2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 05 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan begins by explaining that the rhythm of the peripheral breath during the meditation gives something to hold on to, like a life raft. In samadhi, the mind is peaceful, suffused with genuine well-being and maintaining a blissful quality of awareness. This is totally different from the stimulus-driven pursuit of pleasure which currently consumes the planet. Alan queries whether the ‘pursuit of happiness’ referred to in the US Declaration of Independence is perhaps more likely to be a ‘pursuit of meaning’, inferring a deeper spiritual dimension.
Meditation begins at 15.24
Following the meditation, Alan gives commentary on the text, following on from the line; ‘We sing their praises in exultation’. The environment described, of Samantabhadra surrounded by 84000 Bodhisattvas, arises spontaneously as a skillful means to guide sentient beings to their own awakening. It is manifested by the immense power of wisdom and primordial consciousness. Alan notes that shamatha is insufficient by itself but indispensable when coupled with wisdom. The inner retinue of Bodhisattvas then engage in questioning the teacher. These 8 Bodhisattvas are the manifestation of the 8 aggregates of consciousness. All are empty of inherent existence and are in a specific aspect embodying specific faculties. Wisdom Bodhisattva asks why all beings cannot see this Buddha field. The response is that beings with impure delusive mindsets cannot see pure appearances. All we can see is the ‘veil’. In contrast, pure appearances come to those who have sat in the presence of a self-appearing teacher, who is not a human being, and in the presence of Padmasambhava. Dudjom Lingpa is ‘peering in’ suggesting that he is one of the 25 direct disciples of Padmasambhava. Buddhas manifest according to the individual needs of ‘disciples’, wherever they are in their stage of spiritual maturation, so that they can effectively guide them.
We perpetuate our existence in samsara due to our own 8 aggregates but as we are doing this practice, neither perspective negates or repudiates the other. 8 Bodhisattvas are not inherently displays of pristine awareness nor are they simply mind and its mental factors. They arise from the non-dual teacher and retinue as the numerous gateways of appearances. So the reply is that Sakyamuni arose ‘as his disciples’ own appearances’. This is the dzogchen view of Buddha, not, as in the Pali canon, an independent being. Consider that all our appearances as a sentient being arise from the substrate, a maturation of karmic seeds.
Lama Alan concludes by surmising whether the View could be present in other contemplative traditions. This view that the physical world does not come passively along, with us as observers, is not contradicted by many cutting-edge scientists. We need their expertise to be dovetailed with the vast experience of contemplatives. Finally the point is made that only those who have stored vast amounts of merit will establish the propensities to meet this path plus an authentic guide. That teacher will then arise from the disciples’ own appearances. Lama Alan then answered a final question relating to the View and its meaning.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 29 Apr 2020, Online-only
In this session, Lama Alan returns to the practice of loving-kindness, merging the "earth" of the first turning of the wheel with the "sky" of Dzogchen. He comments that when looking at the teachings in the Pali Canon, he is struck that it is the "Great Perfection" all the way through. He also comments that sometimes Vajrayana and Dzogchen practice can "hover above" the issues of our everyday life, and that it is always important to return to practices that are easily and directly applicable to everyday situations that come up. In this way, he says, we can be sure that Dharma will permeate all aspects of our life and that we won't ever feel that a situation arises to which Dharma does not apply. This leads Lama Alan into a few comments on the issue of "preparing" for long-term retreat on shamatha and Dzogchen. He comments that among the many people listening to the teachings, perhaps only a handful are currently able to enter long-term retreat. Therefore, he does not want it to seem that the teachings are only applying to those select few. Rather, he wants to be sure that no matter where we are in our life and practice that we are able to practice "full-time" in our given circumstances, using various methods and understandings of Dharma. For it is this integration of life and practice, no matter our circumstances, that actually prepares us for eventually going into full-time retreat. It is only through already having imbued our whole life with Dharma that we will be prepared for retreat, as in the example of Lama Karma. Therefore, he urges us not to wait for different circumstances, but to practice now. To illustrate the true nature of practicing Dharma he tells the story of Dromtonpa that culminates in his statement: "Give up all attachment to this life, and let your mind become dharma." With this in mind, Lama Alan tells us that even if we don't achieve shamatha in this lifetime, or even if we don't accomplish vipashyana, or rest in pristine awareness, there are still ways to fill our life with Dharma and make suitable aspirations such that at the time of death we will have no regret. Meditation on Buddhagosa's classic approach to loving-kindness begins at 18:20. After the meditation Lama Alan addresses a question on how to deal with negative thoughts and mental afflictions when they arise, and how to understand involuntary thoughts and afflictions within the Dzogchen context, and specifically within the context of resting in awareness and taking the mind as the path.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 14 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan provides some context for the Lake Born Vajra’s teachings on conduct. The teachings in the text are specifically designed for Vidyadharas, i.e. those who have achieved shamatha, realized emptiness, identified rigpa, and are able to dwell in rigpa. Even these highly realized individuals need to follow the example of Padmasambhava who said: my view is as vast as space, but when it comes to my conduct, it as fine as individual particles of barley flower. To contextualize these teachings, Lama Alan mentions that conduct also figures prominently in the first turning of the wheel teachings. In the Discourse on Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma, the Buddha laid out the 8-fold noble path; three of these eight relate to conduct (authentic action, authentic speech and authentic livelihood). In the context of Mahayana, the 7-point mind training provides an extensive list of aphorisms that are guidelines for authentic conduct on the Mahayana path. The transmission of the text (pages 180-181) begins at 00:26:31, and continues the Lake Born Vajra’s instructions on conduct. The topics covered include idle chatter, being content with your food and clothing, applying yourself to the dharma with courage and fortitude, keeping your samayas and vows, refraining from disparaging others, and not pursuing high status, power, and wealth. Lama Alan provides commentary to these points to help us to relate these instructions, which are intended for Vidyadharas, to our lives. The Lake Born Vajra concludes that: “Carrying through with the practices of meditative equipoise and postmeditative conduct in the above manner until you die is the sublime essence of the practice.” The meditation on taking the mind as the path begins at 01:17:00.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 13 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins by commenting that all teachings and sequences of practice have the goal of converging on realising the ultimate nature of mind, rigpa. This includes cultivating loving-kindness up to relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta, which in Dzogchen practice is no different from rigpa. The practices of shamatha and the four applications of mindfulness and so on, are directed towards realising the empty nature of our own mind and then converging on realising rigpa. Alan comments that the method of application of mindfulness to the body by firstly closely attending to one’s own body internally, then externally, then both internally and externally so that it encompasses a whole system, is the method taught by Tsongkhapa for applying mindfulness to the whole of reality by way initially of the five physical senses. This requires resting in stillness with clarity and discernment and attending to appearances in the space of awareness. All appearances have momentary existence, are all fresh, unprecedented, in constant flux, and directly perceived. By contrast, the conceptual projections (words, ideas) that we superimpose on appearances are static, like a snapshot. Our internal self-concept is also static in this sense. The practice is to rest in stillness, observe what appearances arise from that stillness and note the change in them and the nature of the projections we superimpose on them. The meditation is initially guided on settling the mind by counting the breath twenty-one times and then from stillness partially opening our eyes to investigate the nature of appearances and our mental superimpositions on them. After the meditation practice, Alan resumes the transmission of the Panchen Lama’s text, and comments on provisional and definitive views, and on examples of the different approaches of seeking meditation as the basis of the view (e.g. Padmasambhava’s Natural Liberation practice of first achieving shamatha) versus seeking the view as a basis for meditation (as in the Geshe training). Alan says for the next few days we will make an excursion away from the Panchen Lama’s text and he will, for the first time, offer the oral transmission of a chapter on shamatha from one of Karma Chagme’s treatises. He received the oral transmission of this chapter from Gyatrul Rinpoche in 1990. He then translated it, but it has never been published. The printed copy (20 pages) will be distributed to those on retreat in Tuscany and those people listening by podcast who would like to obtain a copy should individually send a message to Sangay at SBI, requesting it on the basis that it is for personal use, and must not be put on any website as Alan is still considering its formal publication. The meditation starts at 13:25 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 29 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan begins the session by drawing parallels between the experience of being lucid, or non-lucid, in a dream with the practice of taking the mind as the path. He explains that when we are resting in awareness in the waking state and seeing the appearances arising to the mind for what they really are, then we are not fooled and we can regard ourselves as "lucid with respect to the waking state," in much the same way that we would regard ourselves as lucid dreaming when we are seeing dream appearances for the empty appearances they really are. Lama describes this lucidity as a form of freedom. However, when we are fooled by unawareness (avidya) and delusion (moha), whether when coming out of deep dreamless sleep into a dreamscape, or coming into an experience in the waking state, then we will likely be caught up in appearances and experience suffering. Meditation on taking the mind as the path begins at 20 mins. After the meditation, Lama Alan returns to the text on the bottom of page 22 and discusses the list of possible meditative experiences that can arise when we are progressing along this path of taking the mind as the path. Overall, the message from Lama Alan and the Lake-Born Vajra is to bring awareness to these experiences without identifying with them or reifying them. In doing so, as Lama Alan describes, we can progress along the path of fully dredging our psyche and reaching the calm clarity of shamatha. He compares this difficult inner journey into the wilderness of the mind to the expedition undertaken by Lewis and Clark.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 01 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
- Question 1 in today’s Q&A teaching is about the benefits of manifesting Great Transference Rainbow Body compared to other manifestations of enlightenment. In this context Lama la kindly shares with us details about Gyatrul Rinpoche’s actual manifestation: Rinpoche has been in tukdam for 23 days now, sitting in an upright position, his body is not showing any signs of decay, and is still shrinking. Hundreds of people witness this outstanding accomplishment—a form of rainbow body. Lama la then goes on to explain that there are different levels of rainbow body, which are inspiring events for students, with no benefit for the yogi in transition. The rise of modern science, which on the positive side, brought an end to the bloody witch- hunting era, on the negative side disenchanted the world. The view of a physically closed universe is still the dominant worldview nowadays. Phenomena like the so-called placebo effect and other manifestations that prove the power of non-physical forces on the physical universe have not yet been able to shatter the currently dominant materialistic worldview. The much- needed contemplative revolution is about re-enchanting the world, bringing in the forces of light. Mundane siddhis are displayed in various cultures all over the world. They are like technology, neutral in themselves, and can be used with sublime, benevolent, neutral, or malevolent motivation. In Tibetan narrative, there is the famous story of young Milarepa who used black magic to retaliate the injustice that his mother had suffered. The various techniques to develop mundane siddhis are all based on the mind. In contrast, tukdam and rainbow body are manifestations of pristine awareness, when the mind of the practitioner has vanished. Great Transference Rainbow Body is the most sublime form of a rainbow body, with immeasurable benefit, solely displayed for the benefit of sentient beings: the yogi's body and mind completely disappear, they dissolve into the energy of primordial consciousness and primordial consciousness itself. Then one can reappear in a myriad of ways. Padmasambhava, his consort Yeshe Tsogyal, and Vimalamitra displayed the Great Transference Rainbow Body. Lama la’s only hope for this world of ours on the verge of self-destruction lies in the manifestations of multiple Great Transference Rainbow Bodies. - Question 2 is about stillness and movement when observing mental events: Lama explains how stillness is a necessity for accurate observation of movement. Samatha is still a relative stillness, prone to dissolution, whereas the stillness of pristine awareness lies in the fourth time, thereby transcending the notion of stillness and movement altogether. - Question 3 is about how to meditate with the eyes open when one is not used to it. Lama la suggests different ways to break this habit: to try out a „mindfold“—a mask that covers the eyes without touching them so that the eyes can be kept open while most light is filtered out. Alternatively, one can practice in a dark room, a dimly lit room, and can gradually enhance the light, so to develop a new habit. What’s important is that one’s sense of awareness is not felt to be confined within one’s head, mindfold, etc. Lama demonstrates the expansiveness of awareness by playfully visualizing objects in space.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 28 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan shares his translation of Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices on the 4 applications of mindfulness. The body is simply a configuration of various parts and compilation of various substances assembled by the agent which arises from karma. What is called the body? What is the referent for “my body”? Where is the body which has all these parts? The body didn’t come from the past, nor does it go into the future. In the present, the body is like space. The body is devoid of an agent or one who experiences it. It has no essence and is designated by transient labels. This is medicine which is designed to overcome attachment and reification. When doing the practice, it is important to look carefully in order to come to conclusive certainty. Not only did I not find it, but had it been there, I would’ve found it, and recognize that it is not there.
