Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga

Alan started the teachings today with the question of how we know whether we are practicing dharma or not. After all, you could e.g. do shamatha just as a technique for relaxation. What makes it a dharma practice is when you have a definitive sense of emergence from samsara, coupled with a vision of the path that will lead you all the way up to liberation. If we want to further empower, to supercharge our practice, we should practice from the viewpoint of being indivisible from our root guru. After the silent meditation we went on with the Natural Liberation. Padmasambhava describes the method of apprehending the clear light of realization, which is equivalent to the vertical aspect of pristine awareness, leading into the depth of reality. Then he introduces a method for apprehending the visionary clear light of experience, and that corresponds to the horizontal aspect of pristine awareness, fathoming the breadth of reality. By doing this method one can become aware of the physical environment while being dee

Before our session of loving-kindness Alan lists some of the benefits of the practice, like sleeping and waking up in comfort, having no bad dreams, being able to die unconfused etc. After the meditation he comes back to the old problem that one does a practice, even doing it correctly, but then having doubts about it. For loving-kindness one might think that there is no feeling of warmth and affection coming up during the practice, so this can’t be it. But actually there are indications that you do it correctly, and it’s not about generating feelings or emotions. Those can come with loving-kindness, but not necessarily have to. You could also have just emotions, and no loving-kindness at all, since loving-kindness is an aspiration. As a result of the practice one should observe that whenever one sees a sentient being around one that is in need of help, one is more and more poised for action, and one has less and less of an internal struggle or resistance to helping. This implies that you really attend to oth

Alan started the teaching this evening by posing the question why we should venture into these practices of apprehending the clear light of deep sleep at all, when he repeats all the time that this is meant for people who have achieved shamatha and vipashyana. According to one advice he has received, one should spend around 75-80% of the day’s practice on something one is familiar with, that corresponds to the actual state of maturation one has reached, and from which results an observable effect in our daily life. But about 25% of the practice should be spent on what we are not quite ripe for at the moment, but which gives us a vision of where we are aiming to go. Then Alan emphasizes the importance of taking our body seriously, to give it a chance to calm down, to heal in our practice. This is often overlooked in all schools of Buddhism, while the Buddha himself found it important to first get his body back into balance again before he was determined to totally go for enlightenment. And to achieve this heal

In today’s teaching we focused on the preliminary practices (Ngondro). If we do Mandala Offerings etc. with blind faith and without any understanding of their meaning, and instead just engage in an empty ritual, such action is meaningless according to Shantideva. 100 000 * 0 stills equals 0. But if there is really faith and understanding behind our practice, there will be signs of purification sooner or later. Then Alan quotes several Mahayana Sutras that emphasize the importance of meditative equipoise, shamatha, as a foundation for all higher realizations. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have an insight into emptiness or an experience of rigpa, but you just will not be able to sustain it. After the meditation Alan quotes from Dudjom Rinpoche that according to some the main practices are most important, but to him the preliminary practices are most important, and Alan stresses that this is really shamatha, bodhicitta and vipashyana. If you focus on these practices, you can lead a life without regret. Medi

Before the silent meditation Alan briefly reviews what he has already explained a couple of days ago: If the visualizations keep you awake or you just can’t visualize them, then it’s better to either settle your mind in its natural state (if you tend to fall asleep easily) or practice mindfulness of breathing (if you’re one of the poor souls who can’t fall asleep). After the meditation Alan once again looks back first only to then venture into the practice associated with dreamless sleep. As said before, in the dream state your power of imagination is more brilliant than in the waking state unless you have very stable samadhi. What you see in your dreams then, are the effulgences of your substrate. This is important to note since an encounter with Padmasambhava or Einstein (or Lady Gaga for that matter…) is quite likely not really Padmasambhava/Einstein/Lady Gaga but your imagination of them. While real encounters in the dream state happen (more so with Padmasambhava than with Lady Gaga, so I’ve heard), you

Since in October 1950 Tibet was invaded by Chinese troops and has been oppressed ever since, today is a good day to practice Bodhicitta. Alan tells the story of a Geshe Rabten he interviewed several times to be able to write down his life story. This Geshe explained to him that all of Dharma appears to him as either 1) being preparation for bodhicitta, 2) being bodhicitta, or 3) flowing out of bodhicitta. This underlines the importance of cultivating bodhicitta and not striving for the achievement of nirvana and then leaving everybody behind - which Alan sees as the only situation in which the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ is actually true. However, this would be to realize only half of your buddha nature. Alan then starts with pieces of his own biography and how he was unsatisfied in his twenties with western, secular education as it was too fragmented and not infused with meaning. It seemed to have no center. What Alan later encountered and what the Dalai Lama often emphasizes as another way of educating pe

After some reflections on environmental crises and the radical inequality of the distribution of wealth in the world, Alan guides a meditation on Balancing Earth and Sky, the combined practice of mindfulness of breathing with awareness of awareness. After the meditation, Alan continues with his transmission and commentary on the text Natural Liberation with the discussion that begins on page 157 of dispelling obstacles to lucid dreaming. The obstacles of waking up and losing the dream because of excitement at initial lucidity; becoming non-lucid after initial lucidity; not becoming lucid at all; not being able to sleep; and having shallow, fleeting motivation each have specific antidotes that can prepare you to recognize the transitional process after death. And have you heard the one about the wishing fulfilling gem that washes up on the beach of a desert isle inhabited by three shipwrecked sailors?

