2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 13 May 2021, Online-only
Observe how the mental events the Buddha highlighted in his pith instructions arise in dependence upon the causes and conditions and how they pass, noting their impermanent, unsatisfying, and impersonal nature.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 06 Apr 2021, Online-only
Recognizing the Appropriation of Tactile Sensations and Mental Events as 'Mine' or 'I'
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 04 May 2021, Online-only
While either sitting or lying down, continue maintaining awareness of the rhythm of the respiration in the background of your awareness, while closely applying mindfulness to your body, noting whether it remains settled in its natural state—relaxed, still, and vigilant. And introspectively monitor when your mindfulness is veiled by any of the five obscurations and when it is relatively free of them.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 11 May 2021, Online-only
Experientially discern the difference between stimulus-driven, mundane feelings and feelings of genuine well-being, distress, and equanimity, which are symptomatic of your current level of mental health and balance.
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.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 18 May 2021, Online-only
With the view of emptiness and of the Great Perfection, rest in awareness in complete inactivity. Then, shifting to stage of generation practice, first call forth all your inner demons, and serve them a feast by attending to them closely. Then, once you have faced them all, arise in the wrathful form of a deity designated upon your own mirror-like primordial consciousness, and expel them from the space of your mind.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 06 May 2021, Online-only
While resting in awareness and peripherally maintaining mindfulness of breathing, observe the arising and passing of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air within the body. Note, too, the conceptual images and labels you project on these qualia that are in fact immaterial, for they do not exist in physical space.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 11 May 2021, Online-only
Observe the afflictive nature of attachment, hostility, and delusion in your coarse mind; trace them to their relative sources as bliss, luminosity, and nonconceptuality in your subtle mind, the substrate consciousness; and finally, cutting through the conditioned mind, trace them back to the primordial consciousness of discernment, mirror-like primordial consciousness, and the primordial consciousness of the absolute space of phenomena of your very subtle mind.
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 16 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
Day Four, 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, 21 May 2021, Online-only
While Resting in Awareness, Review each of the Five Aggregates as Aggregates
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 26 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama-la starts by commenting again on the excellent last question posed in this retreat, emphasising the fact that Buddhadharma offers us choices on how to die well, and having such choices gives us freedom. A few minor corrections follow regarding the text read the day before. Back to the text, from the last paragraph on page 272, there is a detailed explanation pertaining to practices in which we could engage once we are well trained, as spiritual friends helping a dying person’s substrate consciousness to be transferred through Phowa, to the pure land of Sukhavati. This completes the transmission of the main body of the text. The Lake Born Vajra concludes by explaining the reason for which this Tantra was revealed. It is precisely for such degenerate times as ours, when authentic teachers are very rare, and there are hardly any people practicing, that these teachings are needed. Lama-la uses the analogy of an adrenalin injection administered to a person in imminent cardiac arrest. By practicing these teachings, we may liberate ourselves through realization, we liberate others through compassion, and we awake non-duality as youthful vase kayas. He is calling on powerful Dharma protectors, to provide disciples with conducive conditions to practice, and the treasure of teachings is sealed. Lama-la reads the colophon which includes a beautiful prayer for the perfect enlightenment of those of us fortunate enough to practice correctly. The meditation begins at 00:54:56 and continues the series of Padmasambhava's pith instructions for identifying pristina awareness. The aural transmission begins at 00:04:00 and covers pages 272-276.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 29 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan starts remembering the pointing out instructions of Padmasambhava that he read yesterday. In the preface, Padmasambhava says he is pointing out to what he called by many different names: atman, middle way view, emptiness, tathagatagarbha, alaya, perfection of wisdom, and so forth. And then there are two phases: in the first he challenges us - "what do you mean ... Observe your mind!?" Just do it! In the second, he poses a hypothesis: "Is is that way or not? Observe your mind!" The first phase is shamatha, and the second, as he poses a question and we have to report what we see, that's vipashyana. And this instructions are so inviting because Padmasambhava also says he is pointing out to "ordinary mind", not something in a distant future. So, how deep we can penetrate? Can we see the luminous and cognisant aspects of consciousness, can we identify the relative nature of consciousness? That is where substrate consciousness is. Can we go deeper and penetrate our mind right to the substrate consciousness? The emptiness of our own awareness is there too. Can we realize it? And all of these is rigpa. Can we identify it? Very simple and very complete. But only for the simultaneous practitioners it is sufficient to see the ordinary mind, the substrate consciousness, the emptiness and rigpa only once. Why most of us cannot see rigpa, if we're looking right where rigpa is? Alan talks then about the obscurations that prevent us to see rigpa. There are conative obscurations, related to desires: "I don't want to. I'm busy! I have to make money and this is not profitable. It's boring!" If we don't have the aspiration, we'll not dedicate ourselves twelve hours a day for months. It's not gonna happen. A conative passion, renunciation, bodhicitta are indispensable. The second type of obscurations is the obsessive compulsive ideation, a very noisy mind - attention obscurations. But even if you have real interest and refined attention skills, there are still conate (we're born with) and acquired cognitive obscurations - ignorance, delusion. Alan says he stands by this big generalization: the belief system of scientific materialism consists of acquired delusion. It's not connate, we get educated, introduced to it, and so if you love science you have to go with this belief system. One of the major points of this belief system is that the mind is just an epiphenomenon of the brain. As meditators do not know anything about the brain, they need neuroscientists to tell them what is going on in their meditation. Among the scientific community, most materialistic groups of scientists among all the fields are cognitive scientists, although they know the least about matter. And the least materialistic are the physicists, like Thomas Hertog, Stephen Hawking, Anton Zeilinger, John Wheeler, Andrei Linde, Paul Davis - they're casting off materialism and coming into adulthood. Meanwhile, the cognitive sciences are still in infancy, pretending they understand consciousness. Then Alan presents us Donald D. Hoffman - Professor of Cognitive Science, University of California, Irvine, PhD in MIT. But before proceeding, Alan cited this quote from "The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers" where Düdjom Lingpa says that before you set out on the path, among body, speech and mind you have to investigate and know which one is primary. Düdjom Lingpa had a vision in a dream of a boy who said: "The body is like a paper bag blown by the wind", including your brain, of course! "Speech is like the sound of air passing through a pipe. This mind is the creator of both samsara and nirvana. Among these three, identify which is primary!" So, Donald Hoffman address this question: among matter and mind, which is primary. Click here to find his interview, "The Case Against Reality". Click here for his TED Talk. Alan highlights this point, saying that it gives him hope: "The central lesson of quantum physics is clear: There are no public objects sitting out there in some preexisting space. As the physicist John Wheeler put it, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.”" Alan highlighted this paragraph too: "The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never." If Hoffman findings are true, science has undermined its own credibility. Because natural selection which gave rise to scientists has nothing to do with knowing reality as it is. There is no reason to believe that science is accurate, since we did not evolve to know reality as it is - we evolved to make babies and survive - if evolution is the whole story. To keep its integrity following this mathematical theorem, scientific community has to add another variable: in addition to natural selection, there is something else going on that gives us a drive to know reality as it is. It has nothing to do with evolution and that's where credibility stands - the credibility of science stands outside of science. Alan discussed some more points of this interview: "The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects." Then Amanda Gefter asks Hoffman: "It doesn’t seem like many people in neuroscience or philosophy of mind are thinking about fundamental physics. Do you think that’s been a stumbling block for those trying to understand consciousness?" Hoffman: I think it has been. Not only are they ignoring the progress in fundamental physics, they are often explicit about it. They’ll say openly that quantum physics is not relevant to the aspects of brain function that are causally involved in consciousness. They are certain that it’s got to be classical properties of neural activity, which exist independent of any observers—spiking rates, connection strengths at synapses, perhaps dynamical properties as well. These are all very classical notions under Newtonian physics, where time is absolute and objects exist absolutely. And then [neuroscientists] are mystified as to why they don’t make progress. They don’t avail themselves of the incredible insights and breakthroughs that physics has made. Those insights are out there for us to use, and yet my field says, “We’ll