Meditation: mindfulness of the body. Your basecamp is settling body, speech, and mind in their natural state, and make the mind serviceable. At your own pace, scan the different parts of the body to try to pinpoint the referent for that which is called the body. What comes to mind when you think “my body” and try to locate it experientially. If nothing can be found which corresponds to “this is my body,” rest in that not finding and knowing that absence without distraction. Look at the space of the body and the experience of the 5 elements. Is there anything here that is “my body”? View your body like space, and rest without distraction.
Teaching pt2: Alan comments that for Vajrayana practice, it is necessary to realize the emptiness of both self and phenomena. Realization of the emptiness of phenomena is needed in order to transmute our body, the environment, and beings into pure appearances. Our ordinary appearances arise from karma. In Vajrayana, all appearances are dissolved into emptiness, and through the power of samadhi, one is able to overwhelm ordinary appearances with pure appearances. In this way, one takes the result as the path. In dzogchen, when one breaks through to pristine awareness, pure perception arises spontaneously.
Q1. Does a program of study support shamatha practice and vice versa? Is study necessary in order to progress beyond stage 8 of shamatha?
Meditation starts at 43:35
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 06 Apr 2020, Online-only
Nine round breathing practice
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 27 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan continues with verses 85-87 in Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara covering components of the body. Just as we examined the body, we now examine parts of the body, going all the way down to the atomic level. As long as something has attributes, it can be divided further. The Vaibashika view contends that while we view the world with our senses and that configurations depend on our way of perceiving, atoms are truly existent. The Madhyamika view understands dependent origination as follows: 1) conditioned phenomena arise in dependence on prior causes and conditions, 2) parts and attributes, and 3) conceptual designations. The Dalai Lama says that which you’re pointing your finger at and holding to be already out there from its own side does not exist in that way. In the dzogchen view, dharmadhatu, primordial consciousness, and energy of primordial consciousness are all co-extensive. Perhaps it is possible to arrive at this one reality via different doors—e.g., probing matter, probing space, or probing the mind.
Meditation: mindfulness of the body. Attend to the 5 elements in the space of your body. Open your eyes, and see the form of your body. Note the difference between the tactile and visual perceptions. Apart from these tactile and visual perceptions, is there anything else of the body you can perceive? These perceptions are arising and dissolving either in the space of the body (tactile) or the space of the mind (visual). What do you think of as “my body” among all these perceptions? As in the Heart Sutra, form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Appearances are mere appearances that arise from and dissolve into space. Appearances consist of space. Appearances are none other than space which is empty. Release the conceptual designation “my body” and rest in the realm of appearances, which are the basis for designation yet empty.
Q1. For me, lucid dreaming starts with me being aware that I’m asleep (body is paralyzed). As the dreamscape begins to unfold, I’m not sure how best to make use of this opportunity.
Q2. This is a question about emptiness and atoms. While people may question the reality that arises to meet them, interdependence makes classical reality true for all of us within the same quantum system.
Q3. In Ven. Analayo’s book on the satipatthana sutta, he covers the dry insight approach which dispenses with shamatha and describes sati as attacking an object like a stone hitting the wall which sounds like it requires a lot of effort.
Q4. There are claims of people achieving multiple dhyanas or offering 1-2 week retreats to move through all the dhyanas. From your perspective, you seem sceptical of these claims. Do such people have experiences which somehow match the dhyanas, or are there references to dhyanas with lower levels of realization?
Meditation starts at 40:19
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 17 May 2021, Online-only
Continuing with the focus on the close application of mindfulness to the mind, this morning Lama explores the science of this revolutionary approach of actively investigating our minds with the technology of samadhi. He refers to this practice, which dates back over 2500 years, as 'science of the mind par excellence’! Whilst for the Buddha, the role of observation is fundamental in the science of the mind, Lama gives an overview of how the history of Eurocentric science has shown that the role of the observer has long been considered irrelevant. However, more recently this view has been shattered by developments in the field of quantum physics, where it has become more and more evident that it is impossible to understand the objective world, without understanding the subjective world. While change is slow, and there is still very little understanding about the subjective world in modern science, Lama highlights that happily we have other modes of inquiry to rely on, such as the science of the Buddha’s teachings on the close application of mindfulness to the mind which lead us to deeply fathom the mind, by closely observing it. Lama points out that so far, in our practices of application mindfulness to the mind, we have been exploring the specific and general characteristics of our human mind, but now we turn to focusing in on the origins of this mind, by addressing a question that modern science, as yet, has no answer for – ‘Where does the mind come from?’. To inform our own investigations into this question, Lama cites a number of references to the Buddha’s teachings that highlight (i) how a mind that is well developed and cultivated is pliable and serviceable, ready to be put to use in exploring the nature of reality, and fathoming the causes of suffering and the genuine well-being; (ii) that the luminous nature of mind can be fathomed – it is a conscious experience; (iii) that this luminous nature of mind is so often obscured, thereby posing the challenge of how can we remove these obscurations and fully experience this naturally luminous mind; and (iv) how this luminous mind is so closely related to the development of a concentrated mind full of radiance. In posing the question ‘What is this form of concentration, full of radiance?’, Lama Alan explores the Theravada term 'bhavanga' – the ground state of consciousness, and how it manifests, and considers this alongside what we have seen in the Vajra Essence about how the substrate consciousness manifests. This leads Lama to assert that the bhavanga and the substrate consciousness refer to the same dimension from which the human mind emerges, and into which it dissolves when we fall asleep. Lama Alan concludes that to understand the mind, we need to understand it in terms of both how it manifests, and the origins from which it emerges. He invites us to come and see for ourselves, where this mind comes from, by observing very closely, with an open mind. He reminds us, ‘All you need for this flight is your awareness!’ The mediation starts at 00:37:00.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 29 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama la refers to Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings on Mindfulness of Breathing and says that this was the method most commonly taught by the Buddha. The Buddha taught that to develop and cultivate mindfulness of breathing disperses and quells on the spot unwholesome states whenever they arise. Lama la says that to experience sustainable well-being we need to turn off or turn down hedonia. The Buddha taught 16 steps for developing Mindfulness of Breathing. The first 4, Shamatha and the next 12, Vipasyana. The breath naturally (refined by prana) becomes shorter and finer because mental and physical calmness increases. Lama la says that the point of Shamatha is to purify the mind so as to engage in Vipasyana and that the first Dhyana is required to develop Vipasyana. Sampajanna (Clear Comprehension or Introspection (a derivative of Discerning Intelligence)) is a practice of reviewing the mind for the five obscurations (sensual pleasure through the senses, laxity/dullness, excitation/anxiety, afflictive uncertainty and malevolence/enmity). If found they have not been abandoned and there is introspection on them. If not found they have been abandoned. Lama Alan says that none of the obscurations is eradicated through Shamatha but they are reduced. Eradication occurs with the union of Shamatha and Vipasyana and the achievement of the First Dhyana (when the obscurations are cut at their root). According to Asanga mindfulness prevents attention straying from the meditative object and introspection recognises that the attention is straying. Shantideva states that introspection is the repeated examination of the state of one’s body and mind. Edward Titchener who devoted his life to the development of introspective techniques, observed that the main difficulties with Introspection are to maintain constant attention, to avoid bias and to know what to look for. Meditation starts at 00:41.21 and is about resting in awareness, observing the mind to note the presence and absence of the five obscurations.
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.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 23 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Lama Alan begins by discussing the difference between viewing and believing or asserting and gives a few analogies from the belief system of materialism. Addressing the resulting question of predetermination and lack of freedom, he cites the Buddha who said do not believe it. This will block any incentive to seek liberation. The meditation which begins at 49:23 can be legitimately non-conceptual if we have done the hard work of listening carefully to the Middle Way view. After settling body, speech and mind we come to rest in that non-conceptual but intelligent and non-discerning awareness. We go with that certainty that we have already developed and dive deeply to see if it is an authentic view that can be sustained at all times. We start there viewing appearances as all arising in the same space of our own awareness. We observe conceptualization arise and how objects are empty of their names and names are empty of their referent objects. There is an enormous amount of freedom in knowing that appearances do not require us to designate them in a certain way. The preceding paragraphs of the text warned against unqualified teachers and so we need to be very discerning in terms of choosing and designating our gurus. The Lake-Born Vajra tells us and Lama Alan provides commentary on how to make this critical decision and the consequences of displeasing your guru by engaging in nonvirtue. At 1:17:11 we continue with the text on page 186 which turns to Guru Yoga and ends the discussion of the supreme crucial point of spiritual conduct.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 14 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Who do you think you are? Are you identified with your body, your mind, or yourself? How does the I fit with the body and mind? We need to find out by probing experientially, not by thinking really hard. The image of a conglomeration of merchants with a CEO in charge. That CEO is the I. While that sense of there being a CEO or I is real, the referent, upon probing, is nowhere to be found and thus unreal. This sense of CEO or I is that which feels it is the agent or the observer in meditation or reacts to praise or criticism in everyday life.
Meditation: mindfulness of the mind via awareness of awareness. Let your eyes be open, and rest gaze evenly. For a while, just be present, without doing focusing on any object. Let your interest converge on what’s left over, that most intimate knowing. Simply rest in the flow of awareness of awareness. For the oscillation, 1) inversion –withdraw from all appearances into the luminosity of awareness itself and 2) release –release into space of non-objectivity. Ensure that the breath flows effortlessly—i.e., not arousing and releasing the breath. Now, invert deeply on 1) your sense of being the agent of this meditation, 2) who is this meditator, and 3) who is the observer. If an appearance comes to mind, is it really I or is it empty like a mirage? Release the oscillation, and let awareness come to the center, resting in its own place, knowing itself.
Q1. In settling the mind, there is a fuzzy TV channel running 3m before me. Rumination has reduced to 4 topics and seem to be arising from the I rather than the TV. Are there different levels?
Q2. In awareness of awareness, I’m not clear about what releasing means? And oscillation?
Q3. In awareness of awareness, I get it when I’m practicing with you in the group sessions, but back in my room, there’s no traction.
Q4. In awareness of awareness, is the oscillation experientially similar to tonglen?
Q5. Javana are mental events that arise from and dissolve back into substrate consciousness whereas mental appearances like thoughts and images dissolve into the substrate. Are mental appearances different from javana? Aren’t javana also appearances to the mind?
Q6. In awareness of awareness, I get the same experience during the oscillation, but when we release the oscillation, it feels different, like coming home. Why do exercises like the oscillation or sending awareness in different directions?
