does not gain samatha of the heart within himself is unfulfilled in that factor. That factor should be fulfilled by him.... A monk who has these three but no vipassana into principles pertaining to higher understanding is unfulfilled in that factor. That factor should be fulfilled by him. The description of vipassanā mentions the seeing, exploring and discerning of activities(saṅkhārā). The mention of ‘activities’ here implies the three characteristics—impermanence, suffering, not-self—of phenomena, conditioned according to dependent origination. The meditative discernment of the nature of conditioned reality is the core meaning of vipassanā. While this definition may be too narrow for some contexts, still vipassanā is commonly used in this sense in the Suttas and in the present day. Samatha is the steadying, settling, and unifying of the mind.... Vipassanā refers to the wisdom qualities such as understanding, discrimination, discernment. Samatha soothes the emotional defilements such as greed and anger, while vipassanā pierces with understanding the darkness of delusion." Ref: http://santifm.org/santipada/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/A_History_of_Mindfulness_Bhikkhu_Sujato.pdf Alan says he slightly disagrees from Bhikkhu Bodhi: sati (mindfulness) and sampajañña (clear comprehension; Alan translates it as introspection) are enough for shamatha but not for vipashyana. If you want to go beyond shamatha into vipashyana, you'll need prajña - intelligence, wisdom, and discernment. As Buddha said, in each of these four applications of mindfulness, contemplate the factors of origination and the factors of dissolution. In a secular way, in a very good psychoanalysis, we also investigate where a troubling emotion or memory came from - factors of origination - and how can we heal it - factors of dissolution. In contrast, psycho-pharmaceutical drugs only suppress the symptoms and make more livable to live with a dysfunctional mind; this anesthesia may become a tragedy. It is the opposite of what Buddha said in The Four Noble Truths. Moving to the discussion about vipashyana practice, Alan says we start from awareness and appearances for the six senses, including our feelings about them, and then we ask, "Where do they come from?" Of course, modern science has made physical questions, using physical instruments to make physical measurements, and has got a picture of a physical universe, where there is no place for consciousness. So when we make questions about the non-physical - appearances and awareness - scientists have no clue. But here we are, 2016, we're conscious, appearances are happening, none of us was here 100 years ago, so there was some point when the first moment of awareness and appearances arose for each of us. Is there any example in the universe of non-physical arising from physical? No, there is no evidence at all! So, as consciousness may not arise from nothing (as anything else) nor from physical, maybe the truth is that latter configurations of appearances and awareness emerge from earlier configurations of appearances and awareness. And also, when we're dead, consciousness does not turn into nothing - configurations of human consciousness transform into bardo consciousness, and bardo appearances, and continues to get reconfigured. All of this is contemplation, not bare attention. So, we should not miss the chance to use this intelligence we have, and only for a short time. Alan closes this talk citing the scientific research, including data from Shamatha Project, showing that meditation may ward off senile dementia, reduce cortical thinning, increase neurogenesis, and so on. Meditation is on vipashyana and starts at 33:03. ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 25 Aug 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Due to technical problems we apologize for the sound quality in the first eight minutes. Alan invites us to start each morning with the recitation of The Seven Line Prayer of Padmasambhava as a preliminary. We recite it in Tibetan accompanied with the visualization and mantra recitation of Padmasambhava in order to receive his blessings. Following the meditation, Alan quotes a verse of the 100.000 verses of Perfection of Wisdom Sutras in which it claims that by achieving the the fourth jhana one achieves a number of paranormal abilities or siddhis just by the power of samadhi although it is still tainted. When samadhi is imbued with vipashana it becomes untainted. Then, Alan compares spiritual development with running a business, one has to create the causes for shamatha to be achieved and not just pray to receive siddhis. Alan encourages us to practice by quoting William James and His Holiness Dalai Lama, emphasizing that it is possible to achieve siddhis in this degenerated era. Alan reinforces the importance to become lucid. If you are not lucid you are just a victim all the time. When the mind becomes empowered, then the laws of physics, biology, etc. start to melt out. However, as long as this power is not manifest, the mind is just dysfunctional. Therefore, Alan invites all of us to bring about a revolution right now! Meditation starts at 08:08
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 21 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
In this Q&A session, Lama-la answers and discusses a few primarily experiential questions and comments. 1. The first one is theoretical, pertaining to the phenomenological nature of awareness/ consciousness, which is not in fact a continuous stream, but rather consists of a number of finite pulses (moments). Their duration is considered to be of just under 2 milliseconds per pulse. They are finite, with no gaps and not inherently existent. This refers to human consciousness, and definitely not to pristine awareness which is atemporal, transcending and yet pervading past, present and future. 2. A question regarding the definition of vipasyana as given in page 25 of the text is asked, which in fact refers to mundane vipasyana associated with single-pointed mindfulness. The 2 types of mundane and supramundane vipasyana are discussed, experiential versus conceptual enquiry. There is still a helpful dualistic grasping in the practice of taking the mind as the path, while subsequently, in phases 2 and 3, we are taught Great Emptiness. But we have to be able to develop first the good technology of shamatha, like an astronomer using his telescope. In phase 1 we observe the mind- the enslaver, with enquiry. 3. An experiential question is asked pertaining psychosomatic experiences arising during meditation. Lama-la’s advice is to focus on observing the illusory nature of these, their lack of inherent existence, rather than their referent. The key is to not appropriate and /or reify them, and a detailed explanation ensues on the first and second turning of the wheel of dharma, as well as the 4 applications of mindfulness to body, mind, feelings and phenomena. There is no “I”, ’‘my’ or ‘mine’, these are the root of suffering. By not moving and not doing, nyams dissolve naturally, without any effort, as they are all empty. This is Dzogchen shamatha. 4. Asking for blessings and release from obstacles is essential, but not during the actual shamatha practice. It is a matter of timing, as they are different practices. In shamatha we release all conceptions, projections, desires, and just remain present with whatever arises. 5. A student expresses her frustration with people who don’t practice dharma. This is a good sign, Lama-la says, as we are going against the grain. A question refers to nyams occurring post meditation and the value of lo-jong is re-emphasised. Meditative experiences are catalyzed by authentic meditation practice. 6. Despite not paying attention to the referent of thoughts, impulses and emotions may still arise ‘through the back door’ one student remarks. But while resting in non-conceptional, deep stillness, distilled awareness, there is no motion, so the arising of any events cannot get a grip, despite us being unaware of them simultaneously. 7. A discussion ensues regarding emotions associated with meditation. The Four Immeasurables are not emotions, not feelings, but aspirations, they are in the domain of conation and caring. Their cultivation is a different kind of practice, and is not part of the formal shamatha practice, but rather suffuse it with motivation. And the need for soothing one’s emotions is part of lo-jong, 7-point mind training, not of shamatha. 8. A question arises regarding dealing with other people’s emotions in retreat. Empathy is not part of the shamatha meditation sessions, but of course positive in between. Being tense and rigid between sessions is not condusive, but rather adopting a relaxed, spacious and caring open-heartedness. 9. A short discussion regarding the persistence in meditation of subtle conceptual mentation veils, such as craving, ill-will/enmity, laxity and dullness, concludes the session.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 24 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
In today's Q&A session, Lama la answers questions related to the following topics: - Nyams arise according to the depth of the level of one’s practice. Once the catalyzed obscurations are removed, a new level of sanity manifests. While resting in rigpa, completely without grasping, nyams cannot arise. - How to stay connected with the teachings and the teacher when he or she is not directly available to us, for example when Lama la will continue his solitary retreat? A boon of our time is that teachings in form of recordings are still available to us in the physical absence of our teacher, even if he or she has passed away. HE Garchen Rinpoche has even given permission to receive empowerment from recordings. The way to stay connected with the teacher is through the authentic practice of Guru Yoga. - Lama la received a link from a student, in which it is revealed how the recent media campaign against HH the Dalai Lama was most likely conjured up by an agent of the Chinese Communist Party, and that the world press was duped into it. - It is correct to understand the substrate consciousness as being dual, and rigpa as being non-dual. - Lama la reminds us that he is not very interested in detailed reports of the nyams we experience, but rather in the way we deal with them. - In a Dzogchen retreat, should we stop practicing dual approaches toward Guru Yoga, like Calling the Lama from Afar? Lama la clarifies how most yogis in the Nyingma tradition complement their practice of Dzogchen with Stage of Generation Practice, as Dudjom Lingpa himself did. Here one cultivates a sacred I-Thou relationship with the Guru. One looks upon the Guru as Buddha (not ! as a human being) with reverence and devotion as a basis for merging with the Guru non-dually. This then is the authentic basis for practicing Dzogchen. - The report of a student’s very challenging inner upheavals reminds Lama la of his early days and years in Dharamsala when he fell seriously ill on an almost regular basis. He then encourages us to practice Lo Jong in times when we are unable to not appropriate upheavals, and so to transform adversities into compassion and determination. HH the Dalai Lama is a blazing role model in this regard. - A student describes nyam arising as visionary experiences, like rainbow bindus, clouds of smoke, etc. In this regard we are reminded by Lama la that we are not yet qualified to practice Tödgal before we are able to rest in rigpa. Yet such nyam might be previews of deeper states. The instruction is to cultivate an attitude of „one taste“ towards pleasant and unpleasant nyam. The Meditation starts at 34:18 and is on awareness of awareness while peripherally noting the rhythm of the breath
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 13 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day One, Session One
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 08 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
This morning’s session outlined that there are two routes to liberation – one of faith and one of contemplating enquiry. The route we are studying during this retreat is the latter. Alan explained that the near enemy (or false facsimile) of Loving Kindness is self-centred attachment. He guided us to look back and examine the multiple manifestations of ourselves that we perceive as we function in a socially engaged world – some we like, others we dislike, sometimes we are virtuous and sometimes not etc. As we deepen our practice we come to know that these are all mere appearances. In modernity, it is sometimes said that we need to have courage to love – because pain is anticipated when the “object” of our love is lost. This is a manifestation of self-centred attachment and implies that love is not sustainable. This is not so with the authentic love experienced in Loving Kindness – it is not “lost” as it is not conditional on the object with which we become attached. We are encouraged to practice and to know ourselves and others as being inherently lovable and worthy of being loved unconditionally and not based on false appearances – seeking something deeper than mere surface appearances on which modern conditional love is based. The authentic love of Loving Kindness cannot be based on attachment to mere appearances as it arises from Buddha nature itself. Developing the ability to drop our self-centred attachments will establish a good foundation for practice and transformation that is not dependent on any religious belief or faith. We can develop this by coming to rest in Awareness of Awareness (our closest approximation that we can attain of resting in the equipoise of shamatha) and from this perspective turn inwards to examine our own way of being present, how “I” appear, How “I” exist (or apprehend “my” self). Alan read a quote from the Buddha that describes Loving Kindness as a characteristic of citta (the brightly shining mind), which is already there waiting to be uncovered. He explained that rigpa is always present – as the sun is present even if the sky is cloudy – and that rigpa shines through the lens of the substrate consciousness to illuminate whatever is perceived. This light is not like a torch light being shone through the lens, it stems from our own indwelling mind of clear light, the ultimate ground, which is non-dual and transcendent. Alan reminded us “Don’t look for the Buddha outside yourself”. Meditation on Loving Kindness starts at 55:12 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 23 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