stick with Newton, thank you. We’ll stay 300 years behind in our physics.” One more: "I’m emphasizing the larger lesson of quantum mechanics: Neurons, brains, space … these are just symbols we use, they’re not real. It’s not that there’s a classical brain that does some quantum magic. It’s that there’s no brain!" Last one: "As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality." Hoffman has just identified between mind and matter, which is primary. Consciousness is primary. Matter and brain don't even exist except as symbols. Now, back to Düdjom Lingpa. He wrote Vajra Essence down during the heyday of mind eradicating scientific materialism with their brain washing. So, Düdjom Lingpa prophesizes: "This is for the future. This will flourish in the cities of the West." Düdjom Lingpa says "this mind is the all creator sovereign". Now, the question is: does the mind really exist, or mind is just one more symbol, one more name? Is mind real, does it originate from some place, is it located some place, does it really go some place? Where, where, where? Nada, nada, nada! The meditation is on probing into the nature of the agent who is meditating, taught by Padmasambhava. Alan quoted Einstein: "It is in fact the theory that determines what we can observe". What can you observe and what you can not observe because of the belief you already have? Düdjom Lingpa' strategy is introducing us to the view of middle way, of emptiness and dependent arising. So we hear it, we think about it and then we view reality with the middle way view. Then once we deconstruct the reification of mind and all appearances to the mind, then we're introduced to the Dzogchen view. When we view reality this way, the practice becomes very simple: we dispense with all activities that we embrace as a sentient being - recitations, prostration, mind wandering and so forth. These are all incompatible with the perspective of Dharmakaya in which there is nothing to achieve. We just get familiar with this view and then we're ready for open presence. Then we view reality not from a marmot's perspective but from Dharmakaya's perspective. Nothing to do! But until then... let's go back to motivation and let's practice! Meditation starts at 41:04 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 04 May 2021, Online-only
We come back to the Satipatthāna Sutta, on the instructions of mindfulness of breathing. Lama Alan elaborates on how the practice of mindfulness of breathing can lead us to the cultivation of peace of mind and a sense of well-being. He comments on how long de we need to practice to develop and achieve Dhyana through this practice. Lama Alan goes to the next part of the Sutta, highlighting the importance of maintaining constant mindfulness and introspection and the different postures for the practice. The Meditation begins at 37:00 with maintain awareness of the rhythm of the respiration, applying mindfulness to the body and introspectively noting if any of the five obscurations appear.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 18 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan begins with a clarification of how the practice of silence at a Mahayana retreat is different from that at a Sravakayana retreat. The meditation is on cultivating the aspiration that we ourselves and others be free of the suffering of change and the mental afflictions of craving and attachment that give rise to it. Meditation starts at 24:30
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 27 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan comments on the Satipatthana Sutta as the secular and empirical śrāvakayāna approach to the Great Perfection. He explains that the first turning of the wheel of Dharma is totally scientific, the second turning of the wheel of Dharma is philosophical; focusing on the actual nature of reality, and the third turning of wheel is intuitive. He talks about the structure that can be found in Buddhism as a contemplative science, as well as in the Satipatthana Sutta: ethics, samadhi and wisdom. He then comments on phenomena and causality in accordance with Sautrāntika philosophy and it´s relation to the empirical methods presented in the Satipatthana Sutta. The meditation starts at 00:40:40 with mindfulness of breathing simply noting the rhythm of the respiration.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 13 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
For this meditation Alan reads a passage found on page 136 of Natural Liberation in which Padmasambhava excerpts descriptions from various tantras about the nature of primordial awareness. After the meditation Alan discusses Freud’s statement in The Future of an Illusion that a view of the universe that doesn’t take into account the role of mental perception is an empty abstraction of no practical interest. He then proposes a playful approach for how concepts in Buddhist cosmology such as the four continents might be integrated with contradictory scientific evidence without resorting either to fundamentalist denial or opening the gates to all claims and saying they have equal validity from their own perspective. Meditation starts at 0:55
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 15 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
After correcting the omission of one word in the oral transmission of the text from yesterday at 00:06:20, we return to the text in the middle of page 257, as the Lake Born Vajra continues to elaborate on the transitional phase of living. Beginning with outlining how those of different faculties attain enlightenment, Lama provides extensive commentary and adds an updated translation of the sentence beginning “Those of middling faculties…”. He highlights that those of superior and middling faculties escape dying, through great transference rainbow body or by being liberated in ultimate reality, respectively. While those of inferior faculties achieve it in the bardo of dying or the bardo of ultimate reality. Then the Lake Born Vajra gives pointing out instructions for training in phowa, the transference of consciousness, so that “In the intermediate period, when you recognize that you have died, simply by bringing this to mind, the appearances of the intermediate period will shift to those of a buddhafield, [472] and you will achieve liberation.” Lama provides commentary on the context for this practice, whereby from the buddhafield/pureland of Akanistha in the centre, we see all five buddhafields corresponding to the five buddha families. Reminiscent of Stage of Generation practices done in Phase 4, although much more concise, this practice entails visualisation. Before leading us through the practice, Lama-la reminds us that if we’re not good at visualisation practices, he encourages us to do the practice by simply imagining that such visualisations are there. The transmission on this practice concludes this section on the transitional phase of living, the first of the six transitional phases. Then, for those who find visualisation challenging and prefer a more unelaborated path, Lama-la highlights a ‘Plan B’—the opportunity to be born in a pure realm such as Sukhāvatī, one of the five buddhafields/purelands. Lama shares with us some teachings on Sukhāvatī, by Karma Chagmé in ‘A Spacious Path to Freedom’. After leading us through this text and making extensive commentary, Lama-la highlights that “… it is possible for ordinary individuals with mental afflictions to be born there ….[and] and you may go from there to the realms of other Buddhas”. Lama concludes that these teachings on Sukhāvatī are like a safety net for us, encouraging us to practice with enthusiasm not fear. Even if we may not have progressed far on the path, or even achieved shamatha yet, by praying to be born in Sukhāvatī, we can be confident that we are setting things up for the most favourable outcome in the dying process and in terms of what happens to us after death. For specific practices to prepare for rebirth in Sukhāvatī, Lama advises us to study Karma Chagmé’s text 'The Lotus Garland'. Once again, in today’s meditation, which begins at 01:02:08, Padmasambhava Guides Us in Identifying Pristine Awareness. The aural transmission starts at 00:06:20 and runs from the middle of page 257 until the middle of page 258.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 06 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan completes his commentary regarding the Satipatthana Sutta relating to the body - it’s constituents and decay. He says that DNA doesn’t belong to anyone, the body is impersonal and that once deceased, after a while, the body is not even the basis for the designation of a body. He then refers to the Vaibhasika philosophical interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings – seeing (perceiving) reality externally (objects) not by way of subjective experience, but from the perspective of apprehender and apprehended. Lama la also refers to the Sautrantika view, seeing the primary qualities of physical entities as compared to the secondary qualities of subjective experience and similar views of some pioneers of modern science. Lama la speaks about Vajiranāna comments on the earth element (including as it relates to nimittas), a cognitive scientist’s view that perception equates to externally guided hallucination, a philosopher’s view that introspection and consciousness are unreliable and a neuroscientist’s denial of subjective impression. Lama Alan concludes by asking “What can we count on?” “Are we deluded all the time?” He invites us to throw off the blindfold of materialism and says there are the experiences of suffering, joy and pleasure. He invites us to be free of delusion and to observe the body as a body. Meditation starts at 00:45.35 with resting in awareness, maintaining mindfulness of breathing, observe the arising and passing of the four elements in the body and well as the conceptual images and labels projected onto qualia.