Meditation starts at 16:38
* Note part of the recording was taken from video camera due to system issues …
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 19 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
- Q1: 'How can a Vidyadhara perform mundane activities without conceptual thinking? How can they perform the planning necessary to do so?’ Lama-la emphasised that, as he has not obtained Vidyadhara status, this is a question that is rather beyond him and is not quite the right time to ask it. However, the example of Drubpön Lama Karma working as a scribe for Pedgyal Lingpa's four volume Kusum Gongdü treasure cycle was cited as to how executive functions can still emerge out of stillness. It is perfectly possible to attend, understand and action an intention non-conceptually - not in a trance-like way, but through inner stillness and absolute presence. Like a well-trained orchestra playing without a conductor, we can go about our duties perfectly well without the supervision of our mental chit chat and conceptualisation. Conceptualisation is not welcome during mindfulness of breathing, but they are not obstacles during taking the mind as path regardless of their character. The analogy of the mind being neighbours across the street is used: there is no need to do anything other than observe these appearances from a distance to ensure we don’t enmesh ourselves in what comes up, but dredge the content. During sessions, we do not change what comes up, but alter our level of mindfulness when viewing this content. However, after formal sessions we just have to accept that we need to remain conceptual - there’s a time for thinking. This is not at odds with our ability to remain mindful during our daily lives, however. - Q2: How much of recognising a thought as a thought is enough without immediately delving into its referent? When is a thought a message that should be acted on, for example? Lama-la shared his own experience of handling this exact issue very recently: during meditation he observed several original ideas popping up relating to the recent controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama’s interactions with an Indian child. Lama-la instinctively thought that they, if shaped into an op-ed, could be of meaningful service once published. However, he had to make a choice of whether to get up from meditation to put these ideas to paper or to stay in sitting and hope they would remain accessible after his session. He decided to temporarily abandon meditation to write up these thoughts, freeing him to then return to meditation subsequently with a clearer mind and the contentment of a job well done. - Q3: Is Shamatha sustainable once achieved? Can you lose it? Once revealed, Shamatha is mostly sustainable. This state is able to fine-tune the whole prana system, something that - unlike the ever-shifting nature of mind - stays robust over time. All this creates the correct conditions for irreversible change. However, exceptional circumstances that affect brain functionality (drugs/ alcohol/ illness or injury) or derail practice would likely prevent the practitioner from returning to Shamatha. - Q4: When you tell us to put our awareness in space, I assume this isn’t literal? Does this space have a location? It’s vital the practitioner learns that they are not ‘inside their head’. They need to rest in awareness to do this - understanding absolutely that the expansiveness of our awareness, of our minds, is coextensive within the space of awareness itself. We need to not obsess about where we put our attention - that’s not the practice (unless you are meditating on space itself). We should instead treat placing our awareness into the space in front of us like parking and leaving our car in a shopping mall - something we don’t really turn back to and think about once the job is done. - Q5: How do I deal with the automatisms that come up via my visual perceptual faculties when I have to let go of physical space during meditation? The visual is irrelevant here and there has never been any instruction to ‘let go’ of physical space. The practitioner must instead focus on releasing their awareness into physical space. - Q6: How do I manage the chest pains that come up when I’m on intensive retreat? It helps a little when I get up from meditation, but returns as soon as I resume. The clue here is in the word ‘intense’. This nyam will not be helped by this contracted mindset. Instead, going into deep retreat should be approached as a releasing and - beyond the inevitable upheavals that do emerge - relaxing experience. Using the word ‘intense’ anchors our experience and likely the body's response to it. Instead, we should all come at this process with the intention of letting go and finding restoration out of the experience, not tension or psychological burdens. Full-time yogis don’t view their experience as intense, for example - it’s just their reality. We should take up the same view, not counting each day but enjoying our fortune at having the leisure to contemplate freely and without clamping down or putting excess pressure on the experience. We should seek to find joy in retreat, not intensity - so go into retreat like an elephant finding a cool pool of water on a hot sweltering day in India. Submerge and enjoy! - Q7: During Shamatha meditation, I often feel like there’s too much energy or tension in the body even when trying to just view these as experiences. Can you recommend any techniques to relax the body in such circumstances? Energy is always going to come up and buzz - much like the last question involved the buzz of ambition and tension. The way to release this is just to view it as a nyam and, when on the cushion, just be aware of it and don’t appropriate it, reify it or identify with it. When off the cushion then apply remedies through physical exercise including walking or yoga. - Q8: Although I understand the value of merging body, speech and mind with the guru shouldn’t this come at the end of practice when the meditator is a more settled recipient of this blessing? Our aim is always to merge body, speech and mind with Samantabhadra and this is something we should aspire to at the beginning of practice, to bless our practice, much like state of regeneration. We need to look beyond our conceptual, identified and cramped minds and instead seek out emptiness and blessing as we come to sit. It is with this sense of inspiration that gives us better proximity to pristine awareness and the sacred vantage point we need to engage in meaningful practice. While there is of course benefit to blessing the end of our practice, this is something that has less value when departing from the cushion to go about our daily lives. Instead, we should focus on dedicating merit to conclude our practice rather than calling for blessings. - Q9: It seems easier to have the vividness and luminosity when using mind as path when I don’t allow my awareness to expand in front of me. There also seems to be a trade-off between luminosity and non-locality - should I first master mindfulness of breathing? This is suggestive that the practice is not being done correctly: the room is not expanding, so awareness itself is not expanding. We have to remember that our awareness is not constrained to our physical perceptions of space; just take our ability to imagine what is beyond the confines of the walls around us. Again, mental space far exceeds the parameters of the five senses or the confines of our skulls, but is co-extensive with the space of awareness. It’s always a good idea to really ground yourself in mindfulness of breathing. Once the inner voice of the mind is silenced, that’s the perfect opportunity to take the mind as path. That said, this perceived trade-off between non-locality and luminosity doesn’t immediately make sense and Lama-la couldn’t really comment. - Q10: I notice that I have an undercurrent of reacting to thoughts during meditation and an aversion to them when then off the cushion. Can you comment on how to view these appearances as 'natural expressions of awareness’? Lama-la intuited that this person meant pristine awareness when mentioning awareness. This is absolutely true in so far that all appearances are creative emanations from this fundamental source and - whether there is natural aversion or preference - should instead be treated equally, as one taste, much like the expression ‘gifts from god’. All of us can relate to having an aversion to thoughts - we all wish that our minds would be quieter and wouldn’t get caught up obsessively in a theme or line of thinking. However, we have to remember we are not responsible for these thoughts - they just come up. As such, we have the choice to step away from this content and release everything that comes up via mindfulness of breathing. We need to gently but persistently release and release and release until the mind settles down. Eventually, once we get more adept and are proceeding down the path using mind as path, we have to take the view of letting things be and viewing thoughts that create positive affect and those that create negative affect non-preferentially - as one of the same - but don’t appropriate either type. When off the cushion we then need do our utmost to let go of aversion: aversion means that we are still caught up in the thoughts and are appropriating them and ruminating on them to our detriment. - Q11: What accounts for the qualic differences between perceptual outward-looking mind vs those that are more inward-looking or introspective? Our external worlds are constrained by physical laws (gravity/ speed of light etc.) and our internal worlds are constrained by human conscious faculties (sensory bandwidth/ conscious experience that deviates from a bat/dog etc.) but we have an ability to mentally time travel whereas in the physical domain we do not. We can abuse these impressive internal world building skills by ruminating on the past or worrying about the future - but what is the involvement of previous or early experiences in directing our tendencies in this? Likewise, how much of the world around us are we filling in by previous experience and not direct sensory input? Consciousness does not bring everything into existence (consciousness does not generate atoms, for example), but makes everything manifest. Mentation espouses appearances, not matter itself - atoms exist without an observer, but appearances do not. However, human consciousness has its own unique characteristics - for example, as Nagel points out, we will never understand what it means to experience life as a bat. However, we share a consciousness as - by his definition - this means that there is a known and lived experience to being. Appearances - both inward and outward - are indeed greatly influenced by past experience and heuristics. Conceptually, we fill in the blanks about people’s tendencies a great deal based on pre-conceived notions. - Q12: Is there a difference between volitional thought - that which we generate (e.g. the 'Mary had a little lamb’ thought experiment) - vs those that pop into our minds non-volitionally? Is the only difference that one is imbued with the appearance of ‘agency’ or identity? Absolutely - but as an additional note here, it is essential that we do not at any stage try to suppress thoughts. First of all, it’s impossible to do in practice, but second of all the practice is dedicated to watching these thoughts knock on our door and then letting them pass of their own accord. Cultivating this non-attached, unreified and unappropriated relationship with our thoughts is absolutely essential to progressing along the path. Lama-la then concluded this Q&A session by addressing the controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama. He emphasised the virtuousness that all Lamas aim to come to teaching with and the responsibility involved with these positions of supporting others’ progress along the path. A Lama should not teach if they are not acting out of their cultivated and sincere virtue. Lama-la has known His Holiness for over fifty years and is certain of his constant virtuousness. Acting from his home - essentially Little Tibet - he acted playfully, spontaneously and in a way imbued with the Tibetan customs in which he has been raised. The mother and child - and entire audience - walked away unperturbed and uplifted by his virtue. He did nothing that required apology - he only did so because people were upset by his actions and that should be the end of the matter.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 15 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan completes his commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Composite phenomena are impermanent and unstable, rising quickly and passing away. This points to impermanence and relative reality. Although this is just the way things are, people may react with depression to the hedonic present, anxiety to the hedonic future, and PTSD to the hedonic past. Composite phenomena are also unmoving and empty, like an optical illusion. This points to their absolute nature, empty of inherent existence. Composite phenomena arise in dependence of causes and conditions. They are neither always there nor passing into non-existence. As for objects, so too for consciousness. All speech is like an echo, momentary and without essence. Its coming and going is unobservable. The essential nature of phenomena is like space. Conditions are empty and nameless. Neither the names nor their referents have any inherent existence. Names illuminate phenomena, but as soon as we reify them, they obscure their nature.
Meditation. Mindfulness of phenomena preceded by mindfulness of the mind.
1) mindfulness of the mind. Let your eyes be open, resting your gaze evenly. Rest awareness in the present moment, mindful presence without distraction, without grasping. You are aware, and you know it. What is the referent of awareness? What has its qualities of luminosity and cognizance? What are its boundaries?
2) mindfulness of phenomena. Turn your attention outwards towards appearances arising in the relative dharmadhatu. Whatever comes to mind, examine its nature. Does anything exist from its own side? All composite phenomena are empty and unmoving. They appear, and yet are empty, mere configurations of empty space. With awareness still and clear, attend to emptiness and luminosity of all appearances.
Q1. Is it possible to experience timelessness in shamatha or only in the union of shamatha and vipasyana?
Q2. In a guided meditation, I applied vipasyana to an unpleasant feeling and made it go away. I still get stuck on visual appearances, like the square panel on the ceiling. I haven’t conceptually designated it, so how is it empty?
