2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 03 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan returns in this session to the practice of taking the mind as the path, using the analogy of a cineplex to elucidate subtleties of the practice. He explains that our five sense consciousnesses and one mental consciousness are like the various cinemas in the cineplex and that when taking the mind as the path, we are focusing our awareness only in the cinema of mental consciousness, which is the space of the mind and everything that arises in that space. He comments that if you go "pro" in this practice and make serious progress, eventually all the other cinemas (the sense consciousnesses) will shut down naturally. He then goes on to make some distinctions between "objective" appearances to awareness, and subjective states, impulses, and feelings that arise in relationship to the appearances. In particular, he notes that when a subjective state arises it is necessarily in response to its referent, which means mental awareness has, for a moment, been caught up in a conceptual idea that has triggered the subjective state. The sooner we can notice this, the more effectively we can avert the later effects of a mental affliction. In connection to this idea, Lama Alan brings in Yangthang Rinpoche's advice regarding appearances and subsequent subjective conceptualization. His advice is to leave it at the first moment of awareness of an appearance, and not to fall into the trap of the second moment within which we add a label (a conceptualization). For it is in this second moment that we begin the process of reification, which then leads to afflictions. Therefore, as Lama Alan emphasizes, distinguishing between raw appearances and what we project upon them is crucially important, especially in this practice of taking the mind as the path. The meditation begins at 17:55 and is on "Taking a Seat in the Cinema of Your Mind" After the meditation, Lama Alan returns to the text to finish up the list of meditative experiences that may arise due to the practice of taking the mind as the path. In this section, Lama Alan emphasizes the idea of making it through the challenging experiences that come up during the practice and arriving at the conclusion of the practice, which the Lake-Born Vajra describes as luminous, spacious, and blissful. Lama Alan likens this to a surfer needing to make it out past the break of the crashing waves before he/she can surf the perfect wave. As he says, while it is a challenge to get through the break, it is very much worth it when you do. Lama Alan then turns to an explanation of the four mindfulnesses mentioned in the Vajra Essence as explained in Dudjom Lingpa's commentary to the Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra. He emphasizes that we should not have hope and fear regarding these "stages" of practice, but that we should just do the practice and note when our experience begins to accord with the descriptions given in the text. Finally, Lama Alan mentions that he has observed over the years while guiding meditators in retreat , particularly the Shamatha Project three month retreats, and the annual 8-week retreats, that success in this practice is most swift when all the facets of the conducive environment are present. That is, when practitioners are in a suitable place with a qualified teacher, spiritual friends, and even professional psychological support, much more progress seems to be made than when practitioners attempt to go it alone. For this reason, he has been so persistent about creating a center where this type of practice can take place long-term.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 28 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan describes this next section of the text as a “precise but revealing presentation”. He comments that it contains pointing-out instructions. The phrase, ‘The Three Doors of Liberation’ appears in different contexts throughout the Buddhist tradition, and shows there are myriad avenues that will lead to our awakening. Here in the Dzogchen context, these presentations refer to realising the perfect primordial freedom of the sugatagarbha, personified as the Buddha Samantabhadra. Lama Alan starts with the door of liberation as emptiness, which is divided into three perspectives. The first is called ‘outer emptiness’. He explains that if you look deeply enough you discover that external appearances cannot be established from their own side or pinned down as really existing. This approach of looking outwards is similar to the approach taken by science, and in this context very much like quantum physics. The contemplative approach is to look inwards and examine and analyse one’s own mind. Here you find ‘objectless openness’: the mind cannot be found as an object of your attention or something that is real. It is the ‘pervasive actual nature of reality’, free from all conceptual elaboration. This approach is called ‘inner emptiness’. In between these external and internal approaches, there is a third approach which examines appearances and mindsets and finds they have no border. Here, you come upon the ‘great single taste of non-duality’. Lama Alan explains that all movements of the mind and all appearances to the mind arise from yourself. He explains that here it is crucially important to know the referent of ‘yourself’ and he tells us that pristine awareness is a suitable designation. From this perspective, mindsets and appearances are spontaneous, creative displays of pristine awareness. This third approach is called ‘indispensable emptiness’. Lama Alan comments that by way of realising emptiness, a quality of the great perfection, through any of these three approaches, will lead you to identify your own pristine awareness. He then explains the door of liberation that is the absence of signs. Lama Alan comments that pristine awareness cannot be expressed in words or by analogy; it cannot be conceptualised. He explains that by way of releasing all thoughts, labelling and dualistic grasping you experience a quality of pristine awareness, which leads you to fully realise your own buddha-nature. Lastly, looking at the door of liberation to the absence of aspirations, Lama Alan explains that pristine awareness knows itself and always will. This will never diminish. You know yourself right now so how can you aspire to something that you already are? Lama Alan continues that, “pristine awareness is manifesting always…so is hidden to the dualistic mind that sees appearances as other”. Hence, we see ourselves as sentient beings and not as buddhas. He comments that to take this doorway to realise one’s own buddha-nature, release all aspirations and rest there in your own awareness without wishing to improve anything or do anything. All three doors: emptiness, absence of signs and absence of aspirations, are characteristics of the primordial ground, the great perfection. They are also the methods by which we can realise the primordial ground. Lama Alan ends this section by describing the qualities of the buddha-mind as being inconceivable and ineffable to the mind of the sentient being. We move onto the next section, The Difference Between Buddhas and Sentient Beings. Lama Alan explains how due to our ignorance, our own pristine awareness is veiled by unawareness; we have lost the perspective of our own primordial consciousness and although we look directly at the dharmadhatu, we see the substrate which is ethically neutral. The text gives several analogies to demonstrate this shift in perspective, such as mistaking a boulder for a deer. Lama Alan invites us to apply this analogy to our own lives; where we mistake what we are seeing for what we are not and superimpose our identity onto it. To see what we are not, is the entry level to Dzogchen. Meditation starts at 01:08:00 and is about the close application of mindfulness of the body, looking at the myriad phenomena that you identify with, that are not you.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 25 Apr 2021, Online-only
With the beginning of a new week, and stepping into Phase 4 of the text, Lama Alan begins by giving an overview of session plans for the remainder of the retreat. Acknowledging that Phase 4 will be more demanding, and therefore wanting to allow more time for assimilation, starting from today, the total hours per day will be two and a half, instead of three. The one-hour AM session will focus on the Four Applications of Mindfulness, as auxiliary teachings and practice; and the one-and-a-half-hour PM session, will continue to focus on the Vajra Essence, with guided meditation. Following on from the positive psychology of the Four Immeasurables and the Four Greats that we explored last week, Lama suggests that the Four Applications of Mindfulness are very fitting auxiliary teachings and practices alongside the Vajra Essence, because they directly serve as an antidote to our attachment to our bodies, feelings, minds and anything else, as ‘I’ or ‘mine’, which makes us so vulnerable to suffering. Moreover, Lama emphasizes that commitment to these practices is already a devotion to direct liberation; if such practices are imbued with Bodhicitta, they are a direct path to the enlightenment of a Buddha. Lama outlined that beginning with the teachings on the Four Applications of Mindfulness in the Theravada tradition, during the following morning sessions, we will explore the philosophical input from the Śrāvakayāna, as well as the Mahayana / Madhyamaka approach, which he suggests is a perfectly smooth segue into all the teachings on emptiness throughout the Vajra Essence. Beginning today with the Buddha’s discourse in the Satipatthāna Sutta, Lama underscores the pith instructions about what these Four Applications of Mindfulness are, namely, that one abides in a state of viewing the (i) ‘body as the body, diligent, introspective, and mindful, free from attachment and disappointment with regard to the world’; and so on, with (ii) feelings as feelings; (iii) the mind as the mind; and (iv) phenomena as phenomena. Reflecting that in the Vajra Essence Phase 3 we have seen a huge emphasis on cutting through reification and grasping to inherent existence of anything at all, Lama acknowledges that this is indeed ‘subtle, deep and difficult’. He suggests that to cut through in this way and realise Great Emptiness is profound, it means that you have come to know the actual nature of reality, but this is impossible if we are still operating at the coarse level of clinging to the body and mind as ‘I’ or ‘mine’. However, Lama emphasizes that it is exactly here, at this coarse level, that the Four Applications of Mindfulness can be so powerful. Without sophisticated reasonings (of Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and so forth), we can cut through by simply closely applying well-informed, discerning mindfulness, and specifically investigating what IS the nature of the body as a body, feelings as feelings, mental processes as mental processes, and phenomena as phenomena. Lama concludes that this is enough to cut the root of appropriation of the body and mind as ‘I’ or ‘mine’, and that cuts the root of a very large band-width of suffering. The meditation starts at 00:36:00 and is about resting in qwareness, view your body, feelings, mental processes and phenomena as they are.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 14 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan starts with a quotation from Tsultrim Zangpo, a close disciple of Lerab Lingpa, establishing the difference between the “mind” and “the aspect of cognizance”. The “mind” is presented as “the luminosity and cognizance that are contaminated by contact with moving, fluctuating karmic energies”, and “the aspect of cognizance” is presented as the one that is not contaminated. Lama Alan asks us to be mindful of the distinction during the practice. “Such cognizance”, he says, “is a ray of pristine awareness, primordial consciousness, or its aspect of cognizing.” That cognizance is not different from pristine awareness, but is not the same as it, just like the rays of the sun are not other than the sun, but are not the same as the sun. Meditation starts at 11:45. After the meditation, lama Alan returns to the text. (36:48) Addressing “that which is aware”, “the all-creating sovereign”, the Bhagavan asks: do you have eyes, ears, a nose, a tongue, and a mind, or not? Lama Alan brings several examples to discuss the answer: the dream state, near-death experiences and the bardos, all of them point to perceiving only with the mental consciousness. Two more questions from the Bhagavan follow: That which is aware, do you have any physical quality? Right now do you have a sense of being an immutable, autonomous agent? Then, lama Alan brings attention to a phrase “really deep ... so full of meaning” (52:48): “Now consider samsara and nirvana, joys and sorrows, appearances and mindsets, and all their substantial causes. And in the same way, tell me what they are.” Discussing an example, lama says that there is no substance for a kernel of corn and a sprout, they arise when we designate them as such. Another analogy given is building a chariot (to spend the time during the lockdown!). The eighty-three parts turn into a chariot when they are designated as such. Another example is mentioned at another moment (1:28:30), from the Vajira Sutta. In this sutta, Mara attacks the bhikkhuni Vajira about her creation and the creator, her location and her destination. She recognizes Mara and asks him why does he “assume a being”. Her answer implies that there is no being there, just a heap of constructs that, conventionally, we identify as a chariot, a person etc. As the chariot goes, there goes also everything else in the universe, that also need an observer to come into existence. Having read some quotations during the session, lama Alan finishes by saying that there is confluency coming in from experimental physics, theoretical physics, astrophysics, philosophy, and cutting edge work in psychology and neuroscience, according to which consciousness is primary. Among body, speech, and mind, mind is primary. If we see this, this will be one more revolution in outlook, one that overwhelms all the preceding four. Keywords: “mind”, “the aspect of cognizance”, “conceptual designation”, “Vajira Sutta”.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 06 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
After reciting the long mandala offering, taking refuge and invoking Guru Rinpoche, Yangchen-la explains that around practices of intense virtue, like the upcoming empowerment, obstructive forces (ripening karma) might arise. For this reason the practices of: - expelling destructive forces and - creating the boundary circle of protection will be performed by Lama Alan during the ceremony. To better understand the workings of these practices we go back to last year`s teachings in Phase 4 starting at page 116 [206]. Yangchen describes the negative (grahas, vighnas, and bhutas) and positive (devas and raksasas) beings that are mentioned in the text. She reminds us that karma can only ripen when one reifies mental afflictions, so the ultimate way to stop karma from ripening would be to stop ego-grasping. Having seen this in our own experience on a small level can encourage us to have trust in the workings of primordial consciousness on a global scale. We learn to visualize this by inviting all malevolent forces (but not sentient beings!) to nourish themselves from our offerings, and then by ferociously chasing them away, beyond “the outermost iron black wall”, never to return again. Yangchen likens this process to a Mahamudra variation on the practice of settling one's mind in its natural state, in which one allows thoughts to emerge, but cuts them off like a swordsman as soon as they arise. Continuing in the text, we visualize the short but very wrathful expulsion of the obstructive forces, followed by sealing the cleared space with nine impenetrable pavilions: five of them related to the five energies of primordial consciousness, and four related to the four elements. These images can help us in times of challenge to protect ourselves from acting on mental afflictions as well as from all kinds of fears. A short meditation starts at 1:19:00 and is on the visualization of the nine pavilions of protection.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 27 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Meditation: mindfulness of the body. For each of the following senses—1) visual, 2) auditory, 3) tactile—engage in the following steps 1) direct mindfulness to the sense objects, 2) observe to see if they are unchanging, 3) direct mindfulness to space of sense field, 4) observe to see if it is unchanging.