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 28 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan starts explaining that throughout times, lamas have given pointing-out instruction on the nature of the mind. With respect to this it is crucial not to conflate the different dimensions of consciousness. During the day we experience different states of mind, like sleeping, dreaming, waking, or being immersed in a conceptual or non-conceptual mind. In all these cases the common nominator of the mind is consciousness. Alan explains that the defining characteristics of the mind are luminosity and cognizance. Furthermore, it has no material attributes. It is luminous in that it manifests all modes of appearances. It is cognizant like the in the Tibetan term “rigpa”, meaning being aware of something. He distinguishes between the coarse and subtle mind. While the coarse mind is a mode of knowing, which is embedded in conceptuality, the subtle mind is non-conceptual, discerning, and imbued with the five jhana factors (single-pointedness, coarse investigation, subtle analysis, well-being and bliss). Alan presents the pointing-out instruction for the essential nature of the mind from the Vajra Essence: While the substrate consciousness illuminates appearances, it does not enter into them. It is largely free of cognitive fusion. An understanding of this is crucial for the instructions on the shamatha practices “awareness of awareness” and “settling the mind”. In “awareness of awareness” we do our best approximation of viewing awareness from the perspective of the substrate consciousness. And in “settling the mind” we try to best approximate viewing the appearances arising in the space of the mind from the perspective of substrate consciousness as well. In both cases we illuminate the objects without grasping and distraction, and without cognitively fusing with them, i.e. without entering into them. Finally, Alan comes to the Dzogchen view of the nature of the mind. Here the pointing-out instructions refer to the synonym terms: primordial consciousness, rigpa, Dharmakaya, Buddha Nature and pristine awareness. These instructions are often nonverbal and symbolic in nature, but one classic way is giving teachings that draw sharp distinctions between mind and Dharmakaya or between substrate consciousness and rigpa. In addition to these three types of the nature of the mind, there exists a fourth one: emptiness of the inherent nature of the mind or the ultimate reality of the mind. Alan then emphasizes that if it is true, that subtle continuum of consciousness is empty of inherent nature, it is a real “game changer”. This would mean that we are sentient beings, only relative to a conceptual framework - this changes the view on the entire universe. Alan summarizes that under the umbrella of the nature of the mind we have (1) the conventional nature of mind, (2) the substrate consciousness, (3) the emptiness of inherent nature of mind and (4) rigpa. He emphasizes that rigpa is not the same as “the emptiness of inherent nature of mind”, but is Dharmakaya. When we first experience the luminous and cognisant nature of the mind we realize the most superficial level of rigpa, like looking at the moon through three layers of clouds. First we peel away the layer of the human mind and arrive at the substrate consciousness. Then we get rid of grasping onto true existence and finally we release the identification with the conditioned consciousness. Thus we arrive at rigpa which is like seeing the moon with no clouds. At the end, Alan recommends to keep an ongoing flow of the cognizance and luminosity of our own awareness throughout the day. Meditation is silent and not recorded. ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
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.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 11 May 2021, Online-only
We return to the close application of mindfulness to feelings. Lama Alan comments on the practice of attending to feelings externally and how this practice can arouse empathy and compassion. Attending to feelings internally and externally we arrive to the conclusion that the other’s being wellbeing is our responsibility. He then comments on difference between stimulus-driven, mundane feelings and feelings of genuine well-being, distress, and equanimity, which are symptomatic of our current level of mental health and balance. Being aware of suffering can give rise to renunciation and compassion. The meditation on the close application of mindfulness of feelings starts at 00:36:25.
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.
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.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 13 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan continues with the Satipatthana Sutra and the third of the four close applications of mindfulness. In particular he refers to: 1. Buddha’s descriptions of a mind that is contracted versus distracted, great versus small, surpassable versus unsurpassable and liberated versus unliberated; 2. Verse 48 of Shantideva’s “A Guide to the Bodhisattva way of Life” – that for attached/repulsed mind it is best not to speak but to remain like a piece of wood. Lama la says that people whom encourage the expression of emotion when under the influence of mental affliction don’t understand mental health. If we have a toxic (poisoned) mind and/or no control over its direction (dysfunctional mind) – it is best to know it is dysfunctional and potentially contagious and to disengage action and expression (e.g. by meditating or sleeping). Meditation starts at 00:36:30. Observe How the Mental Events the Buddha Highlighted in his Pith Instructions Have an Impermanent, Unsatisfying, and Impersonal Nature
Alan gave a talk about the result of the US election , 09 Nov 2016, Sakya Foundation, Spain
Discussions
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 18 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
We pick up in the text at 9:20 on page 159 where Yangchen just left off. Lama Alan notes that a variant reading of the Vajra Essence was discovered by Yangchen with phrases that would be helpful here and they have been added in parenthesis. At Lama Alan begins with the taking of the essence of the five elements, saying that the passage about space is especially interesting and compares it to the practice of taking the vital essence of flower petals for which he was granted the oral transmission, commentary and training in preparation. He also discusses his training in Quantum Mechanics and that while physics knows nothing about vital essence, there is an energy of empty space. Lama Alan tells us that it is crucially important to learn that when the Buddhist tradition speaks of the natural mandala of the world that this is not primitive or folk physics. The periodic table of elements from the rarely-challenged realm of metaphysical realism assumes that these elements are really out there and the universe is made up of them. Whereas, when it comes to earth, water, air, fire and space, they were never considered in Mahayana, Vajrayana and Dzogchen to be something that is out there existing independent of experience. Lama Alan asks us to bear in mind the core theme of Tibetan medicine where your body is in dynamic interrelationship with the five elements of your environment as we move through the five elements in the text here. Lama Alan gives a full description of the eight common siddhis. He says that if you are drawn to it, the quintessence of Stage of Generation and Completion can be found in Phase 4 and that while it can be much more elaborate, this is enough. He then concludes the Lake-Born Vajra's presentation of the Stage of Completion from which we will move on to the synthesis and names of the Great Perfection. At 1:07:15, Lama Alan begins to give pith instructions on a meditation that can be done later on our own to observe samsara coming into existence moment by moment and to know there is an option. There is no meditation with this teaching but Lama Alan gave precise instructions at the end of the teaching for a meditation.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 28 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama-la opens the session by adding a footnote regarding genuine happiness, the cultivation of which is Dharma, as opposed to genuine unhappiness, rooted in mental afflictions. After highlighting the characteristics of the four stages of practice, Lake Born Vajra warns that if someone makes big claims regarding their level of realizations, this in itself is nothing but a proof of self-grasping and delusion, revealing the falsity of such people who then become objects of great derision. Whether one is liberated or not can be assessed through objective examination and investigation, through peer review. And Lama-la discusses a number of useful examples. Furthermore, the measure of liberation can be understood through one’s dreams, and a thorough discussion regarding lucid dreaming, dream yoga and the bardo of death ensues. Individuals with superior progress’ dreams become thoroughly integrated with the clear light, and they will achieve liberation in dharmakaya. Those of middling progress are able to have lucid dreams, engage in emanation and transformation, and they will be liberated into sambhogakaya. And finally, those who have made little progress will have only good dreams and will find relief as a nirmanakaya. Lama-la reads further. Great erudition will not liberate, but only great meditative experiences, so striving in essential practice is indispensable. And so one must seek out for realized teachers who practice, not just good academics. But essentially our ultimate refuge must be the trust in ourselves and the three jewels. The meditation which start at 01:06:44 is on the Dzochen approach to mindfulness of breathing and the opportunity to choose peace over the stimuli. Lama la starts with the aural transmission at 00:05:44 ad covers the pages 209-211.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 22 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan talks about the fifth of the five obscurations afflictive uncertainty. While it is appropriate to be uncertain about that which is uncertain, when we wonder about whether or not it is possible to make progress in our practice or attain enlightenment we need to apply its antidote close investigation. As the Dalai Lama says, something becomes hopeless, the moment we’ve given up hope.
Alan introduces the fourth of the 4 immeasurables equanimity. People appear to us differently, so how can we attend evenly to a reality that’s uneven? We need to look more deeply until we find common ground: just like me, every sentient being wants to be free from suffering. How can we attend to all sentient beings? Every sentient being you encounter, either physically or those who come to you, represents all sentient beings.
Meditation: equanimity. Direct attention to the space of the mind, settling the mind in its natural state. When someone comes to mind, attend to that person carefully until you find common ground. Then practice loving-kindness and compassion. With every in breath, “May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering,” and imagine suffering and its true causes as darkness in that person converging at a white orb of light at your heart chakra and dissolving completely. With every out breath, “May you be find happiness and the causes of happiness,” and imagine light suffusing this person and fulfilling his innermost desires. Allow this appearance to dissolve and see who else comes to mind, repeating the practice with the in and out breaths. Now with every in breath, imagine the light from all the buddhas filling you completely, purifying body and mind. With every out breath, give this light out evenly, excluding no one.