Meditation starts at 37:50
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 12 May 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Before taking refuge and reciting the 7 line prayer, Yangchen indicates that the whole class will be about refuge and bodhicitta. She reminds us that she gave a brief overview of the Lake Born Sadhana practice in 2019 but now we have time to give each word and verse as much time, reflection and meditation as it needs. Yangchen is offering it as if each of us were about to go into an approach and accomplishment retreat, planting the seed with the intention to complete the practice one day. Most importantly she reminds us that anyone listening to this class must have received the Lake Born Empowerment in this lineage, from Lama Alan Rinpoche in order to follow this particular set of teachings. We will receive a revised and updated version of the sadhana soon. Yangchen is using a commentary by Lama Tharchin Rinpoche and also sections taken from sadhanas from the Vajrayana foundation (founded by Lama Tharchin) and from Vimala Treasures - the direct lineage of Gyatrul Rinpoche. The aim is to include all the essential ingredients to receive the full benefit of the practice, which can be used as a support for a long term shamatha retreat. Yangchen then commences a word commentary of the title of this practice: Heart Essence of the Lake-Born Vajra: A Secret Sadhana of the Mahaguru. This includes a brief explanation of the 4 lama sadhanas in the Dudjom Tersar lineage, an explanation of the term 'sadhana', and a reminder that this was a mind terma revealed to Dudjom Rinpoche directly, the blessings being very powerful in such a short lineage. We then move on to the introductory verse and an explanation of 'The immortal Vidyadhara Totreng Tsel' and the association of this being a longevity practice, and the reference to the 'all pervasive lord' being Vajrdhara who synthesises all buddha families. Yangchen then reminds us of the importance of guru yoga in Vajrayana practice, looking at the incarnation lineage going all the back to Shariputra, reflecting on the inconceivable merit of each lifetime and then comparing that to where we are. Our awe develops our reverence but is also very humbling. We realise we won't achieve the result on our own merit but through the unification of our mind-stream with the guru as the body speech and mind of all buddhas. The devotional aspect is imperative. We then move on to the opening prayers, beginning with the 7 line invocation to Guru Rinpoche. Yangchen gives an explanation of the second prayer - an invocation to the dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya - Amitayus, Lord of Potalaka and Totreng Tsel. Here Yangchen refers us to the images available on the media site. She also explains the symbol of skulls and what they represent. The third prayer is calling for blessings from Lady Kharchen (Yeshe Tsogyal), Drokben Je (Kyeuchen Lotsawa, a direct disciple of Guru Rinpoche) and Dudjom Drodul Ling (Dudjom Rinpoche). The blessings we can receive from saying these prayers if we have some understanding of the meaning, we connect to our guru in all these extraordinary forms, allows us to collect the merit quickly. If we do the deeds of an ordinary being and then a little bit of practice we won't get the full benefit compared to fully immersing ourselves in the practice in retreat and opening ourselves to the stream of blessings. The fourth prayer is in general to the root and lineage gurus but will be specific to each practitioner. This prayer refers to the three roots - the guru, yidam and khandro, with three different activities. The gurus amass and grant blessings, the yidam grants siddhis and then Yangchen explained the importance of the dakinis and dharma protectors who protect us in our practice of dharma. The fifth prayer is the final one Yangchen comments on today, with an explanation of how we have received the seeds of empowerment and now we need to ripen those seeds and keep our samayas purely, watching our actions of body, speech and minds in regard to our guru, vajra siblings and all sentient beings. Demons and maras can infiltrate so strongly so if our prayers are so ingrained in us, we'll know to turn to them and pray to our lama to overcome these problems. The meditation „Directly asking the Vidyadharas for blessings - in a very gentle, experiential way.“ begins at 1:14:12
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 07 Apr 2020, Online-only
The Four-Fold Vision Quest
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 25 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan acknowledged that it is the last morning of this retreat, reminding him that his intuition is the teachings of Dzogchen are not confined solely to the Buddhist tradition. He spends some time speaking to the convergence of the deepest aspects of contemplative tradition, whatever its religious roots. Perhaps we’re now approaching the culmination of physics, which will also converge with the contemplative understandings, bring consciousness back into the equation. He then postulates that if glimmers of Dzogchen can be found in such a wide variety of traditions, perhaps this is because it’s true. And “truth” can be approached from a variety of perspectives. Of course Dzogchen is different from Pali Cannon, yet we can hear and interpret —through different lenses— passages from Buddha’s teachings. Lama Alan then reads a selection from the Digga Nikkaya and gives a brief unabashed Dzogchen interpretation: that the Buddha is speaking of Pristine Awareness, beyond all duality, when he speaks of the destruction of “name and form”. Coming to culmination of the Path of the Great Perfection, all phenomena disappear, the substrate is extinguished; all that remains is the unborn, unceasing, Dharmakaya. Lama Alan then quotes form Lord Atisha’s “Pith Instructions on the Middle Way”, beginning with the phrase, “The mind of the past has ceased, disappeared. The future mind has not yet arisen or appeared. The present mind is very difficult to attend……” As he reads the quote, Lama Alan gives an explanation of each phrase from Dzogchen view, pointing out again the convergence to one core message, “Wake Up!” We students have Lama Alan warn against the perils of attempting to go straight into open presence meditation: we can end up just sitting there like a marmot. He then says, maybe he has been underrating marmots, and may of upset them as there is a video clip. There may be great vidhyadharas who emanate as marmots here and there. So Lama Alan muses that perhaps he should soften his critique of marmot meditation. (Link in Notes) It does happen that some people venturing onto the Nyingma path are so daunted by the higher levels that they never go beyond the preliminaries, thinking “oh I’ve not really achieved the 4 Revolutions in Outlook yet”, “I haven’t finished the 100,000 yet”, and so forth, spending their whole lives practicing the preliminaries because they don’t feel ready to practice shamatha. But it is never too early to practice shamatha. Then others look at the 9 Stages of Shamatha and think, “I’ve not even achieved Shamatha yet, there is no way I’m ready to practice Vipashyana”. It is never too early to practice Vipashyana. Then finally, resting in open presence, in Rigpa. People may say, “I’m not ready for that, and you’ve said it isn’t even virtuous. I don’t want to be reborn as an animal.” We don’t have to achieve Shamatha and Vipashyana before venturing into Resting in Open Presence, our closest approximation of resting in Rigpa. As we go into this next session of meditation, Resting in Open Presence”, if we imbue it with refuge, Bodhicitta, with some degree of shamatha and with some degree of insight into the emptiness of your own mind, and some understanding of Dzogchen view, while resting in your best approximation of open presence, then it will take you closer on the path. Meditation session 1 is “Resting in Open Presence” at 16:06 Meditation session 2 is “Returning to Shantideva” at 40:40
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 08 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
We started the session by going directly to the Panchen Lama’s text, as Alan revised an initial translation he had proposed for an earlier part of the text. After that update, we continued on that section of the text (stanza 29), which served as the basis for the meditation session, which was silent. The instructions were to rest initially in awareness of awareness, and then return to the investigation on the nature of our existence, using the 3 questions we had already posed: (i) how do we exist?, (ii) how do we appear? and (iii) how do we apprehend ourselves? After the meditation, we returned to the later part of the text where we had left off, and Alan continued the oral transmission, now through stanzas 30 and 31ab. As previously discussed in this retreat, he added additional comments on (i) possible avenues of practice (contemplative vs philosophical / study routes) and (ii) different forms of investigation of the dependently arising nature of reality (namely the analysis of causes & conditions, components & parts and lastly, existence based upon conceptual designation). Meditation is silent and not recorded. ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 16 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day Four, Session One
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 01 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Entering Phase 7 of the text, which is all about the direct crossing over, Lama-la points out that we will approach these tögal teachings, but not actualise them. Therefore, his aural transmission will include the beginning and end of this section, but not the middle. Lama explains that in order to be a qualified practitioner for tögal, one must be able to rest in pristine awareness continually. Without this, the practices have no point. After making a few more comments about the steps involved in preparing for tögal, Lama-la points out that once you have achieved them all, then this is the time to seek teaching on the specific practices from a qualified Lama. As a segue between Phase 6 and Phase 7, Lama-la refers back to the distinction between buddhas and sentient beings, then directs our attention to the only thing that Buddhas and sentient beings have in common, namely awareness / consciousness. Lama suggests that in aspiring to Buddhahood, it makes sense to focus on this commonality, that sheer luminosity and cognisance of awareness, free of anything human or ‘mine’. He elaborates more on this theme throughout this session. After reminding us of the two types of primordial consciousness of a Buddha, Lama-la comments at length on buddhas manifesting as human beings, without stopping being buddhas, namely as nirmāṇakāyas—teacher nirmāṇakāyas, created, living-being, or material nirmāṇakāyas. As part of this discussion, he introduces the Greek term ‘kenosis’ which in the Christian tradition refers to ‘emptying out’. Lama-la comments extensively on this in relation to Buddhism and particularly the Dzogchen context, referring to his paper shared with us today, ‘Kenosis, No Kenosis, and Reverse Kenosis’. Regarding a Buddha manifesting as a human being, Lama points out that the manifestation that appears to be a human being, isn’t in reality, even to the person themselves. He emphasises here that this is at the heart of Dzogchen—that you appear to be a sentient being, even to yourself, but in reality you are not, you are actually a Buddha, and this is the case for everyone. Therefore, Lama-la points out how important the practice of ‘reverse kenosis’ is for us as Dzogchen practitioners, that of emptying ourselves out of the qualities of a sentient being entirely, in order to realize our buddha nature, no longer identifying with the body or the mind at all. Lama-la then begins the aural transmission of Phase 7 of the text, How to Follow the Path of the Great Clear Light, Direct Crossing Over. Starting at 00:44:35, the transmission includes the first two paragraphs of page 215. As we come to the final phase of the practice for realizing liberation in one life-time by way of rainbow body, the Lake Born Vajra strongly urges us not to waste the opportunities we have here and now in this precious human life. Commenting further, Lama-la adds that these teachings present us with possibilities that we probably have never dreamed of! The following section of the text goes into the qualities needed to be a qualified practitioner, and Lama-la highlights that here the Lake Born Vajra has raised the bar considerably! Regarding the first requirement, to “Directly see your guru as a buddha …” even though he/she appears as a sentient being, Lama-la underscores that there is only one perspective from which this is true, from the perspective of Pristine Awareness. The meditation begins at 01:06:10 and is an awareness of awareness practice Lama-la guides us from the coarse to the subtle and combines this with instructions from Padmasambhava and Gyatrul Rinpoche.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 22 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
We're going to return to the practice of taking the mind as the path. When we are attending closely to the space of the mind, do we have a sense of just a sheer emptiness, nothing, and then something happens in it, or in that vacuity, is there something happening? Isn't it more like a "background radiation", a fizz, a foaming, a shimmering in space itself that has a mood of dynamism, of pregnancy, of potential, ready to display as an appearance, a thought, or as a dream? And, considering the practice as a whole, as we spend more hours practicing, and as overall we never know what is coming next, this ongoing novelty arouses the mind; so the nature of this practice is one of bracing. And it's fine to have more and more clarity, but the higher the pyramid, the stronger the base - we'll need to deepen the sense of relaxation, otherwise the pyramid is going to fall over. So for this silent session, Alan recommends that we go back to settling the body in its natural state for maybe the first half of the meditation. And during this practice, we can pose simple questions like, can we perceive the space of the body? Does that have borders? What is like to be embodied from a first-person perspective? As it is said in the book "The Embodied Mind", by Francisco Varela, Eva Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, the body is the only physical entity in the universe that we can view from the inside out. So what is the space of the body? Does it have contours, color, is it black, transparent, does it have a shape? Of course we're not questioning the body, but the space. Final point - observe the stillness of the space of the body itself and the motion of sensations and feelings arising in that space. And then, observe not only the stillness of awareness and the movement of appearances coming and going in the space of the mind, but the relative stillness of the space of the mind itself - relatively speaking, the space is stillness and the events are motion. And then, further down the road, when we take dharmata as the path, in the domain of the Heart Sutra, we'll see that emptiness is stillness, form is motion. And finally, in the deepest level, rigpa is timelessly beyond coming and going, rising and passing, beyond all conceptual frameworks, primordially still, and yet constantly manifesting in all manners of displays. Stillness and motion - big topic, all the way through. After the meditation, we come back to Karma Chagmé presentation of shamatha, in which he strongly emphasizes that the role of shamatha is to enable us to transcend the configurations, the constructs of thought; it is the technology to enable us to get enough thrust to be able to cut through all conceptual designations, and penetrate the