Teaching: Mindfulness of the body includes your own body, others’ bodies, all objects of the 5 senses. Alan recounts the story of the Buddha’s teaching to Bahiya, „In the seen, let there be just the seen...“ as a teaching on vipasyana where there is no atman here (in the self), there (in phenomena), nor in between. Bahiya realized arhatship as someone with sharp faculties.
Sentient beings suffer due to the misapprehension of reality as characterized by the 3 marks of existence—1) impermanence, 2) suffering, and 3) non-self—and the 4 ends of impermanence—1) whatever is born, perishes, 2) whenever there is meeting, separation, 3) whatever is acquired, lost, and 4) whatever goes up, comes down. Mindfulness means more than just bare attention, as we need to bear in mind the insight of how phenomena really exist when engaging with reality. Only this will lead to (irreversible) transformation.
Q1. What’s the difference between emptiness and dzogchen? Why go further when one has already realized emptiness?
Q2. In mindfulness of breathing, to exhale until there is nothing left, do we exhale naturally (there appears some air still there) or do we expel the air?
Meditation starts at 5:30 (meditation was cut short because of some technical problems. Sorry!)
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 21 May 2021, Online-only
Welcome to our exploration of the fourth application of mindfulness to phenomena in the Satipatthana Sutta which corresponds to the fourth Noble Truth. Lama Alan uses the analogy of a “hygiene plan” or a therapeutic plan of how to recognise afflictions when they’re symptomatic and asymptomatic so that we can achieve a level of sanity, mental balance and wellbeing. In subduing the five obscurations we bring forth the five dhyana factors which will be our baseline. This is where we begin the path, the higher training on samadhi on the basis of the higher training in ethics. Moving from there to the higher training of the cultivation of wisdom, what is ubiquitous throughout the Buddhist teachings is the fundamental analysis of the appropriated aggregates which are the basis of our existence as human beings. On this expedition to achieving liberation in this lifetime (which is alluded to in this discourse from the first turning of the wheel of dharma) we need to establish who we think we are, on the basis of firstly understanding the five aggregates. 1. Material form (rupa) – recognising form as form in terms of the four elements (earth, water, fire, air). This is also what makes up the physical world from the perspective of our experience. Applying mindfulness to the body therefore is an all-inclusive task, as it applies to our own body, that of others and all physical phenomena in the universe. 2. Feeling (vedana) – one of the 51 mental factors. 3. Recognition/discernment (samjna) - one of the 51 mental factors. Being able to distinguish one phenomenon from another. Lama highlights why recognition is so important: As we move from substrate to waking experience and go through the sequence from substrate, to substrate consciousness, to afflictive mentation, to subtle mentation and finally coarse mentation, it’s mentation that leads us to the full activation of the 51 mental factors. Recognition, i.e. our ability to distinguish me from not me, friend from foe, is what lays the foundation for all mental afflictions by dividing reality into pieces. This is what gives rise to attachment to pleasant, aversion to unpleasant and indifference to neutral feelings. Recognise the mental process of recognition which is a function of the mind right now. 4. Mental formation/volition/compositional factors (samskara) – it’s through intention/volition that we accrue karma. The type of intention determines what kind of fruition of karma we’ll experience. This includes all 51 mental factors, and this is “composing” the world we experience right now. They also include all conditioned phenomena that are neither material/physical nor mental (modes of awareness): e.g. meaningful information, appearances, sentient beings, time, etc. 5. Consciousness (vijnana) – 5 sensory and one mental. We examine the factors under which consciousness comes into being and under which it vanishes. In this fourth application of mindfulness to phenomena we review phenomena as phenomena, internally, externally, internally and externally, arising and passing away. We’re seeing all five skandhas as phenomena. Habitually, whenever any of these mental processes arises, we tend to fuse with it, complete conflation of the “I” with the mode of consciousness. We now see that this is not you or yours, none of the 5 skandhas are you, neither individually nor collectively. And if you think you’re the absentee landlord outside of your five skandhas, this is in fact nowhere to be found. They’re all empty of you. So when you’re examining how they arise and pass, you’ll see that you’re none of the factors. This is true naturalism. All these are simply phenomena, empty of you. Before the meditation, Lama-la runs through the first five of the 51 mental factors (ever-present mental factors): 1. Feeling (vedana) – pleasant, unpleasant, neutral 2. Recognition (samjna) – distinguishing this from that 3. Intention/volition (cetana) – movement of the mind toward something, 4. Contact (sparsa) – contact of awareness with whatever you’re aware of, even if that’s just the substrate, the “encounter”, either sensory or mental. 5. Attention (manaskara) – a focalisation, selectivity of awareness, attending to something (even if that’s inverted in upon itself), directionality of awareness. Let’s now focus on the referents of these words by attending to the five skandhas in meditation. Meditation begins at 00:36:23. While resting in awareness, review each of the five aggregates as aggregates.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 25 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
As the title suggests, today Lama-la shares with us the theme of doing and not-doing starting with the Sravakayana, the first turning of the wheel of dharma all the way to the culmination of the Great Perfection. He begins the session by recapping where we are in the text, what we have covered and what topic will be addressed in next year’s 8 week. Then he highlights two passages of the Vajra Essence: - „Therefore, pristine awareness is the primordial ground, the great, original purity, and it recognizes saṃsāra and nirvāṇa as displays of equal purity.“ (p 287) and - "Now, for the main practice, genuine knowledge and realization of how all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is of a single taste within the ocean of the original ground is called the view vast as the expanse of space. In this, your own face, which is the ground, becomes manifest as the dharmakāya, devoid of signs.“ (P 178) commenting that when we read these two statements, it may seem that our own present perspective and the view of the Great Perfection is like the difference between the earth and the sky. Therefore Lama la wants to show us how we can view and follow the path from where we are now to its culmination in a continuous and stepable way. The theme that ties all this altogether is: - The path of not-doing for the sake of enlightened doing - And the path of doing for the sake of enlightened not-doing The two are complementary and preliminaries for each other, without one being better than the other. Lama la goes deeper into this theme by discussing the not-doing in Dzogchen Shamatha (taking the mind as the path), Vipasyana (origin, location and destination) and Thekchö and then stresses the doing of guru yoga and Tögal. Then he covers the doing and not-doing of the ethics, the samadhi and the wisdom of the (please see the notes): - Sravakayana, - Bodhisattvayana and - Vajrayana The meditation is on the fourfold vision quest and begins at 1:22:55.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 25 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Eva begins by saying that the meditation will be as Amoghasiddi. This is the family that brings everything together, encompasses all, and is an appropriate theme for today. Meditating as Amoghasiddi starts at 01:06:44 We return to the text on pages 164-166 transmitted on Saturday looking at the etymology of the Tibetan terms to more fully understand these names. These are all names for the Sugatagarbha with each emphasizing something different. Eva responds to a question she received regarding the different sets of five. It is important to note that from one group of five to another, they do not always match in sequence. Eva reads a paragraph from earlier in the text at the end of the peaceful mandala (pg. 124 just before Tibetan page 224) "Regardless of which of these deities you take as your primary one to be actualized, all five are complete in each one." This is support for doing the different Buddha meditations as we have been doing. Brief discussion of shamatha as the deity. Eva returns to two passages from the last few days with some clarification. The first is from Je Tsongkhapa's commentary on blessing oneself and regards the winds. The second is from Je Tsultrim Zangpo regarding the luminous manifest nature.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 30 Apr 2021, Online-only
We return to mindfulness of breathing in the context of the Four Applications of Mindfulness to the body. Lama Alan shares an image that came up in his morning meditation of a hermit crab that doesn’t have a shell of its own, which he introduces as a useful metaphor. Hermit crabs undergo a metamorphosis from a symmetric free-swimming larva to finding an empty shell in which to take up residence. In a similar way, we sentient beings appropriate a body that isn’t ours when we become embodied after floating in the bardo with only a mental body. Lama-la reminds us that this is the first lesson to fathom in the beginning of the Vajra Essence before we continue – amongst body, speech and mind, the mind is primary. Developing this metaphor of the crab finding a shell, Lama-la extends an invitation to all of us listening: if we haven’t already found a “shell” in which to go into fulltime practice, he encourages us to envision this and to create the leisure and take advantage of the opportunity to let this be the most important life we’ve ever lived. He urges us to do everything we can to reach the path and make this the lifetime in which irreversible change will take place. What’s in our way? Why haven’t we already found the path? Giving an analogy, Lama-la likens this to being stuck in our own individual and interrelated non-lucid dreams. We tend to have 5-7 dream cycles a night but keep being re-born as amnesiacs. He then draws again on the Buddhist parable of the prodigal son and invites us to consider, who do we feel ourselves to be, and then to explore, like the wise minister encourages the beggar to do, when did we first come into existence? How long have we, who are here right now, been here, when did we come into existence? Sharing his own experiences, Lama Alan illustrates this through the example of his own illness in January and explains that it now feels like this happened to a different person from who is here right now. Back to the metaphor of a non-lucid dream. From a Buddha’s perspective we’re in a non-lucid dream. Imagine an emanation of the Buddha appears (whose only task is to wake us up) and tells you you’re not the person you think you are, wake up! Just saying that won’t work. Instead, the emanation of the Buddha may ask us, “what are you already doing that’s depriving you from any chance of becoming lucid?” As long as you persist in this, you’ll never wake up! Five obscurations get in the way of becoming lucid in the midst of a non-lucid dream: 1. Hedonism/hedonic fixation. As long as we’re fixated on the allures of the dream/desire realm, we’ll never become lucid. 2. Malevolence arises from not getting what we want in the dream; 3. Laxity and dullness - we become dopey and this lack of clarity of mind will prevent us from becoming lucid. 4. Excitation and its shadow side of anxiety. 5. Afflictive, disabling doubt. This life is our non-lucid dream. The Buddha said that as long as these five obscurations are not abandoned we have to consider ourselves to be “indebted, sick, in bonds, enslaved and lost on a desert track”. You may think you’re doing well – take another look! Samsara is not a place of wellbeing. On that note let’s return to meditation to identify clearly in our own experience and not just be deluded that this is somebody else’s problem, let’s take it to heart and practise. And let’s see where there’s light at the end of the tunnel to find freedom and to wake up! Meditation begins at 00:44:09. With a primary emphasis on sustaining continuous mindfulness of the respiration, monitor as needed, the occurrence of any of the five obscurations. When they are relatively absent, relax; when they are present, arouse your awareness, watching them vanish of their own accord.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 02 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan continues on the topic of the four immeasurables, now turning to the third one, Empathetic Joy. He explains that each of the four immeasurables serves as an antidote when another of the four immeasurables goes astray. First, loving-kindness turns into an antibody to empathetic joy, in case the latter becomes hedonic fixation. Alan adds that hedonia never turns well, it is all about acquiring, whereas loving kindness is all about a vision, a vision of what would truly makes us happy. Second, compassion becomes an antidote when equanimity goes aloof. This happens for example, when we see all the suffering surrounding us and we become dispirited. So, compassion is the antidote for the apathy of cold indifference. Third, empathetic joy is the antidote when compassion goes astray and falls into despair. We may think: “I’m so ordinary, what can I do?” Alan traces a parallel of one’s achieving shamatha, as it may look so out of our reach at first. But then, if we only achieve stage two, it is already worth it. He explains that is not about turning low self esteem into high self esteem, we should instead see that there is a lot to take satisfaction and reflect upon the good things we brought to the world. Alan then recalls Tsong Khapa, which says that the easiest way for us to accrue merit is to rejoice in our own virtue. We can then extend this to other people's virtue, for example that of the Dalai Lama and other great beings who brought so much goodness to the world. Meditation is on Empathetic Joy. After meditation, Alan returns to the text (page 26 of Naked Awareness) and gives comment on the “Generation of the Mahayana Aspiration”. He elaborates on the first two of the twenty-two stages of bodhicitta and the importance of having a sane mind, achieved by way of shamatha, as a basis for that. He finishes expanding on the three types of bodhicitta, that differ on whether one achieves liberation before liberating others, together with all sentient beings or after all sentient beings have achieved awakening – the highest one. Meditation starts at 23:47 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 26 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: As an appendix to last night’s talk, Alan introduces the placebo effect which is clearly a mental that happens and is well-known. However, there is no explanation in modern science for how it works. Applying John Wheeler’s assertion that information is primary and that the universe is an information processing system to the microcosm of one’s mind/body, we can consider mind/body as being derivative from information and as an information processing system. Information can catalyze the specific sequelae seen in the placebo effect. According to Wheeler, we are co-creating our universe by how we measure it and how we make sense of it.