The transitional phase that follows the transitional phase of dying is the transitional phase of ultimate reality, dharmata. The term “dharmata” is now being translated by Lama la as the “actual nature of reality” instead of “ultimate reality.” Lama la explains that dharmata is the actual nature of the phenomena that appear to our awareness. This transitional phase is not universally accepted. For example, Lama Tsongkhapa, as representative of the new translation schools, does not acknowledge this bardo. Lama la notes that this transitional phase is very brief for most people, and that very few achieve enlightenment within this bardo. The instructions on this phase are intended for advanced practitioners, who have achieved shamatha and vipashyana, have ascertained rigpa, and who are accomplished in tögal. The transmission of the text (pages 263-6) starts at 00:02:10. Within this bardo, peaceful and wrathful deities and manifestations arise in succession. Each of these is an avenue through which one can achieve enlightenment. A crucial point in this bardo is to recognize the arising appearances as “your own” appearances, i.e. as creative expressions of your own pristine awareness, as dharmakaya, Samantabhadra. Lama la questions whether these visions would arise only for a person who has been practicing Tögal, noting that these visions correspond exactly to the visions that arise in Tögal. Would a non-Buddhist, an atheist or a Christian, experience these same visions in the dying process? Lama la states that this remains an open question. Lama la further comments that it is important to remember that the wrathful manifestations in this bardo have the same compassionate motivation as peaceful manifestations. The text states that “For the most part, people experience the appearances of the clear light for a short time, and they remain in this state only briefly.” Those who do not achieve liberation in the dying process, or in the bardo of dharmata, will experience the transitional phase of becoming. Lama la notes that the transitional phase of becoming (which will be covered tomorrow) is immensely relevant to us. The texts exhorts us “to examine, investigate, and properly understand the teachings on how the transitional phases arise, and then to apply them to your own experience.” The meditation (01:03:24) continues the oral transmission of citations from “Natural Liberation“ on “identifying pristine awareness,” and is accompanied by a commentary by Gyatrul Rinpoche.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 10 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan talks today about the second of the four immeasurables, compassion. Like loving kindness, compassion is an aspiration and requires conative intelligence. It is the wish for sentient beings to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. As such, we can ask ourselves how we’ve been doing so far at eliminating our own suffering? How is it working out for us? Alan highlights two points. The first point is that, as Buddhaghosa states in the Visuddhimagga, the proximate cause for compassion is seeing a situation where beings are suffering and they are unable to help themselves, and the second point is that in order to have compassion one must also see that the alleviation of suffering is possible. One must know the causes of suffering and have a vision of the possibility of being free of suffering. In this way, refuge and renunciation might come as natural and intelligent expressions of compassion for oneself. As always, we come back to the theme of path; if there is a path, compassion is possible. The meditation is cultivating compassion for oneself. The meditation starts at 34:10 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 11 Apr 2021, Online-only
This afternoon’s session began with Lama Alan reflecting on a section of the text covered in the morning’s teaching, to give a brief review of the very significant relationship between the five facets of primordial consciousness and the five poisons. For example, Lama points out when the primordial consciousness of the absolute space of phenomena is obscured by ignorance, delusion arises. At the same time, it is precisely that delusion that obscures the nature of the absolute space of phenomena so that we don’t see it even though we’re gazing right at it, and instead we see the substrate. Continuing further with the text, we explore how all three realms of existence emerge from one’s own continuum, and what realms manifest from diverse mental afflictions. Whilst there are three modes of appearances of sentient beings inhabiting the six realms of existence, these manifest according to the degree of sentient beings’ virtue, with all misery / dukkha in the world arising from our own mental afflictions. The text then begins to elaborate on the six consciousnesses, beginning with the processes that “In the vast, immense expanse of radiant, clear mentation, free of contamination, like space, the six appearing objects of the sense fields naturally emerge”. To illustrate this, Lama clarifies how we go back to that emergence every time we are woken up. From deep sleep, one emerges from the substrate, afflictive mentation, subtle mentation, coarse mentation, and then finally one is fully awake. Lama underscores that this process can be observed, and to illustrate, he cites recent accounts by Drub-la Tsampa Karma of having achieved samatha, and then having achieved continuous 24/7 mindfulness. He reports being fully aware of how the substrate consciousness emerges, how afflictive mentation occurs, subtle mentation, coarse mentation, and then finally all the sense doors open and the dualistic conceptual mind is fully operative. Taking this further, Lama Alan reflects that through the subtle practice of taking the impure mind as the path, and resting in the substrate consciousness, we can transcend the limitations of the perspective on reality of a human being, and cut-through from the identity of being a human being to that of a sentient being. Then, if you cut through the very nature of the mind that is experiencing the substrate and substrate consciousness, and you can see that it cannot be determined as existent or non-existent, you cut through it and see that although your mind appears, and there seems to be a mind that is experiencing, it is not determined. So you cut through that to the underlying unborn, unarisen, timeless, pristine awareness, where there is no basis of designation suitable for identifying yourself as a sentient being. Therefore, all that is left is pristine awareness, indivisible from the absolute space of phenomena, and that is the basis of designation for ‘I am a Buddha’. Returning to the six consciousnesses, the text expounds on the processes of visual perception and conceptualisation, highlighting that in Buddhist understanding there is a very clear distinction between that first instant of purely perceiving a visual appearance, and the second instant, when mental consciousness piggy-backs on that, subtle and coarse mentation come in, and we get all caught up in labelling, classifying and reifying the object. However, as Lama Alan notes, the mind trained in the samadhi is able to be discerningly aware and detect that first instant, that spark, before the flame of conceptualisation ignites. The text then elaborates on the mind-body connection achieved through the subtle energies or prana. Lama points out that in Vajrayana Buddhism and especially Dzogchen, any mode of consciousness is always conjoined with a vital energy. These pranas are what connect the non-physical states of consciousness with the physical activities and movements within the body. Prana is physical, it is located in physical space, and its existence can be detected, observed and measured contemplatively, and maybe one-day, scientifically. In conclusion Lama Alan asserts that from the Buddhist perspective, thanks to prana, the mind-body inter-relationship has been solved. Before settling into practice, Lama reminds us that the samatha practice of Taking the Mind as the Path is a superb method for observing the substrate, and for focusing on the stillness of the space of the mind. Lama invites us to bring a fine tuning and specific inquiry into this practice today, to really explore the nature of the substrate through our own first-hand experience. The meditation, Resting in Awareness, Closely Examine the Space from which All Appearances Emerge, Abide and Dissolve, starts at 01:05:00
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 25 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
We commence session 71 with some ‘house cleaning’, firstly with humorous discussion in relation to ‘sweetbread’ and then moving on to a correction in the text on pageg 266, “….and you are aware of the thoughts of attachment and hostility in the minds of others”, Lama previously saying “and attachment” rather than “of attachment”. Returning to the text, page 267 (00.05.47), Lama-la reminds us that it is widely acknowledged in the Indo-Tibetan tradition that the bardo of becoming lasts for a maximum of seven weeks; he reads, “After each period of seven days has passed, the appearances of the prior conditions for your death arise, so that you experience immense suffering.”. What comes next in the text is what generically occurs in the bardo, symbolic imagery being used in accordance with the four elements and the three poisons. At 00.11.00 Lama brings us back to the rigorous research done at University of Virginia regarding children recalling past lives as humans. Lama-la offers his sense that these are children with human brains/memories/senses and so if they had memories coming from another species it wouldn’t compute as the memories are not able to be brought into the human psyche. Lamas/yogis however, have expanded the bandwidth of awareness, encompassing the substrate consciousness with all the seeds there, viewing from a deeper perspective. At 00.15.30 the text reads, “In terms of your stream of consciousness, for rebirth ….”. Lama highlights the importance of the sentence, “Respectively, each of those objects appear to you to be beautiful and attractive, and you feel an irresistible attraction to them.” explaining, as you move through the bardo, you are moving in accordance to your desires, not due to fate or destiny etc, rather it is because you want to go there. By becoming acquainted with these occurrences in the bardo, rather than reifying everything, we may recognise the signs for rebirth thus becoming lucid as in a dream; the more lucid you are the greater freedom. This is the primary reason for practicing dream yoga in Indo-Tibetan buddhism. Instructions for prospective memory when falling asleep are given. Lama-la emphasizes that, as in a lucid dream, nothing in the bardo is objectively real, everything is malleable to what you bring to mind. Lama recalls Yangchen Rinpoche’s account of Longchenpa’ s guide of Mount Meru, recognizing descriptions can be perspectival. With the sentence, “At this time, if you block the entrance to the womb and bring to mind the preceding crucial points, you may still achieve liberation.” Lama-la again highlights, at any point in a dream become lucid, don’t reify, therefore don’t crave. At 00.30.26 Lama tells us of his astrologer friend’s prediction of a solar eclipse in ‘72/’73. At 00.33.00 the text reads, “Alternatively, if you do choose the entrance of a womb…..” leading to an interesting story from Ian Stevenson of a child recalling having been in the bardo with an urge to be born again, an account outside of the buddhist context yet the same. The text again emphasises the point of lucidity: “To practice the instructions for purifying the intermediate period at this time, now, earnestly consider and let this arise before your mind: ‘Alas! I have died.“ Lama stresses this is exactly like ’I am dreaming, I know I am dreaming’; you are lucid in the bardo. All appearances until now, in this human existence, have been arising due to the power of karma and klesha. Now is about purifying the intermediate period by the power of imagination, transforming as in the stage of generation. As Lama-la reads we are invited to visualize the buddhafield of Abhirati, taking it as the template for the other buddhafields. Lama explains, as in a lucid dream, if we can imagine it, it will manifest; it is our palate to paint; whatever we wish will become our reality; that’s what we’re attending to in a lucid bardo; that becomes our reality. With the next paragraph outlining, “If you succeed in this practice of transforming your appearances….”, Lama-la suggests these clear instructions follow the same format as those for prospective memory practice for lucid dreaming: ‘know it before you fall asleep, maintain prospective memory, recognise you're dreaming and then apply the instructions’. We then move on to visualisations of the buddhafields of Śrīmat, Sukhāvatī, Karmaprasiddhi, and our personal deity, applying the same template as with Abhirati. Lama-la states that by achieving shamatha, vipaśyanā and trekchö all visualisations of buddha families, buddha fields etc. can be skipped, skipping stage of generation entirely, going directly to tögal. From that transcendent space, without any cultural conditioning, these images of the five buddha families, with consorts and buddha fields will appear, thereby suggesting they are archetypal in the dharmadhatu sense; these appearances are coming from the ground of being, spontaneous displays of primordial consciousness, thus transcending any religion, space, time, historical context. Lama highlights paying special attention to the next paragraph as this the gist. It reads “The practice of occasionally imagining the appearances of going to and arriving at these buddhafields as if you were an arrow shot by a powerful archer establishes potencies in your mindstream that provide enormous relief in the intermediate period. Therefore, recognize the supreme importance of succeeding in the practice of these instructions and gaining stability in your mindstream with respect to this training.” All this has been a guide in the transitional stage of becoming; now we back track to the transitional phase of ultimate reality, the first week after death, the bardo of dharmata. Then on to the bardo of becoming, with the guide guiding, giving pointing out instructions from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead. The fine print being, “Unless the deceased has a little familiarity with the stages of generation and completion, it will be very difficult for this person to be helped by such introductions. If these words of introduction reach someone who is somewhat familiar with the stages of generation and completion, this person will experience the great relief of fearlessness.” Meditation begins at 00.06.53 with the reminder that ‘this is worth returning to again and again in preparation for a transition we will definitely be making’. Post meditation Lama-la tells how we will finish the bardo of becoming tomorrow, with the beautiful colophon of Dudjom Rinpoche on the final day.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 22 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
After invoking Guru Rinpoche’s presence with the Seven Line Prayer, Yangchen-la inspires us to develop authentic faith in such prayers and practices in order to be able to access divine reality. She invites us to deeply explore our relationship towards the Buddha who is our Guru in order to overcome afflictive uncertainty. Yangchen then explains how even a beginners’s practice of Stage of Completion (which has to be based on Stage of Generation) can shift the way the world appears to us. Then we return to the text “Ultimate Private Advice: Blessing Oneself” and follow Lama Tsongkhapa’s process of elimination in seeking after the primordially indwelling body. All beings in the three realms of existence possess such a body made of winds and mind. Lama Tsongkhapa comes to the conclusion that this primordially indwelling body is mental consciousness itself, yet non-separate from a being’s coarse body. Here Yangchen builds a bridge from the Completion Stage of the Guhyasamaja Tantra towards Dzogchen. We then learn that an advanced yogi of Completion Stage practice has the power to separate and join the relationship between the coarse body and mental consciousness by power of concentration. Finally the text lays out the distinctions between the coarse body, the illusory body created in Stage of Generation and the primordially indwelling body of clear light, and Lama Tsongkhapa encourages us to immediately familiarize ourselves with these instructions to plant seeds for highest developments. Todays section of this text ends with a prayer, which guides us into meditation. The meditating is on Ratnasambhava and starts at 1:17:30.
