Spring 2012 Shamatha Retreat

Alan reviews the nature of mental suffering and the strategies for dealing with it in each of the three methods of Shamatha. Silent meditation 23:17 — 48:30. Also, a talk about the ease of retrieving Shamatha-related skills, though they may seem to deteriorate; the "best friends" of the four immeasurables; and our capacities for discursive meditations, including the "hired guns" of intelligence, imagination, creativity, and concentration.

Like an old friend, mindfulness of the sensations of the breath at the apertures of the nostrils, with its gentle undulations, makes us feel at home and flush with well-being. It is a marvelous compliment to the more stirring effects of settling the mind and awareness of awareness. Little is said about the practice before we begin. Q&A * In a beginningless universe, shouldn't all beings be enlightened? * Settling the mind in its natural state and multiple lucid dreamers. * Classic yidam practices, balancing with shamatha, and three-year retreats. * Maintaining shamatha. * A reality where Padmasambhava is born from a lotus.

Metta bhavana as taught by the Buddha. Silent meditation not included

Being mindful of the sensations of the breath at the abdomen can result in a eudaemonic contentment if we release craving for more stimulating pleasures, and simply enjoy watching our body unravel energetically. In this flow, we can progress to the fourth stage of shamatha. It can help our practice to retain the same contentment when we are off the meditation cushion, while bringing ourselves replete to the world. The substrate consciousness, a storehouse of memories and karmic seeds, does not appear brimming with these things when we can finally observe it upon achieving shamatha. Is it because these things are dormant? Or are they nonexistent from a relative perspective? In what way does the information of our mindstream persist? When we are able to rest in the pure cognizance of awareness do we know it to exist in its own right outside of any cognitive framework? Alan attends to these questions with glee.

The meditative cultivation of loving kindness as taught in the Visuddhimagga by Bhadantacariya Buddhaghosa. Silent meditation not included

With a new cycle we return to settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural states. In the Vajra Essence, Düdjom Lingpa intimates shamatha can be achieved simply by fully releasing the body, speech, and mind. When we remove all activity, our mind naturally gravitates into alignment, the pranas equalizing into the central channel. But in order to allow this a solid dharma practice alone is not sufficient; we must have a conducive environment, lifestyle, and community. This is especially true when going into a solitary shamatha retreat, which requires having few activities, pure ethics, a release of rumination, and importantly, having few desires and being content (to avoid living the parable of the elephant and the cat). Q&A * The four jhanas and the experiences to expect after attaining shamatha. * Comparing the bliss of shamatha with that of tummo. Meditation begins at 30:07 Q&A Begins at 1:09:01

We review loving-kindness' distant enemy, false facsimile, proximate cause, and sign of success. What is your vision of your own flourishing? Silent meditation begins at 8:55

Tonight we plunge right into the practice of awareness of awareness, with the variant of stretching in four directions. Then we discuss the value of familiarizing oneself with awareness, as a portal to the greater depths of wisdom and virtue. Q&A * Cognition fused with dullness in settling the mind in its natural state. * Are the Buddha's teachings that resulted in spontaneous nirvana related to taking the result as the path? * Could there be a benefit to inducing fainting safely? * The method of probing in awareness of awareness. * Dredging the psyche in awareness of awareness. * The briefest moments of experience in awareness of awareness. * Aversion to giving attention and the need for forbearance.

Might it be that when our resolve is to realize genuine happiness for the sake of all beings we may have confidence and trust that reality rises up to meet us day by day moment by moment? Meditation starts at 31:23

Mindfulness of breathing, a active developmental practice, produces skills such as attentional stability which can be said to have a high market value. Likewise, settling the mind in its natural state helps develop such evolutionarily advantageous qualities as the skill to recognize emotional refractory periods. Awareness of awareness, conversely, in its passive method of discovery, has zero hedonic value. What is does provide, with its insight into the substrate consciousness, is a preparation that is useful in confronting death. The core of awareness of awareness is releasing all that is identified with "I" and "mine," as one probes inward beyond the layers that are eliminated at the end of life. Q&A * The role of introspection in awareness of awareness. * The value of seeking the agent. * What is the locality of awareness? * When body energy arises. Meditation starts at 38:53