domain of reality beyond the scope of intellect - that's what we do with vipashyana, that can not be sustained without shamatha. So Alan starts reading and commenting on the Aṣṭasahasrikāprajñāpāramitā excerpt onwards. After the Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi excerpt, Alan pauses to comment on the theme of transcendence. All people have, explicitly or implicitly, a yearning for transcendence and there are so many ways of trying to get beyond your skin - joining political parties, becoming Buddhists, becoming a monk, a yogi and so forth. Galileo, through very sophisticated measurements of appearances and using Mathematics, tried to leap beyond the anthropocentricity and "think the thoughts of God". That is one strategy and it's being extremely productive for hedonic well being, technology and so forth. But as long as you're embedded in thoughts you do not transcend to the ultimate. The contemplative approach for this is not by looking outwards, but by transcending thoughts and subjective appearances of the five senses entirely; then you transcend the anthropocentric bubble and you tap into ultimate reality. This is a different and complementary strategy that leads to eudaimonia. Then Alan continues reading and commenting on Karma Chagmé’s text and when he gets to the sessions "Flawed Meditation" and "Flawless Meditation", he starts to unpack the text much more. He said his own comments, in the footnotes #63 and #64, are wrong; his latest interpretation of the first paragraph of this "Flawed Meditation" session is that Karma Chagmé is referring to the fourth mental state out of nine preceding access to the first dhyāna (the achievement of shamatha). At this point, the challenge is complacency, because you've reached a very peaceful, calm, stabilized state of mind and you may think you don't need introspection, and you get drowsier and drowsier... and go into a trance. You do not exercise intelligence, expressed as introspection. Intelligence: use it or lose it! You may get into stupor and that is an unclear state of mind. This is flawed. We move to "Flawless Meditation" and Alan says emphatically that this is interesting if and only if one is really interested in reaching and proceeding along the path to enlightenment. Alan states that in the footnote #65, he does not reject only the first phrase, which is from Gyatrul Rinpoche: "Whereas in the flawed meditation the senses are totally withdrawn, in flawless meditation sensory objects do appear to the senses, but they are not apprehended." The crucial point here is that in flawed meditation, the senses are withdrawn because you're so dull, halfway asleep. But when you've achieved shamatha and you rest in self-illuminating mindfulness, there is nothing unclear about that. And then, Alan pauses before the second paragraph of this session with a question: when Karma Chagmé says shamatha, as he states that the eight collections of consciousness do not cease, is he referring to the access to the first dhyāna or to something less, like the eighth stage? Now please refer to Alan's notes, Friday 22 April 2016, where he gathered many quotes to help us clarify this issue, by clearly defining what both access to and full achievement of the first dhyāna mean. Based on all these authors, including the Buddha himself, Alan concludes that when Karma Chagmé says shamatha, he is actually referring to the eighth stage (single-pointed attention) and not to the access to the first dhyāna. Alan's interpretation is that what all these great Kagyu masters are saying is that you can achieve the eighth stage of shamatha, apply this superbly stable mind to vipashyana practice and then, sooner or later, achieve shamatha focused on emptiness. As a final comment, Alan said that Gen Lamrimpa, great yogi who meditated from 5AM to 1AM (not from 1AM to 5AM!), said: within straight shamatha, achieve just the stage five; at that point, you're free of coarse excitation and coarse laxity. Then you go to the stage of generation; and then, if you really proceed along the path, you will achieve shamatha within the stage of generation. Or, from this fifth stage of shamatha, you can proceed and achieve shamatha within vipashyana, or Mahamudra, or Dzogchen. These are techniques, but none of them says - just skip shamatha! Meditation is silent (not recorded). ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2022 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 3, 26 Apr 2022, Online from Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, USA
Today’s teachings are a majestic exposition of Pratityasamutpada (dependent origination), the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, as the logical line of reasoning in the lead up to the teachings of the second turning of the wheel on emptiness. The entire session is in fact a profoundly multifaceted meditation, involving philosophical and scientific argumentation, meant to ‘countersink the nail’ of our understanding into the existence of natural phenomena, matter and mind alike, from subatomic particles to galaxies, sentient beings and causality of mental events. “The King of Reasoning”, this brilliant, unprecedented empirical and theoretical view on reality unique to Buddhism, exposits how all phenomena are empty of inherent existence precisely because they are dependently-related events. It lays the foundation for understanding the teachings of the third turning, distinctive to the Dzogchen View, and without this basis we cannot practice the Stages of generation and completion in a meaningful and authentic way either. Meditation in Dzogchen is nothing other than sustaining of the View, which will be presented in Phase 5 of the Vajra Essence. Lama-la concludes Buddha’s teachings on the applications of mindfulness to the mind (Satipatthana Sutta) with an extensive explanation on the two aspects of the mind: javana (likened to ‘kinetic energy’ of the mind) and bhavanga (the luminous space of the mind) wherein lies the potential energy which stores all habitual propensities. There are three fundamental ways in which phenomena arise: 1. Causality. There are always two types of causes at play: appropriative causes and contributing conditions, which interaction is explained, and a few mental and physical examples are given. No events can emerge from nothing or transform into nothing, as well as not one cause can be singular for the occurrence of an event. 2. Constituent parts 3. Conceptual designation. There is no meditation with this teaching, or the entire teaching is a meditation.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 02 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Before the meditation, Alan comments on the uniqueness of the contemplative practice. He refers again to Kurt Danziger’s article (link available in Retreat Notes), explaining why introspection was largely abandoned by 20th century psychology. According to Alan, eliminating introspection is comparable to astronomers no longer wanting to look at the sky. One of the reasons introspection was considered a failure was the so called “leading the witness” bias. It was due to the fact that researchers did not perform introspection themselves but left it to untrained subjects who were prone to be influenced in their reports by what the researchers wanted to hear. Alan points out that in vipashyana meditation we often know what the “right” answer is. We are given the object of negation and then seek to see if it really exists. It may be considered “leading the witness”. However, just knowing the answer does not liberate the mind. Contemplative practice does. Here Alan speaks of his mission to promote contemplative inquiry and his hope to see the first revolution of the mind sciences. Also: a revival of contemplative inquiry in other traditions, in Christianity, Taoism etc. Next, Alan remarks that there is no parallel to this kind of investigation in the West. He shows that contemplative inquiry is neither like religion nor like science. It does not fit into either category, although contains elements of both. In Christianity faith is crucial. One is given a set of truths to believe in and it is only in the afterlife that one may expect to ascertain them. In education (science) one is also presented with right answers. If students perform tests it is just to confirm what is already known. Only in cutting-edge research scientists look for hitherto unknown evidence. They have working hypotheses but their investigation needs to be objective and unbiased. But does this knowledge transform the knower? Does it liberate and purify the mind? - asks Alan. In this, contemplative inquiry is unique. It shifts the nature of the observer. All this information, all this transmission that we receive here is like a finger pointing to the moon, aiming at transforming the observer, leading him or her well beyond that finger. These teachings may be seen as “leading the witness” because they are helping us to see what others have seen in the past but their aim is to transform us, purify, awaken and liberate us. For this, faith is needed, but it should be faith balanced with intelligence. Next, Alan gives us a “sneak preview” of the meditation. It is a guided meditation in which instructions are given by Samanthabhadra manifesting as Lake Born Vajra Padmasambhava (based on “The Enlightened View of Samanthabhadra” by Dudjom Lingpa). First, Padmasambhava invites us to identify the agent. We all carry a conate false sense of identity. This is why the place to start is to examine “how do I exist?”. Who is the person I conceive of as “me”? Who fell asleep last night and who woke up this morning? Was it the same person? That being - where did it come from, where is it now and where will it cease? Such investigation, such knowing transforms, awakens and liberates the knower - says Alan. The meditation is on the emptiness of the mind. After the meditation Alan comments briefly on the custom of greeting one another with folded hands and a bow. It comes from the Zen tradition and is very meaningful, because it signifies acknowledging the buddha nature of the other person or any sentient being. In the Indo-Tibetan tradition there is pure vision in which, similarly, one sees through the outer appearances to the inner purity of another being. Alan remarks that this is the way His Holiness the Dalai Lama views everybody and in this way is able to draw the best out of them. Next, Alan continues reading the essay from the collection he translated recently (to be published in the near future by Wisdom Publications) in which the author seeks to make the practice methods from Nyingma Dzogchen and Kagyu Mahamudra compatible with and accessible to the Gelug school. One of the main points to which Alan draws our particular attention is the strategy to realise emptiness of all phenomena through realising the emptiness of the mind. First one needs to establish the mind as primary (the all-creating monarch), then see it as immaterial, and then realise it has no origin, no location and no destination. For a person of sharp faculties this may be enough to realise the emptiness of all phenomena. It is like the vulnerable spot of the Death Star - says Alan (who, as we may have guessed by now, is a Star Wars fan) - it may be enough to hit it with a dart… In conclusion of today’s session, Alan reflects on the often encountered phrase “person with superior faculties”. He recalls how he has always waited for the instructions for “persons with dull faculties”. But we may often feel we do not possess even the “dullest” faculties. So what shall we do? To encourage us, Alan quotes Dudjom Lingpa’s “Vajra Essence” where it is said that only those who have accumulated sufficient merit will encounter the sublime teachings of Dzogchen. So if you are listening to these teachings and they resonate with you and you feel drawn to them, it is not by accident. It means that you already have a lot of momentum. Dudjom Lingpa lists six prerequisites for the practice: belief in Dharma and your guru, trust in the path, awareness of death & renunciation, contentment, insatiability for Dharma and integration of life and Dharma, without complaining. If you have these and you have strong faith and belief - you can realise rigpa in this lifetime. Enough with the afflictive uncertainty - says Alan - it is time to practice! The meditation starts at 25:15 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 31 Aug 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Alan begins the session by presenting the 2nd and 3rd marks of existence. In the 2nd mark of existence, dukkha can be understood to mean the unsatisfactory nature of looking at any experience and thinking, „This will make me happy.“ The 3rd mark of existence: all phenomena are empty and non-self. This means that „me“ and „mine“ are conceptual designations empty of intrinsic entity (=self).
Meditation: mindfulness of the body focusing on the 3rd mark of existence emptiness and non-self. Use discerning mindfulness on each of the following sense domains in turn: 1) visual, 2) auditory, 3) tactile, and 4) all 5 senses. Ask: 1) is any appearance „yours“ or „you“?, and 2) do you have any control over appearances arising?
Q1. When I focus on the breath, it gets tight and uneasy. Why and what can I do about it?
Q2. Within the course of a single session, is it possible to shift from mindfulness of breathing at the abdomen to the nostrils, or vice versa?
Q3. It’s difficult for me to feel sensations of the breath at the upper lip, so I force a stronger breath to make it perceptible. Once I lay off, it becomes imperceptible again. What should I do?
Q4. Is there a gradient of conceptualization? (cont. from 120830)
Q5. How many people have attained shamatha in this century?
Q6. How long does it take for people of varying faculties to attain shamatha?
Q7. What makes thoughts and images in the mind appear seemingly out of nowhere?
Q8. During meditation, random and sometimes disturbing thoughts arise. Where do they come from?
Meditation starts at 21:00
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 03 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1. Alan revisits the 4th immeasurable equanimity. The Pali canon emphasizes a sense of imperturbability or emotional balance. In this spirit, Alan reads a section from Dudjom Lingpa’s Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra. Hoping for and clinging to things regarded as good and fearing things regarded as bad will lead to misery and suffering. Whatever joys and sorrows arise, these are mere appearances which are not to be blocked. Just stop reifying—i.e., the feeling of joy or sorrow and its causes. The mind that reifies appearances is the root that needs to be blocked.
Meditation. Equanimity with suffering in the past, present, and future. 1) Direct your attention to a situation in your own past which you found very difficult and led to suffering. Can you distinguish between the event that arose to meet you and your response to that event? If there is suffering, you identified an event as bad. Can you observe phenomena as phenomena and distinguish that from your designation? The basis is empty of your conceptual designation. The feeling of suffering is also an empty appearance. In all adversity, as an active participant, you designated something as bad and experienced suffering as a result. 2) Is there anything here and now that troubles you? What is the basis for your designation? See the emptiness of both the basis and your designation. Once you withdraw reification, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and there is neither benefit nor harm. 3) Is there anything in the future you dread? What is the object that you fear or find unpleasant? Is your unhappiness lodged out there in the object? The object doesn’t exist at all, nor does the unhappiness. No more substantial than a mirage, they are all empty appearances arising and dissolving in space.