Fall 2015 Stage of Generation, 31 Jul 2015, Araluen Retreat Center, Queensland, Australia
Recalling that our lives could end any moment and the importance of ensuring the continuity of our practice into the next lifetime, take refuge and generate bodhicitta. The meditation explores the four questions of your heart’s desire, outer support, inner transformation, and your contribution to the world. If bodhicitta becomes a current underlying all desires, our practice between sessions on the cushion can help overcome our habitual reification of the world. Meditation starts at 4:59 ___ Course notes, other episodes and resources for this retreat are available here The text for this retreat can be purchased via the SBI Store. Finally, Please contribute to help us afford the audio equipment we rent to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 20 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan teaches again from the Satipatthana Sutta giving the culmination of his teachings on the four close applications of mindfulness – the close application of mindfulness to dharmas – that he translates as “phenomena” because it is all-encompassing. Lama Alan says that there is good reason to correlate each of the four applications of mindfulness with the four noble truths. He says that the close application of mindfulness of dharmas correlates with the path to the cessation of suffering. We are invited to consider the mental processes (the five obscurations) that prevent us from reaching the path and progressing on it, that obscure pristine awareness. Lama la says that devoting oneself to the four close applications of mindfulness is a full-time job. It enables us to become of sound mind and to be fit to set out on the path. He suggests that we have a fresh look at phenomena as phenomena in terms of the five obscurations. Recognise their presence and absence and how they could arise. Either simply be aware of them arising and in doing so allow them to release themselves, or apply the applicable antidote as follows, for: 1. Hedonism – single-pointed attention (samadhi); 2. Malevolence – a sense of well-being, loving-kindness and gratitude; 3. Laxity/Dullness – coarse examination; 4. Excitation and Anxiety – bliss; 5. Afflictive Uncertainty – precise investigation. The “job description” is to become of sound mind. Then use that mind to set out on the greatest expedition of all. Meditation starts at 00:42:19 where we note the presence, absence and the means to remove and prevent each of the five obscurations.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 27 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
The theme for this session comes from the pith instructions that we’ve recently covered from the Panchen Rinpoche’s text (stanzas 16 to 23), which are prevalent in the Mahamudra lineage. Alan’s prelude to the meditation returns to the question concerning whether the space of the mind is either a sheer absence of appearances or whether it does have characteristics that can be ascertained i.e. it is transparent and 3-D. We will continue investigating the nature of consciousness through the practice of awareness of awareness, withdrawing from all appearances and then tightly focusing on the affirmative qualities of cognizance and clarity of awareness. Another element of consciousness that we are seeking to enter into or unveil is that which is free of conceptualisation. Alan therefore suggests that the quality of the awareness that we are seeking to access is a complex negation as there are two affirmative qualities (cognisance, luminosity) and an absence of a quality (non-conceptuality). The tightly focused part of the practice is on the affirmative qualities and then the loosely relaxing part is releasing the awareness into non-conceptuality. Alan also speaks briefly on his new interpretation of the phrase “taking the impure mind as the path”, and similar phrases, where a more literal translation from the Tibetan on his opinion could be “taking the mind as my ride on the path”. The meditation is guided on awareness of awareness, oscillating the awareness from being tightly focused to loosely relaxed. Following meditation, Alan resumes the Panchen Rinpoche’s text transmission including some comments that: what we are reading we are immediately integrating into our current practice; the achievement of shamatha leads to mental pliancy and physical well-being due to the shift of the whole subtle energy system; and the ultimate reality of the mind cannot be apprehended conceptually. At the end of the session, Alan says he has received requests for instructions on dream yoga (night-time vipashyana) which he will occasionally provide. His first instruction is to commit to prospective memory: upon awakening from sleep anytime, (1) recognise that you are waking up without further conceptualisation and (2) stay still physically and mentally. Then direct the attention backwards in time, and check: what is the last image you recall? If it was the last image of a dream, pursue it, see if you can recall your dream. This is the first step in the practice of lucid dreaming, and in this way the dream recall will gradually increase. Meditation starts at 12:35 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 18 May 2020, Online-only
This morning we turn towards the 4th Great: Great Impartiality, aka Great Equanimity. Lama Alan reminds us at the beginning of the session that there isn’t one “correct” or set sequence for both the 4 Immeasurables and the 4 Greats, and we will see them presented in various order by different Lamas. He then turns to the liturgy: Why couldn’t all beings dwell in great impartiality, free of attachment to the near and aversion to the far? May we so dwell. I shall make it so. May my Guru and personal deity bless me that I may be able to do so. Frequently, the opening question is translated as “those who are near” & “those who are far”. Lama Alan explains how he translated this opening phrase literarily as “that which is near” and “that which is far”, which avoids applying it only to living beings. As the phrasing allows multiple interpretations, each of which adds layers of meaning to the practice. Lama Alan reviews the standard interpretation and then relates it to our practice of taking the mind as the path. In our meditation practice a wide variety of nyam will arise—those which are subjectively unpleasant we want to go away; those which are subjectively pleasant we grasp on to. Lama Alan relates great impartiality to the central point in this practice of resting in unwavering stillness, whatever arises in the space of the mind, without grasping to the pleasant and rejecting the unpleasant. Lama Alan points out how attachment and aversion arise based on our sense that out subjective experience is coming from the referent. Yet that same referent could arouse other emotions, and our attachment comes only because it appears that person out there catalyzes positive feelings. Or aversion with negative feelings. So we are actually attached to or repelled by the feelings, not the person-which cycles back to Great Impartiality. He asks, can we be so spacious that whatever arises is like clouds floating through sky while we rest in luminous discerning awareness? Inviting us to look at this at an even deeper level, Lama Alan relates Great Impartiality to the Lojong of Dodrupchen Jikme Tenpe Nyima. “Transforming Happiness and Unhappiness into the Path” can be translated as “Felicity and Adversity” which includes the whole matrix of how we experience situations. This allows for our practice of transforming everything into the path, no matter what situations arise, based on understanding of emptiness. Learning how to overcome deep seated aversion to any unpleasant experience permits us to transform our whole lives into the path, through bringing in wisdom that actively shifts our way of view based on a sustained cultivation of genuine happiness. Then Lama Alan transitions into how we apply this 4th Great to the view from Pristine Awareness, which is viewing the whole of reality as the “One Taste of Samsara and Nirvana”, pointing out that this is even a deeper level of Great Impartiality. Lama Alan delves into this view from the perspective of an Araya Bodhisattva: no aversion to Samsara, no attachment to Nirvana. Then he powerfully places it in context of 3rd of the 4th Yogas; knowing that suffering hurts for many while there is a perspective from which it is all of one taste. Lama Alan continues on to the full depth of Great Impartially from perspective where a Buddha is thoroughly, simultaneously non-dually aware of the full range of phenomenon neither immersed in samsara or nirvana. He balances this with compassion, making the point that Bodhicitta arises when we continue to engage with each living being day to day with warmth and caring which is even across the board. From here, Lama Alan finishes up by glossing the remainder of the liturgy. Lama Alan then address a question about how to maintain discernment and make life choices in the context of “one taste”. He gives very useful guidance on using wise discernment in the midst of great impartiality. Meditation Begins at 44:22