Alan elaborates on the leading question: "Why couldn't we all be free of attachment and aversion for those who are near or far?" Because we are not free of the underlying delusion, that gives rise to craving and hostility. Meditation starts at 07:04

Three methods of escape when the mind is agitated: send your awareness out into the somatic field, out further into the world of exterior senses, or penetrate inward, deep into our sense of awareness. This evening we practice awareness of awareness and watch closely the tentacles of grasping, the identification with some appearance of the agent within. Q&A * Managing feelings of ill-will. * How siddhis arise upon achieving shamatha. * The degree to which karma influences psyche. * Recommending meditation to those with PTSD. * When we lack the talent to write the book of our life. * Talking with dead people. Meditation begins at 7:40 Q&A begins at 39:22

We are invited to ask ourselves a question... How does one integrate vastly deepening bliss, on one hand, with increasingly boundless awareness of all beings' suffering on the other hand...? Meditation starts at 5:22

With awareness of awareness, the body and speech are settled normally while the mind is given a complete reboot: all concerns are released, attention from all phenomenon is revoked, then that which remains will dawn. We're given the metaphors of the sailor's raven and the dueling swordsman. Then the three types of knowledge and their relationship to the qualities of the substrate consciousness and the method of resting in non conceptuality with knowing. Meditation starts at 21:05 - 46:05 Q&A * When sensations at the belly are subtle. * Why Tibetans don't give forgiveness; how to deal with resentment.

Maha-Mudita liturgy. Why couldn't all sentient beings never be separated from happiness and its cause's ? May we never be separated from genuine happiness and its causes. I make this resolve that we shall never be separated from happiness and its causes. May the Guru, the enlightened ones bless me that i shall be so enabled. Meditation starts at 25:10 - 49:26

In mindfulness of breathing, the technique of arousing interest during inhalation and relaxing during exhalation is incredibly effective. We apply this technique tonight as we focus on the sensations at the apertures of the nostrils. Q&A * Thomas Merton, Chamtrul Rinpoche, and the Pratyekabuddha. * Three countless aeons, rainbow bodies, and the king, navigator and shepherd. * Reasons for the sequence of mindfulness of breathing, settling the mind, to awareness of awareness. * More shrinking lamas. * Differentiating between the substrate and substrate consciousness. * Awaiting one's moment of grace. Meditation starts at 04:51

For the cultivation of genuine happiness there are certain aspects of reality, the knowing of which does really liberate. Alan mentions the following 'game-changers': To gain insight into impermanence, to gain experiential insight into what are the true causes of suffering and genuine happiness, to gain insight into the very absence of there being some autonomous, substantial 'self' - 'I' - 'me', to gain some realization of the absence of inherit nature of all phenomena - realization of emptiness and finally to realize prestine awareness - your own ultimate ground of being. Meditation starts at 08:44

Relax! You've heard it, you'll hear it again. We revisit the crucial technique of letting go—of tension in the body, controlling the breath, and attachment to rumination—as we sink deeply in today's meditation to know the whole body of the breath. Q&A * Impermanence of each sensation of the breath. * "Earworm" infestations during settling the mind in its natural state. * Idiots compassion, or when imbalance occurs in the trilogy of virtue, wisdom, and the pursuit of genuine happiness. * Accumulating karma while deluded, such as while dreaming. Meditation starts at 14:34 Q&A starts at 39:50

Over time, why couldn't all sentient beings find the genuine happiness that stems from the cultivation of the heart and mind? May it be so. We practice arousing this aspiration of loving-kindness, "may we all experience such wellbeing". Meditation starts at 6:37

Settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural state is fundamental to shamatha practice and though it so familiarly begins each session we mustn't relax our regard for it. So this evening we refine our skill for the technique, culminating with an awareness that is relaxed, still, and clear. Then we discuss our habit for seeking serenity and stimulation outside of ourselves, when in fact these qualities exist nowhere other than their source in our own awareness. Meditation Begins 13.46 - 38.10 Q&A 47.05 * How thoughts and images relate. * Considering we may constitute an intergalactic super-organism. * Practicing vipasyana before attaining samadhi. * Degrees of grasping in awareness of awareness. * Techniques of counting the breath. * Bringing interest to boring subjects. * Eyes as a portal to the substrate.