Meditation starts at 36:52
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 10 Apr 2020, Online-only
“O Boundless Great Emptiness, among your body, speech, and mind, which is most important? Which is the main agent?”
Bringing these questions, we set on the path of taking the mind as the path and entering into the Great Perfection.
Meditation starts at 3:4.
The practice begins with refuge, bodhicitta, invoking blessings and then letting awareness rest, knowing itself. Then we pose a question: between body, speech and mind which is most important, which is the agent? It is here where the investigations starts…
Lama Alan returns to the answer in the text: among body, speech and mind; mind is the most important, mind is the agent. Then elucidates on the relationship between body and mind, explaining the Buddhist view: body is created by the mind.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 24 Apr 2020, Online-only
Today Lama Alan will return to a central meditative practice ‘taking the mind as the path’, which we will look to over the next few days. He says that many of us are not in full time retreat, even though we may currently be in lock down due to COVID19. Many of us are socially engaged in a variety of ways while doing 2-3-hour meditation per day, there’s nothing trivial about that. Others are doing more. Some portion of one’s daily practice should include shamatha, vipashnya and compassion. If you are doing 24 min per day, what are you doing in that time that can also then continue to sow the seeds throughout the day. So, rest in inner solitude, in inner silence, cultivate a metacognitive awareness of which thoughts, which desires and so on are presenting themselves in your mind. Watch how wholesome thoughts lead to virtuous states of mind and unwholesome thoughts lead to unvirtuous states of mind. Often we are not aware of the desires that come up because we fuse with the thought and immediately identify with the referent rather than seeing the thought as a mental event.
Lama Alan refers to Paul Ekman’s book highlights ‘Emotions Revealed’ based on rigorous research, he says it is of great value to cultivate the ability to be aware of the emotion arising in your mind before you express it, including facial, bodily and verbal expression. This way you can make wise choices about which emotions to express and how. This cultivates emotional intelligence to make wise choices about when and how to express your emotions. Lama Alan says there is also conative psychology that does not seem to be as well researched at present. Lama Alan asks what is more important than our aspirations, motivations and desires to be free of suffering and how to cultivate and search out wellbeing? He says this 24 minutes per day can therefore be very important to be aware of which desires are sublime and which desires are toxic as they will lead us to either genuine happiness or increase our suffering. Ekman says that we are not naturally gifted in observing our own mind and awareness of emotions and aspirations, but we can cultivate it. Lama Alan likens this capability to having a dashboard for our mind so that we are aware of what we need to check on. He also referred to other research that found it is more damaging to a persons’ psychological integration to be unaware of metacognition of one’s own mind than to have sensory deprivation or physical disabilities. Lama Alan encourages us to develop our capability for metacognition.
Meditation starts at 22 minutes.
After the meditation Lama Alan returns to the text p.21 under the heading ‘How Meditative Experiences and Realizations Arise’. Lama Alan says that this section refers to what happens when you take the mind as the path, and you do the meditation that we have just done a lot, as continuously as possible. This section outlines the ‘nyam’ or experiences and realizations that come with this practice.
[Keywords: taking the mind as the path, shamatha, metacognition, meditative experiences (nyam), realizations. ]
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 08 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan returns to the balance of the five faculties, starting with the different modalities of faith - appreciation, aspiration and belief - and the relation of belief with karma. The belief in karma depends much on the culture, but a confidence in Buddha and other great adepts who replicated his discoveries also may arise due to study, reflection, and meditation. Regarding the balance between intelligence and faith, including belief, Alan quotes William James: "Where preferences are powerless to modify or produce things, faith is totally inappropriate, but for the class of facts that depend on personal preference, trust, or loyalty for actualisation, faith is not only licit and pertinent, but essential and indispensable. The truths cannot become true till our faith has made them so." As a comment, Alan said, for instance, that it doesn't matter what you think about gravity and, in his perspective, the same goes for the continuity of consciousness beyond death. What matters is that your beliefs will have a big impact on you. Beliefs have no influence on what is true. And that is where intelligence comes in - if something is true, the more deeply you investigate it, the truer it should appear; that's a basic buddhist principle. But there are some things that can be true if and only if people believe it. Looking in Israel and Palestine conflict, could be possible that somehow, maybe with a long term strategy, they find peace and coexist without hatred,without violence? If you're sure it's not possible, you're right. If you think it might be possible, you're probably right. But it will not happen unless Israelis and Palestinians do believe it's possible. Can you or people like you achieve shamatha? If you're quite sure not, you're quite certainly right. And if you think you could, you might be right. As His Holiness said, "the situation becomes hopeless only when you lose hope." Alan asked Yangthang Rinpoche whether it was possible to "moderners" (more than Westerners or Easterners) to achieve shamatha and thereby gain direct knowing of past lives memories and so forth. And his answer was, "you'll have to see". And Alan gave us another quote from William James: "In what manner do we espouse and hold fast to visions? By thinking a conception might be true somewhere, it may be true even here and now; it is fit to be true and it ought to be true; it must be true; it shall be true for me." So, maybe it's true that there are individuals nowadays who will achieve shamatha in Tibet, India, maybe Brazil, Germany, whatever, it might be true! And it could happen here and now! And then we have the balance of enthusiasm and samadhi. In Tibetan Buddhism, we have a great emphasis on prayers of supplication, arousing motivation of renunciation, and bodhicitta, taking refuge, reflect upon the benefits of achieving shamatha, realization of emptiness and bodhicitta and so for, guru yoga, receiving the four empowerments and imagining your guru as the Buddha coming and indivisibly merging with your own body and mind - all to arouse your motivation, enthusiasm, to receive blessings, and to arouse faith as well. Gyatrul Rinpoche advised Alan a long time ago, when he was in a very intense 6 month retreat, "do all of these just before you enter into the practice, and then drop it, go into the practice, and leave even your desire behind". Because desire by nature is the desire of something you don't have yet and it will take you out of the present. But there is a balance of practice and desire. You call for blessings and then you go into the practice and you just do it - that is samadhi - not doing anything else. And then you come out and dedicate merit. But don't conflate the preparation with the main body of your practice. And then, focusing on shamatha, Alan remembered a comment that Lobsang Rapgay made some years ago. Lobsang Rapgay is a very dear friend of Alan, - he was trained as a monk with Alan, then he studied Tibetan Medicine, then he got a PhD in Psychology and now he is a researcher in UCLA - and he said to Americans, but it fits for all "moderners", in a very gentle way: "you're all suffering from "lung" disorders, nervous imbalances, and considering how sick you are, you are coping very well." We indeed are driven, we are overstimulated in every way with entertainment, with the pace of life, internet and everything else. For us, living in modernity, if we were tires, we're all overinflated, ready to pop, or in the best case scenario, it's a rough ride. So, for most of us, the first agenda is to put a pin in the valve, and "pssss". Otherwise, if we get ourselves always pumped up, we'll never achieve shamatha. The first thing is just relax and then keep on relaxing and breathing out, and releasing. That is the pin in the valve of your tire - psssss. And then, during the inbreath, if you're losing clarity, when the breath flows in, gently arouse, uplift your awareness, quietly, non-conceptually for a short time, and then relax more deeply. Then you discover stillness that is left over, which will become your base camp, your default mode when you're sitting, walking, standing, when there's nothing to think or talk about. Meditation starts at 26:46, first taking refuge, arousing bodhicitta, making every breath meaningful, and then moving to shamatha with emphasis on relaxation. Alan commented that the onramp to enter the freeway of enlightenment is shamatha - the mind has to be superbly serviceable to sustain that level of bodhicitta, of insight and so forth. But this is so often overlooked. And then we raise the issue, is it possible for people like us, conditioned by modernity to achieve shamatha in this lifetime? For this to be realistic, the outer and inner causes and conditions need to be there. Alan has been orienting around 30 students all over the world who are fully dedicated mainly to shamatha and none of them have a really conducive environment. But the place is not the only issue - it is so important to have have the support, the group energy of fellow contemplatives. When Alan was receiving Geshe Rabten's life story, especially about his very demanding, astonishing 4 years Madhyamaka training, much more intense than medical training in the West, he asked "how could you keep this pace up?" And Geshe Rabten said "well, everybody else was doing that". None of Alan' students have a place like a contemplative observatory, with a conducive landscape, companions, a teacher and an experienced guide. The viable place for that seems to be 5km from Tsongkhapa Institute - Castellina Marittima - blessed by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Khandro la. Decades ago, when Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa were looking for a place to start Tsongkhapa Institute, Lama Yeshe looked right to Castellina Marittima and said - "that would be good!" But it was not for sale. But now it can happen. We can purchase it as soon as we get the permit. And that is the missing piece. And also the scientists from Pisa for example, very close to Castellina Marittima, are open minded, interested and they would really love to come and collaborate. It seems quite ripe! So, as you dedicate merit, bring forth this aspiration "may it happen" as Claudio said, "in the homeland of Galileo". Meditation starts at 26:46 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 29 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan continues with his commentary on Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices on the 4 applications of mindfulness. The body is filled with impurities, fragile by nature, and subject to destruction. One who sees this body as impermanent takes the essence of life, serving all sentient beings, avoiding faulty behavior, no craving or clinging to enjoyments, etc... One views the body as a the body, nothing that is mine. One designates the body of all sentient beings as my body, wishing to bring this body to buddhahood. The ultimate nature of this body is undefiled. In sum, Shantideva uses impurity of the body to dispel craving as in the Shravakayana, but then on that basis, builds the Mahayana practices of compassion, emptiness, and pure vision which provide the framework for Vajrayana.