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 18 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins by reminding us that in yesterday’s afternoon session we took a roundabout approach of settling the mind in its natural state by first concentrating on the visual, then the auditory and the tactile domains before venturing into the domain of the sixth sense, the space of the mind. Today we will again “walk around the block”, as Alan says, however, not empirically but conceptually. Alan begins by referring once again to the passage of Karma Chagme’s text on shamatha, listing the various extrasensory abilities that can be acquired by a person who has achieved the fourth dhyana, even without realising emptiness. How is it possible that a person who is a metaphysical realist can develop such siddhis? - asks Alan. If, as materialists contend, all is physical, then the account of Karma Chagme is not true. But if one takes the materialist assumption then the so called “placebo effect” (which is in fact a mental effect, the effect of the mind) should not be possible, either. It should be just as impossible as the siddhis. Materialists have no explanation for it whatsoever. Alan calls people who hold such views “flat-minded”. But you can be a metaphysical realist and not be flat-minded - he remarks. To explain how siddhis are possible, Alan turns to two famous Western thinkers: Carl Jung (psychoanalyst) and Wolfgang Pauli (physicist). In their correspondence they explored the mind and body relationship and sought to explain how the mind (which is not physical) interacts with the physical domain. The hypothesis they posited is one of “unus mundus” - an underlying unitary domain of archetypes from which everything emerges. So what we experience - both mental and physical - are displays of this archetypal domain. Alan notes that Wolfgang Pauli was actually so apprehensive of the opinion of his fellow physicists that he allowed for the publication of his correspondence with Carl Jung only after his death. But the theory they proposed was not new. In fact, in Western philosophy, it goes as far back as Pythagoras who also posited the existence of an underlying reality - expressed in mathematical terms - from which the known reality emerges. Pythagoras - Alan reminds us - himself displayed various siddhis and claimed to remember 20 past lives. It is very plausible that Pythagoras learned samadhi from Hindu yogis during his travel to Egypt. Alan hypothesizes that Pythagoras could have reached higher states of samadhi and in this way accessed the form realm which he then described in mathematical terms. The idea of an underlying mathematical reality was also embraced by Plato and passed on through many lineages. The problem for Jung and Pauli was that they had no way of testing their hypothesis. But the Buddhists do. In Buddhism the desire realm arises from the form realm which in turn emerges from the formless realm and one may explore these realms empirically. Alan mentions the concept of “nimittas” which are “signs”, archetypal quintessences existing in the form realm, which one can access through samadhi. There are also the ten “kasinas” (earth, water, fire, air, four colours and space and light) which are objects of advanced dhyana practices described in detail by Buddhaghosa. If one learns how to master these kasinas one may, for example, superimpose the archetype of earth element from the form realm on the water element in our desire realm and in this way walk on water. Hence, by mastering the power of samadhi one can superimpose the archetypes in the form realm on this world to perform the siddhis described in Karma Chagme’s text. This is the explanation. Everything in this world is a projection of the form realm. This is what Alan calls “special theory of ontological relativity”. However, Alan asks an important question: If all elements have archetypal forms - what about the mind? What is the sign of the mind? It is that out of which our mind emerges and manifests itself in the desire realm: the substrate consciousness. All appearances are displays of the substrate consciousness. And one can access it by achieving shamatha. Alan now quotes the Buddha, saying that all phenomena are preceded by the mind. By comprehending the mind all phenomena can be comprehended. When the mind is under control, everything is under control. This sounds like the basis for developing siddhis - comments Alan. And concludes: it is good to learn to master all the kasinas, to undergo all those difficult and time-consuming practices described by Buddhaghosa. But there is a faster way. Dzogchen. So before the meditation Alan appeals: Don’t get distracted - achieve shamatha and realise substrate consciousness! Don’t get distracted - cut through! Don’t get distracted - become a Buddha in this lifetime! The meditation is on Settling the Mind in its Natural State. After the meditation Alan reminds us of the central importance of maintaining continuity of stillness in post-meditation. Avoid cognitive fusion with whatever arises. Avoid the projection of “I” and “mine”. We are seeking to become lucid in our waking state. In a dream, if one is lucid, it is obvious that everything emerges and dissolves back into the substrate consciousness. This can be empirically tested. In an analogous way, all appearances in the waking reality arise from the substrate. So in-between sessions we should maintain this way of viewing reality. Especially in our encounters with other people it is important to keep in mind that whatever we perceive is not separate from us - it is always a “you-me” version, never the person as he or she really is. The meditation starts at 27:20 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 16 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
We have now finished the Lake-Born Vajra’s presentation of View, Meditation and Conduct, following the presentation of the preliminaries. Now the topic will be to explore how we can see these three thoroughly integrate to be in perfect balance. Knowing that the disciples for whom this next section is specifically intended are those who have realized the view or are sustaining it in meditation, Lama Alan wants to bring this right back down to where we are in case we have not yet realized rigpa or emptiness or have not yet achieved shamatha, but are entering into Taking the Mind as the Path. We are reminded that this is the first phase of Dzogchen, not a preliminary and not simply mindfulness. He raises the question, 'with what is this practice of Taking the Mind as the Path imbued?' When you are going into your formal session of Taking the Mind as the Path, it is imbued with refuge, motivation of bodhicitta and the four immeasurables, the awareness that mind is primary and some insight that the mind that you are observing and the mind with which you are observing are both equally empty of inherent nature. Guru Yoga then takes this practice deeper into Dzogchen. In the coming days, Lama Alan will be adding more supplements to this baseline practice, but today he keeps it simple as in the instructions of the Buddha to Bahiya and removal of conceptualization and reification, viewing things realistically. He emphasizes the critical importance of letting our view and meditation be seamless and then bring it full force when we step off the cushion, maintaining that awareness of the mind so that we don’t walk backwards in our practice. When we are busy, we don’t need to be less dedicated to our meditation practice, we need to take on a greater challenge. This is our first step that will relate directly to the text. The meditation which begins at 53:33 is on settling body, speech and mind, taking the four empowerments and going into the practice of taking the Mind as the Path for a 30-minute session. At 1:24:25 Lama Alan continues with the transmission on pages 181, 182, 183 starting with „The essential point of conduct is not to forsake the view in midst of your daily activities.” He tells us that as this retreat will be over in two weeks and we turn to another way of life to not forsake the view and get caught up in our daily affairs, but that it permeates everything. When we immerse ourselves back into society where that view is nowhere to be found and there is an addiction to the opposites of these core insights, we need to bear in mind whatever insights we have gained, qualities of loving kindness, compassion, insight into emptiness and the true sources of wellbeing and mental distress. Now concluding this very important section, we end back with Padmasambhava and view as vast as space. But in terms of conduct be ever so precise and more and more subtle and conscientious the higher you go along the path. This balancing act, view and meditation on one hand, conduct on the other, know that we can apply all of this to where we are right now and it is extremely important.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 28 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen using counting of breaths as a support. Counting does break the flow of mindfulness, so use it only if it helps stem rumination. Keep the counting staccato and as before, use introspection to detect any laxity or excitation.
Meditation starts at 2:36
Alan gave a talk about the result of the US election , 09 Nov 2016, Sakya Foundation, Spain
Discussions
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 28 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan begins by framing the quest as the pursuit of inner knowledge, contrasting the centrality of subjective experience and mind in buddhism with the emphasis on understanding reality from the outside and materialism in science.
In science, conceptual understanding and reason are considered the highest goal. In buddhism, concepts are used as a means to arrive at non-conceptual experience/realization. Both the body and the environmental are composed of the 4 elements.
Meditation: mindfulness of the body with immediate experience of the 5 elements: 1) earth, 2) water, 3) fire, 4) air, and 5) space. For each of the elements, 1) observe nakedly, 2) can you observe anything stable or static?, and 3) can you directly perceive the space of the body?
Q1-2. Can we guide ourselves using internal dialog or verbal prompts during our meditation, or is this distracting?
Q3. Can we adjust for any physical discomfort during meditation?
Q4. I’ve experienced the greatest stability in my meditations when the breath is short and shallow. Is this OK?