Teaching pt2. Once hopes and fears are released, the mind settles in the center. In the center, there is neither pleasure nor pain, but a sense of equanimity. Beware of falling into dullness and indifference. Maintain lucidity while resting in the center, and it dissolves into a well-spring of bliss.
Meditation starts at 15:00
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 12 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
After two weeks in which we have seen a crescendo that culminated in aspirational and engaged bodhicitta, everything else now may seem an anticlimax. Actually this is the beginning. We arouse bodhicitta until it arises spontaneously. Within the framework of the Buddhist teachings on the primary mind & mental factors, bodhicitta is considered primary mind, it is core (the primary mind becomes bodhicitta). It is the motivation that can satisfy our eternal longing, it is the core meeting the core. When your mind becomes bodhicitta, that is the undercurrent even while you are resting, you are walking, when you are doing all sorts of activities. Sometimes it is obscured by mental afflictions that come and go, but once you have entered this flow of bodhicitta, even when resting you accumulate merit, according to Shantideva. When it is uncontrived, the slightest event will immediately trigger the bodhicitta, thereby becoming manifest. At this level you are a bodhisattva. The first stage is called earth-like bodhicitta on the Mahayana path of accumulation. Now, how do you make this bodhicitta irreversible? We need wisdom that will protect your bodhicitta. Specifically it is the kind of wisdom explicitly referenced in The Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṅkāra), by Maitreya. In order to get to the second stage of the Mahayana path of accumulation we need the four close applications of mindfulness. In order to be effective in our cultivation of bodhicitta, we begin where it’s easier, with loving kindness for ourselves, and then we move on to a very dear one, a more casual friend and then to people we have more difficulties with. Alan states that we can find a similar strategy in the teachings of Natural Liberation revealed by Padmasambhava, with regards to shamatha. There we begin by looking at an object like a pebble or a stick and then we move on till doing awareness of awareness. So it is from coarse to subtle. When it comes to cultivating vipashyana, there are good reasons to go back to the four close applications of mindfulness, especially emphasised in the Theravada tradition. In this way we start where we live, and this strategy can make an impact on our mental afflictions. Also here we can see that the approach is from coarse to subtle. In this way we can start to cultivate insight (wisdom) which can protect, guard our bodhicitta, as if we were crossing from the small to the medium stage of the Mahayana path of accumulation. The meditation is on the close application of mindfulness to the body. After meditation, Alan expands on the importance of realizing not only the identitylessness of persons, but also the identitylessness of all phenomena. The latter is the indispensable basis for an effective practice of Vajrayana, together with renunciation and bodhicitta. Then he continues the oral transmission of the Panchen Lama’s text - we are now venturing into the section on sutra mahamudra. Meditation starts at 23:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 29 Apr 2021, Online-only
Lama Alan provides commentary on the text from the first full paragraph of p. 94 to the first full paragraph of p. 95. He teaches that through cutting through to pristine awareness, we stop viewing displays of pristine awareness as the mind and its objects. Lama la refers to the first three turnings of the wheel of dharma and says that through vipasyana and the four applications of mindfulness we come to know who we are not. Through Dzogchen, we come to know who we are. If we view all phenomena from the perspective of a sentient being’s mind, even though we are looking right at pristine awareness, we only see the ordinary mental awareness of a sentient being, which is impure. When people witness impure appearances, they claim they are objectively real, as if there is no choice. Yet impure appearances are not intrinsically existent, they are not out there. Objective appearances are always relational. We can choose not to downgrade appearances from pure to impure by shifting perspective. By cutting through the dualistic mind, we can choose an alternate reality. We can recognise dualistic perception as a mistake and reject delusive clinging. We can realise identitylessness. Appearances and entities arise as creative expressions of our own pristine awareness and are of one taste. We are a Buddha from that perspective. At that moment we ascertain the ground as great objectless openness. This is the essential nature of meditation. From the perspective of pristine awareness, the omniscient mind is neither existent nor non-existent. But this mind conceived by sentient beings is an object of dualistic grasping – it exists but is empty of inherent nature. The meditation starts at 01:00:08 with closely applying mindfulness to your body and mind – they are not you or yours, probing deeply to cut through to your actual identity.
Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga, 26 Aug 2014, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
The Tibeten term ‘nyam’ has no similar term in English. It is a class of experience that is part of the journey. Alan described a nyam as “an anomalous, transient, psychosomatic experience that is catalyzed by authentic meditative experience” and went on to describe various nyam that have arisen or may arise. You cannot tell what kind of nyam may arise, no one has plain sailing. The point is to be with it and not reify it, and the analogy to a lucid dream was given (when you are non lucid in a dream you reify it as being real). Recognize it for what it is. In the second part of the session, Alan continued the reading from Dudjom Lingpa’s “The Vajra Essence” on the bardo of living, and providing a commentary that ranged from Milarepa, to lucid dreaming, shopping ’til you drop to the great transference rainbow body and everything in between. One question was asked - on moving from the desire to form realm on the breath This session began with a silent meditation that is not included in this podcast
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 10 Apr 2020, Online-only
Death and Impermanence
Outer preliminaries for Dzogchen from Lama Alan, 10 Apr 2020, Online - Originally part of 2020 8-week retreat
10 Apr 2020 Death and Impermanence
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 22 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
To introduce the essence of Buddha nature, Alan reads and explains the final parable of the chapter “An Introduction to Parables and Their Meanings” from page 94 to 96 of Naked Awareness. There is an analogy between Buddha mind and our mind: like the essence of gold is immutable, even if you can melt it and mould it into many different forms, similarly the essence of our mind is immutable all along, while we wander in the cycle of existence. If the essence of our spiritual awakening were not present in our mind-stream, the fruition of spiritual awakening would not be possible. Once we know this, there are 3 steps to be taken to enter into the practice: first hear the teachings. But the mere acquisition of knowledge alone will not suffice, it will not purify or transform your mind. The second phase is to contemplate the teachings and try to understand their meaning. This pondering on the teachings may give rise to a mere theoretical or intellectual understanding which cannot truly eradicate the source of suffering. Therefore the third step to be taken is meditation. By doing this practice, meditative experiences will arise, and at the beginning they will be sporadic intuitions and they will easily fade away. By continuing the practice there will be a deepening of our previous experiences and meditative realisations will arise. These first realisations are defined “togpa” and they still may fade away. However here you know you have nailed your previous understanding and by continuing the practice these realisations will be nailed down even deeper and they will become “den-togpa “, and you will have identified with certainty your own mind itself as the Dharmakaya. Meditation is on ultimate and relative bodhicitta and begins at 26:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 12 Apr 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan addresses the phrase in the text where the Lake Born Vajra asks Boundless Great Emptiness “Tell me among body, speech and mind which is the immutable, autonomous sovereign, the one in charge, sovereign, king, queen?” Lama la says the question goes to the issue of the misguided apprehension of ourselves. He refers to 3 ways of grasping at the “I” as inherently existing. Two that we are born with (independently of conceptual and verbal designation, first, the most subtle, not body or mind, me; and second, me as autonomous and substantial, distinct and in charge). The third that we learn (the same old single entity me, unchanging, that will still be me in the afterlife even if reincarnated as an animal, like a “mind transplant”). Lama Alan says the question who is the immutable, autonomous sovereign, the one in charge is answered with Vipashyana practice. To discover that the mind is agent/primary and that it is not immutable/unchanging. It is also not autonomous. Meditation starts at 16.03. Lama Alan says mind is not a function of the brain (body). That Buddhists believe conditioned phenomena always arise upon 2 causes – substantial causes and co-operative conditions. And that this is completely compatible with 20 and 21 st Century physics (the Conservation Principle, the General Theory of Relativity, Quantum Theory and Quantum Mechanics). He says that there are 3 known fundamental elements in the natural world. Matter/energy, space/time and consciousness. They influence each other but do not transform into one another or transform into or come from nothing. So where does the human immaterial mind come from? Not nothing. Not the physical brain. Moments of consciousness transform into other moments. The brain influences (is conditioned by) the mind and vice versa. Lama la says that while he doesn’t know the first moment of the emergence of the mind in a human he is confident that it emerges from (non- human) substrate consciousness and that this substrate is what passes through the bardo. As to the matter of speech, Lama Alan says speech is merely an appearance to the mind and it does not exist independently of it. He further says that body, speech and mind are not separate and autonomous. They are all mind and all empty of inherent nature. He says that substantial causes are not inherently existing either (although they can be predictable). That while space, time and matter exist and have causal efficacy they don’t exist inherently. Consciousness also exists but not inherently. [Keywords: Body, Speech, Mind, Agent, Who is in Charge, Unchanging, Immutable, Substantial Causes, Co-operative Conditions, Consciousness, Autonomous, Physics, Conservation Principle, General Theory of Relativity, Quantum Theory, Quantum Mechanics]
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 21 May 2020, Online-only
Cultivation of Bodhisattva Precepts
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 04 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan says we will return to vipashyana territory, based on the current theme of the Panchen Rinpoche’s text on emptiness. Alan describes two technical terms central to Prasangika Madhyamika – the basis of designation (or imputation) and the designated (or imputed) object. He illustrates how each and any of our senses or mental activity can provide valid bases of designation (e.g. the body parts of someone), but that does not mean the designated object (e.g. a person named such and such) exists in the manner imputed. The foundational vipashyana practice of ‘in the seeing let there be just the seen’ is important to understanding that on the basis of the appearances we designate, impute or project upon the self or phenomena what wasn’t there already e.g. imputing permanence or something as a source of happiness. Alan frontloads the guided meditation first with a clarification on the difference in the practice of settling body, speech and mind for which the culmination is just coming to rest with no object, compared to the shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state, in which we attend to one of the six domains of experience (the mental domain) and then we take that all the way to the substrate. The forthcoming practice is to settle body, speech and mind and then taking the mind as the path, including the appearances arising and subjective impulses such as emotions. Alan says the practice will be to use the sharp knife of discerning intelligence so that whenever a sense of “I” arises relative to appearances or subjective impulses in the mind, see if you can identify the basis of designation and the self that is designated upon that. Doing only this is not delusional, but then the deeply ingrained tendency is to reify that which we designated. This really strikes home when we make judgements about other people as in Alan’s amusing example from today’s news of the likely Republican Presidential candidate. The reification that we do is not just an abstract activity – it is the root of all 84,000 primary and secondary mental afflictions. All afflictions are launched and have power via the delusion of reification. The meditation practice is to shine a bright light on how we impute and reify self and phenomena. Following meditation practice Alan relates the story of Milarepa and the 5 demons. We then resume the transmission and discussion of the Panchen Rinpoche’s text. Meditation starts at 21:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2021 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 2, 04 Apr 2021, Online-only
This morning’s session begins with the meditation practice of Resting in awareness, observing thoughts as if from afar, at 00:01:00. Like a cow-herder, who keeps a watchful eye from afar, by observing the movements of the mind in this way, by being fully present with them, illuminating them, clearly knowing them, then we do not identify with them, or merge with them. Lama Alan reminds us that every moment that we are able to sustain this balance of simultaneously being aware of the stillness of our awareness and the movements of our minds, ‘We are stepping onto the path of awakening, cultivating the habit of sustained awareness’. Before returning to the text, Lama provides a preface that while Phase 1 focused on insights into the emptiness of the nature of the mind, and the awareness with which one observes the coarse mind, in Phase 2, with achieving samatha, one cuts through the conditioned mind of the substrate consciousness to the unconditioned mind, and investigates the mind’s existence - its origin, location and destination. Having then entered the Dzogchen path, Lama emphasizes that now, this whole Phase 3 is devoted to very detailed explanations and clarifications of emptiness; viewing reality from the perspective of dharmata (emptiness). Having gone beyond taking the impure mind as the path, we are now investigating the emptiness of all phenomena. Lama then returns to the text that focuses on emptiness, and that all phenomena are indeterminate. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama likes to point out, quantum mechanics identifies that there are no phenomena really out there with a particular location or velocity. While Lama Alan warns of the potential risk here of falling into nihilism, he underlines Atisha’s words to “view phenomena as if they were dreams”. In conclusion, Lama points out how the Lake-Born Vajra illustrates that whether it be virtuous or non-virtuous deeds, gods or demons, friends or foes, all phenomena are indeterminate and non-local, and therefore merely empty appearances which can neither afflict harm or bring happiness. We are reminded therefore, not to look outside of ourselves for either the source of our happiness or the cause of our suffering.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 04 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Alan uses rats as an analogy for thoughts. When a cat (mindfulness) is present, rats (thoughts) stay away. During the bubonic plague, rats (thoughts) carried fleas (disturbing emotions) which carried the bacterial infection (e.g., depression or anxiety). Therefore, we need to treat rumination as public enemy #1. According to Tsongkhapa, we must complete eliminate rumination in order to achieve shamatha.