Meditation: practice of your choice.
Q1. What is the connection between Mahasi Sayadaw and Pa Auk Sayadaw?
Q2. You mentioned that phenomena come into existence with conceptual designation, but a person doesn’t become a fool merely through being designated as such, etc... It appears that phenomena come into existence with conceptual designation but not really.
Q3. I’ve had lucid sleep without dreams whereby the only awareness I have is akin to awareness of awareness. Am I doing this practice correctly?
Q4. We’ve established that a baby needs secure attachment for survival. Secure attachment appears to be biologically inbuilt for humans, being defined as a lasting psychological bond between beings. Is it possible to have healthy human relationships without attachment?
Q5. From the time of the agricultural revolution (human population of 5 million) through the present day (human population of 7 billion), there has been a population explosion. Where are the reincarnated human consciousnesses coming from? Are lesser consciousnesses being promoted before their time, leading to chaos and degeneration?
Q6. I’m finally starting to enjoy meditation, see changes in the quality of awareness, and detect a certain calmness in mind. I find that I’m worrying about leaving in a few weeks and losing all these gains made. How can we best make use of the time in the final weeks?
Meditation starts at 33:10
Fall 2013 Shamatha and the Seven-Point Mind Training, 03 Sep 2013, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan welcomes the participants at the Thanyapura MindCenter and explains some of the groundrules for the 8-week Fall 2013 retreat. Alan begins by presenting some logistics followed by the content - the framework for his cycle of teachings. Alan elaborates on general recommendations: How to get most out of the retreat.
22:45 minutes into the recording Alan speaks about the content for this retreat. Unlike during previous retreats when 3 methods of Shamatha were thought, there will be 4 methods of Shamatha this year:
Week 1 Mindfulness of breathing
Week 2 Settling the Mind in its natural State
Week 3 Awareness of Awareness (Shamatha without a Sign)
Week 4 Merging the Mind with Space (NEW)
Week 5-8 will repeat the same sequence but more in depth.
For the half an hour teaching in the afternoon which is followed by discussions the topic for the 1st month will be
the "Seven-Point Mind Training" and for the 2nd month "A Guide to the Bodhiattva Way of Life".
Alan also welcomes everybody who is following this retreat by listening to the podcast.
Note: Several sections containing personal introduction of the retreatants have been removed.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 25 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
We commence session 71 with some ‘house cleaning’, firstly with humorous discussion in relation to ‘sweetbread’ and then moving on to a correction in the text on pageg 266, “….and you are aware of the thoughts of attachment and hostility in the minds of others”, Lama previously saying “and attachment” rather than “of attachment”. Returning to the text, page 267 (00.05.47), Lama-la reminds us that it is widely acknowledged in the Indo-Tibetan tradition that the bardo of becoming lasts for a maximum of seven weeks; he reads, “After each period of seven days has passed, the appearances of the prior conditions for your death arise, so that you experience immense suffering.”. What comes next in the text is what generically occurs in the bardo, symbolic imagery being used in accordance with the four elements and the three poisons. At 00.11.00 Lama brings us back to the rigorous research done at University of Virginia regarding children recalling past lives as humans. Lama-la offers his sense that these are children with human brains/memories/senses and so if they had memories coming from another species it wouldn’t compute as the memories are not able to be brought into the human psyche. Lamas/yogis however, have expanded the bandwidth of awareness, encompassing the substrate consciousness with all the seeds there, viewing from a deeper perspective. At 00.15.30 the text reads, “In terms of your stream of consciousness, for rebirth ….”. Lama highlights the importance of the sentence, “Respectively, each of those objects appear to you to be beautiful and attractive, and you feel an irresistible attraction to them.” explaining, as you move through the bardo, you are moving in accordance to your desires, not due to fate or destiny etc, rather it is because you want to go there. By becoming acquainted with these occurrences in the bardo, rather than reifying everything, we may recognise the signs for rebirth thus becoming lucid as in a dream; the more lucid you are the greater freedom. This is the primary reason for practicing dream yoga in Indo-Tibetan buddhism. Instructions for prospective memory when falling asleep are given. Lama-la emphasizes that, as in a lucid dream, nothing in the bardo is objectively real, everything is malleable to what you bring to mind. Lama recalls Yangchen Rinpoche’s account of Longchenpa’ s guide of Mount Meru, recognizing descriptions can be perspectival. With the sentence, “At this time, if you block the entrance to the womb and bring to mind the preceding crucial points, you may still achieve liberation.” Lama-la again highlights, at any point in a dream become lucid, don’t reify, therefore don’t crave. At 00.30.26 Lama tells us of his astrologer friend’s prediction of a solar eclipse in ‘72/’73. At 00.33.00 the text reads, “Alternatively, if you do choose the entrance of a womb…..” leading to an interesting story from Ian Stevenson of a child recalling having been in the bardo with an urge to be born again, an account outside of the buddhist context yet the same. The text again emphasises the point of lucidity: “To practice the instructions for purifying the intermediate period at this time, now, earnestly consider and let this arise before your mind: ‘Alas! I have died.“ Lama stresses this is exactly like ’I am dreaming, I know I am dreaming’; you are lucid in the bardo. All appearances until now, in this human existence, have been arising due to the power of karma and klesha. Now is about purifying the intermediate period by the power of imagination, transforming as in the stage of generation. As Lama-la reads we are invited to visualize the buddhafield of Abhirati, taking it as the template for the other buddhafields. Lama explains, as in a lucid dream, if we can imagine it, it will manifest; it is our palate to paint; whatever we wish will become our reality; that’s what we’re attending to in a lucid bardo; that becomes our reality. With the next paragraph outlining, “If you succeed in this practice of transforming your appearances….”, Lama-la suggests these clear instructions follow the same format as those for prospective memory practice for lucid dreaming: ‘know it before you fall asleep, maintain prospective memory, recognise you're dreaming and then apply the instructions’. We then move on to visualisations of the buddhafields of Śrīmat, Sukhāvatī, Karmaprasiddhi, and our personal deity, applying the same template as with Abhirati. Lama-la states that by achieving shamatha, vipaśyanā and trekchö all visualisations of buddha families, buddha fields etc. can be skipped, skipping stage of generation entirely, going directly to tögal. From that transcendent space, without any cultural conditioning, these images of the five buddha families, with consorts and buddha fields will appear, thereby suggesting they are archetypal in the dharmadhatu sense; these appearances are coming from the ground of being, spontaneous displays of primordial consciousness, thus transcending any religion, space, time, historical context. Lama highlights paying special attention to the next paragraph as this the gist. It reads “The practice of occasionally imagining the appearances of going to and arriving at these buddhafields as if you were an arrow shot by a powerful archer establishes potencies in your mindstream that provide enormous relief in the intermediate period. Therefore, recognize the supreme importance of succeeding in the practice of these instructions and gaining stability in your mindstream with respect to this training.” All this has been a guide in the transitional stage of becoming; now we back track to the transitional phase of ultimate reality, the first week after death, the bardo of dharmata. Then on to the bardo of becoming, with the guide guiding, giving pointing out instructions from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead. The fine print being, “Unless the deceased has a little familiarity with the stages of generation and completion, it will be very difficult for this person to be helped by such introductions. If these words of introduction reach someone who is somewhat familiar with the stages of generation and completion, this person will experience the great relief of fearlessness.” Meditation begins at 00.06.53 with the reminder that ‘this is worth returning to again and again in preparation for a transition we will definitely be making’. Post meditation Lama-la tells how we will finish the bardo of becoming tomorrow, with the beautiful colophon of Dudjom Rinpoche on the final day.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 12 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan introduces the third of the four revolutions in outlook/inlook/perspective/orientation, which serve to set the direction in our pursuit for happiness. This third one is actually one of the four marks of existence: "All experiences that are contaminated by mental afflictions are unsatisfying."