Meditation starts at 25:25
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 19 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama la reminds us of the one sentence on page 260 which refers to the practice of day time and night time dream yoga discussed in the last session, and returns to the excerpts from Lochen Dharmashri’s root text notes, with detailed explanation of their instructions. We need to train in regarding all appearances as dreams (daytime yoga) and then recognize dream appearances for what they are (nighttime dream yoga). In this way, we acquire experience and develop confidence by growing accustomed to pristine awareness holding its own ground and ultimately achieve liberation. Dream yoga is a practice of thorough preparation for death and not just training in lucid dreaming which is summarily presented. Lama la explains the training in prospective memory, the importance of asking for blessings in order to gain lucidity when sleeping, and more importantly the value of achieving shamatha before embarking into dream yoga, so that we may be able to maintain an unwaivering mindfulness throughout day and nighttime alike. This may turbo speed our night practice as well. In order to counteract self-grasping and reification, once we achieve stability in lucid dreaming we are advised to practice transformation, multiplication and emanation, as well as challenge the stubborn illusion of materiality. But the epitome of dream yoga is resting lucidly and totally inactive in dreamless sleep (the substrate) and ultimately identify the clear light of sleep (pristine awareness), for which Padmasambhava offers pith instructions. We end with Gyatrul Rinpoche’s commentary, who advises that this practice is for a person with superior faculties, and sleep training is boot camp preparation for the dying process. In this meditation at 01:05:54 Lama la reads a citation from “The Tantra of the Three Phases of Liberation by Observation” “from Natural Liberation”, as well as Gyatrul Rinpoche’s commentary, pointing out the union of the outer and inner space of awareness, like a child meeting his mother. And on that note, we continue in silence. After the meditation Lama la comments that today’s teachings were like a trailer of forthcoming attractions, events that one day we may be ready to really benefit from Today we covered page 260 of the Vajra Essence at the very beginning of the teaching as well as subsidiary teachings by Lochen Dharmashri from the text “Releasing Oneself from Essential Delusion”
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 20 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan begins with a short preamble before the meditation which begins at 00:17:15 which will be the sequence taught by Yangthang Rinpoche: beginning with the four revolutions in outlook, followed by shamatha without a sign (primarily resting in the awareness of awareness with just enough peripheral awareness to notice thoughts without following them), from there to substrate consciousness and then into the nature of that which is aware. Once the lack of inherent nature is established and one has cut through to the empty essential nature of the mind, direct perception and inference are no longer useful as you can now non-dually apprehend the emptiness of your mind with the unborn luminosity of pristine awareness. Then you simply rest in the nine modes of inactivity. Lama Alan highlights that each part of the meditative sequence provides a refuge from samsara. After the meditation Lama Alan points out that each part of this meditative sequence can help us face any upheavals. The best defence against all maras is to be space which is invulnerable. Before he returns to the text, Lama makes a few more points regarding karma which is about actions and their consequences, the relationship between mind and body/brain and the Buddhist meaning of “ordinary being” which denotes anyone who has not yet reached the path of seeing, even though they may be able to recall hundreds of lifetimes. At 01:00:43 we return to the text on page p. 184 „In the past there have been many faithful students... Such illegitimate teachers are certain to become māras for their students.“ and a rich discussion of gurus and disciples. With regard to the statement regarding gurus knowing “the various dispositions and faculties of specific students” Lama Alan makes reference to Doctor Yeshe Donden, the Dalai Lama’s personal physician, who had tremendous insight into the physical constitution of his patients with minimal technology. He also made the point that the only motivation for a guru is of course compassion. Lama-la also comments on students who fail to keep their samayas because they don’t even know them. In terms of the phrase “barbaric and false views”, Lama comments that this is directly addressed to us in the modern world where this is the norm and gives examples such as materialism in science, as well as drawing analogies to the political scene. He further comments on teachers who can harm their own students as anybody can proclaim themselves to be a meditation teacher nowadays and students may not be able to distinguish between authentic and inauthentic teachers. Lama-la ends by remarking how fortunate we are to have encountered authentic spiritual teachers thanks to the momentum we have accumulated from past lives.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 09 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
At 00:01:02 Lama Alan returns immediately to the text on page 178 and the very brief references to the view and pointing out our own face, read a few days ago, to which he and Yangchen have revised the earlier translation. The text then moves from conduct and view into meditation. As the Lake-Born Vajra describes the reality of the ground, Lama Alan discusses that 'beginningless lifetimes' does not mean infinite, but rather no beginning can be identified and we should be satisfied with that. He then describes how dharmakaya and the mindstreams of sentient beings are of the same nature, but not identical. But then samsara begins when one reifies oneself and perpetuates it by dualistic grasping. In this guide to meditation, what is it that pristine awareness transcends? Lama Alan is making a universal translation change from "intellect" to "cognition" as it is much, much bigger than just intellect. He then looks at seven kinds of cognition (blo - activities of the mind following mentation), which shows that it doesn't work to lump them all into a category of intellect. 1. Direct perception (མངོན་སུམ་, mngon sum) 2. Inference (རྗེས་དཔག་, rjes dpag) 3. Subsequent knowing (བཅད་ཤྗེས་, bcad shes) 4. Correct assumption (ཡིད་དཔོད་, yid dpyod) 5. Inattentive awareness (སྣང་ལ་མ་ངྗེས་, snang la ma nges) 6. Uncertainty(ཐྗེ་ཚོམ་, the tshom) 7. Mistaken knowing (ལོག་ཤྗེས་, log shes) Lama Alan then completes the transmission on these two concise paragraphs on meditation which he says could easily look like a vast departure from other schools such as Gelugpa. Lama la sees Atiśa as the bridge between the Old and New Translation Schools and draws from a classic text, A Guide to the Two Realities, which he interprets as coming from the perspective of Mahamudra. To continue this bridge, he then moves to three quotes from Saraha, Tilopa and Phagmo Drüpa in Karma Chagmé’s Spacious Path to Freedom in the Mahamudra tradition. At 1:22:41 Lama Alan leads a meditation with guidance from Düdjom Rinpoché on practicing by means of meditation (The Illumination of Primordial Wisdom) for those of us who have not achieved shamatha or vipashyana and don't yet have direct realization, but have been introduced to the view, dwelled in it a bit, meditated, investigated and maybe even picked up a ray of sunlight tracing back to Rigpa. After the meditation, Lama Alan makes two parallels. - The first is on the mundane level where you have sacrificed all the mental faculties of the mind of the desire realm that are gone while you are in meditative equipoise where you have full activation of the five jnana factors which you can use to cultivate bodhicitta, visualize the mandala, engage in vipashyana and so forth, which is a good trade. - The second is in Dzogchen, having been introduced to the view, imbued with shamatha and vipashyana, now you are not merely dissolving the mind of the desire realm, you are dissolving a sentient being’s mind, all the skills including the five jnana factors are being sacrificed as you rest in awareness as open and inactive as space. Releasing everything at once, that is nirvana, where you have traded in all the abilities of a sentient being's mind. You get five facets of primordial consciousness, which is a good trade. Take it! Lama Alan's concludes by making a defense of his interpretation of Atiśa's Mahamudra viewpoint in the text, A Guide to the Two Realities. He then encourages us that it is not too early to practice the pith instructions from Dudjom Rinpoche.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 15 May 2020, Online-only
Meditation is "Inquiry into the Conceptually Designating Mind" at 21:10
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 09 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
At the beginning of the session Lama la returns to his essay: A Lamp for Dispelling the Five Obscurations, explaining his motivation for writing and sharing this essay with us. This essay brings together two currents of teaching on shamatha from the two greatest Dzogchen masters in Tibetan Buddhism, Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra. In this essay, Lama la highlights a crucial aspect of practice that is often overlooked: settling the speech in its natural state. Learning how to settle the inner speech of the mind in an effortless, sustainable silence that is imbued with discerning intelligence and clarity, is the baseline for the next step of settling the mind in its natural state. With this baseline, you are much better prepared to recognize thoughts when they first arise. Then, instead of feeling frustrated at being constantly kidnapped by thoughts, you will feel satisfaction. In addition, perturbations in prana (energetic imbalances), which catalyze many upheavals during practice, will diminish. Lama la then returns to the text (pages 254-255 at 00:21:16), and the concluding summary, in verse form, of the entire path of Dzogchen, from the preliminaries through Tögal. This poem explains the “extraordinary characteristics of the...youthful vase kaya” (i.e. buddhahood, the state of enlightenment). In this state, the obscurations of ignorance are dispelled. In addition, primordial consciousness, great identitylessness, the kayas and facets of primordial consciousness, and perception of the full range of phenomena all manifest, you awaken within yourself, are freed from all extremes of conceptual elaboration, are endowed with the eight freedoms, and uniformly pervade absolute space and primordial consciousness. The next section of the text (pages 255-256), entitled: The Essentials of Practice in the Transitional Phases, explains what happens if you do not achieved rainbow body in this life. “In this era afflicted by the five dregs, beings are under the power of barbarism...[and] very few reach the state of liberation...” The five dregs are: “degenerate lifespans, mental afflictions, sentient beings, times, and views.” Lama la comments on the degenerate nature of our current world, and the pervasive tendency of all cultures to think that their customs, views and conduct are supreme, while those of others are inferior. In this barbaric era, those who are poor have no time for anything but the pursuit of food and wealth; their existence is little different from that of animals. The wealthy “succumb to distractions and spiritual sloth,” and instead of practicing dharma, they immerse themselves in distractions and the eight mundane concerns. The text continues: “if they are not liberated, they must proceed into the transitional phases, so Teacher, please explain...the crucial points of practice in those states!” The meditation continues Padmasambhava’s presentation of vipashyana on the nature of the mind. In yesterday's meditation, Padmasambhava provided brief instructions on identifying awareness. On the basis of identifying awareness, today’s meditation is on engaging in the search for the mind. The meditation starts at 01:09:02.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 21 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
We are halfway in the section of the text referring to distinguishing mentation from wisdom, with a revised translation. The wisdom of identifying identitylessness is a huge revolution, and Lama-la gives an extensive explanation on the lack of inherent existence and great emptiness of the whole phenomenal world of samsara and nirvana. For the person in whom the wisdom that realizes identitylessness has arisen, all appearances seem to exist, but they are known to be illusions and dreams, and all the taproots of samsara disintegrate of their own accord once confidence has been acquired. There are two types of wisdom, the wisdom that knows reality as it is and the wisdom that perceives the full range of phenomena, making manifest Dharmakaya. This is the Perfection of wisdom, Great wisdom, which is essentially the Transcendence of wisdom, nothing other than natural expression of pristine awareness. There is an urge for transcendence in human beings, which is not biological, but something bigger than ourselves, ultimate transcendence, which can be revealed by meditation, ending in all-encompassing wisdom. We, yogis, may access the wisdom of our pristine awareness in meditation, by practice and gradually developing our prajna. Further in the text, we start examining the distinctions between conditioned consciousness and primordial consciousness. Conditioned consciousness, due to ignorance, emerges through as mentation, and, filtering through the sense doors, is bound by self-grasping, dualistic experience and conceptualisation. Mentation is the field for appearances, making them manifest, and mindset arises with intentionality and a focal object, merging non-dually with an appearance and then vanishes. The meditation begins at 01:09:04 and is on settling in stillness and watching for emotions coming in the backdoor. After the meditation, explaining conduct in Dzogchen, Lama la mentions Yangthang Rinpoche advice that off the cushion we should maintain the same quality and stillness of awareness, being aware of thoughts as soon as they arise, in the first moment. This will prevent them from binding us in conceptualisation, the host for mental afflictions. In this way we’ll be able to flow in the stream of perceptual awareness like sitting on a raft, without getting wet. The aural transmission starts at 00:00:25 and the pages covered in the texts are 201-202.