Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga
This eight-week retreat will focus on three of the six transitional processes, namely:
- the Transitional Process of Living, with teachings on śamatha and vipaśyanā,
- the Transitional Process of Dreaming, with teachings on dream yoga, and
- the Transitional Process of Meditation with teachings on Dzogchen meditation.
All these teachings will be based on the text The Profound Dharma of The Natural Emergence of the Peaceful and Wrathful from Enlightened Awareness Stage of Completion Instructions on the Six Transitional Processes, an “earth terma” of teachings by Padmasambhava, revealed by Karma Lingpa in the fourteen century.
The English translation of this text has been published under the title Natural Liberation: Padmasambhava’s Teachings on the Six Bardos, with commentary by Gyatrul Rinpoche and translated by B. Alan Wallace.
- Update frequency
- every day
- Episodes
- 93
- Years Active
- 2014
54 Mirror, mirror on the wall - Who is fairest of them all?
In the teachings before the meditation Alan emphasizes that we have a choice in our daily lives whether we let ourselves be caught up in ignorance and delusion or not. This relates to dream yoga, to …
Mon 22 Sep 2014
53 Prospective Memory For Dream Yoga And Empathetic Joy
In today’s meditation we took up the topic of empathetic joy again, which is often overlooked when we choose amongst the variety of meditation methods for our sessions. Specifically the kindness that…
Mon 22 Sep 2014
52 Welcome to Padmasambhava’s Ontological Shock Therapy
The meditation is all about going back to shamatha and Alan’s suggestions are: 1) Do whatever works, 2) As a general recommendation: balance earth and sky, so do mindfulness of breathing but then mer…
Sat 20 Sep 2014
51 Empathetic Joy, and Alan Filing a Class Action Suit
Alan talks about the cultivation of empathetic joy, which among the four immeasurables is the one that is often easily overlooked. However, it is extremely important because it’s not simply about bei…
Sat 20 Sep 2014
50 Introduction to the Transitional Process of Dreaming
Alan begins with further instruction on a Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing.
After the silent meditation session, he introduces Padmasambhava’s teachings on the second bardo, the transi…
Fri 19 Sep 2014
49 Freedom from Existential Suffering
Exploring the wisdom necessary to discern the causes underlying the unease and discontent that characterize our experience, Alan leads a meditation probing our delusory sense of self before generati…
Fri 19 Sep 2014
48 A Spiral Through the Basics to Settled Awareness
Because a runaway, ruminating mind may still be an obstacle at this point of the retreat, Alan leads a meditation that spirals through the well-known shamatha practices of open presence, tactile sens…
Thu 18 Sep 2014
47 Freedom from the Suffering of Change and Its Causes
Alan begins with a clarification of how the practice of silence at a Mahayana retreat is different from that at a Sravakayana retreat.
The meditation is on cultivating the aspiration that we oursel…
Thu 18 Sep 2014
46 Unboundedness of Buddha’s awareness
We start the afternoon session with meditation on mindfulness of breathing.
After meditation, Alan briefly finishes the commentary on the vipashyana section of the book Natural Liberation.
Alan com…
Wed 17 Sep 2014
45 Power to change the world
Alan welcomes two new participants to the retreat and emphasizes the importance of friendship and empathy among all of us. Meditation follows on the topic of compassion.
Alan explains that there is …
Wed 17 Sep 2014
44 Who is Alan - Alan? Dr. Alan? Guru Alan? Lama Alan? Dr. Lama Alan?
In today’s meditation Alan went on with the pointing-out instructions from Natural Liberation.
In the teachings Alan discussed the different levels of teacher-student relationship and how we can brin…
Tue 16 Sep 2014
43 Expanding the Field of Loving-kindness
In this meditation session, we expand the field of loving-kindness, starting from the sangha listening by podcast into the boundlessness of space.
Guided meditation starts at 05:20 min
Tue 16 Sep 2014
42 On the Nature of Ultimate and Relative Bodhicitta
At the beginning, Alan announces that from now on there will be more time for questions/discussion in the afternoon sessions. Then he starts the meditation, continuing with pointing-out instructions …
Mon 15 Sep 2014
41 Loving-Kindness: Cooling the Blade
Alan announces that from now on we will spend the morning sessions cultivating the 4 immeasurables. Whereas mindfulness, attention and intelligence are not intrinsically virtuous but can be afflictiv…
Mon 15 Sep 2014
40 A Standard for Judging Claims of Existence
For this meditation Alan reads a passage found on page 136 of Natural Liberation in which Padmasambhava excerpts descriptions from various tantras about the nature of primordial awareness.
After the…
Sat 13 Sep 2014
39 Loving Kindness for Yourself
Alan tells us this is a good point in the retreat to refresh our motivation and guides the practice he has taught many times, the four-fold practice of arousing loving kindness for ourselves.
- May …
Sat 13 Sep 2014
38 Is Dzogchen the unique domain of buddhists?
Alan gives an alternative approach to guru yoga: asking us to give up our sense of being a sentient being, and releasing the sense of the guru as a sentient being. Meditation continues Padmasambhava’…
Fri 12 Sep 2014
37 Carried away with enthusiasm
Very short podcast where Alan talks of his boundless enthusiasm for the teachings before entering into a silent meditation (not included in the podcast).
Fri 12 Sep 2014
36 Practice dharma, observe your own mind.
Alan starts sharing his experience along the eight eight-week retreats that he has been leading in Phuket. He addresses the importance to practice the four immeasurables and vipashana with a solid fo…
Thu 11 Sep 2014
33 Stop it! and how to translate that into Tibetan
This morning we were listening to Bob Newhart’s “Stop It” skit that Alan had talked about a while ago. So everybody out there with wandering minds, low self-esteem and all the like, take this advice …
Wed 10 Sep 2014
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