Alan introduces mindfulness of the body according to the Madhyamaka (Middle Way). It is useful to hone in on the Middle Way by identifying the two extremes of 1) nihilism/solicism – the universe comes into existence based on our perception and 2) metaphysical realism – the universe is already out there, waiting to be discovered. Alan introduces close application of mindfulness to the body from the Madhyamaka perspective following verses 78-105 in Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara.
Meditation: mindfulness of the body per Shantideva. What do you think is there when you’re not looking? What do you think of as “my body”? Closely apply mindfulness to individual parts from the feet upwards. Do you think the feet are the body, etc...? If you think the body as the whole, then what of amputees? If you think the body has parts, then where is the body that has those parts? How many parts can we remove before we stop having a body? When does a fertilized egg become a human body? When does the human body stop becoming a human body? Neither origination nor cessation exists from ist own side. Rest in the emptiness of your own body.
Q1. If the psyche is individually configured, yet the substrate’s qualities are universal, does everyone have the same experience of the substrate?
Q2. If rigpa is outside the system, can rigpa be considered God eye’s view? Within rigpa, are my choice already made leading to a deterministic universe?
Meditation starts at 48:00
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 23 Apr 2020, Online-only
Meditation is "Dzogchen Mindfulness of Breathing on Rhythm of the Breath" starts at 3:30 minutes Lama Alan begins with a short preamble on a variation on Mindfulness of Breathing, resting in awareness while attending to the rhythm of the breath. After meditation, Lama Alan says that practicing Dzogchen without understanding Klesha is like living in a 9th floor building that doesn't have a first floor. He speaks to the collateral damage that emerges from this when teachers lack this foundation. He quotes Guru Rinpoche who says, "Though my view is higher than the sky, my conduct regarding cause and effect is finer than barley flour." Here is one who has impeccable view of the one taste of samsara and nirvana, and attends to conduct with attention as fine as grains of barely flour. Lama Alan likens this not allowing a single thought to slip by unnoticed, applied to mental afflictions. He said it’s like a cook making sure nothing unwanted slips in to what he is cooking -like a rat or a cockroach. Cooks attend to their meal making sure nothing unwanted falls into it unnoticed. When we let mental afflictions slip unnoticed onto the plate of the mind and they flavor everything on the plate, and then they catalyze actions, the repercussions can carry through lifetimes. Attending impeccably to our conduct, to making sure that not allowing a single mental affliction to slip in unnoticed, is part of being in the lineage of Padmasambhava. Lama Alan then offers a quote from Dudjom Lingpa’s “Essence of Clear Meeting”, which speaks to the balance between View and Conduct. This includes gentle, loving advice to all of us not to let conduct fall into error due to the view. And to keep this balanced with not allowing conduct to overshadow our view. Discussing wholesome, unwholesome conduct & karmic seeds Lama Alan then touches in on the confession portion of the 7 Inner Preliminaries. During final portion of the talk, Lama Alan talks about how to discern, to recognize what is a klesha, discussing the traditional Buddhist definition of “klesha”. If it is not rooted in misapprehension of reality, doesn’t warp our perception of reality, and impact our behavior in a way that brings harm to ourselves and/or others, then it is not a mental affliction.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 04 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan continues building the foundation for a nine-story building by focusing on the Bodhisattva way of life and Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is not a wish but a resolve. Discussion of HH the Dalai Lama's development of Bodhicitta. Need to focus on the practices which we can really benefit from now and the practices you emphasize will change over time. Discussion of precepts and how they protect your practice. Bodhisattva vows have 18 root downfalls and 46 secondary misdeeds. Highlighted those that relate to shamatha. #17 is abandoning shamatha and giving possessions of meditators to those who are just doing oral recitations. Among the 46 misconducts: Not seeking to attain samadhi; not purifying the five obscurations that obstruct samadhi and regarding the taste of shamatha (bliss etc) as being its primary advantage. Lama Alan gives a description of his translation process with Gyaltrul Rinpoche in the 1990's and the refinement process with Yangchen currently. Lama then returns to the text regarding the Ganachakra. Ganachakra is self-emergent, not accomplishing something new. Lama Alan goes through the visualization and gives the cultural context for the practice. Just like calculus, you don't need to know how it works just that it does. Every conditioned phenomenon is impure, all contaminated phenomena are unsatisfying and not I or mine. Buddha nature is pure, an unchanging source of well-being. Pages/sections covered from the text the Vajra Essence: Middle of page 138 (starting "in this regard") to near the bottom of page 139 (through Tibetan 252). The time at which the aural transmission starts is 52:50. There is no meditation with this teaching!
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 19 May 2021, Online-only
Meditate on the actual nature of the wheel of protection and then on the visualized wheel of protection
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 12 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
There are many questions posed to Lama-la today regarding a variety of topics which include: - Propensity to mentation, as a constant company post meditation sessions. This is the most serious impediment to progressing on the path and achieving shamatha. A homogeneity of constant mindfulness has to be applied as much as possible in order to work against the entropy of the mind, by sustaining lo-jong unwaiveringly. - In the practice of mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils, awareness of the coolness of the breath is not a problem. - Appearances. They are not created by us, but simply arise through the catalyzing of habitual propensities present in our substrate consciousness, and on this basis we construct concepts. The desire realm originates from the form realm, which originates from the formless realm, in cycles of generation and dissolution. Some phenomena may be explained by karma, but others are simply chunye, ‘the way things are’. Some questions simply have no answers within our frame of cognition. - Acquiring confidence and certainty in practice is achieved through knowledge, not through the gaining of stability, which is simply a quality of attention. - Appearances are experienced independent of conceptualisation. - Resting in the unfindability of the mind beyond any reasonable doubt, with certainty, is realizing nirvana. - The characteristic of luminosity of the mind is that which makes appearances manifest. - The addiction to rumination and conceptualisation is connate, deeper than any motivation or preference, similar to mental afflictions. - Along the path to shamatha, we attend to the movements of the mind meta-cognitively, and while vividness and stability increase gradually, lucidly and discerningly we avert falling into the darkness of the substrate.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 01 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan starts the retreat by saying that all sentient beings wish to be happy and free of suffering. The context of these teachings is what are the deepest causes that I can do something about to realise that longing. Lama Alan refers to the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma which include the Four Noble Truths. He highlights the importance of answering the questions “Who am I?” and “What is my nature?” He says that we are Buddha nature and asks “how do we actualise that?” Fortunately, this text teaches us how to actualise Buddha nature. However, believing that we are Buddha nature can appear foolish. Lama Alan invites us to be a suitable vessel for the teachings – to hear them, retain them and never to be separate from them. To realise Buddha nature our body, speech and mind must be in a state of balance, that is, each settled in their natural state. The Meditation is about Settling Body Speech and Mind [in their natural states] for the first time ever. It starts at 1:03:55
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 05 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama-la starts with an announcement regarding Khandro-la, who will be visiting to teach in California this summer, and he wishes to invite her to teach next year at our Hermitage. Arrangements will be made in due course. He lingers over the paragraph in the text discussed in the last session on page 219, regarding obeying one’s guru, with a detailed explanation of the hyperbole used by Lake Born Vajra, using examples of difficult situations and avoiding pitfalls. We have the obligation not to commit prematurely to an unsuitable guru, to examine him thoroughly first, but if we have failed to do so, to disengage respectfully, and follow His Holiness’ advice as previously explained. Once devoted to a guru, suitable disciples need to display a number of qualities as highlighted in the text. A discussion ensues on the meaning of ‘disillusion and disgust with the affairs of this life’, with the explanation that this refers to the eight mundane concerns, the spirit of emergence which is essential to proceed on the Path. If not present, the disciples themselves may become maras for the teacher. Students are not equal regarding their propensity to Dharma, in the sense that some are already born with strong karmic imprints from past lifetimes for virtue, others apply themselves to practice in this lifetime. Lama-la discusses each of such type of virtue, with examples, as well as emphasises the importance of encouraging and nurturing spiritual aptitude in children, along with attention skills, by comparing psychologist William James’s point of view (the Western approach) to the Buddhist perspective which opens unlimited possibilities for mind training and purification. The meditation that begins at 01:03:40 is on shamatha without a sign. The aural transmission starts at 00:02:35 and covers pages 219-220.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 17 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins the session by talking about the importance of settling the body, speech and mind in their natural states. After that he goes to “An Introduction to a Parable and its Meaning Taught by Siddha Orgyan” about a wish-fulfilling jewel on page 87 of Naked Awareness. The wish-fulfilling jewel is, of course, our own Buddha Nature. He then talks about the importance of clearing out our sense of ourselves as ordinary sentient beings, in order to practice from a new platform and realize who we really are. The meditation is on the cultivation of Great Loving Kindness. After the meditation Alan talks about the metaphor of the dirt-encrusted and hidden jewel and cutting through the layers of delusion, understanding the three marks of existence, realizing their emptiness, and then going down to the ground and realizing who we really are. The meditation starts at 35:46 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 03 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan starts by reciting the refuge prayers and the seven line prayer supplication to Guru Padmasambhava. After recitation, Lama Alan inquires into how is it that we don’t experience the qualities of an awakened mind if we are already, primordially, pristine awareness. Taking ourselves so seriously is what sets in the veils which don’t allow us to experience directly this primordial, unimpeded, awareness. But then, who occupies the center of our own mandala? Is there someone there or is there a mere label in place? While our practice will be “the Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing”, we are venturing also into vipaśyanā practice, and because of this, Alan prepares the ground for the investigation that will arise during meditation. As sentient beings we think we know who we already are, and therefore keep loosing the opportunity to investigate further: the difference between a Buddha and sentient beings is Buddhas know who they are, and sentient beings don’t.