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 12 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan reminds us of the purifying nature of resting in awareness and observing all manner of mental activities. He points out that the Pali Cannon has 40 different topics for achieving samatha and the dhyanas and among the are 10 kasinas, or archetypal representations of the elements and colors throughout the universe. The last two of these 10 kasinas are space and consciousness. When we focus on space, we can just rest in space without any object. That gives you a break from dualistic grasping. However, a more subtle practice is focusing on space itself in the 9th kasina. Here, by attending to it as something, not nothing, which has defining characteristics, we can actually achieve samadhi on the subtle dualistic grasping which occurs there. By focusing on space, we are bringing about a very subtle form of knowing. Dzogchen provides us with that probe which observes the indeterminate nature of the mind and allows us to sustain that knowing. We can, in the upcoming meditation, attend to that specific instance of the same of the mind as conditioned space. This is called Barnang. Lama Alan gives the example of us being able to observe the space between him and the camera. Similarly, with mental awareness, we can observe the space where thoughts emerge, appear, and dissolve. This will be the object of today’s meditation. Lama Alan reviews how in his previously having covered the Four Applications of Mindfulness elsewhere, meditation with the kasinas were described as giving rise to having preliminary signs (tangible), acquired signs (mental), and counterpart signs which emerge from the form realm. When you’ve left the desire realm and shifted to the form realm, you have achieved the first jana. Lama Alan hypothesizes that the counterpart or primal nature of space in the form realm is the substrate, because when you achieve samatha, all that is left of your mind is the substrate from which consciousness emerges. Thus, he proposes, that the substrate is the counterpart or archetype sign of space in the form realm as viewed from the desire realm. Meditation, in this way, continues to purify us and help us release the remaining subtle grip of dualistic grasping. Meditation begins at 00:12:09 Before continuing with the text, Lama Alan, comments that this type of meditation is very susceptible to blanking out, dullness, or laity because normally we maintain our sharpness by focusing on something (via dualistic grasping). One should note the swiftness with which you detect movement of the mind and be aware that any lag means you just didn’t catch the activity or have gotten caught up in something. Returning to the text, “Likewise all objects that emerge as appearances of sounds in the field of radiant mentation are called auditory consciousness.” This same quote is repeated in the text as it applies to olfactory, visual, and tactile fields. Lama Alan explains that, for all perceptual fields, the mental conjoins with the perceptual and appropriates things. Appearances and the consciousness of them are of the same nature but not inherently the same. If they were identical, when one disappeared the other would disappear. Though we reify each all the time, none of these perceptions exist by themselves and the consciousnesses of them don’t either. They are mutually interdependent. The implication of this is further outlined in the text when it says, “By ascertaining that no philosophical stance can be established for actual experiences, you are freed from all philosophical assertions.” Lama Alan explains how the Prasangika Madhayamaka middle way of Nagarjuna debates other viewpoints by using their own logic which, when examined, will lead them to absurdities and contradictions. In this way, Prasangika Madhayamaka is able to show that everything other schools though existed, doesn’t. This strategy is being applied to us internally. If you think you inherently exist, examination will show an absence of ‘I’ or ‘self’. Yet causality exists, as evidenced by our continued functioning in the world, so we can’t not exit. Our existence is indeterminate. And, so it is with the mind which is found to be indeterminate. Lama Alan explains that as our conceptual awareness of the absence of our existence is sustained and refined, it then slips over to a non-conceptual perception of emptiness. “Philosophical analysis comes to its perfection when it transcends philosophical analysis.” With further examples, Lama Alan explains how no one description of our senses re-presents them as they really are. While it is true for our coarse senses that damage to the physical organs of the senses and/or the brain will affect our perceptual ability, that does not explain the occurrences of perception by those whose brain has flat-lined in the operating room, or the experiences in samadhi or in the bardo. Lama Alan asserts that there is a lot of commonality between the Buddhist ideals open mindedness, criticalness, rationality and the ideals of scientific inquiry. Buddhism states that all appearances to the sensory doors arise in mentation. So, it is a categorical error to try and figure out where something non-physical occurs in physical space. Lama Alan quotes a paragraph from William James’ 1890 book, The Principles of Psychology, which concludes that each of us willfully chooses, by what we attend to, what sort of universe we will inhabit. Thus, “for the moment, what we attend to is reality.”. This links the discussion to how Eurocentric civilizations have not attended to the discoveries of other cultures (India is used as an example) and how scientific materialism refuses to acknowledge the existence of phenomena that do not lend themselves to physical assessment. The text is returned to at this point and the process by which we grasp onto an “I” is outlined. Inwardly a transformation of appearances by our consciousness creates all phenomena. The way to ascertain the actual nature of those phenomena is to examine their relative nature. Via our examination of their origin, location, and destination, with further investigation we can gain the realization of great emptiness.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 14 Apr 2021, Online-only
An enormously important interlude! Lama Alan reads a short section of the text and then calls for a pause to fully examine the questions raised by these few sentences. He guides us through philosophical investigation and strongly cautions us to question our understanding of Madhyamaka philosophy. Is it possible we are viewing Madhyamaka as a type of relativism or could we be ‘closet metaphysical realists’? These are serious issues and much rests on how thoroughly we have examined and understood how we can say something exists. Lama Alan starts with relativism and the potential pitfalls that await us. He looks at western academic definitions of ‘relativism’, ‘cultural relativism’ and ‘subjective relativism’ and asks: Is there really no objective truth - does something become as real as anything else just by saying it? Looking at the ‘knowledge systems’ of science and Buddhism, we can ask: Do these contain absolute truths? Science has many laws and even if we do not know them, they will still have an impact on us, such as the law of gravity. The law of karma, ethics and reincarnation are core to the Buddha’s teachings. Lama Alan emphasises the role these play in our lives whether we believe in them or not and directs us to compelling evidence. Lama Alan returns to the definition of ‘subjective relativism’ and asks whether Madhyamaka could be a subset of relativism? He rejects this view and explains that the Middle Way is ‘subtle and slender’, and how we must also take great care to avoid the other philosophical extreme: metaphysical realism. Lama Alan ends his teaching by drawing our attention to the enormous importance of ethics. He also points to the significance of the Bodhisattva Vows’ root downfall: to not teach emptiness to those who might misunderstand. He alerts us that he takes this vow seriously. We must also take our responsibility seriously as we receive these teachings and ensure we thoroughly examine our understanding of Madhyamaka philosophy. Lama Alan reiterates that he is pausing in the text so we can tread carefully, and to protect us from falling into subjectivism which could undermine our compassion for others. Meditation starts at 01:04:40 and is about observing how our conceptual mind imputes physical objects upon appearances, labels them, and reifies them to make sense of the world.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 18 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
The session starts with meditation focused on the mind. Alan instructs us to discern the origin of mental events, to observe where those mental events arise and manifest, and to determine where they dissolve. After the meditation we return to the theme of siddhis. Based on this morning’s teachings, some of the siddhis seem plausible - if one masters the nimittas and if the hypothesis put forward by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli is right. But there is still a nagging thought - says Alan. How to caress the sun? How to stroke the moon? How are these siddhis possible? Before launching into a series of quotations from various sources, Alan reminds us of the conclusion of this morning’s session: that among all the archetypal “signs” the one that is primary is the “sign” of the mind. Comprehend the mind and you comprehend all phenomena. The first passage Alan reads is from Dudjom Lingpa’s “The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers“ which describes a practice similar to the one we did at the beginning of the session. Dudjom Lingpa instructs the readers to “identify the primacy of the mind”. One should then carefully investigate “the so-called mind” in terms of its place of origin. Here Alan explains that the point of the practice is to identify the referent of the word “mind” in our own language - what we call “mind”, what we understand by “mind”. He also notes that all one needs is one thought, one mental event. It is not necessary to see, to investigate the whole mind, just one of its many facets. Continuing the quote from Dudjom Lingpa, one should then investigate the mind’s location and its final destination. Next, “investigate the mind as the agent”. The mind is an agent, the mind does many things - stresses Alan. It conjures thoughts, it causes the “mind-effect” misleadingly called “placebo effect”. Further instructions from Dudjom Lingpa are: seek out the mind’s shape, its form, beginning and end, whether it really exists or its existence cannot be established. When you have determined with confidence that it cannot be established in any of these categories - you have entered the path! This practice is quintessential Dzogchen - remarks Alan. It is the sky, so now we turn to the earth: the Pali canon. Here Alan reads the story of bhikkhuni Vajira from the Samyutta Nikaya. While meditating she was assaulted by Mara who asked: By whom has this being been created? Where is the maker of the being? Where has the being arisen? Where does the being cease? Vajira recognised him as Mara and counterattacked, saying that “being” is a mere heap of constructions, where no “being” can be found. Just as with an assemblage of parts the name “chariot” is used by convention. [Note: this and all the other quotations will be made available in “Retreat Notes” on the SBI website]. Mara is a personification of afflictive uncertainty - explains Alan. Vajira’s response refers to the notion of skandhas which are empty of self. However, in bhikkhuni Vajira’s story an example of chariot is used as well which appears in more details also in another Pali text - the dialogue between arhat Nagasena and king Milinda. There Nagasena demonstrates that the chariot is none of its individual parts and it is not the assembly of all its parts and it is not another thing. So where is the chariot? When does a chariot arise and when does it dissolve? The interpretation of the Pali canon is limited to the identitylessness of persons, not of all phenomena. But Nagasena’s story goes further to conclude that the “chariot” is a mere convention. Obviously this must be true for any other phenomena. This is a Madhyamaka view. A criticism of metaphysical realism. From the classical Buddhist texts Alan moves to modern thinkers, starting with Hilary Putnam. He reads a passage which constitutes a criticism of metaphysical realism, as well as of subjectivism. Putnam identifies the extremes - substantialism and nihilism - and rejects them both, proposing instead a view which he calls “internal” or “pragmatic” realism. He writes among others: “elements of what we call 'language' or 'mind' penetrate so deeply into what we call 'reality' that the very project of representing ourselves as being 'mappers' of something 'language-independent' is fatally compromised from the very start”. This is classic Madhyamika - comments Alan. But Putnam’s sources were exclusively Western, including Kant, William James and Wittgenstein. Next, Alan continues with a quotation from Werner Heisenberg, including among others the statement that “what we observe is not nature herself but nature exposed to our method of questioning” and “let us not attribute existence to that which is unknowable in principle”. So the crucial point is this: we have been educated to believe that there is a reality out there and science offers the only valid interpretation of this reality. There is only one story: from the Big Bang to the present. And there is only matter. But the quantum mechanics destroyed this view. There is no reality out there independent of the methods by which it is observed and the conceptual designations by which it is conceived. In fact everything arises in dependence of the questions we ask and the methods of observation and measurement we use. Hence, the universe appears physical because all our questions and methods of measurement concern only the physical. Now, relativity theory and quantum mechanics shook this worldview. Alan reminds us of Descartes’ primary qualities, including size, shape, weight and movement. From the point of view of relativity theory these are no longer stable but dependent on the frame of reference. There is no objective reality out there, and all we perceive arises in dependence of the observer and the methods of observation. As further support Alan quotes the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger saying among others that: “it is obvious that any property or feature of reality ‘out there’ can only be based on information we receive”. Alan refers also to the notion of “strange loop” by John A. Wheeler, namely that physics gives rise to observers and observers give rise to at least part of physics. If this is so, then both are empty - concludes Alan. Similarly the triad: information, that about which there is information (the informata) and someone who is informed. If any of these elements are missing the other two vanish. So these, too, are empty of inherent nature. According to metaphysical realism matter gives rise to information. But according to quantum view matter is a category derivative of information - it has no existence independent of information. Alan concludes today’s session by quoting another great contemporary thinker - Stephen Hawking. According to his latest view, every possible version of the universe exists in a quantum superposition state. There is no single true past. We choose the past by choosing what questions to ask. The past, the reality rises relative to our methods of observation. And what about stroking the sun and the moon? Alan gave us 24 hours to ponder on today’s teachings and promised to give an explanation tomorrow. So stay tuned! In the meditation Alan invites us to explore the origin, location and destination of our own mind. The meditation starts at 1:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 04 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: This practice of mindfulness on feelings using the space of the body is a nice prelude the settling the mind where we attend to the space of the mind. As in the latter, we need to distinguish between stillness and movement—i.e., the stillness of awareness and the movement of sensations or thoughts. Loose, present, and luminous, awareness can remain still if there is no grasping or preference. If we can release desire and aversion, appearances are just appearances.