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing method of your choice. For each breath cycle, arouse attention at in breath to counter laxity, and relax at out breath to counter excitation. In this way, refine your attention and dispel rumination. Breathe effortlesly as in deep sleep.
Meditation starts: 9:27
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 05 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan begins with a commentary on the four immeasurables that ended yesterday with the meditative cultivation of equanimity, and explains how we are now left on an even open field which is in many ways the culmination of the monastic ideal. One has now stepped out of the realm of likes and dislikes and into the realm of evenly distributed warmth, kindness and compassion. This serves as the basis for crossing the threshold into the Mahayana, where this equality extends into the equality of self and other. Here we venture into what Alan calls "the Four Greats", starting with maha karuna - Great Compassion. When we move from the four "Immeasurables" to the four "Greats", we move from aspiration to intention. Alan starts with maha karuna because this practice is very much emphasised in the Mahayana tradition, and when someone is suffering this is where we start. First we relieve the suffering, and then we can look to the vision of happiness. Maha karuna, if logically followed, can only lead to Bodhicitta. Before the meditation Alan unpacks the four-fold maha karuna liturgy. 1. Why couldn't all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering? 2. May it be so. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. 3. I shall free all beings from suffering and the causes of suffering. 4. May the guru and the divine (Buddhas) grant the blessings to enable me to do so. Meditation is on Great Compassion following the four-fold liturgy. After the meditation Alan starts with a quote from St.Thomas Aquinas. "The whole point of of the political life is the contemplative life." He expounds on this briefly as meaning broadly that the whole purpose of the hedonia is for eudaimonia. Then he returns to the chapter on Refuge and Bodhicitta at the top of page 33. He then proceeds through to the rest of the chapter with explanations. Among other things, he highlights the fact that Bodhicitta is the most powerful way to accrue merit, and he also quotes the Vajra Essence which affirms that when you've identified rigpa, it doesn't matter how extremely bad or good you've been in the past: now you have an unmediated realisation of rigpa and that is what matters from that point on. Finishing the chapter, Alan leaves us with the fact that Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche told one of his students that if one isn't inclined to do the preliminary practices of 100,000 prostrations and so forth, he recommends to practice shamatha, the four applications of mindfulness and the four immeasurables. The meditation starts at 32:52 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 19 Apr 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Lama Alan begins this session by concluding his comments on the distinction between mind and pristine awareness. Then he gives an explanation of a very meaningful quote from an alternate edition of the text by Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok: “you seek the path that merely elicits the upheavals of pleasure and pain that are produced when you correct, modify, accept, and reject with cognition and mentation”; emphasizing that it is the very act of “appropriating the movements of the mind”, what triggers unpleasant experiences in the body and psychological upheavals. He explains how being totally present, non-conceptually and without appropriating whatever mental afflictions may come up, can be a skillful way to avoid obstacles and how this is the basis for all subsequent Samadhis for example during the stage of generation, stage of completion, trekchö and tögal. Lama Alan proceeds commenting on the importance of having some preliminary insight about the empty nature of all phenomena, including the mind for progressing in the path of taking the mind as a path because this insight avoids reification of one's own mind. He further explains that when the Lake-Born-Vajra describes the mind, he speaks to our intelligence and when he describes pristine awareness by way of pointing out instructions, he speaks directly to our own pristine awareness and in that way he brings our attention to the importance of empirical investigation and intuition. Lama Alan then reviews how by taking consciousness as a path one can realize the empty, non-dual nature of reality and see all phenomena as creative manifestations of Dharmakaya and how similar concepts are present in many different spiritual traditions. The meditation starts at 39:06 and is on settling the respiration all the way to tasting pristine awareness. After the meditation Lama la continues explaining the distinction between mentation and wisdom and how subtle mentation precedes all phenomena and corresponds to the ethically neutral basis for samsara without transcending it. He explains why subtle mentation is the very basis of meditation and how this Samadhi can propel one to subtler dimensions of reality without leading to liberation, thereby warning us that many dedicated practitioners in the past may have mistaken substrate consciousness for pristine awareness.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 01 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan starts highlighting the deep similarities between the approach to Mindfulness of Breathing taught by Asanga and a practice many of us are familiar with, Settling the Mind in its Natural State. We will do this practice later in a few days, but briefly, in this practice, we single-pointedly focus our attention on the space of the mind and sustain the flow of mindfulness "without distraction and without grasping". Yangthang Rinpoche, great master and great adept, explained this phrase: "without distraction" refers to not getting distracted by any external appearances, away from the meditative object; "without grasping" refers to not identifying with any subjective processes like thinking, imagining, desiring and so on. For that, we first have to be relaxed down to the core – existentially relaxed. Then, enhancing stability and clarity, imbued with loving kindness, we watch our minds heal. Alan realized vividly that, in this Asanga practice of Mindfulness of Breathing, the same is happening in the body. We bring the same quality of awareness – without distraction, without grasping – cultivating the simultaneity of stillness of awareness and motion - fluctuations of prana in the body. The body balances itself, from breath to breath, from coarse breath to subtle breath, coarse tuning to fine tuning. And if we sustain this practice enough, when we achieve shamatha, then we finally upgrade the whole system. The meditation is on Mindfulness of Breathing combined with the theme of stillness and motion. In this practice we cultivate the simultaneity of stillness and motion: the awareness of stillness of your awareness and the motion of the fluctuations of prana within your body, from breath to breath. Same quality of awareness, different field. Meditation starts at 13:45 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2023 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 4, 05 May 2023, Crestone, Colorado and Online
Today we are celebrating Duekhor Duchen, the Commemoration of Buddha Shakyamuni’s Teaching of the Khalachakra Tantra, and Lama-la gives a short history of its significance in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. Another event today is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated in parts of Mexico and the United States in honour of the Battle of Puebla, a victory of a small army of Mexican people over the French forces of Napoleon III in 1862. Lama-la explains how this event might have triggered a further crucial sequence of events that followed in history. A request was made for oral transmission of the three texts that Lama-la composed recently, and he decided to offer them with commentary in the following week of this retreat. A request for the oral transmission of the section in the text on tögal will not be granted, as it would not be beneficial to us at this stage. A question is asked regarding the awareness of a tenth stage arya bodhisattva of his level of realization. There is no way to assess, for the mere absence of mental afflictions is not a reliable indicator. The process of transformation is one of kenosis. Lama-la recounts the tribulations and existential crisis of Shakyamuni Buddha on his path to Enlightenment. A tulku has still a lot of work to do from the ground up, despite his karmic momentum. And as there are obscurations present due to the physical embodiment, the speed of progress is not predictable. Another question pertains to unusual appearances and visual experiences arising in meditation; they are nyam, we let them be. A final discussion pertains to rocking oneself when listening to the teachings. Indeed this can be helpful, as it may assist cognitive concentration.
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 11 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan addresses the theme of continuity which is essential for the path. In our shamatha practice we may often wonder if we are doing the practice right. Alan points out that the answer lies in whether we are staying in the ongoing flow of cognisance. As we move from coarse mind to subtle mind it is crucial not to lose cognisance (which is what happens when we fall asleep) but to sustain the flow of knowing and not infuse it with a conceptual framework. This is continuity in the formal practice. When doing shamatha we are seeking to put both the body and the coarse mind to sleep. This is similar to falling asleep. The difference is sustaining the flow of cognisance. Next, Alan explains that the tactile sensations are not taking place in the physical space. Likewise, the visual appearances are not out there, in the molecules or in the air. The colours and shapes are not out there and not inside the brain either. Photons do not come in colour. Alan stresses especially that the qualia, the appearances are not inside the brain and not in any physical space. The same goes for tactile sensations which are what we attend to in the practice of mindfulness of breathing. They are present in the dhatu, the space of awareness. Alan explains that the point of continuity in our practice is taking appearances and awareness as the path. Specifically appearances that arise in the mind. Alan remarks that the majority of us still spend most of the time outside formal meditation. In order to help us maintain continuity between the sessions, Alan introduces a shift in the way of viewing reality. In-between sessions we should bear in mind that all appearances that we are seeing arise in the space of our own awareness. In this way, Alan invites us to see the reality as illusion-like, i.e. to maintain an ongoing view of all appearances perceived by the six senses as arising in the space of our own awareness. These appearances are dream-like, because just like in a dream they seem to be really out there whereas in fact they arise in the space of awareness. Alan stresses at this point that we are of course not negating the existence of real people etc. What is being challenged here is naive realism - the belief that things exist the way they appear to us. For example when we view someone as kind, intelligent etc. we should be aware that this is only our perception of this person, not the way this person exists in reality. To conclude, Alan observes that we are now venturing into the field of dream yoga. During formal sessions we cut off outer perceptions, we go into retreat, as if trying to fall into a lucid deep sleep. Between sessions, on the other hand, we are open to appearances arising but view them as dream-like, which he likens to practicing daytime dream yoga. After the meditation, in conclusion, Alan uses the symbolism of yin and yang to describe the two elements - dark and light - that should complement each other in our practice. Sessions which seem very quiet (dark) need to be complemented by the light of awareness whereas during sessions in which our mind is agitated we need stillness. Similarly, outside the formal sessions, when many appearances arise we need to maintain stillness. Thus we go into the dark with the light of awareness and stay in the light with the dark of stillness. Meditation is silent (not recorded). ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 06 May 2020, Online-only
In this session Lama Alan returns to the practice of taking the mind as the path with emphasis on "easing into the practice" with the relaxation cultivated in the various methods of mindfulness of breathing. Lama Alan emphasizes the importance of beginning with this profound relaxation as we attempt to cultivate greater and greater clarity and acuity of awareness in observing the mind. Lama Alan highlights the fact that this relaxation is not merely a "technique," but is actually in its truest form a profound existential ease and surrender. For the meditation, Lama Alan guides us through Yangthang Rinpoche's pointing out instructions on how to realize the relative essential nature of the mind through taking the mind as the path. The meditation on Yangthang Rinpoche's instructions on taking the mind as the path begins at 9:10. After the meditation, Lama Alan returns to the text on pp. 26 to continue with the Lake-Born Vajra's teachings on the final stages of taking the mind as the path. At this point in the text, the Lake-Born Vajra has come to the phase of practice in which the seasoned practitioner has become deeply fortified in awareness with a sense that no appearances can harm the mind. After this, the text describes ways of going astray by fixating on visions of gods and demons, or hopes and fears, or overestimating spiritual experiences as deeper realizations than they actually are. On this point, Lama Alan comments that normally we do tend to overestimate our experiences, and that for this reason it is very important to have a qualified teacher with whom you can discuss your experience. Lama Alan also comments, based on the text, that even when we first gain an insight into the nature of rigpa, it will be with the conceptual mind, and will be somewhat veiled. Therefore, in order for such experiences not to simply become fond memories, it is crucial to continue in the practice and further stabilize awareness until stability is achieved and one nondually realizes pristine awareness and the emptiness of one's own mind. In this vein, the Lake-Born Vajra and Lama Alan drives home the point throughout the rest of the session that until we fully realize pristine awareness in this way, all of our meditative experiences are just experiences and should not be clung to with hope and fear. Furthermore, in his commentary on the Lake-Born Vajra's answer to the question of why we should meditate if all meditative experiences are delusive, Lama Alan points to the great importance of truly stabilizing the mind through shamatha if one wishes to proceed along the higher stages of the path. He explains that doing this difficult groundwork of truly making the mind and subtle body serviceable, one can save a lot of time that could be wasted if one tries to skip this phase of practice by proceeding to more "advanced" or "profound" practices. He explains that this stability of mind that the Lake-Born Vajra describes is the basis for truly accomplishing all of the higher practices and that it is well worth all the difficulties that may arise.
