Teaching: Alan shares the conclusion of phase 1 of the Dudjom Lingpa’s Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra. Phase 1 covers taking the impure mind as the path aka settling the mind. You identify the impure mind that is dissolved into substrate consciousness. How never to be separated from the experience of the practical instructions when dista…

Teaching: Awareness of awareness is also known as shamatha without a sign. Sign refers to a target, so there’s no vector of attention. During the meditation, when you do the warm-up exercise of directing awareness in the 4 directions, don’t meditate or visualize the 4 directions. Just send out your antenna, or expand the space of awareness. Meditat…

Teaching: Alan presents the conclusion from Karma Chagme’s Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Emanation of Padmasambhava’s speech, Atisha addressed how to combine all the teachings of the 3 yanas into one practice. The fivefold practices are: 1) bodhicitta as motivation, 2) meditation on one’s own body as the deity, 3) meditation on one’s spiritual m…

Meditation: Settling the mind preceded by settling body, speech, and mind. 1) settling body, speech, and mind. Let your awareness come to rest in its own place. There may be knowing of knowing. Let your unmoving awareness illuminate the space of the body and the objective/subjective experiences. Observe them like an out-of-body experience. 2) settl…

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 h…

Teaching: All the teachings are included in settling body, speech, and mind in their natural state. According to Asanga, sensations of the breath become increasingly subtle until prana dissolves into space. Conceptualizations diminish further and further until mind slips into non-conceptuality. Keep it simple. It’s the nature of the practice. Medit…

Teaching pt1. Alan completes the 2nd cycle on the 4 greats with great equanimity. Literally, it refers to freedom from attachment to the near and aversion to the far. There is nothing closer than our own awareness. Thogyal—direct crossing over or leaping over—means traversing the bhumis in leaps and bounds to complete enlightenment. Meditation. Gre…

Teaching pt1: Alan gives his commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. This section challenges our view that we’re leaving the Mind Center and returning to the mundane world. Contemplating phenomena as phenomena can be understood in terms of the 3 turnings of the wheel of dharma. In the…

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 se…

Great compassion is the principal practice of the 4 greats. Alan continues with great loving-kindness. Meditation. Great loving-kindness. Visualize the primordial buddha Samantabhadra, deep-blue in color. From now until perfect awakening, take refuge in Samantabhadra, the dharma revealed by all the buddhas, and the sangha of vidyadharas. At the cro…

Teaching pt1: Alan gives his and the Dalai Lama’s commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in verses 105-112 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Just as the mind does not come into existence, in the same way, we come to certainty that no phenomenon comes into existence. That which we perceive cannot be more real than our percept…

Teaching. Alan continues the series on the 4 greats with great empathetic joy. When you become lucid in a dream, happiness arises from knowing reality as it is. As long as you remain lucid, nothing in the dream can cause suffering. Therefore, the instruction is to stay lucid by not losing the recognition of the dream as a dream. Shamatha helps you …

Teaching pt1: Alan completes his commentary on the section on mindfulness of the mind in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. The mind is not really seen anywhere—e.g., inside, outside, in the skandhas, in the elements, etc... From what does the mind arise? Does the mind arise from an object? If so, are they the same or other? Mind canno…

Teaching pt1. Alan continues the series on the 4 greats with great loving-kindness. Hedonic well-being is important, and the understanding of cause and effect in the natural world by modern science has made important contributions. In union with shamatha, knowing reality as it is through the wisdom of dependent origination and emptiness leads to du…

Teaching pt1: Alan begins his commentary on the section on mindfulness of the mind in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Where is the mind that becomes attached, hateful, or deluded? It has no location, basis, or form. The mind is not seen by any of the buddhas. The mind is like an illusion because it apprehends events with unreal proj…

Teaching. Alan repeats the series on the 4 greats, starting with great compassion. Focusing on the cause of suffering, we have experienced during the retreat that the mind caught up in rumination is very vulnerable to suffering. Mind is beaten up by samsara. Without shamatha, the mind is dysfunctional. When the mind is able to rest in the substrate…

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with verses 104-105 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Since awareness cannot precede, co-occur, nor follow the object of awareness, awareness is not inherently real. Similarly, no phenomenon comes into (inherent) existence. Inherently existent phenomena cannot causally interact with anything. Only conventionall…

Teaching pt1. Alan continues with the series on the 4 greats with great equanimity. There’s a similar liturgy beginning with 1) why couldn’t all sentient beings abide in great equanimity free from attachment to those who are close and aversion to those who are far? There are various levels of equanimity. In settling the mind, still awareness and a …

Teaching pt1: Alan revisits the 3rd application of mindfulness to the mind. Mindfulness means recollection. Here, we are taking the impure mind as the object of investigation. Specifically, we are examining the reified sense of “my mind”. Alan continues with verses 102-103 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. The mind is not located in the se…

Teaching pt1. Alan continues with the series on the 4 greats with great empathetic joy. Unlike empathetic joy in the Pali canon, great empathetic joy is an aspiration. There’s a similar liturgy. 1) Why couldn’t all sentient beings never be parted from happiness free of suffering? This doesn’t refer to hedonic pleasure but eudaimonia. It also refers…

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. When experiencing a painful feeling, develop great compassion for beings who fixate on feelings, totally identify with them, hold them close, misapprehend them, and ruminate about them. Let the feeling arouse…

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Regard feelings as feelings which stills cognitive fusion with them. Have great compassion for those who grasp onto joy. Those who do not grasp onto feelings experience true well-being. Whenever you experienc…

Teaching pt1. Alan begins a new cycle on the 4 greats. While the 4 immeasurables don’t require a particular world view, the 4 greats are firmly rooted in the buddhist world view. “With meditative equipoise, one sees reality as it is. When on sees reality as it is, the bodhisattva develops great compassion.” The liturgy contains four lines. 1) Why c…

In the Mahayana, equanimity is a sense of evenness or equality between self and other. In order to practice guru yoga where there is non-duality between your own mind and the guru’s mind, pure vision for both self and guru is needed. Meditation. Equanimity from verses 90-119 in Ch. 8 of the Bodhicaryavatara. Since everyone experiences suffering and…

Teaching pt1: In buddhist epistemology, valid perception depends on an object, sense faculty, and continuum of consciousness. While the Shravakayana takes all three as real, Madhyamaka asserts their emptiness. Alan continues with verses 93-103 of Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara which addresses the origination of feelings. In buddhist epistemology, fe…