Meditation: mindfulness of feelings. Let awareness clearly illuminate the space of the body, in particular the tactile sensations associated with the 4 elements. Closely apply mindfulness to the affective ways you experience those tactile sensations—i.e., 1) pleasant, 2) unpleasant, or 3) neutral. Examine whether pleasant/unpleasant is intrinsic to the experience or whether it is our mode of experiencing. Is feeling static and unchanging? Is the magnitude of feeling instrinsic to the feeling itself? Exercise: Visualize the part of the body associated with pain and lay on the rumination about the pain.
Q1. In this practice, most feelings appear to be neutral. Is this correct, or do we need to dig deeper?
Q2. In my meditation, I apply antidotes to sleepiness, but they don’t work, and I struggle. How should I deal with such situations?
Q3. I’ve always found working with pain difficult, but in this practice, I could not actually pinpoint the pain (though still present), so I concluded it must be in the mind.
Q4. In this practice, I try to locate the pain by going in closer and closer, but I can’t really find it, and it appears to pulsate and travel. Why can’t pain be an object of meditation?
Meditation starts 14:16
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 12 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Yangchen la begins this session by noting a subtle difference in how she and Lama Alan have been saying the refuge prayer. She then moves into giving commentary on the text beginning just before Tibetan page 276 with “Ultimately, accurately realizing and manifesting...” This passage is focused on the four empowerments and Yangchen reminds us of her most extensive commentary on the four empowerments which she gave in 2020 while teaching on the preliminaries. Speaking broadly to this type of practice, or really any practice that we need to do regularly or with frequency, Yangchen reminds us that the most important thing to keep in mind is to keep the practice fresh. She also encourages us to engage in the conceptual exercise of comparing language throughout the text in its ultimate meaning, even if the concepts seem over our heads, and directs us to the last paragraph from last year’s transmission on page 137. Yangchen begins the commentary (pages 152 to beginning of 153, approximately [276-278] in the Tibetan text) by giving more detail and background to the significance of the vase empowerment as it is meant in this text and also comparing with the New Translation schools and again looking to Lama Tsongkhapa. In summary, she instructs us to not be too narrow in our understanding of what the vase empowerment means. pg 152- beginning of 153; approximately [276-278] She concludes with an assertion that the “real” vase empowerment would be “actually perceiving the emptiness of myself and all phenomena so the sadhana can arise authentically.” She also highlights the association of the vase empowerment with the phrase “body isolation” in New Translation schools, which signifies how through the vase empowerment one’s mind is blessed to no longer see one’s body as an ordinary body. Thus, granting one the capacity to see this body itself being made of buddhas. Yangchen goes into detail on the significance of the phrase “precious spontaneously actualized” where the absence of inherent nature of all phenomena arises as pure appearances in the visions of the direct crossing over. Think tögal. And recognize that this implies that ultimate reality is manifesting as something that can be perceived by the eyes. She also goes into detail on the phrase “all seeing.” This is not simply the great wisdom that has realized emptiness. Rather it is approaching the omniscience of a Buddha that sees things in their individuality. Yangchen continues her commentary on the empowerments providing the meaning of “secret” and some foreshadowing of days to come and Stage of Completion practice. Through the following detailed dissection Yangchen shows how all these different referents and realities to which the empowerment refers are actually connected, arriving at the statement that “mastery of life force” actually equals breath, prana, speech. Enlightened mind is when visions aren’t even arising, “clear light, clear light.” The fourth empowerment is enlightenment itself. Yangchen comments briefly on visualizing deities as connected to this passage and instructs that whatever deity you’re visualizing, that is the primary deity you visualize in front. It’s your lama, your guru, in the form of the yidam, the personal deity, who is empowering you. Turning to the last paragraph on this page Yangchen picks out the phrase “rays of the dharmakaya” to show that the Lake-Born Vajra is reminding us that all of these verbal and physical spheres of activity included in the Stage of Generation as skillful means are actually rays of the dharmakaya. After pointing out what Tsongkhapa explains very clearly (that if you want to traverse the rapid path you need to be collecting both collections simultaneously and meditating on skillful means in the same state of consciousness as wisdom), Yangchen first draws our attention to what trekchö actually means and that resting in pristine awareness isn’t simply meditating on emptiness. Pristine awareness (where in so far as within the ground dharmakaya all kayas and facets of primordial consciousness are perfectly compete) becomes manifest—no contrivance, no effort—by not getting in the way and based on a deep conviction that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence. By resting in the pristine awareness one is allowing dharmakaya to actualize the rupakayas that are already manifest in it. This is a key point from this session. The connection of the word manifest with the concept that these kayas and sacred forms do NOT need to be created. They are already fully present within the ground dharmakaya, we need only manifest or discover them. The Stage of Generation and Stage of Completion are doing something to help our sentient being mind to catalyze the ability to recognize it. In the closing point of this session, Yangchen implores us to really investigate the fork in the road. If we are truly ripe and truly drawn to the unelaborated path, we can trust that is an authentic path. However, if we are “drawn” to the unelaborated path out of laziness or the belief that Stage of Generation is too hard or complicated or because ultimately we are not wanting to get over the ordinary view of ourselves, then it could be an obstacle for our trekchö practice without us even realizing it. It is true that some are ripe for the unelaborate path and Yangchen invites caution as we look into our hearts to decide, being careful to conclude we don’t need something (Stage of Generation and Completion) that so many adepts of the past have needed. We have just received the very long, full answer to the question posed at the start of phase , “What distinguishes this yana?” Yangchen closes with an excerpt from her time with Geshe Khedrup Norsang that connects directly to what has been addressed in this session (included in the notes). The final instructions before the meditation begins at 1:01:35, which is a continuation of the previous meditation with Yangchen, arising as the Tathāgatas, is: relax and let pristine awareness arise as the deity. Continuation of the previous meditation with Yangchen, arising as the Tathāgatas
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 15 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
Day Three, Session Two Q&A To maintain the privacy of the attendees some of the questions may not be heard, but in the video version of the Q&A the questions are shown on the screen. We apologize for this inconvenience.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 27 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Meditation: focus attention on the in and out breath at the belly. With the in breath, arouse your attention. With the out breath, release any thoughts and relax.
In order to maintain attention, it is important to develop relaxation first. Otherwise, we get tired easily.
Normally, our default mode is rumination, where we become susceptible to mental afflictions. We need to develop a new default mode: continuity of attention, continuity of non-conceptual knowing. When your breath is long, notice you are breathing long, when your breath is short, notice that you are breathing short. Sustain the clarity of awareness. With this exercise, we open the doors to intuition.
Meditation starts at 6:40
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 08 Apr 2020, Online-only
In the Buddha, Dharma and Supreme Assemble, I take refuge until Enlightenment is achieved… Lama Alan mentions how taking refuge presents the tread of continuity of all of our lifetimes. And the seven-line prayer of Padmasambhava, who these teachings came from, reminds us that we are always on the presence of pristine awareness; the blessings are always flowing.
Meditation starts at 20:19. With bodhicitta as our aspiration, we start by settling body, speech and mind in its natural state and then turn to the 9 breaths. Then we set our priority to devote to the path of liberation extending our awareness to include all sentient beings, arousing great compassion. We end by invoking the blessings of our Guru in the form of Padmasambava, receiving the 4 empowerments and resting in pristine awareness.
Lama Alan explains this practice is in the context of state of generation where we are trying to imagine something that is already true and we just don´t know it. Body, speech and mind are always permeated by Dharmakaya, this should not be so difficult to phantom in these 24- minute practices. But the real challenge of the practice is to let this sense of identity, of pure vision, to continue throughout the day imbuing every activity. This is where the real power is.
As a strategy, we need practice. We start with our most revered Guru, maintaining the pure vision of the Guru as Buddha, then maintaining the pure identity of our own body, speech and mind. And then we tend to others, with pristine awareness attending to their pristine awareness, responding only with compassion. With all the previous comments, we are ready to enter into the first of the 8 paths presented in the Vajra Essence: Phase
1. Taking the mind as the path.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 19 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
We begin the session with a short preliminary practice before picking up in the sadhana from where we left off yesterday. Yangchen begins by explaining the empowerment as it's presented within the sadhana, with the emphasis being on the vase empowerment. She refers to Lama Tharchin's commentary which offers details on how to visualise the lords of the 5 buddha families, in male and female form, explaining that the ambrosia of their union is what grants empowerment in this context. The hand mudras performed as we recite the mantra are also described but as Yangchen advises us, we don't need to do this every time at the risk of disturbing our meditative practice. This part of the practice acknowledges that the 5 buddha families are complete within the practitioner. The next step is dissolving the jnana-sattva into the samaya-sattva by way of distinct steps. In this context, the visualised deity is the being of the samaya. Briefly, we can think of the samayasattva being the visualisation. Yangchen then goes on to explain the reason for the merging of the jnanasattva with the samayasattva and it being like the union of primordial consciousness and appearances. We then review and compare the corresponding section in the Vajra Essence in the context of the wrathful mandala. Yangchen then discusses the correlation of an empowerment ceremony with an enthronement ceremony in the culture of India and Tibet and the use of regal imagery in Vajrayana and the reasons for this. She also refers us to Chapter 4 in The Lotus Born. Now we invite the jnanasattvas, looking again at the corresponding section in The Vajra Essence (the section just after p 235 and 239, Tibetan). Here is the explanation of how the wisdom dispels any last vestiges of subtle grasping. Yangchen encourages us to know the story of Pema Tötreng Tsel to give more meaning to the following verses of invocation. She also explains why we need to repeat these practices even though we are already in the form of the deity. The next step is requesting the jnanasattvas to remain and Yangchen again refers to the Vajra Essence for the ultimate description of this stage and the emphasis on gaining stability. In the context of deceptive means, we offer the deities seats and request them to remain. The mantra at the end of this verse combines Sanskrit and Tibetan and is a summary of the verse. At this point Yangchen explains the use of the crossed vajra on ones crown during the empowerment and encourages us to do this ourselves. Yangchen then gives a detailed explanation of each line of this verse. We then move on to the verses for rendering homage, offerings and praise. Now this is a celebration, acknowledging the mandala that is complete within the practitioner. Yangchen explains how the mantra here expresses this. The next verse is the outer offerings. Refer here to The Vajra Essence p 236 and 237 (Tibetan). The next verse is the three types of inner offering as explained previously (ambrosia, blood and the torma). Yangchen reminds us how this relates to the channels. In relation to our samayas, this verse is the samaya of making inner offering — important to think of the meaning. In the next verse Yangchen explains the secret offering, the experience of the bliss of the meltdown of the elements and how this verse also contains the suchness offering. The mediation begins at 1:12:03 and is on the Cultivating the Pure Appearances of the Samayasattva
