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
32 Today Is a Day to Be a Loser
Alan first comments on the text once again and explains some of the symbolism involved. He then continues to explain how the formless realm, the form realm and the desire realm are connected: That ou…
Tue 09 Sep 2014
31 Unstable Equilibrium, or How a Butterfly Can Throw You Off Balance
Alan announces that the format of the sessions will be changed a bit in that he will simply give the commentary first, then we should meditate in silence. As we are meditating, we should not specific…
Tue 09 Sep 2014
30 A New Wrinkle on Mindfulness of Breathing
Alan introduces a novel but utterly traditional approach to the mindfulness of breathing practice we’ve been doing to develop relaxation, stability, and vividness.
After the silent meditation, Ala…
Mon 08 Sep 2014
29 Review of the Nature of Primordial Awareness
Found on page 125 of Natural Liberation, the morning’s meditation session is a review of Padmasambhava’s pointing out instructions for examining the nature of primordial awareness.
Alan then discus…
Mon 08 Sep 2014
28 What happens to an arhat after death?
Alan references different buddhist schools of thought regarding what happens when a sentient being, who has realized nirvana, dies. After exploring the Pali canon, he looks more widely and brings us …
Sat 06 Sep 2014
27 Pointing out instructions - Rigpa
This session continues the pointing out instructions from Padmasambhava, to cut through the substrate to pristine awareness (rigpa). Alan gives a preface to the meditation, explaining the ‘eight extr…
Sat 06 Sep 2014
26 Emptiness of the mind
This session starts off with meditation.
Following the meditation, Alan elaborates on the relationships with lamas and spiritual teachers. The closer we become to them, the more we identify with th…
Fri 05 Sep 2014
25 We don’t need another hero!
Alan starts the morning session commenting briefly the earlier fairly elaborated discussion on this whole reductionism of our existence to just brains, to being animals or robots. Alan invites us to …
Fri 05 Sep 2014
24 Tiptoing Into Identifying Awareness
In the teachings Alan elaborated once more on the topic of seeing ones teacher as the Buddha, sharing some stories about his early times in India which relate to that topic. It is easy to see the rea…
Thu 04 Sep 2014
23 Continuing the Search For the Mind - See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me
If you don’t listen to this podcast, you will miss the celestial music that spontaneously manifested in our auditory space, only The Who knows from where!
After that musical intermezzo we continued o…
Thu 04 Sep 2014
22 On Behaviorism and the Like II, or Why Alan is Not Beating a Dead Horse
In an enormously compelling and emotional talk Alan once again tackles how scientific and contemplative communities have tackled “the hard problem”, that is how one can explain the relationship betwe…
Wed 03 Sep 2014
21 On Behaviorism and the Like, or Viva la revolución!
If you believe that the mind is the brain and you’re unwilling to change your opinion, you should not listen to this - otherwise your world view might be shattered.
Alan gives a brief historical ov…
Wed 03 Sep 2014
20 Searching for the Mind
Just as we can answer the question, “Is Michael in the room?” by seeing only his face rather than every part of him, we can examine the mind by looking at an individual mental appearance.
In the fo…
Tue 02 Sep 2014
19 The Relative Nature of Awareness
Padmasambhava’s first vipashyana meditation is found on page 115 of Natural Liberation. Alan invites those listening to hear these words as the actual speech of Padmasambhava.
To examine consciousne…
Tue 02 Sep 2014
18 From shamatha to vipashana
aka: An insiders approach to understanding reality
Alan continues teaching from the text, beginning with the preface before heading into the meditation and the gentle transition from shamatha to vip…
Mon 01 Sep 2014
17 Merging mind with space
This session begins with the 7 line prayer of Padmasmbhava and on into the meditation.
Alan clarifies the two excerpts he discussed yesterday from ‘The Vajra Essence’, and ’The Enlightened View of…
Mon 01 Sep 2014
16 Culmination of Shamatha without a Sign. Releasing mind into space.
In this session we are finishing off the instructions of Padmasambhava. Alan goes right into meditation and the central theme is releasing the mind into space.
After the meditation session Alan fini…
Sat 30 Aug 2014
15 Luminosity of awareness
Alan gives advice on the practice of meditation regarding what to do when the mind feels so cluttered and agitated and how to overcome negativity. He emphasizes the importance to not make a habit of …
Sat 30 Aug 2014
14 Awareness of Awareness or Warming Up for the Marathon
In this meditation we send the awareness out into space, starting with the space above, then to the right, to the left and downwards.
This method of shamatha without a sign, where we release awarene…
Fri 29 Aug 2014
13 Continuing Probing into the Agent or the Art of Bending a Rainbow
We continue with yesterdays practice of Awareness of Awareness enriched with the probing into the agent of that which is inverting and releasing the awareness.
The theme of todays teaching was the q…
Fri 29 Aug 2014
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