Lama Alan reflects on how life seems to ‘smile’ to some, while the reality of suffering seems ‘more true’ to some others; those who go through war, poverty, hunger, i.e., blatant suffering. Then, how does the reality of Dukkha pertain to the first group? In which way is life unsatisfying? Well, even the bliss of śamatha is unsatisfying, it will erode unless the practice is deepened with insight, and that makes the experience unsatisfying. So, in the long run, adding up all the good and wonderful experiences you have gone through – asks the Buddha – are you satisfied?
To transcend this mark of existence, we need to realize that all phenomena are empty and identityless: this is the only way we can cut through the root of suffering. Moreover, in the Dzogchen path, we go a step further, we cut through the very nature of the mind which ascertains that emptyness. So, lets have a practice!
Meditation starts at 18:41
Lama Alan concludes: "The whole point of understanding the full breadth of suffering and identifying the true causes of suffering is to be free of both, as soon as possible." After meditation Lama Alan addresses three questions:
1. What would be the best daily balance and schedule for practice? It is my fervent prayer to practice the Great Perfection to completion! (44:00)
2. After some years of diligent practice, I have found a general sense of well being; I am feeling an enormous tug to be of service outside of formal practice, but I can't be certain I am benefiting anyone, so I feel the tug to come back to formal practice. Can you comment on this tension, for those of us who have a full-time commitment? (51:20)
3. How should we choose the precise Guru for Guru yoga between our root Guru, primary Dzogchen Lama, and other Lamas who deeply inspire us? (56:30)
Tune in for the answers
[Keywords: third outer preliminary, dukkha, questions for practice]
Outer preliminaries for Dzogchen from Lama Alan, 12 Apr 2020, Online - Originally part of 2020 8-week retreat
12 Apr 2020 Lama Alan introduces the third of the four revolutions in outlook/inlook/perspective/orientation, which serve to set the direction in our pursuit for happiness. This third one is actually one of the four marks of existence: “All experiences that are contaminated by mental afflictions are unsatisfying.” Lama Alan reflects on how life seems to ‘smile’ to some, while the reality of suffering seems ‘more true’ to some others; those who go through war, poverty, hunger, i.e., blatant suffering. Then, how does the reality of Dukkha pertain to the first group? In which way is life unsatisfying? Well, even the bliss of śamatha is unsatisfying, it will erode unless the practice is deepened with insight, and that makes the experience unsatisfying. So, in the long run, adding up all the good and wonderful experiences you have gone through – asks the Buddha – are you satisfied? To transcend this mark of existence, we need to realize that all phenomena are empty and identityless: this is the only way we can cut through the root of suffering. Moreover, in the Dzogchen path, we go a step further, we cut through the very nature of the mind which ascertains that emptyness. So, lets have a practice! Meditation starts at 18:41 Lama Alan concludes: “The whole point of understanding the full breadth of suffering and identifying the true causes of suffering is to be free of both, as soon as possible.” After meditation Lama Alan addresses three questions: 1. What would be the best daily balance and schedule for practice? It is my fervent prayer to practice the Great Perfection to completion! (44:00) 2. After some years of diligent practice, I have found a general sense of well being; I am feeling an enormous tug to be of service outside of formal practice, but I can’t be certain I am benefiting anyone, so I feel the tug to come back to formal practice. Can you comment on this tension, for those of us who have a full-time commitment? (51:20) 3. How should we choose the precise Guru for Guru yoga between our root Guru, primary Dzogchen Lama, and other Lamas who deeply inspire us? (56:30) Tune in for the answers
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 11 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Prior to returning to the text the session commences with Lama citing a correction of a missed word, ‘candor’, from the list “The best of disciples are those in whom the following qualities are present all together:” (page 219); we now have the full transmission of the list. At 04.08 we return to the text (page 256) where Vajra of Pristine Awareness asks, “If they are not liberated, they must proceed into the transitional phases, so Teacher, please explain precisely the crucial points of practice in those states!” Lama clarifies that the six stages, with specific stages for each one, are such that one can use each of these as the basis for achieving awakening. Lama-la exhorts us to pay very close attention to the next two paragraphs of the text as they are core. He indicates one must transcend ordinary dualistic thinking to ascertain the ‘koan’ from a deeper space of awareness. The retranslation reads: “This very consciousness, being free throughout the three times, never went to enlightenment; and not being free—while not wandering in samsāra—it remains in an ethically neutral state throughout the transitional phases, and this is the defining characteristic of a sentient being.” Lama-la suggests we memorise this one sentence, noting its invaluable powerful teaching. He then unpacks and gives extended instruction of the wording “free throughout the three times”. At 00.23.50 we take a pause from the text to hear the Theravadin view regarding the bardo which refutes the teachings of the Buddha. Lama then quotes from the Pāli Cannon, he cites Peter Harvey (Selfless Mind), and discusses the Abhidharma and Cittamātra, then refers to the Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka in this regard. Lama states ‘the basis of designation and that which is designated upon it are always different, never the same; the substrate consciousness is the basis of designation of an individual but it’s not a person, it’s just a consciousness.’ Lama-la refers to the Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, “The sentient being in the transitional phase of becoming is called a gandharva….”. Lama gives evidence of proto Madhyamaka in the Pali Canon, citing the Pheṇasutta, stating Madhyamaka is the bridge between the Pali Canon and Dzogchen. From the Kaccāyanagotta-sutta Lama draws attention to the ontological view just as we are practicing with vipaśyanā. Finally, Nikola Tesla is quoted. The conclusion being the only way to apprehend nonphysical phenomena is with mental consciousness/mental perception, not with technology. The mediation starts at 01.07.36. After the meditation Lama shares how seriously the yogis in retreat are practicing. He encourages us to get familiar with our substrate consciousness, the essential nature of our own mind, by resting in nonconceptual awareness thereby getting to know our own being that will not die. In that way we can then be set up to die lucidly. Lama-la explains that, at the time of death, one can have legitimate insight into Rigpa without having fully achieved shamatha or vipashyanā however the stronger the shamatha and vipashyana the more sustainable the identification of pristine awareness will be. In conclusion he advises uncertainty shouldn’t be the foundation for our practice, rather, with a clear sense of having a dysfunctional mind where there is no contentment and knowing that life is passing by, we take advantage of these extraordinary teachings. The aural transmission starts at 00.04.08 and covers pages 219, 256.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 05 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
We begin the reading transmission with a sentence missed in the previous session: [317] “Recognising that the time of death is unpredictable…” up to “…Bearing in mind all the miseries you will experience then, exhort your own mind.” Then we continue with the contemplation on death and impermanence and what it is that dies or is born, with references to Pali sources quoted in Peter Harvey’s book Selfless Mind, and Francis Tiso’s book Rainbow Body and Resurrection. At 44:40 Lama Alan continues with the transmission on pages [317] - [320] “Understanding those two points and applying them to your mindstream…” up to “…the significance of actions and their consequences is like an eye that enables you to see the path.” This is the section on karma and the ten nonvirtues, with commentary on the four infallible laws of karma, and samayas as the root of the vajrayana path. A feast for those who hunger after lists. There is no meditation with this teaching but Lama Alan gave instructions to Contemplate Karma and Cultivate Impartiality