Alan describes how Buddhas are aware of us, of each one of us. A Buddha perceives us from our own place, non-dual, not as other, but with an enlightened perspective which doesn’t crystallize into a sentient being’s mind. This stirs the immeasurable compassion of the Buddhas: they know we don’t have to keep experiencing the suffering we experience, they can see our suffering and our potential, and from this perspective, they yearn for our liberation.
Lama Alan introduces what we will explore during meditation by talking about the stages of generation and completion of Vajrayāna. As a baseline for these stages we should loose identification with our personal histories, bodies, minds, and so on. We therefore start by settling body, speech and mind in their natural state, and simply by resting there we might stop clinging to anything as “mine” or “I”. Rest on anything that is not dependent on the brain, and then, in the dying process… who dies? Let’s go and see.
Meditation starts at 25.18
After meditation Alan continues with the text, where Düdjom Lingpa describes the way the Vajra Essence Tantra originated. Our Lama discusses the sense behind Düdjom Lingpa practicing “a little” stage of generation and still reaching the perfect state of a vidyādhara. The voice of the Lama then guides us through the buddhafield described in the text, and invites us to experience the environment itself.
The teachings come to a close with dedication of merit.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 02 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Referring to yesterday’s teaching, Lama Alan began with making a correction regarding the particular empowerment he received from the late Düdjom Yangsi Rinpoche. He then went on to highlight that while yesterday he sought to prepare us for the teachings on the wrathful mandala, he recognises that some of us may have legitimate qualms about launching into Stage of Generation practices without having achieved shamatha, having no realisation of emptiness, nor any taste of rigpa. However, Lama reminds us that no matter what level we are at in our practice, it’s important to see ‘the big picture’ and keep the end goal in mind. Therefore, by being introduced to more advanced practices, we will always know where we are going, and when we are ready for such practices, they will be familiar to us. Lama then reminds us that alongside Yangchen’s teachings on the stage of generation practices over the coming weeks, his teaching will focus on the practices for transforming the mind - bodhicitta, the four immeasurables, lojong, shamatha and vipashyana, all of which are fundamental foundations for more advanced practices and realisations. He emphasises the importance of attaining stability of mind in preparation for stage of generation practices, firstly by achieving shamatha, and then through the realisation of emptiness. He points out that for stage of generation practices such as sadhanas we require a realisation of emptiness that is so stabilised that we do not do these practices with a sentient being’s mind and reify the deities and so on. Reminding us that the whole point of Dzogchen is to cut through to the original purity of pristine awareness, and realise that your mind has always been dharmakaya, Lama explores how we may make the huge leap from our habituated sense of grasping to ‘I am’, to recognising ourselves as a Buddha. He suggests that we could begin with acknowledging that, like Buddha, we sentient beings already have a consciousness that is imbued with the qualities of luminosity and cognisance that is not locked into dualistic grasping. Referring back to the importance of attaining a stable mind, Lama asks us “Where did your mind come from?” In contrast to the dominant view in modern science that this mind emerges from matter, Lama calls on the voices of Asanga, Buddha, Panchen Rinpoche and the Lake-Born Vajra to point out that this human mind emerges from the substrate through the faculty of mentation, and “Not being established in any way as a physical entity, it is a clear vacuity like space.” - Panchen Rinpoche. Moreover, Lama explores how when our minds are free of obscurations and we have achieved shamatha, the state of the substrate consciousness (the sign of the mind) becomes manifest, and the ordinary mind disappears. “At that time” says Asanga, “that is called the mind.”, or the “the essential nature [of the mind]” - Lake Born Vajra. Expressing his awe of these teachings, Lama Alan invited us to practice ‘Settling Body, Speech and Mind in Their Natural State’, and to continue doing this practice for as long as it takes to fully achieve it. The meditation begins at 1:25:06. Lama concluded with a reflection that this gentle sequence of settling body, speech and mind in their natural states is very good for us in many ways – for our bodies, our prana systems, and our respiration, given that we so often contract when we are trying to concentrate.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 13 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan starts by developing a topic made yesterday about how external objects appear according to Prasangika Madhyamaka. He comes back to the text where he continues with "By doing this, you will soon experience it in reality.", and makes a correlation between the idea presented in the paragraph and the placebo effect. The text turns to beings such as Yaksa and Black Planetary Mara and others explaining how they appear and their different emanations. Black Planetary Mara is imbued with afflictive mentation giving rise to different manifestations of hatred that can be used to destroy mental afflictions. Lama Alan then talks about the four classes of maras. He then turns to the Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Way of Life touching on the paragraphs that talk about mental afflictions. The text continues with Yama the Lord of Death. Lama Alan explains Yama’s relation to pride and to the feeling of I am. Meditation starts at 01:02:45 and is about phase three of Padmasambhava’s instructions of Samatha without a sign.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 04 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan returns to the practice of taking the mind as the path, offering some comments on how to avoid sinking in the different nyams that might occur. He also talks about actions that don´t accumulate karma and practices that can purify negative karma. Meditation starts at 33:03. Taking the Mind as the Path. Maintaining a greater space of awareness than the thoughts that arise. Returning to the text, where it mentions the different types of nyam that might occur, depending on the different constitutions and gives a short description for each of the different constitutions. After all the nyams have occurred, as a result of continuous practice, all appearances lose their capacity to help or harm your mind, and bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality, visions of gods and demons, and a small degree of extrasensory perception can happen. Lama Alan clarifies the term vipassana and comments on the first type of mindfulness; single-pointed mindfulness.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 24 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
This session begins with Lama-la returning directly to the aural transmission of the text regarding key distinctions, picking up at the end of page 203 to the end of 205. Providing extensive commentary, Lama-la notes that all of these distinctions are like pointing out instructions, guiding us in how to avoid a myriad of pitfalls. He suggests that what the Lake Born Vajra is pointing out here could save us life-times of time. - DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE SUBSTRATE & THE DHARMAKĀYA, or “you may take the substrate and its consciousness as the path, in which case you will not transcend the three realms.” Continuing with details about what the substrate is and is not, Lama-la highlights that throughout these distinctions, the Lake Born Vajra continues to make repeated reference to the substrate and conditioned consciousness, because that is the one that we are most likely to mistake for dharmadhatu, and the substrate consciousness for dharmakaya—pristine awareness. He elaborates on the dharmakāya, not in terms of its usual meaning—buddha mind, primordial consciousness, but in terms of the nature of dharmadhatu—emptiness, the essential nature of samsara and nirvana. Lama reminds us that these two terms are of the same nature, emptiness, therefore sometimes they are used interchangeably. He then provides detailed commentary on different understandings of emptiness, pointing out that in this text the Lake Born Vajra is saying that emptiness is not a simple negation, but rather a complex one, approached by way of the subjective clear light of our own buddha nature. From this perspective, we are simultaneously realizing the sheer absence of inherent nature, whilst being aware of the luminosity of our awareness with which we are apprehending emptiness. - DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WHAT IS & WHAT IS NOT THE PATH, , or “… you may be led astray.” The text outlines that the authentic path consists of three phases: – (1) The preparation phase of taking the mind as the path which gets you as far as the substrate consciousness, and onto the ramp leading to the path; then to the actual path where (2) you take dharmata (actual nature of reality, emptiness) as the path until you have gained direct realization of emptiness; then (3) you take pristine awareness of the great perfection as the path. In contrast, it is outlined that practices of observing thoughts with the conceptual mind are not the path and they may lead you astray. - DISTINGUISH BETWEEN MASTERING THE GROUND & REDUCING IT TO AN ETHICALLY NEUTRAL STATE, or “… you will mistakenly fall under the influence of the ethically neutral state, and you will remain as deluded as you were before.” The Lake Born Vajra points out that when we thoroughly fathom the ground of existence, we realise that it is replete with all the qualities of enlightenment, all the virtues of Buddha. Therefore, far from being an ethically neutral state, this ground of existence is the well-spring of all virtue. The meditation begins at 01:09:25 in which H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche instructs us to place our attention in space without grasping.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 18 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Because a runaway, ruminating mind may still be an obstacle at this point of the retreat, Alan leads a meditation that spirals through the well-known shamatha practices of open presence, tactile sensations of the breath, and taking the mind as the path before settling into objectless awareness. Following the meditation, he answers questions about the role of vipashyana inquiry in awareness practice; a standard for judging the validity of views; dharmakaya as informed and informant; the logic of taking the fruit as the path; and what Buddhism has to offer to people who are mentally handicapped. Meditation starts at 1:10
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 02 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan expands on his earlier explanation of settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural state emphasizing an open and spacious awareness that is not localized or inside the head. In this practice we are de-activating or at least not identifying with any of the activity of a sentient being or the mind of sentient being.
Lama Alan then begins teaching on the text: Nelug Rangjung - The Self-Emergent Nature of Existence (The Vajra Essence) Lama Alan comments that you won’t find “new” information in this text if you have studied Dudjom Lingpa’s other texts, but that each time is a chance to go deeper. He discusses the idea of wisdom from hearing, contemplating, and meditating. And he comments that if you feel you already have a good understanding from hearing, then really use this time for contemplating the teachings and seeing if they really do ring true for you. And if you already have done this - you have already gained insight from contemplating - then he suggests you go straight into meditation, and more and more familiarize yourself with the direct experience. We all listen to these teachings based on where we are on the path.
Lama Alan reminds us that Lake-Born Vajra says: if you wish to achieve Rainbow Body, everything is present in the Vajra Essence. He also mentions the two prophesies connected with Dudjom Lingpa’s teachings: that these Dzogchen teachings will flourish in the West and that 100 disciples of these teachings will achieve Great Transference Rainbow Body. He then turns to an explanation of the three lineages of Enlightened, Symbolic, and Aural. He emphasizes viewing the teachings as coming from our own Pristine Awareness. Further, he then explains that with what we will cover in this retreat it is possible to reach and enter the Dzogchen path. After speaking about self-grasping as the root of suffering and the starting point of samsara, Lama Alan also comments on Dudjom Lingpa’s assertion that this teaching is for those of exceptional merit by encouraging us to have faith that if we resonate with the teachings and we have made it here to receive the teachings, and we truly wish to put them into practice, then we are such “fortunate” beings and the path is open to us.