2020 8-Week Retreat: The Vajra Essence – Part 1, 08 May 2020, Online-only
Lama Alan starts saying that in times of great suffering is even more necessary that there are people emanating the light of their own awakening, in this very lifetime. This is why it is so important to create environments – like the one in Crestone, Colorado – in which yogis can achieve realizations like the one taught by Padmasambhava in this text and manifest the full human potential. The second phase of The Vajra Essence teaches how to cut through and realize Pristine Awareness. In this phase, Lama says, you might wonder: “Where are the pointing-out instructions?” But this is not the only way to cut through. Lama Alan exemplifies the multiplicity of ways to achieve realization with the example of Je Tsongkhapa, who realized emptiness while reading a text by Buddhapalita. In the same way, while studying and taking refuge in The Vajra Essence, the text itself is the speech embodiment of Padmasambhava. The text itself can be the Lake-Born Vajra right in front of us. Asking for the origin, location, and destination of the mind might be sufficient to realize the emptiness of essential nature of the mind and even that it transcends the categories of existence and non-existence, to cut through the substrate consciousness. So the pointing-out instructions have already been granted. And even if you don’t cut through to pristine awareness, like the ones with superior faculties do, the three-missile assault on connate delusion at least helps to realize the emptiness of origin, location, and destination of everything that the mind throws at us. That has a protective power, is a vajra armor. Meditation is “Padmasambhava’s Guidance” and starts at 29:25. Keywords: pointing-out instructions, Padmasambhava
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 12 May 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
We started the session with a quick review of the four types of mindfulness, with Alan mentioning that usually, for the untrained mind, there’s not even the capacity to distinguish between stillness and motion, with cognitive fusion with movements of mind occurring as a most common experience. Alan then did a review of the four types of mindfulness that we will experience as we embark on the practice of taking the mind as the path: (1) single-pointed mindfulness (which allows us to simultaneously be aware of stillness and motion of the movements of the mind, preventing cognitive fusion), (2) manifest mindfulness (where our practice gets simultaneously subtler, and implies less and less effort – stages 4 to 9 of the shamatha path), (3) absence of mindfulness (where we become aware of only the sheer vacuity of the mind, with both the mental factor of mindfulness and the five senses, going dormant) and lastly (4) self-illuminating mindfulness (where we focus awareness on the space of the mind itself, finally identifying the conventional nature of our mind). In the last point mentioned before the meditation, Alan returned to the familiar theme of the three higher trainings (ethics, samadhi and wisdom), with comments elaborating on the fact that each of these really manifests greater benefit when used for the purpose they were originally designed, and by the mentioned sequence. After the meditation, we returned to the Panchen Lama text, resuming the oral commentary, having covered material from stanza 43 of the follow up section of the text, to stanza 45. The meditation, which was a vipashyana practice on searching for the true nature of the mind, begins at 40:00 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 19 Sep 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching: Continuing from Asanga’s Shravakabhumi, Alan introduces the second thorough training by way of the aggregates. Asanga begins by explaining the characteristics of achieving shamatha—i.e., 1) pliancy in the mind, 2) pliancy in the body, and 3) single-pointedness taking delight in the object. Having achieved shamatha, we return to the desire realm in an expedition to gain insight into the five aggregates: 1) form in terms of mindfulness of breathing, 2) feelings (positive/negative/neutral) arising with the mindfulness of breathing, 3) recognition associated with the mindfulness of breathing, 4) volition associated with the intention to sustain mindfulness of breathing, and 5) mind as composite.
Meditation: mindfulness of breathing followed by mindfulness of phenomena (aggregates). In the first half of the session, practice the mindfulness of breathing practice of your choice. In the second half... 1) know the domain of the body as aggregate of form, 2) recognize feeling associated with mindfulness of breathing, 3) recognize your recognition of the qualities of the breath, 4) recognize that volition which impels the practice, 5) direct attention to awareness itself amidst mindfulness of breathing. Open your eyes, and let awareness flood the 6 domains of experience, illuminating all 5 skandhas.
Q1. If my main practice is awareness of awareness, what should I do in between sessions?
Q2. In mindfulness of aggregates that we just did, do we practice mindfulness of breathing and mindfulness of the feelings associated with mindfulness of breathing? In the final instruction to expand awareness to the 5 sense domains, what exactly is the object?
Q3. Are aggregates and skandhas the same thing?
Q4. Some contents in the mind appear to be more obvious than others. Is this due to grasping?
Meditation starts at 30:05
Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen, 29 Apr 2016, Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, Italy
Alan starts by giving us a suggestion: for our whole life, from now until our enlightenment, we should evaluate our practice in a eudaimonic way - based on what we brought to the practice, on how we responded, and not based on what happened to us during the practice. An important point is that shamatha and vipashyana practices can be very dry, not sweet, not warm; so the more we can sweeten our practice with devotion, with four immeasurables the more balanced our practice will become. We have to bring the heart, the moisture, the warmth to our practice, anyway we can. It's really important. The teachings from Karma Chagmé, Panchen Rinpoche and Padmasambhava on vipashyana that Alan is presenting are intended for people who have achieved shamatha. In Natural Liberation, when Padmasambhava taught shamatha without a sign, he said: do this until your mind has settled in its natural state. And if you're introduced to rigpa prematurely, it may become an object of intellectual understanding and there is the danger of one may succumb to dogmatism. So, for people in full time retreat, what Alan suggests is continue to emphasize shamatha - keep on laying the foundation.The deeper the relaxation, the more sustainable will be the stability. Then we can start to cultivate vividness, for which there is no upper limit. The practice we've done this morning is not quite a vipashyana practice. We're not asking questions about or analyzing what we are seeing. It is a practice of shamatha without a sign. Next week, we'll study classic Gelugpa methods but rooted in Indian Buddhism on Panchen Rinpoche text where he cites Shantideva: if you don't see the target you don't know where to shoot the arrow. Based on this, when we're looking for a negation in our vipashyana practice, we should identify what is it that doesn't exist. Tsongkhapa says: identify that which is to be refuted. This morning we took a step in that direction following Padmasambhava; in Alan's words: "as you're inverting your awareness in upon your experience of being the agent, don't tell me what you don't see - the question is, what do you see?" Is there an agent? Sure there is an agent. What does come to mind? Then we can ask questions like - is that me? Is it an image of me? Is it a portrait of me? The meditation is a pointing out instruction of Padmasambhava, from Natural Liberation. But before meditation, Alan affirms: we don't postpone vipashyana because we haven't fully achieved shamatha. He gives us a meaningful parallel. Many years ago, when Alan was first learning of bodhicitta, he was daunted by it - aspire to become a perfect enlightened Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings throughout time and space? Then Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, his beloved teacher, gently said: "you're wrong! It's never too soon to start developing bodhicitta. Don't let your life slip by, you can die at any time." In a very similar way, in Düdjom Lingpa strategy, we examine the origin, location and destination of the mind, even before we start shamatha - we already sow the seeds for vipashyana. So we're sowing the seeds of vipashyana and bodhicitta from the beginning, and then we get back to the step by step work. The practice is not going to be easy. But we should take vipashyana as hot chili, just enough to spice our shamatha practice up a little bit. After the practice, Alan comments on it, emphasizing that we have to be able to identify what we are seeing when we direct our attention to our mind and who is directing the attention to the mind. Who is training the mind? Is there one mind or there are two minds? Is there one mind that trains and another one who is trained? Why don't we simply discard the trainee and keep the trainer? That would be the Buddha, right? Maybe there's only one mind. But when you say 'my mind is agitated', are you agitated too? So, is the mind one or more than one? Which answer to this question makes you feel more uncomfortable? Where are we getting here? The mind is not existent and not really non-existent; the mind is not one nor many; it doesn't really arise and it doesn't really cease; and it doesn't really come and it doesn't really go - Padmasambhava is trying to bring us to an awareness of the mind that transcends the extremes of conceptual constructs, viewing the mind from the perspective of rigpa and seeing the mind as empty of all extremes. Then, Alan goes back to Padmasambhava's later incarnation - Panchen Rinpoche - reading and commenting on the five 'ways to meditate by cutting through a basis or root to the mind' (The Main Path of the Victors page 8). Then he proceeds to the session 'Presenting having extracted the essence of those instructions', up to The King of Concentration Sutra excerpt. Meditation starts at 29:40, extracted from Natural Liberation - Engaging in the Search for the Mind (p.116). ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.
THE SCIENCE OF MIND, 15 Nov 2021, Online Retreat
The Science of Mind - Day Three, Session Two
Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness, 02 Oct 2012, Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand
Teaching pt1: Alan outlines the situation in the modern health system regarding mental disorders. There has been an explosion in brain research since the 1990s, and while knowledge of neuronal correlations has increased, drugs targeting psychiatric disorders haven’t become more effective. Although a multitude of anti-depressants have been produced for decades, a recent meta-analysis has shown that except for severe depression, most drugs work no better than placebo, albeit with worrisome side-effects, many of which are psychological. Neuroscientists work strictly within a materialistic paradigm of mind equals brain, yet have no actual proof that this is so, but are, nevertheless, determining the discourse around fundamental questions of mind, free choice, and human nature. The media just pass scientific findings to the general public without taking a critical stance. Pharmaceutical companies appear to function as drug cartels. Doctors deal the poisonous drugs to their patients. There is support from both government and insurance companies, who prefer to pay for drugs rather than psychotherapies. The consequences of this scenario are dire, and a new Protestant Revolution is needed.
Alan would like to elaborate on verses 88-92 of Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara. He covers verses 88-90. If suffering were inherently existent like a billiard ball, then you would only experience suffering and nothing else like joy. Like suffering, happiness is not inherent in places, people, or things.
Meditation: mindfulness of feelings. Rest in the luminous, clear nature of awareness, holding its own ground. Let awareness illuminate sensations and feelings in the space of the body. Examine feelings closely. Does pleasure/pain exist like an atom? Is feeling embedded in sensations? Is there a nucleus of feeling? Is it influenced by your observation? Is the feeling already there as pleasure/pain?
Teaching pt2: Meditation on emptiness leads to the Middle Way. For someone who is well prepared, realization of emptiness leads to compassion and bliss. For someone who is still self-centered, direct insight into emptiness can lead to grief and fear.
Meditation starts at: 01:06:08