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 24 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins by unpacking the distinctive characteristics of consciousness, which help us identify it vs. anything else that is not. Its characteristics are luminosity and cognisance. It’s very important to know experientially what we are talking about, and find the referent for each of these terms. There are two legitimate meanings to define the luminous nature of consciousness, the first of which is to be clear of any materiality, that is consciousness has no physical attributes whatsoever - no mass, no charge, no momentum, no location. The second meaning is its capacity to make appearances manifest: it illuminates them and enables them to become manifest. It’s consciousness alone that can do that, not neurons nor anything else. Alan invite us to imagine being in a sensory deprivation tank: it’s pitch black, it’s sound-proof and we are floating in it, there is no signal from any of the 5 senses, no sounds, no sight, but also let’s imagine that magically your mind has gone totally silent, no chit chat. There is no signal from any of the six fields of experience. However your mind is very bright, there is no laxity, no dullness at all and you are vividly awake. Now what are you aware of? You know that you are not dead because your mind is bright but you see how your mind is fading away and you experience a facsimile of dying, but you are dying lucidly. And you are aware of something similar to the substrate but at the same time you are not non-existent. You are conscious, no question of being non-existent. Now all you are experiencing is luminosity without any appearances being illuminated, you are experiencing cognisance since you are not in a coma, so now what is the referent of the word luminosity? What is being illuminated now? The referent of the word luminosity is cognisance itself. And what are you cognisant of? The referent of cognisance now is that you know you are conscious, you know that you are knowing. Alan invites us to clearly find out the referent of that stripped-down, bare nuclear cognisance and luminosity, to withdraw awareness from all the noise, from conceptualisation, and clearly identify the referent of the terms luminosity and cognisance in the following guided meditation session. Meditation starts at 10:50, and it is on Awareness of Awareness (the identification of the characteristics of consciousness, cognisance and luminosity), followed by Settling the Mind in its Natural State. After the meditation session, Alan invites us to evenly elevate the quality of awareness, both in terms of the heart with the Four Immeasurables and cognitively as well, especially in the time between sessions when our mind is more prone to mind wandering and rumination. But even worse than that, is the subtle and old habit to reify everything we experience - the surrounding people, the environment, our thoughts, our body and so on. And there is a good reason for doing that, because phenomena appear to us as if they were existing from their own side, having distinct characteristics - the impression is that our awareness of phenomena is completely passive. We didn’t do anything and what we are seeing is right there, really out there and moreover we project upon them whatever preconceptions, whatever opinion we have about the person or phenomenon. And that is delusional at multiple levels. That happens because appearances lie, they totally mislead, they obscure. This relative, conventional domain of reality obscures ultimate reality which is emptiness, dharmadhatu. They obscure a liberating reality, and keep us indefinitely in samsara. That is something that won’t go away for a very long time. According to the Buddhist teachings, appearances will continue to appear in this misleading fashion until we are an 8th-stage arya Bodhisattva. It takes a long time because this is a cognitive obscuration: there are afflictive obscurations and cognitive obscurations, and an arhat is free of all afflictive obscurations (all mental afflictions), but he or she is not free of cognitive obscurations. Only a Buddha is free of those. But we are not obliged to grasp onto them as such. We can actually stop insofar as we have been able to truly understand the Madhyamaka view, insofar as we heard such teachings, we understood, contemplated and reflected upon them. In this way another level of understanding can arise, and it can become our actual way of viewing reality. To help us break our tendency to reify everything, Alan recalls a teaching given by Gyatrul Rinpoche, in which he invites us to relate to the world as Dudjom Rinpoche used to do while performing ordinary daily activities (like going to a shopping mall): Maintain the awareness of space all the time. While attending to persons, things and objects, be simultaneously aware of the visual space in which these appearances are arising. By doing so, space is continuously apprehended by us, and it appears as real as anything else. This is a great help to start sabotaging our tendency for reification. Meditation starts at 10:50 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 22 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan compares looking outwards with looking inwards for happiness and suggests when looking inwards that we use our abilities to cultivate virtue to increase happiness. He refers to caring (experienced as a sentient being, stored in our substrate and as an aspect of Buddha nature) as a basis for cultivating compassion. He says that it is important not to be complacent regarding our mental afflictions and says that we can set about eradicating them insatiably. Lama la identifies the false facsimile of compassion as despair (when we see the world as a field of suffering). The opposite as cruelty. And its proximate cause as seeing the helplessness of those whom are overwhelmed by suffering (unable to free themselves) and understanding that it is possible for them to be free. Lama la refers to practices that tend to/contemplate the suffering of others. He refers to the practice of feeling compassion firstly, for those whom we love, secondly, for those for whom we feel neutral and thirdly, for those whom inflict suffering on others. He says that parents are often referred to in the first group and that in Tibetan culture they are typically objects of love (which is not necessarily so in other cultures). He says that this reference often inspires feelings of kinship and identification which is helpful to the practice. He invites us with the latter group to look deeply enough so that we find the common ground (feel a connection) between ourselves and the perpetrators. So that we recognise we have the same mental affliction/s as they do and that like them, we didn’t choose them. He alerts us also to understanding that people’s behaviours are not to be equated with the people themselves. He invites us to feel the sorrow that arises and then the desire within us that they be free of suffering. He says that it is this action that enables us not to fall into despair. Lama la notes that suffering can be unbearable and that it is wisdom that enables us to be happy while also feeling compassion. He says that empathetic joy balances compassion and that it is uplifting to delight in the qualities of joy and virtue in ourselves and others. He recommends that we seek those qualities out each day (but to avoid self and other aggrandisement). Lama Alan also says that if we err (in body, speech or mind), while we can’t undo those deeds we can decrease the karmic consequences of them by feeling remorse and/or by performing purifying practices (such as Vajrasattva). Meditation starts at 01:04:54 and focuses on those who have shown kindness, on your own good fortune and virtues, and on everyone’s virtues.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 21 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan explains the term “self-emergent”. Returning to the text on the section: Coarse and Subtle Considerations for Determining Emptiness Lama Alan clarifies that recognizing the nonexistence of the basis of designation, does not mean that things do not exit, but that they are not a designated object, until we designate it. Anything that would exist “really out there” would have to be permanent, with all its implications, as stated in the text. He comments on this idea, making a parallel with science and the problem of frozen time. Then, he shares Ed Witten (theoretical physicist) comments on “the mystery of consciousness”. And how this mystery can be reviled by putting into practice the Buddhists methodologies. Meditation starts at 21:33. Increasing Acuity
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 24 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan continues with his presentation of mindfulness of phenomena after yesterday’s presentation on the five aggregates. He ended with his whimsical story which reminds us that our skandhas are not the basis for our identity. Though we often attach our definition of ourselves to one or more of these aggregates, such as our bodies or our intellect, they are, just as in the story, only appearances. Next, Lama Alan talks about the six internal and external sense bases. The relevance of this topic is it addresses how is it that we are conscious of these six modes. Buddhism has a lot to say on that front, whereas science does not. Science can describe physiologic occurrences in the various sense cortexes, but, to the extent, it imputes a sort of communication between one physiologic event and another as in describing neurons as “talking to each other”, it is engaging in complete nonsense, or what Lama Alan calls neuro-mythology. This is because information can be transmitted only if there is a consciousness that has a referent and none of these physiologic occurrences have a consciousness. It is as if the spirit world, which was eliminated with the rise of modern science, has now been resurrected by neuro-scientists (without acknowledging it) and offered housing in the brain when they talk of one part of the brain sending signals to other parts of the brain. Again, meaningful information needs a referent to be conscious of it, but a neuron, dendrite, or chemical process doesn’t have a consciousness. Science, in fact, has no scientific theory of consciousness which explains the nature of consciousness, its origins, what happens after death, and how consciousness interfaces with the brain. It’s current unscientific musings in this pseudo-scientific way confuse and obscure the ignorance which needs to be uncovered to move forward. However, the Buddha offers us a theory via the Satipatthana Sutra that we can test. Instead of imputing brain cells as having consciousness, step-by-step, we are invited to denude phenomena of our projections upon them and, hence, we learn to view phenomena as phenomena. Each sense is approached in a similar way: For example, if we examine our ear and hearing faculty, one knows sounds and one knows the bonds (bond = fetters, clinging, attachments) that arise dependent on our ear and hearing. And, one knows how an un-arisen bond can arise, how an arising bond can be removed, and how a future arising bond can be prevented. The same systematic examination and deconstruction is applied to all our senses – visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and finally, mentation (manas, or mental consciousness). At this point, Lama Alan elaborates on the analysis of causality involved, which is not mechanistic, but completely rational based on experience. From the forms or the objects which are perceived via the sensory faculties including mentation arise the six modes of consciousness. For five modes of sensory consciousness, the dominant necessary condition is a physical sense faculty which, if damaged, would either impair or terminate that faculty. This is consistent with the scientific view. However, when it comes to mental consciousness, there is no physical faculty upon which mental consciousness is dependent. Although, it is true that damage to the brain can impair functioning, there is no evidence that mental consciousness vanishes completely whether by impairment or even death. There is, in fact, powerful evidence that when the brain stops functioning, mental consciousness does not cease. The dominant condition of mental consciousness is mentation which is non-physical. Preceding moments of mental consciousness give rise to current moments of mental consciousness. In the case of emergence from deep dreamless sleep, mentation is the prior moment of consciousness and that emerges from the substrate, to the substrate consciousness, to afflictive mentation, subtle mentation, coarse mentation, and, in dependence upon these, arises mental consciousness with all of the mental factors. In the case of the fetus, the mental consciousness, similarly emerges from the substrate or bhavanga. Lama Alan moves toward a conclusion in this session by asking how does the Buddhist view interface with the scientific view? He points out there is no scientific theory of what the causes and conditions were that needed to be in place for the first conscious organism on the planet to emerge. Similarly, there is no theory for when a fetus becomes a conscious being. In contrast, Buddhism has one theory which is based upon experience and is empirically testable. Non-physical consciousness interacts with the brain in non-mechanistic ways. There is no mechanism that connects something physical with something non-physical. Lama Alan suggests we should invite modern physics into the mix. Let’s stop looking for a mechanical explanation where one does not exist. He concludes by pointing out that modern physics can only account for a tiny fraction of the types of interactions that happen in nature. Semantic information, i.e. meaningful information, is obviously not physical and does not exist independent of consciousness. Nevertheless, non-physical semantic information has a demonstrable effect on our brain and our actions. An example Lama Alan uses to demonstrated that is that this audio transmitted via our physical computers is imparting meaningful information (non-physical) which can have an impact on our thoughts and actions-i.e. meditating or not meditating in the next 24 minutes. Meditation begins at 00:35:25 in which we bring a motivation to understand the mind in order to heal it and heal the world from all the damage done from mental afflictions.