The meditation is on settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural state, leading into taking the mind as the path. Lama Alan supplements the practice with Lama Karma’s instructions on counting seven breaths before beginning the main practice.
Meditation starts at 09:56
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 31 Mar 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama Alan officially opens our 4’th and final 8-weeks retreat on the Vajra Essence text by Dudjom Lingpa, stating that this will be a retreat unlike any previous one, in the sense that it will be focused primordially on meditation rather than the imparting of knowledge. He will be teaching Phase 6 on Trekchö, but not on Phase 7 on Tögal, explaining his reasons behind this decision. He advises that it is high-time for us, his long term students, to assimilate and internalise the teachings of the past 3 years, with an urgency to foremost achieve shamatha for the benefit of all. These teachings were revealed by Lake Born Vajra at the most critical times in history, now, when the forces of materialism destruction are being stronger and more destructive than ever. It is a call for the power of Dharma, the power of Padmasambhava, to manifest through us, his disciples, by displaying siddhis and achieve rainbow body. It all starts at the ground floor of shamatha, which, without any doubt, is the foundational requirement in order for us to enter and progress swiftly on the Path. And Lama-la is offering a strong footstool for us so that we may become confident to ascend the ladder of 7-steps (phases) to Enlightenment. The first few days of the retreat teachings will be dedicated to an in-depth experiential review and fine-tuning of the meditation practices previously taught, before proceeding to Phase 6 of the text. He highlights the pre-requisites of accomplishing the Path, by discussing a number of paragraphs excerpted form Introduction of The Vajra Essence. Lama-la then proceeds with reading a number of powerful prophecies, and ending with a very inspiring prayer by Dudjom Rinpoche. As usual for a first teaching of the retreat, the content is very dense, encyclopedic, and an overall preview of what is yet to come. There is no meditation in this episode.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 02 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
The topic for today is the nature of the Buddha's omniscience. It is often said that the wisdom of the Buddha sees things as they are and sees the full range of phenomenon. Yangchen discusses the topic of the full range of phenomenon when nothing is established inherently and explains that pristine awareness sees your mind through your eyes, but without dualistic grasping. Finally she explores what that means. Yangchen-la the explains a passage from Lama Tsongkhapa - Illuminating the Intent (An exposition of Candrakirti's Entering the Middle Way) is in the midst of a refutation of the mind only school. Discussion of the perceptual triad of consciousness, faculty and objects. Consciousness is arising based on a set of conditions just as objects are; must be equal in understanding them both to be empty. Consciousness itself created moment to moment in response to objects and objects arising in dependence upon karma. Primordial consciousness is not dependent and for the Buddha's, the triad does not arise. All those things that arise based on the contaminated consciousness of others, do appear to the Buddha through sentient beings minds. Next passage is from Lama Tsongkhapa's Ocean of Reasoning, which is a commentary on Nagarajuna's root verses on the Middle Way. Responding to the argument that the Buddha's ability to see the full range of phenomena wouldn't make sense. Discussion of pure appearances as the signs and marks of a Buddha and appearances that are contaminated by ignorance. Contaminated objects appear to the Buddha only as they appear to sentient beings. The vanishing of dual appearances does not mean the vanishing of all appearances which is why pure appearances can exist. The meditation is on Refining Inner Fire and begins at 1:00:12.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 18 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan adds some comments on the theme of abandoning one´s own guru, when the guru’s instructions and conduct are no longer in accordance with the Buddha’s teachings. He gives some practical advice on leaving this faulty guru-disciple relationship without breaking any vows, drawing on parts of the Vajra Essence from phase 1. He also talks about faults that can be committed by students and the importance of being aware of them. He adds some remarks on aspirational and engaged bodhicitta and continues with the theme of expelling inner and outer demons on the sentence: “That which obscures the face of suchness, ultimate reality—the grahas, vighnas, bhūtas, and the great demon who creates the three realms of saṃsāra—is ego-grasping.” The text covers first how to expel demons from the Dzogchen perspective and then by using the visualization for expelling vighnas. Lama Alan introduces comments by H.H. Dalai Lama where he highlights expelling demons with loving care. The meditation starts at 01:10:15 with resting in awareness in complete inactivity and then shifting to stage of generation practice. After first calling forth all inner demons, and serving them a feast, one arises in the wrathful form of a deity and expel them from the space of one’s mind.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 16 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
The session starts with the transmission of the text from page 158 at 00:01:50 (starting with: “alternatively, see that you are…”) through the first full paragraph of page 159. 00:01:50. Lama Alan made extensive comments on the phrase: “see that you are Vajrayogini.” on page 158. By dissolving our impure appearances and concepts into emptiness we visualize something that is already there. By visualizing Vajrayogini, we invite her to become manifest. If we had pure vision to start with, we would have been able to see Vajrayogini without imagining her. By visualizing Vajrayogini, we are imagining something that is in a veiled reality, a reality that is totally obscured by relative, deceptive truth. It is valid to designate ourselves as Vajrayogini because we have Buddha nature. Lama Alan commented that the training on tummo described in this section of the text takes total commitment, similar to the commitment needed to achieve shamatha. In addition, for the practice of tummo to be sustainable and radically transformative, both shamatha and stage of generation practice are necessary. Following the transmission and commentary on the text, Lama Alan discussed the Prajnaparamita teachings. In the Prajnaparamita it is said that the mind is not the mind; the nature of mind is clear light. When you look for the mind, you can’t find it; you find that it is unfindable. When you realize this, you have realized the empty essential nature of the mind. You also see that there is a clarity of knowing; the nature of mind is clear light, luminosity. In a similar way, Alan invited us to consider that the body is not the body. The nature of the body is space. When you look for the body, you cut through the veils of appearances, which are not the body, and pierce into space. This is the nature of the body, the objective clear light. Lama Alan then discussed two paragraphs from Dudjom Rinpoche on determining the nature of external apprehended objects. These two paragraphs are sufficient to realize the emptiness of inherent nature of external apprehended objects, which includes the body. All external apprehended objects are your own appearances, are illusory apparitions. The meditation which begin at 1:09:26 is a vipashyana practice focused on probing into the nature of the external apprehended object that we designate as our body. Following the mediation (at 1:33:48), Lama Alan commented that the unfindability of the body should come as a relief, especially to those who have a lot of bodily pain and discomfort. You don’t have to be a “body haver” before you die, just as you don’t have to be a “mind haver.” You have a body only as long as you appropriate, conceptualize, and reify it.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 06 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
We continue to follow the strategy presented by Panchen Rinpoche, examining carefully the way we abide, in contrast to the mode of appearances. As we all know, we appear in very different ways, ever changing - even from day to day, we don't look the same. But in contrast, when we think of our childhood, we think ‘that was me when I was a child’. Or when someone says something about us when we were adolescents, we feel 'it's referring to me'. There is something that abides. What is it that bears that continuity? We've already examined that but it's worth coming back to it. It's very helpful not to be locked into this appearance or that appearance, but to have a sense that there is something that continues over time, in this lifetime, and in a bigger picture, from lifetime to lifetime. Alan recalled that once the Dalai Lama was asked by someone in the audience to talk about his actual realization as a way of inspiring people, and he said 'I can remember being with the Buddha'. So, even the Dalai Lama has this sense of continuity. We die every night and we're born every morning - what is this person that abides and appears, and how do we apprehend this person? Padmasambhava, right after he's finished settling the mind in its natural state and he says 'do this until you're finished', he goes to the vipashyana chapter and the first stage is 'engaging in the search for the mind'. When you're stripped down to the substrate consciousness, to the flow of self-illuminating awareness, you can't remove the luminosity nor the cognisance, the same way you can't take out the heat of the fire. And then we go to the next meditation, we search for the mind and then he points out rigpa. We can't find the mind and then we identify what's left, pristine awareness. We identify what abides The meditation is on vipashyana. Alan returns to the text of Panchen Rinpoche, reading the verses of Shantideva on which our last meditation was based: "an individual is not earth, is not water, not fire, not air, not space, is not consciousness, is not all of them. Where then apart from these is the individual?" And then Shantideva suggests, as Padmasambhava and the Buddha also suggested, that we examine empirically each one of the aggregates, searching for the I. We examine even the self that we hold in our memory, which is not a fiction at all. There is an essential nature of the mind and you identify that when you achieve shamatha; there is an essential nature of fire - it's hot and burning. And there is someone who does abide overtime: Can you find yourself? It's not an absence, it's a presence. Phenomenologically, you first identify it, and then, ontologically, you search for it. Is there anybody there to be found or is it all just appearances? A person has multiple basis of designation but these basis are never equal to the person. Panchen Rinpoche explains why it is not possible to equate a person with each one of the aggregates, individually or collectively, and also why a person cannot exist separate from the aggregates. And then, Alan comments that when we rest in the substrate consciousness and engage in the search for the meditator, we do not find - that was the last possibility of existing outside the manifold of appearances. Not to be found! When we first gain a realization, enabled by an idea - not to be found - this will be a conceptual insight; then we should stop further cogitation and rest in single-pointed equipoise. From within equipoise, examining as before, we maintain the mind in the space-like equipoise. When we come to the point of unfinding and seeing the unfindability, then there is just this openness, spaciousness, suddenly there is emptiness and that is called space-like meditative equipoise. If you're not familiar with the view, fear will arise; if you are, joy will arise. That's why one of the mahayana precepts is 'don't teach emptiness to those who are not ready'. Fear of annihilation can arise even with shamatha practice. Alan ends by saying that by the power of seeing the emptiness of yourself, you see how you and the sentient beings arise in mutual interdependence. And that very insight into emptiness will enhance your compassion. The grasping to an independent self undermines empathy, compassion, bodhicitta - all other beings are on the other side of the fence. And this is very lonely. Ironically, by realizing the emptiness of yourself, manifesting in a myriad of ways, all interrelated with all beings - we're all intertwined, our very existence, our very being is one of interdependence - how can we not care for the other? Finally he cited Shantideva: "Do I really have to take on my shoulders the burden of the world?" He posed the question to himself and the answer was: "Yes, you do!" The question comes back: "Why?" And the answer is "because suffering has no owner". Meditation starts at 13:03 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 01 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan begins by exploring why it is said that dzogchen is particularly effective in degenerate times. He suggests that when the teachings are degenerate, society is degenerate, the mind is shot, the body is shot, they become difficult vehicles to transmit the dharma. By going directly to awareness, dzogchen bypasses culture, body, and coarse mind.
Alan presents the misnomered placebo effect as a miracle for modern science and medicine because they do not understand consciousness. Both modern medicine and faith healing are disempowering the mind, by attributing its effects to another.
