Spring 2012 Shamatha Retreat

The 'Greats' begin with compassion - the 'Great Compassion' - aspiring to get everybody's head above water, so they survive. It is followed by the 'Great Loving Kindness' - the very meaning of existence. Meditation starts at 12:57

Our lives are saturated with desire for attainments of both a mundane and spiritual nature. While giving priority to a spiritual desire will aid our enthusiasm to practice, it may ultimately be fruitless in the context of multiple rebirths if it is not sustained with visionary motivation such as with bodhicitta. It is this benign form of grasping that provides the continuity of coherence in the long thread in the path to liberation. Alan begins with these lessons of ambition. Then with the guided meditation we bring our attention to the three knowable aspects in settling the mind in its natural state: the space of the mind, objective thoughts and memories, and subjective feelings that arise in their accompaniment. Q&A * Can the attainment of shamatha be hindered by excessively striving? * The difference between dzogchen and mahamudra. * How should one begin a vajrayana practice. Meditation starts at 39:07

We should ask the simple question: "Why are we suffering at all?" The answer is twofold: 1. We are grasping onto which is not I as being I and that which is not truly mine as being really mine. 2. We fail to recognize, who we really are. Meditation starts at 13:24

Tonight we add depth to the practice of settling the mind in its natural state with two further modes of mindfulness: #3 absence of mindfulness, and #4 naturally luminous mindfulness. Alan speaks at length about the experience of mental events compared to the other sense fields, and our reifying these experiences with cognitive fusion and conceptual overlays; taking the mind as the path is shown to be a strong analog to becoming lucid in a dream. Meditation begins at 46:26 Q&A begins at 1:11:22 Q&A * "Con-fusing" first-person energy with mental events. * A down-home experience of the substrate consciousness.

We cultivate the aspiration and intention to help all beings become free from grasping even in the midst of inevitable aging, sickness, natural calamity, and death. Meditation begins at 14:52

We're at cruising attitude with settling the mind in its natural state. Tonight not many words about the practice. We're reminded of the metaphors of floating on an air mattress in Tahiti and a falcon kiting into the wind. It is helpful to remain partially attentive to the somatic field of the body while beginning this practice. Q&A * Where does hostility come from? * Mindfulness of breathing through the mouth. * When stretching our awareness: up, right, left, down. * Using the news media as material for practicing the four immeasurables. * Balancing theory and practice. * Unachievable shamatha; throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Alan shares his definitions of 'spiritual' and 'religious', and discusses 'Mahakaruna' or 'Great Compassion'. Then, we practice developing this aspiration and intention to help all sentient beings become free. Meditation begins at 14:42

Tonight we finish a set of mindfulness of breathing as we move our attention to focus on the sensations at the apertures of the nostrils. The practice has been explained fully in previous teachings so we proceed directly into meditation. Q&A * [preceding the meditation] How much of the nostrils is a valid target? 25% 50%? * Neurological disease and shamatha. * Does the moon disappear when it's out of mind? * Why are we afraid to release? * From the research of Ian Stevenson, why don't children remember previous lives as animals or from hell realms? * Experimentation with practices to get traction during our retreat. * Does the achievement of shamatha with awareness of awareness leave a wake of unaddressed mental issues that would have been resolved by practicing settling the mind? Meditation starts at 02:59

While maybe a specifically monastic theme, its implications are for everyone following this path: "Be satisfied with that what is merely adequate". Mediation starts at 10:38

Meditation begins at 15:45 Q&A begins at 53:19

When developing loving kindness for the person, we must distinguish between the person and the mental afflictions that give rise to unwholesome behavior. It may even be appropriate to passionately condemn harmful behavior, but bearing in mind this wish for their happiness. Meditation begins 25:22

We restart the cycle in our teachings with a return to mindfulness of breathing. This practice has a strong analog with the meditation on loving kindness for oneself from this morning: both help establish a strong, reality-based foundation that is crucial to further practice. With loving kindness for ourselves we develop the basis for extending our aspirations toward others, and with mindfulness of breathing we develop the basis of relaxation required for all forms of meditation practice. Alan defends his occasional soapbox homilies on the intersection of science and buddhism by placing them in the context of the Noble Eightfold Path, noting that authentic view and intention require questioning values, maintaining an open sense of reality, and directing one's motivation. Meditation Begins 23:50 Q&A 49:50 * Tending to our time, ourselves and others during retreat. * Continuity of imagination in the four immeasurables. * What is tonglen? * Advice: be kind to yourself. * The natural propensities related

We start a new cycle in the cultivation of loving kindness for ourselves. Alan emphasizes the significance of bringing a meaningful motivation to the practice. Meditation starts at 14:29 After the mediation starting at 39:06, Alan comments about perceptions and aspects of death.

Tonight's practice of awareness of awareness gives our sense of spaciousness a workout. Just as it's possible for one to be small-minded, where limited perception causes an imbalance in what we take to be important, an expansiveness of awareness and attention can be cultivated giving us greater depth of understanding and openness to the world. The guided meditation instructs us to extend our perception in various directions, taking no object and without visualization. We're instructed to keep a correct posture during meditation the same way we avoid falling out of bed while deep asleep, by assigning the task to our body intelligence. Then a polemic on the topic of non-overlapping magisteria and how it relates to having an expansive mind and genuine well-being in times of adversity. Q&A * The difference between thought and realization. * Evaluating one's practice in the moment. Meditation starts at 13:35

If you bring that equal openness of heart to everyone who comes to mind and everyone who comes into the field of experience, than that will do it for all sentient beings. Meditation starts at 05:54

Meditation begins at 14:09 Q&A begins at 39:45

Here we allow our favorable and unfavorable perceptions of others to arise, recognize these as fabrications, and then probe beneath them to the common ground from which to view other's desire to be truly happy. Meditation begins at 14:50 Closing comments at 39:25

Tonight we begin with a primer on lucid dreaming with techniques from modern oneironaut Stephen LaBerge and dream yoga from the Indo-Tibetan tradition. Then we proceed deeper into the practice of awareness of awareness. Alan reiterates the importance for the six prerequisites for shamatha training and describes the process of "rolling back the carpet" of the eight consciousnesses: past the five senses and the ruminating mind, past the obscured mind (manas), greeting our sense of self or "I" (ahamkara), and finally arriving at the alayavijnana. Meditation begins 34.26 Q&A 58:29 * Different practices, same shamatha? * Semantics: bhavanga versus alayavijnana. * The far side of dullness and tiredness. * Morning and night people, and entering into practice like a helicopter. * The bashful maiden as a metaphor for thoughts that vanish with the light of awareness.

Taking delight in virtue Meditation begins 8:50

Awareness of awareness, the simplest of all shamatha practices, requires only the slightest instruction and yet its object can be elusive and indescribable. This evening, we proceed directly into the mediation, then open the floor to questions about the practice. Meditations starts at 04:50 Q&A: * My own kind of practice: awareness of a bindu. * Going up hill in the wrong gear. * Anarchistic mode of relaxation. * What awareness of awareness is not. * Bifurcation of awareness as it drops like hot coal. * Awareness, elusive because it's collapsed? * Moving from the space of the mind into awareness of awareness. * Three ways of watching a movie, and the gradient of grasping.