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.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 11 May 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan starts by reviewing the four types of nirmanakayas. He continues with the text on the sentence: “These four types of nirmānakāyas are emanations of the sugatagarbha that arise naturally in the objective field of ego-grasping consciousness.” He comments on how nirmanakayas arise because of self-grasping in order to help us overcome the inner causes of suffering, and they cease as soon as that task is fulfilled. The text then turns to the explanation of the svabhāvakaya and vajrakaya, expounding on the seven qualities of the vajra and listing the four vajra promises. It then concludes the theme of the five kayas explaining how every jina is included within these five kayas, the ground from where they emerge is revealed as Samantabhadra and his creative expressions are established as the five buddha families. Then the five facets of primordial consciousness and the first two, of the five buddhafields are explained. Meditation starts at 01:12:24 and in on observing the afflictive nature of the coarse mind and tracing it back to primordial consciousness.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 25 Aug 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan starts off talking about shamatha as a contemplative technology. It is about making the mind serviceable and refining our mental awareness. Shamatha is healing and it becomes a path to exceptional health and mental balance. For the first time, Alan gives instructions of a different technique to use before the shamatha meditation. It has been used by many yogis in the past and also has spread widely nowadays. It is called the nine fold expulsion of the residual prana. After the meditation, Alan emphasizes the importance of ‘mindfulness of breathing’ by quoting the Perfection of Wisdom sutras in 10.000 stanzas. Alan elaborates on the meaning of the last sentence “…by dwelling with introspection and with mindfulness, eliminates avarice and disappointment towards the world by means of non-objectification...”. Alan reflects on sukkha and the genuine sources of happiness versus hedonic pleasure. It follows by two questions from the participants: - Clarification of the answer Gyatrul Rinpoche gave once to Alan regarding the practice of Dzogchen: “view it”. - A retreatant comments on her preference to short breathing. Meditation starts at 23:35
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 03 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
In this first Q&A session, Lama Alan answers questions regarding the following topics: - About the death of great beings, and if they have to show signs of realization upon death. Lama Alan explains the death process of various realized beings, like the Buddha, Padmasambhava, HH Dudjom Rinpoche, and others, and how such beings chose their practice and manifestations according to their wish to serve sentient beings. He then goes on to explain the process of Tukdam where the body of a realized being may not only not decompose for days or even weeks after death, but may shrink to the size of a child’s body. This phenomenon is still happening in our times, and Lama Alan has witnessed it personally. - About the practice of projecting one’s awareness in the space in front of one’s body. Here Lama points out, that one might succumb to spacing out. He then explains that from the Buddha’s teaching in the Pali Canon up to the practices of Vajrayana, it is taught that one should practice with one’s eyes open, resting one’s awareness in space. - About a practice taught in the lineage of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, where one practices shamata to gain some stability, and then directly moves on to training in rigpa. Lama Alan kindly answers this question but makes a point that he will not answer any other questions of this kind, which do not directly relate to the teachings he is giving. He also emphasizes very clearly, that what he is teaching is not „Alan Wallace’s“ teaching, but that he is, with great reverence, passing on the teachings of the lineages that he has received, tracing back to Padmasambhava and Vimalamitra. In the context of the question, Lama Alan emphasizes a middle-way approach between the urgency and indispensability of reaching shamatha in order to reach the path, and the sowing of seeds of more advanced practices. He points out the precious power of the lineage of Dudjom Lingpa, which teaches how to manifest Great Transference Rainbow Body in one lifetime. Lama la then declares that this is why he is still teaching: to keep this lineage alive, and to guide beings to reach the path in this lifetime. - About the difference between settling the mind in its natural state in the sequence of settling body, speech, and mind—as a preliminary practice of shamata—, and the actual practice of shamata focused on the mind, such as observing the space of the mind, and awareness of awareness. According to Lerab Lingpa’s teachings in Open Mind, resting the mind in its natural state is the seventh of the common preliminaries, leading to the achievement of shamata. Lama points to the subtle difference between „settling“ versus „resting“ the mind in its natural state. He then goes on to explain what is meant by the shamata practice focused on the mind: that one cannot directly focus on the mind itself, but only on the activities of the mind and the space of the mind. This practice culminates in inverting awareness in upon itself, and in the achievement of shamata. Lama Alan continues to explain how this practice was taught by Yangthang Rinpoche as a shamata practice without a sign, where the main focus is on awareness itself. This is similar to the final practice of shamata in Padmasambhava’s teaching in Natural Liberation, and to the Buddha’s teaching on the tenth kasina. Lama emphasizes that there is no best shamata practice other than the one which works best for oneself. - About reaching Buddhahood through perfectly settling one’s body, speech, and mind in their natural state, with an emphasize on „perfectly“. - Finally, Lama Alan points to Karma Chagmey’s teachings on the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen, which is also taught in the lineage of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, and of which Gyatrul Rinpoche is the lineage holder. Lama Alan reads a quote that highlights the importance of shamata in relation to the practice of vipashyana. There is no meditation with this session.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 06 Apr 2021, Online-only
Before returning to the text, Lama Alan revisits the materialistic assumption of the 19th century that there are no nonphysical influences in the world and the problems that arise from this like the placebo effect. Failing to recognize the obvious, that consciousness is not physical, the scientific community continues to negate the existence of anything that is not physical. Contrary to this, John Wheeler asserts that the world does not boil down to matter and energy, but to information. Similarly, to what he proposed for the universe, the body could be considered as an information processing system. What scientist call information, Buddhists call appearances. Any object that we impute upon appearances is indeterminate until it is so conceptually designated. Things don’t exist from their own side. Then Lama Alan expounds on the issue of the mind influencing the body, exploring the idea of causality, where body and mind influence each other as cooperative conditions. He returns to the text on the sentence: “Examine and recognize whether those gods and demons and all virtue and vice actually do any good or harm.” Meditation starts at 00:55:00 and is on investigating moments when we appropriate that which is not I or mine as I or mine. After the meditation, Lama Alan explores the absurd idea of viewing things as I or mine and its relation to suffering with the classic example of French explorer Robert de La Salle.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 09 Sep 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan first comments on the text once again and explains some of the symbolism involved. He then continues to explain how the formless realm, the form realm and the desire realm are connected: That out of the formless realm emerges the form realm, and out of the form realm emerges the desire realm. He adds that once one is dwelling in the form realm one can see the desire realm that acts almost like a holographic display. You can then manipulate the five elements in the form realm and thereby their displays in the desire realm. However, once you practice the Thodgal phase of Dzogchen, visualizations of the Buddhas come up - whether you are Buddhist or not, that does not matter. After the meditation Alan explains three terms that are central to Dzogchen practice: What they all come down to is giving up everything and thereby “winning” everything. In such an approach you thus take the fruition as the path. After the meditation, Alan answers two questions: 1. Concerning the pointing-out instructions: What does it mean when “mental appearances” merge? And are they sense objects or not? 2. If Daniel Dennett were to go to the valley of rainbows, what would he see? Meditation starts at 38:05
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 14 May 2020, Online-only
This afternoon we return to the text, on the section on identifying the identitylessness of persons. This is the medicine, the method for overcoming the affliction of misapprehending oneself. Lama Alan comments there are different methods to achieve this. Meditation starts at 24:07. The Search for Identity. Let´s find out who we think we are; observing location and what comes up when we think I am. Returning to the text on the paragraph starting with: “Finally, to investigate and analyze where it goes: ¨ Lama Alan comments on this topic and how if the ‘I’ does not exist and is not established as real, is it possible to have continuity from one appearance to the next. He then expounds on the topic of autonomous self and decision making.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 30 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan begins the session by introducing the buddhist theory of causality. Here, one distinguishes between substantial causes and cooperative conditions in how effects are created. We can contemplate the factors of origination and dissolution in reference to the 18 dhatus—i.e., 6 sensory fields, 6 modes of consciousnesses, and 6 faculties.