Alan revisits the 2nd close application of mindfulness to feelings by commenting on verses 88-92 of Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara. Does suffering truly exist? If so, one could not experience joy. Can suffering and joy exist at the same time? No, as there is no such thing as an unexperienced feeling. This type of investigation benefits contemplatives who have achieved dhyana. Because of OCDD in our ordinary mind, we cannot merely choose to stop conceptually designating, nor is it a serviceable basis for investigating the nature of phenomena. When probing into the nature of feeling, it dissolves. Feeling is a way of experiencing/apprehending, and is not in the object itself. Suffering is designated as suffering, and once the conceptual designation is released, it is liberated.
Meditation: mindfulness of feelings preceded by mindfulness of the body.
1) mindfulness of the body. Let awareness remain motionless, holding its own ground. Let awareness illuminate the space of the body without entering into it nor becoming immersed by it. Observe the space of the body from awareness’ own place. Illuminate the tactile sensations of the body. Is there anything substantially there from its own side?
2) mindfulness of feelings. Feelings do arise, but how do they exist? Attend closely, and penetrate feeling with samadhi to find its core. Penetrate through the feeling to the tactile sensation, and see if the feeling lies therein. Probe right into the origin of pain. Does investigation have any impact on pain—i.e., are you participating, or is pain simply being presented to you?
Meditation starts at 1:08:25
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 20 May 2020, Online-only
A Spontaneous Sadhana
Lama Alan's Commentary on Lama Karma's Shamatha Teachings, 18 Nov 2020, Online - Originally recorded at CCR at Miyo Samten Ling
On November 18th, 2020 Lama Alan offered five hours of oral commentary to Drubpön Lama Karma’s experiential account of his own practice of shamatha and subsequent contemplative training. This was Lama Alan’s first teaching at The Center for Contemplative Research at Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, CO. The basis for this talk was a carefully translated transcript (a copy will be provided) of the teachings on shamatha given by Drubpön Lama Karma in Santa Barbara October, 2019. For anyone interested in shamatha this will be a very meaningful teaching. There is also an interesting story behind the translation, which Lama Alan shares during his oral commentary. The original teaching from Drubpön Lama Karma can be found [here](https://sbinstitute.com/product/shamatha-teachings-with-drup-la-lama-karma/)
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 21 Apr 2020, Online-only
This morning Lama Alan turned towards the 3rd of phase of Mindfulness of Breathing, drawn from classic Theravadin tradition, specifically from Buddhaghosa. We begin with enhancing relaxation without losing our original clarity. Then we enhance stability without loosing relaxation. This meditation session we focus on enhancement of vividness without losing the underlying stability. Lama Alan suggests that relaxation, stability and vividness relate to Buddha’s reference that one experiences a peaceful state, a sublime state and an ambrosial dwelling in samadhi cultivated by mindfulness of breathing. In this meditation we attend to the sensations of the breath its self, and Lama Alan explicates how this practice enhances vividness -which will continue to be with a Dzogchen flavor. Meditation starts at 7 minutes: Mindfulness of Breathing: Enhancing Vividness After the meditation, Lama Alan delved into proceeding along the path of Shamatha. The key to success is continuity of keeping mind on object on and off the cushion. Otherwise it’s like we’re climbing up a mountain on scree, where we take a step and then slide back. This leads into a sneak preview of this afternoon’s class, the Shamatha practice of taking the mind as the path. Lama Alan returns to the theme of how we practice when we’re in the midst of busier lives: how we can maintain peripheral awareness of breathing. Another genre of practice is attending to our mental health and balance. It’s important to recognize what mental states are wholesome and which are not. Which Lama Alan later says will be the theme of the coming morning sessions teachings as he will introduce Buddhist Psychology’s crystal-clear descriptions of the different mental afflictions that can disrupt our mental health and mental balance. In this context, he speaks again of Lojong texts and the need for specific practices as opposed to just staying, my mind is Dharma!” Lama Alan then returns to the theme of how we can proceed along the path of Shamatha, and achieve it, in the context of the CCR -specifically the potential purchase of Nada Hermitage in Colorado. He speaks to how yogis can enter retreat with good momentum created in this life, including practice continuity in and off the cushion. He then ends with a preview of the upcoming teachings from Buddhist Psychology.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 07 May 2021, Online-only
While resting in awareness, distinguish among the three kinds of feelings—pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral—arising in the body and in the mind. Examine the impact of observing the feelings on the feelings themselves: do they increase, decrease, or remain unaffected? Examine the conditions that give rise to them, their own nature while present, and the manner in which they disappear.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 26 Aug 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
As an introduction to approaching devotional practice and practicing with meaning, Alan talks of how faith in Buddhism differs from both western/Christian faith, and faith in science. He gives examples including Galileo’s role, based on his belief which he validated with empirical evidence, in overturning the physical sciences and Aristotle based thought of his time. Nothing similar has happened in the mind sciences. Buddhist faith has the depth and beauty of western traditions, but also has empiricism and the passion to ‘know’. Following the meditation, Alan picks up on the notion of ‘taboo’ and the idea that what you don’t look into keeps you blind. He talked of how understanding the body was advanced once the taboo of opening up the body with dissection was overcome. You know where this is heading … one of Alan’s favorite topics: the western taboo of not giving credence to introspection in the sciences. Introspection is still taboo, and if you don’t look, you don’t learn. The session ended with an exhortation from Alan the revolutionary to “burn down the city walls” where there is (scientific) faith without the balance of intelligence. Meditation starts at 34:48
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 31 Mar 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan explains that the theme of "Stillness and Motion" contains a simultaneous awareness of the stillness of the awareness and the movements of everything else. According to the vision of the shravakayana, the nirvana that an arhat experiences is still, so here "stillness meets stillness". Ordinary sentient beings experience moving awareness that is aware of moving events, so here "motion meets motion". In contrast a Buddha realises "non abiding nirvana" and is neither immersed in samsara nor in nirvana. He rather is resting in the stillness of nirvana while simultaneously being aware of the myriad activities and movements of samsara. Meditation is on Mindfulness of Breathing combined with the theme of stillness and motion. After the Meditation Alan emphasizes the importance of the continuity of the practice, especially for shamatha. In between sessions, he encourages us to keep our awareness grounded in the body and being conscious of the flow of the breath. It is also important to develop a healthy breathing habit with a relaxed belly that expands freely. Meditation starts at 7:37 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 26 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins by recalling that Panchen Rinpoche presented two methods for dealing with thoughts. One of the methods that Alan didn’t cover yet in this retreat consists in cutting off thoughts as soon as they come up. Hovering in the immediacy of the present moment, as soon as a thought comes up, just deflect it. One moment and it is gone. And then you rest in silence, not waiting and not slacking off, resting in the awareness of being conscious. The meditation is on Awareness of Awareness. After meditation we return to the root text and autocommentary by the Panchen Lama. Alan gives the oral transmission and commentary on the text that explains the two methods of dealing with thoughts, namely: (1) Observe thoughts without blocking them and (2) Whatever thoughts come up, cut them off as soon as they arise. In the commentary Alan gives a succinct explanation of the five faults: (1) Spiritual sloth and (2) forgetting the practical instructions, (3) laxity and excitation, (4) non-intervention, and (5) intervention—these are regarded as the five faults. Then Alan continues by explaining briefly the 8 interventions, the 6 powers and the 4 mental engagements (Alan has provided some notes on these that will be posted on the podcast page). Extensive explanations of the above can be found in the lam-rim literature. Meditation starts at 9:33 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 02 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Phase 7 begins with a list of “methods and auspicious circumstances” that are necessary to achieve “enlightenment in this lifetime.” These Phase 7 methods are intended for Vidyadharas, and are considerably more advanced than the list of qualities needed to be successful in this path that are presented in Phase 1. Lama la provides commentary on two of the qualities needed to bring the path of Dzogchen to fruition: directly seeing your Guru as Buddha, and viewing your vajra siblings as viras and dakinis. To contextualize these “methods and auspicious circumstances,” Lama la provides an extensive exposition designed to make these Phase 7 methods relatable to us today. For those of us who have not yet gained a direct non-dual non-perceptual realization of pristine awareness, we have a choice of either holding onto our ordinary sense of identity as sentient beings, or of designating ourselves on the basis of ultimate reality, pristine awareness. Lama points out that designating ourselves on the basis of pristine awareness is not just blind faith, but can be known by “inference by way of belief.” Lama la carefully explains different ways of knowing in Buddhist epistemology: direct perception, cogent inference, inference by way of belief, and knowing by way of primordial consciousness. We can validly view our Guru as Buddha by way of the inference of belief, which is knowledge based on authority. This is a common way that we acquire every day knowledge. For example, knowledge of the physical world is mainly acquired through the inference of belief in science and scientists. Similarly, if we have confidence in the authenticity of the Buddhist teachings, and in our lamas, we can validly designate ourselves and our Guru on the basis of pristine awareness based on inference of belief. When lamas display siddhis, rest in tukdam, or display rainbow body, these help to strengthen our faith in the dharma and in the authenticity of the lamas and their teachings. Lama la then provides the transmission of the next two methods necessary to “follow the profound, swift path to enlightenment: ...merging your mind with that of your guru” and “regarding[ing] your companions as viras and dakinis.” (the transmission on p215 starts at 0058:29). Lama la explains that your companions are your spiritual friends. In the Vajrayana context, this refers to your vajra siblings. It is crucial that you cultivate pure view of your spiritual companions. If you disdain or scorn them, or elevate yourself in any way above your companions, this indicates that you are still clinging to your identity as a sentient being. If this is the case, then you are not suitable for Dzogchen, and are not practicing Dzogchen. You need to release entirely any quality, attribute, or possession that you think of as yours. When you look at yourself you need to look at the core, pristine awareness, and to view everyone else with pristine awareness. Viras and dakinis are designated on the basis of pristine awareness which is known by way of the inference of belief. Today’s meditation (01:08:21) continues Padmasambhava’s pith instructions on shamatha without a sign from the book Natural Liberation.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 24 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan begins this teaching session with the meditation: After taking refuge and cultivating bodhicitta, we then arouse the view of emptiness and the Dzogchen view. While resting in awareness, coextensive with space, with no center or periphery, we view all appearances as self-illuminating, expressions of our own pristine awareness. After the meditation Lama Alan continues in the text which describes the dying process: During a gradual death, the five bodily senses shut down one by one until finally, the mind vanishes. What follows are the spacelike white appearance, then the spacelike red emergence and finally the dark near attainment, which is nothing other than the substrate. These three states are of deceptive nature, veiling pristine awareness. The substrate then is shattered, and what appears is the clear light of death, the ground pristine awareness. When one has in his training achieved shamatha, one can follow the dying process lucidly, like someone who is trained in lucid dreaming can enter dream and dreamless sleep lucidly. But only when one’s training has led one to some familiarity with pristine awareness, one will be able to recognize the clear light of death. This is called the child clear light, path pristine awareness, which crawls on the lap of the mother clear light, ground pristine awareness. When stability is achieved there, this is called ‘Thukdam’, a state that transcends life and death: all life functions of the body have stopped, but the corpse does not decay, for days or even weeks. Even in our times, this attainment has been witnessed several times. This might lead one to lucidly pass through the bardo, directing one`s consciousness towards the next incarnation. Or it might even lead to perfect awakening by way of the Dharmakaya, culminating in rainbow body. Then Lama Alan introduces us to a chart that shows the different stages of the dissolution process during dying. This chart is included in the retreat notes. The question may arise, how these states can possibly be reported. Yogis, who were able to sustain lucidity during the dying process, the bardo and being conceived in their next incarnation, reported on this countless times, and the scientific research of the University of Virginia not only documents cases of children remembering their former lives but some also remembering the dying process and/or being in the bardo. Lama Alan also points us to the research of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross who documented many near-death experiences. Science developed through superseding theories, based on finer and finer technology, but did not lead to a coherent scientific view, but to a diversity of views. Lama Alan raises the question if this might point towards the absence of a real world “out there”, but rather to a world that is co-created by the observer? Fundamentalistic beliefs, whether in science or in religion, block progress in the evolution of insight. Then we return to the text, which elaborates in great detail on generating a wrathful mandala, as one possibility to transmute the dying process into a process of purification, where our true enemies, the mental afflictions, are subjugated ruthlessly. To authentically engage in this practice, one has to train effectively in the three samadhis, otherwise, it will lead nowhere. Lama Alan continues the reading transmission and invites us to visualize the long and detailed description of the mandala and the deity at the center. Various seed syllables are emanating different colors and a terrifying environment is visualized, containing an ocean of blood, a mountain of skeletons, a volcano, roaring fires, and a horrific palace, where blood drips from the walls; the environment resounds from hailstorms and wrathful mantras that sound like thunder. The deity, Heruka, is a wrathful being with three faces and six arms, holding skullcups full of blood, emanating flames and wrath. Guardians, “with their minds unmoved from the peaceful state of ultimate reality” display their wrathful acts, thereby killing and “devouring as their food the warm flesh and blood of the malevolent enemies of the doctrine.” The entire generation of this mandala serves as a template for wrathful mandalas, just as it was with the peaceful form. It is very important to keep in mind that all these ferocious displays are representations of enlightened energy, imputed upon pristine awareness for the sole purpose of subduing one’s mental afflictions. This can be a powerful method for people who are prone to anger and rage because the wrathful power rooted in the Dharmakaya vastly overpowers the hatred and malevolence that stems from ignorance. It is a skillful means when mental afflictions cannot be overcome by peaceful, enriching, or powerful methods. Lama Alan explains that while not all of us might choose to engage in this practice, it is still a teaching for all of us because it is very likely that the propensities for violence, cruelty, and hatred are stored in our mental continuum from our countless past lives. It is also very important to keep in mind that Buddhism never ever encourages violence against sentient beings. All wrath is directed towards our true enemies, our own mental afflictions. Lama Alan concludes by calling to our minds the different choices that we have been introduced to: Dzogchen is the straight path to reveal one’s own pristine awareness and to rest in it. We may enrich this unelaborated approach through stage of generation practices, thereby generating divine pride to overcome delusion, generating a peaceful mandala to overcome craving, or generating a wrathful mandala to overcome hatred.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 20 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan begins by returning to the idea of making mistakes within the framework of reality discussed in the previous afternoon session. He explains that one can make mistakes and correct them based on later valid cognitions, but not by making recourse to some external, inherently existing reality. It's all internal, he says, and references Hilary Putman's idea of "internal realism." He then returns to the issue of William James and introspection, explaining that one of the main reasons James' ideas about making introspection primary to the study of psychology was not adopted after his death was because neither James nor any other psychologists knew how to properly train the mind such that introspective observation could be reliable. Therefore, once scientists saw that the average person's observations of the mind were not a suitable basis for scientific study in the way that third person laboratory corroboration of external phenomena were, the whole venture of introspection was thrown out. Lama Alan explains that what is needed is a group of people who have actually trained in attentional skills (samadhi) at a professional level (much like scientists train in graduate school) who can then become "qualified observers," rather than the equivalent of stargazers in the field of astronomy. Along these lines, he mentions that if one has not achieved shamatha, then within the Buddhist framework one is not a "qualified observer" in terms of the wisdom arising from meditation. In this way, Lama suggests that there should be a consensus model for meditative experience among the "professionals" of the meditation world, just as is done in other disciplines like mathematics and neuroscience. Lama Alan then makes some very clear distinctions between the conceptual mind, conceptual cognition, and perceptual cognition. He also goes into some detail regarding the idea of the generic idea and the generic label in terms of how we reify phenomena. He then explains that in taking the mind as the path we are working to drop the constant conceptualization and simply apply perceptual cognition to the movements of the mind. Through this we can make many "objective" discoveries about the nature of the mind, but this skill must be cultivated. He also mentions that all the physical senses are perceptual and that the conceptual mind hops on the back of these perceptual cognitions to add its conceptual overlay. With this in mind, he reminds us of Yangthang Rinpoche's instruction on remaining with the first moment of perception before further conceptualization is added on. Finally, Lama Alan speaks to the issues he has witnessed in the dialogue between western scientists and Buddhist contemplatives, noting that scientists do not seem to even consider that contemplatives could make legitimate discoveries of their own. Further, he notes that often times because the scientists have not studied or taken an interest in Buddhist definitions and insights into key terms like mindfulness and introspection, the conversations between scientists and Buddhists are often very one-sided and not a true dialogue. He also notes the lacuna in cognitive psychology when it comes to an understanding of mental consciousness, attention, and metacognition. "Discerning Perceptual Awareness" meditation begins at 57:15. After the meditation, Lama Alan does not return to the text for lack of time, but does wrap up his discussion of conceptual vs. perceptual cognition, and the manner in which we cognize phenomena through general labels and ideas. He notes that understanding these terms are key to doing the practice correctly. Further, he encourages us to take this understanding into our own life, and notice if there is anyone or anything that we are reifying on the basis of a static generic idea. When we check this, we can see if we have truly been attending to people or if we have simply been on auto-pilot, allowing our static idea of a person stand in for the ever-changing reality that is hidden behind the conceptual overlay. Further, he notes that the "person" we are reifying on the basis of a static idea, which we then perceive as unchanging, does not exist. For there is nothing in reality that both arises in dependence upon causes and conditions and is also immutable and unchanging.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 03 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan introduces the new cycle with the 2nd application of mindfulness on feelings. Feelings (Skt. vedana) refer to 1) like/pleasant, 2) dislike/unpleasant, or 3) neutral. Although feelings could be considered part of the mind, feelings get their own application and their own skandha due to their primacy. Feelings arise in reaction to 1) too much, 2) too little, or 3) wrong kind of the 4 elements.
The hedonic response to feelings is to want pleasant feelings to stay and unpleasant feelings to go away. In this practice, we are learning to look at pleasure and pain with interest and recognition—i.e., without moving towards or backing away. Feeling arise in space, and awareness is like space.
Meditation: mindfulness of feelings. Let awareness permeate the field of the body and maintain an ongoing flow of mindfulness of sensations associated with the breath. Take special interest in feelings associated with those tactile sensations of the 4 elements. Examine whether pleasant/unpleasant is intrinsic to the experience or whether it is our mode of experiencing. Is feeling static or arising moment-by-moment? Does observing feelings change them in any way?
Q1. What is the difference between non-grasping and ignoring?
Q2. Is thinking, “This might be cancer,” grasping?
Q3. Does vipasyana require grasping at an object?
Q4. In loving-kindness practice, is it better to attend to one person at a time?
Q5. When doing the body scan, I experience the body as being hollow like space, and yet, we know the body is solid.
Q6. When practicing mindfulness of breathing in the supine position, I’ve had the following experience which has been replicated. In the beginning, with full-body awareness, there is a lot of rumination, and as it dies down, I progress to mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen, and as it dies down further, mindfulness of breathing at the nostrils. At the 20-30 minute mark, there is an abrupt shift in the breath whereby the body has fallen asleep but awareness is on. There is clear awareness of prana (although not bliss). Is this practice on track?
Meditation Starts at 24:30
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 16 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
This session begins with Yangchen reminding us that when we meditate on dissolution in a sadhana, nothing is being made empty through the practice itself, because all phenomena are, and always have been, empty of inherent existence. Therefore, in these practices, our focus on this inherent emptiness is key. Yangchen then clarifies another point regarding the vanishing worlds in these dissolution practices. Based on the premise that all worlds and all inhabitants arise from energy and mind, including the shared karma of the minds of sentient beings in that world, the question arises, ‘What happens to those worlds when a completion stage practitioner visualises light going out to endless worlds, and all those worlds dissolving?’ Yangchen shares insights from one of her teachers, that it is the yogi’s own karma, and the winds related to that yogi’s mind and karma, that are withdrawn, not the shared winds. She underscores that it has been very meaningful for her to maintain the reality of a shared world that is made of mind and wind, that’s not really out there, but in so far as it is shared, one yogi achieving enlightenment doesn’t annihilate that world for other beings. Yangchen then provides detailed commentary on the oral transmission of the text given by Lama Alan in Session 28, enhancing our understanding of the meaning, sequence and flow of this inner fire practice, in preparation for today's meditation. She begins with pointing out that to understand what it means for the pranas to dissolve in the central channel, we need to realise that the advanced stage of completion practitioner is going into a completely silent state where the breath is not moving. Until we reach such a level, we are advised to simply start where we are by visualising this. Before going to the meditation, we are once again reminded that these Stage of Completion practices are by way of introduction for us right now, planting seeds so that we will know what to do when the time is ripe. The mediation on inner fire starts at 51:25
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 13 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
Day One, Session One 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.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 07 May 2021, Online-only