Meditation: mindfulness of the body focusing on the 2nd mark of existence dukkha. Closely apply mindfulness to see if sensations of pleasure/pain or comfort/discomfort are coming from the object. Have awareness illuminate all 5 sense domains and ask: 1) is there anything unchanging/static?, 2) is anything a true source of pleasure/displeasure?, and 3) is there any overlap between the sense domains?
Teaching pt2: Alan returns to the 1st and 2nd marks of existence with the idea that when they saturate our mind, there’s a profound shift in our world view. The 1st mark of existence: unconditioned phenomena are impermanent. The 2nd mark of existence: any experience contaminated by disturbing emotions is unsatisfying.
Q1. What is the difference between conceptual and non-conceptual (experience)?
Meditation starts at 35:07
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.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 17 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
As we enter the third week of the retreat, we are now ready for Lama la to begin his aural transmission and commentary on Phase 6 of the Vajra Essence. He reminds us that the complete stages of the path revealed in this text are like a Dzogchen lam rim, from the common preliminaries to culminating in achieving great transference rainbow body. Lama la also reminds us that to enter and practice this path, one must have belief in the Dharma and in one’s guru, and unwavering trust in the path, not through blind faith, but rather through investigating and testing the teachings for ourselves. Having laid out the view, mediation and conduct of Dzogchen in Phase 5, now in Phase 6 we’re entering the grand finale of the Lake Born Vajra’s presentation of tekchö, cutting through to pristine awareness. These Teachings on the Essential Points of Practice and Their Key Distinctions begin with the Lake Born Vajra responding to the following scenario and subsequent questions - If you have achieved shamatha, have a realisation of emptiness, and have established the view of reality from the perspective of pristine awareness, are there still “… pitfalls and obstacles that lead one astray”? If so, “ … how [do] they come about”? Three distinct pitfalls or obstacles are identified and elaborated on, including … - “… the danger of mistaking hearing for realization”, because hearing teachings does not necessarily mean you understand them; - the fact that there are gradations in realization, from understanding, to experience, to irreversible conviction, therefore, “… at first you may understand only a fraction”; - failing to “…distinguish between realization and gaining confidence”. Therefore, having gained some realization, you must “… apply yourself to practice” so that it completely permeates your whole being. In this way, you gain confidence in your realization, and radical, irreversible transformation takes place. Without this, “… you will die as an ordinary person, and you must continue to wander in saṃsāra” Lama la provides extensive commentary on each of these, and in particular he stresses how critically important it is to fully understand what realization is, and that it has two sequential steps: - first make your mind serviceable, otherwise any realisation that you gain will not be sustainable; then, - on that foundation, you can have pointing-out instructions to cut through from the conditioned to the unconditioned consciousness. Then, from this perspective of pristine awareness, you see that not only are all phenomena empty of inherent nature, but all phenomena, from the sublime to the most horrendous, are of one taste, they are all equally creative expressions of dharmakaya—divine. Lama la concludes with encouraging us to infuse whatever practice we are doing with the Dzogchen view, assimilating as much as we can. The guided meditation, Releasing All Doing and Resting in Effortless Silence, starts at 01:05:52.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 22 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
The thrust of the discussion circles around intuition and its roots in primordial consciousness. The conversation starts out comparing and contrasting primordial consciousness (super-mundane) with substrate consciousness (mundane). The substrate consciousness is a microcosm of primordial awareness, and the explanations are given. “Primordial consciousness is the natural glow of the ground, and it is described in terms of five facets of primordial consciousness. Specifically, when the ground is made manifest, great primordial consciousness, which has been forever present, abides in the aspect of lucidity and luminosity, like the breaking of dawn or like the rising of the sun. It is not impeded, as in a blanked-out darkness that knows nothing. Rather, all appearances are present as self-knowing, but it is not as though it becomes something that arises or ceases, either.” We then are directed to the four reliances as a path to our ultimate teacher as extremely important as it culminates right where we are in the text. There were four reliances (Skt. catuḥpratisaraṇa; Tib. rton pa bzhi) taught by the Buddha shortly before his passing away, as taught in the Sūtra of the Teaching of Akṣayamati and the Sūtra of the Questions of the Nāga King Anavatapta. - Do not rely on the individual, but on the Dharma. (Why the guru/disciple relationship is transpersonal) - Do not rely on the words, but on their referents. (As in finger pointing to the moon – do not look at just the words, but their referent) - Do not rely on the provisional referent, but on the definitive referent. - Do not rely on conditioned consciousness, but on primordial consciousness. (This may be difficult to understand until one has a taste or experience of primordial consciousness) “Primordial consciousness is self-emergent, naturally luminous, and free of outer and inner obscuration; it is the all-pervasive, lucid, luminous infinity of space, free of contamination.” The discussion turns to the laws of karma and the contrast with, for example Christianity. In Buddhism there is no creator God with omnipotence like being sent to hell by this being, etc. Rather it is karma as the cause for experiences of either felicity or adversity. Karma is not a law that was created, but rather more accurately described as invariant or simply how things are/ how things work. To understand how to find an inroad into getting out of samsara, one can look at the 12 links of Dependent Origination to find an inroad into how to break out of samsara. If one follows the links, samsara is explained, but if one “rolls them back” then one can find a way out! Two entries into breaking the samsaric cycle are: - Cease craving “I want” - Not Knowing. The question of where genius comes from is explored and quotes from Einstein are also given. Accurate intuition comes from primordial consciousness (see the notes). “Conditioned consciousness is what makes an initial moment of consciousness emerge in the aspect of the object, just as various images of planets and stars emerge in the ocean.” It is for this reason that was previously stated, “When focusing outward through the sense doors, those external sensory appearances that appear to be seen, heard, felt, tasted and touched are called conditioned consciousness.” The meditation is on awareness of awareness and starts at 1:03:48 After the meditation Lama la recommends to rest in that silence (based on the meditation), to pose questions to that silence and listen to that silence. The best way to accomplish posing a question would be to settle your mind in its natural state, then turn towards awareness of awareness and rest in that silence. Pose the question prior to this and in that silence an answer might come up. This is where intuition and prajna (wisdom) will be needed to determine if it feels right. But be sure it is not coming from the chattering mind! He gives the example of how Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo asked her guru a question if one came up, as there were no cell phones at that time. She said she would pray to him.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 03 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama la began today’s teaching by reviewing “inference by way of belief” and how this assumes you’ve done your research through authoritative sources. He explains the Buddhist sequence of ways of knowing: inference by belief, cogent logical inference, perceptual knowledge by the way of the 6 senses and finally, direct “yogic” perception. Then Lama la reviews the very important third method and auspicious circumstance, “Regard your companions as vīras and ḍākinīs,” that must be assembled. He spoke about how important this is and how Lojong can help us achieve this and work with our minds to not disdain anyone. Even those causing mischief, evil or greedy behavior in the public arena today, we can recognize that the person’s mind is mentally afflicted and didn’t choose to have them and is dominated by them. Lama la shared some verses from The Metta Sutta and from the Eight Verses of Mind Training to help us internalize the teachings and by prioritizing eudaemonia over hedonia and how we can earn virtue by kindness, empathy, patience etc toward those with mental affliction. Lama la started with the text at 36:15 on page 216 finishing up the three remaining methods and auspicious circumstances. He reminded us there is no word for forgiveness in Tibetan and explained why and related this to understanding that mental afflictions are the root of afflicted behavior and compassion is the best response. Lama la clarified that the phrase, “all the affairs of this life” refers to the eight mundane concerns. And the text then talks about the “advice” we get from many people that will lead to endless suffering.“ The meditation which starts at minute 58:00 is on Padmasambhava final part on awareness of awareness as taught in Natural Liberation. After the meditation Lama la gave the oral transmission of his comments on a paragraph of Gyatrul Rinpoche’s commentary from “Natural Liberation".