Today we turn to the second of the four objects of mindfulness in the context of the four close applications of mindfulness, to mindfulness of feelings. Lama Alan points out that the third object, the mind, includes almost the entire array of mental events: emotions, mental afflictions, virtues, a wide variety of mental processes and functions, the six modes of consciousness. But although feelings are also among the 51 mental factors, feelings are highlighted by the Buddha as being worthy of special interest and inquiry and are hence explored as a separate category. Lama-la suggests that each of the four close applications of mindfulness are correlated with the four noble truths, with feelings corresponding to the second noble truth of the origin of suffering. How we relate to our feelings and respond to them keeps the engine of samsara going. Lama-la mentions that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has proposed the hypothesis that our most fundamental impulse is that of caring, and what we care about most are our feelings, we like pleasant and dislike unpleasant feelings, both our own and those of others. Biologically, we have an imperative to care about our mates, our progeny, our tribe. That’s a given and doesn’t need to be cultivated. But as soon as we draw a line around “our side”, we take on a larger identity which, for better or worse, which can give us greater meaning, but this is a meaning rooted in delusion. Our cultivation of the mind is to expand the sense of caring and break down the barriers between our side and the other side until our impulse of caring is immeasurable. Feelings are therefore central to the cultivation of the four immeasurables. Feelings are also implicated in the arising of craving, when pleasant feelings arise, and hostility, when unpleasant feelings arise, as well as indifference when neutral feelings arise. Why do we have feelings? Lama-la proposes that in addition to the two salient characteristics of consciousness of luminosity and cognisance, there is a third essential quality of consciousness, that of caring. According to Buddhist psychology, feelings run through all our experience, there is always a flow of feelings, bearing in mind that neutral feelings are not an absence of feelings. In the Buddhist context, feelings (vedana) refer only to the three categories of pleasure, pain, indifference. Why do we have them? There was no time in the past when we didn’t have them so we can’t explore their origin, they were always there. The substrate consciousness that carries through from lifetime to lifetime was always imbued with feeling. Slipping over to Mahayana Buddhism, we’ve always been imbued with Buddha nature, which is not free of feelings and this continues right through to Buddhahood. From the Buddhist perspective, it’s just the way things are, feelings are core to our identity. In the context of modern science, feelings do not have a particular rationale from a biological perspective, in terms of survival and procreation. We don’t need feelings to react to stimuli. From a Buddhist perspective, feelings are there in the nature of pristine awareness which is immutable bliss. Bliss manifests as great compassion. From the dharmakaya the two rupakayas manifest, sambogakaya and nirmanakaya. They emerge out of the aspiration to free all sentient beings from suffering and bring them to Buddhahood. In this light, feelings take on a monumental significance. From a scientific perspective, feelings and the pursuit of happiness is meaningless. From a Buddhist perspective, the cultivation of happiness (eudaimonia) is the meaning of life. It’s worthwhile attending to our feelings as they’re a primal force that’s sets us in motion on the path. Lama-la points out that any of the four meditative postures of sitting, lying down, standing and walking start to feel uncomfortable after a while. Dukkha is built into all four postures, and this applies to anything we do – imagine having to do your favourite activity 24/7. The source of happiness is not in the physical posture. Our impulse of caring doesn’t let us rest until our “eternal longing” is satisfied. As long as we’re experiencing dukkha, we can never rest. We practise dharma out of our wish for happiness and anything we do is done for the same purpose. We’re driven by our feelings, but satisfaction has always eluded us. We’ve identified with our feelings without having understood them. The Buddha urged us in the first noble truth thoroughly to fathom the range of suffering we’re vulnerable to, and in the second noble truth to abandon the sources of suffering. Lama Alan specifies that this does not mean to abandon feelings. Feelings are located in the domain of suffering but the way we respond to them is located in the origins of suffering. Feelings are of paramount importance in order to break the cycle of misapprehending and reifying them. The Buddha suggests taking a fresh look and examining feelings as feelings. When you experience a pleasant feeling, knowing that one is experiencing a pleasant feeling; the same applies to unpleasant and neutral feelings. With discerning intelligence, imbued with mindfulness, recognise pleasant, unpleasant and neutral feelings as such. Furthermore, feelings can be mundane (hedonic) or supra mundane (eudaimonic). Buddha urges us to attend to feelings internally, externally, internally and externally (i.e., to how our and others’ feelings influence each other); how they arise, how they pass. In this way, the Buddha’s set of instructions on feelings were revolutionary. Meditation begins at 00:35:48 and is on resting in awareness, closely apply mindfulness to feelings. While resting in awareness, distinguish among the three kinds of feelings—pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral—arising in the body and in the mind. Examine the impact of observing the feelings on the feelings themselves: do they increase, decrease, or remain unaffected? Examine the conditions that give rise to them, their own nature while present, and the manner in which they disappear.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 29 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
We start this session by invoking Guru Rinpoche nondual with our own Guru in their rainbow body form, and merging with him. Then Yangchen-la answers questions regarding the subtle body meditations. She emphasizes again and again to approach these meditations with much gentleness and care, never forcing any energetic movement by the power of our concentration. We could harm ourselves by doing so, creating constrictions also in the physical body. Yangchen encourages us to go slowly, step by step, in these exercises, trusting that we will develop them in a sustainable way when approaching them gently. One question is about the movements when churning one’s stomach, which Yangchen explains in detail directly from her own experience. It is an exercise only for those with appropriate training and background. Then we return to the book Open Mind. Yangchen was pointed to by a participant, and now clarifies, that the “all-creating sovereign of samsara and nirvana” at the beginning of the section of the text on the essential nature, here is pristine awareness; whereas the Lakeborn Vajra uses this same term for the substrate consciousness. Yangchen explains how this makes sense, because consciousness can be viewed and described on different levels according to the levels of subtlety: coarse (ordinary), subtle (substrate) and very subtle consciousness. One should be carefully aware of the context and perspective of these terms in order to avoid misconceptions. Then we move on to the section on compassion (pages 175-178 in Open Mind), where the term all-pervasive compassion is described as the display of the union of the clear light primordial consciousness and the spontaneously actualized luminous primordial consciousness. This describes a way of seeing reality as a compassionate display of the buddhas, a perfectly pure mandala of our yidam, viewed from our own pristine awareness. Yangchen explains that samsara arises due to one’s failure to recognize this. The location of the clear light in inseparable union with its luminous nature is a “glorious amulet chamber within the center of the heart”. Its rays, the compassionate creative expressions of pristine awareness, are described to be as the same nature of this ground, metaphorically likened to the wetness of water or the warmth of fire. Yangchen-la very openly shares that this section of the text together with Lama Alans teachings have brought her irreversibly to the Dzogchen path, bringing together her background in Christian mysticism and Vajrayana. The meditation is on the flow of the very subtle energies and begins at 1:01:10
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 07 May 2020, Online-only
We now begin the 5th root mental affliction “Afflictive Uncertainty”, which is also the 5th Obscuration. Lama Alan reminds us of the different analogies used for the 5 obscurations, all of which illuminate the experience of our innate purity being obscured. He then moves on to definition of Afflictive Uncertainty: being in 2 minds about what one is uncertain of, such as “what is virtue and what is non-virtue”, “ the truth cause and effect”, “the 4 Arya Truths”, “the 3 Jewels”, and so on. Western Religions appear to be about belief, with a fundamental question being “are you a believer or a non-believer?”. Then there are those who believe they’re just dealing with facts, free of beliefs. Lama Alan points out that people who believe they are free of beliefs simply aren’t aware of the beliefs they have. He then dives into the issue of materialism, which is opposed to open-minded skeptical questions and is now more religion than science. “What is right”, “what is good”, “what is true”; Lama Alan says these are important questions to ask, in addition to the big questions of cause and effect, and so forth. He points out that it would be easy to think there are “Buddhist” or “Religious” questions. But these aren’t just Buddhist issues. They are human issues that impact us in our daily lives, especially now that we’re in the midst of COVID-19 “cause and effect” becomes important to us. We want to know where it came from -what caused it. Lama Alan speaks to how we have these deep questions that are not bound up in religious dogma, but rather they truly are questions we should all be concerned with. Then he asks, “in whom do we take refuge”? In other words, who will support and guide us to answer these deep questions, which are questions that concern our ultimate well-being. So, what about afflictive uncertainty? What is it? Not being able to settle on one side of an issue; being of 2 minds; but to continue to waffle back and forth; not being at ease in either side. Our view of reality is distorted, we’re reifying something at the root, with this uncertainty “afflictive”. By classical definition, Lama Alan points out that it also must “hinder virtuous states of mind” in order to be afflictive. Lama Alan then moves to discussing “doubt” about teachings such as the existence of Mt. Meru. And how this is all based on our reification of aspects of what it “real”, then it means we can’t then even entertain the possibility of how these teachings may be true. Anything we doubt we’re already reifying something contrary that we’re doubting. From this discussion, Lama Alan launches into an defense of skepticism, speaking to how healthy, authentic uncertainty & deep investigation is emphasized in both Buddhism and Science. Meditation starts at 37:18 and is “Pith Instructions from Yangthang Rinpoche”
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 04 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
This afternoon we finish the cycle of four immeasurables by meditating on equanimity. Alan says that this is the grand finale, the indispensable basis for bodhicitta. Equanimity has different meanings in different contexts but in the context of our practice it means the even-heartedness when attending to other people, other sentient beings. As long as we attend to people as objects, some appear agreeable and others disagreeable. The point of this practice is to place ourselves in the position of others, in their shoes, to see things from their perspective. If we do so, it appears that we all act out of a wish to be free from suffering and to find happiness. The motivation is the same, while the behaviour is different. And the difference is the degree to which one is subject to mental afflictions. As we seek to develop this even sense of caring, equanimity arises, and the heart opens equally to all sentient beings. If one can attend to the whole spectrum of beings - from those who seem to come from hell realms to those who act like sources of pure land - this is immeasurable equanimity. Alan introduces the meditation by explaining that in the preceding practices we were sending out the light of loving kindness and compassionately taking in the suffering of others. In the practice of equanimity we shall combine the two - sending out and taking in - in one practice known in Tibetan as tonglen. The meditation is on Equanimity. After the meditation, Alan briefly comments on how the four immeasurables act as remedies when one of them goes astray. So when loving kindness descends into self-centred attachment the remedy is equanimity. Then we return to Karma Chagme’s text “Naked Awareness” page 28. Alan explains that when the first ground (bhumi) is reached and the ultimate bodhicitta arises it means that the arya bodhisattva has the first unmediated realisation of emptiness. This is the Sutrayana Mahayana interpretation. In Dzogchen (and Mahamudra) view relative bodhicitta is the same but ultimate bodhicitta means the direct realisation of rigpa (i.e. primordial consciousness), not of emptiness. In Dzogchen ultimate bodhicitta is equated with rigpa. When resting in rigpa relative bodhicitta arises, so there is no alternating between relative and ultimate bodhicitta, because they are non-dual. Further in the text Alan comments on the aspirational and engaged bodhicitta and explains the two lineages of taking the bodhisattva vows. He also points out that while monastic vows are valid for one life only and can be given back, the bodhisattva precepts are taken until enlightenment. However, this also means that by taking them one is in a way “hooked” to the path for all future rebirths, because one has “unfinished business”. Commenting on giving away one’s wealth before taking the precepts, Alan explains that the important thing is to give away all attachments. As an example, he tells the story of Milarepa and his lame goat. Subsequently, Alan provides a more detailed commentary on the ritual of purification and accumulation of merit described in “Naked Awareness” (page 29). He underlines that the purification of obscurations and the accumulation of merit never ends until one is perfectly enlightened, and therefore the preliminary practices should not be treated as something that can be done and finished with, but have to be practiced continuously. As a culmination of today’s teachings, Alan guides the group into taking the bodhisattva vows. After that, to conclude, he discusses the trainings and actions of a bodhisattva and he reads the passage from The Advice to a King Sutra. Alan says that we all are kings in our jobs, families etc. and therefore we should remember that the most important thing is to always have the underlying motivation of bodhicitta. If this motivation is present in all our activities, then even the most simple things like taking a walk, resting or making a tea can mean accumulating merit. Meditation starts at: 12:12 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 18 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan begins the session by "cleaning up" several earlier points in the text, including a revision of, and expansion on, some of his previous remarks about actions and their consequences. He takes a "brief interlude" to share some of his recollections about Yangthang Rinpoche. He commends the recent documentary on Rinpoche's life. After reviewing the Buddha's instructions on sequencing (i.e. whether meditation precedes the view or the view comes before meditation), Lama Alan provides two analogs from the annals of particle physics and astronomy. If we were to look, he asserts, we would undoubtedly find similar examples in chemistry, biology and so forth. At 1:23:00, Lama Alan returns to the aural transmission with the fourth paragraph on page 183, beginning with „You may perceive …" He then offers a quote from Dudjom Rinpoche's Extracting the Vital Essence of Accomplishment to reinforce how best to respond to the obstacles that will almost certainly arise at this stage of the path due to our own karma. He returns to the life of Yangthang Rinpoche, as well as the response to the Tibetan people to the Chinese invasion, as inspiring exemplars of overcoming obstacles. There is no meditation with this teaching.