We have finished the cycle of meditations on cultivating the aspirations of The Four Immeasurables and The Four Greats and Alan urges us now to focus on bodhichitta’s indispensable ingredient, the extraordinary resolve that “I myself will do it.” Before making this pledge witnessed by all sentient beings and all the buddhas, we must first know how to deliver on it or we will be making an empty promise. Once made, the promise becomes an IOU with no expiration date. In this silent meditation we should honestly ask what we are willing to dedicate ourselves to. If our pledge is empty rhetoric, we should back off to a level more heartfelt. The break for the silent, unrecorded meditation starts at 38:12

Alan starts the session recalling Gautama’s experience when he endured extreme hardships, which made him lose his samadhi. Alan emphasizes the importance of mindfulness of breathing in order to repair the damage that has been done by neglecting the body. For this reason, it is crucial to master the shavasana posture, to breath effortlessly while relinquishing any control in order to meditate well. The meditation on balancing earth and wind combines mindfulness of breathing with taking the mind as the path. Also in this practice we have been introduced to the world of emanation and transformation of mental appearances. After meditation, Alan uses an analogy to describe the feeling of lucidity as opposed to a wandering mind. Then, we move on to the next section of the book: the world of emanation and transformation. Alan gives advice on how not to lose stability in the dream after becoming lucid. In dream yoga practices we train to transform our dream body into our own personal deity. In this way, one develop

Alan starts the session with a brief introduction of the meaning of the aspiration of immeasurable equanimity and its etymology. Further, Alan elaborates on the differences of equanimity among the different vehicles. In the context of the sravakayana, which is focused on the selflessness of persons (the emptiness of an autonomous, independent and permanent self), they realize the emptiness of self but not the emptiness of the skandhas, as they consider they are truly existent. Therefore, the practice of equanimity is for the sake of one’s own liberation, to purify their minds and attain nirvana in order to get rid of samsara. It is interesting to see that according to Buddhaghosa, the catalyst for equanimity is taking responsibility for one’s own actions. It is based on recognizing how karma works. Virtue brings happiness and non-virtue brings suffering. In the mahayana context, in which wisdom and compassion work together as the two wings of a bird to fly, not only the self is empty of inherent existence b

After the silent meditation we went on with Padmasambhava’s instructions on night-time dream yoga. He suggests different methods for becoming lucid, in addition to yesterday’s method of visualizing yourself as your chosen deity, with a little resemblance of the deity in your throat chakra. This again should draw the pranas into the throat chakra, where they normally are located while in the dream state. Try to keep the visualization with a light touch, but with sustained intent to become lucid. If this does not work, then imagine a lotus with different seed syllables at your throat. In addition to drawing your attention to the throat chakra there might be an effect of the frequency of the sounds that facilitates lucidity. When that works, you directly end up in deep dreamless sleep, and you enter the first dream like a tulku enters the next rebirth, lucidly. Alan takes us here on a short side trip, starting with the example of dreaming, where your first moment of a non-lucid dream starts with a state of unkno

Alan started by providing us with the flow of context for today’s practice, Great Empathetic Joy. The Four Greats have the even-heartedness of equanimity as their foundation. The false facsimile of equanimity is aloof indifference, which could lead one to aim only for one’s own liberation. So it is Great Compassion that could serve as a remedy to pull us out of indifference, since it opens our eyes and our hearts to the suffering of the world. Then we move on to Great Loving Kindness, where we focus on the positive that is also found in the world. We then move further on to Great Empathetic Joy, and the classical Tibetan liturgy for that starts with the question: Why couldn’t all sentient beings be never parted from sublime happiness devoid of suffering? It is clear that “sublime happiness” cannot mean hedonic pleasure. To feel pleasure or strive only for pleasure even when the world around us is full of suffering would be a totally deluded attitude. But how is it possible to maintain the state of sublime ha

Before the silent meditation Alan talks about how the different practices that we had a look at in the past weeks work together and how they can be balanced in a non-retreat setting. So, Shamatha practice offers us the possibility of leaving the fight-or-flight mode and finally relax. But it is more than just simple relaxation as you develop a sense of ease and acceptance in relation to your identity. As Alan puts it: It’s ok to be who you are now (just don’t stay that way but keep practicing). You are definitely going in the right direction. When it comes to lucid dreaming your Shamatha practice will come in handy because what often happens to novices of lucid dreaming is that they get excited at realizing lucidity and immediately wake up. Thus, what you need is the sense of relaxation and stability from your Shamatha practice. Then, however, you want to engage with the dream, sustain lucidity and explore the dream world. This exploration is actually Vipashyana as you need both vividness and insight. In a

Before the meditation starts Alan talks about the practice we did yesterday, that is great compassion. He underlines that the first question in this meditation - why couldn’t all sentient beings be free from suffering? - is a provocative question and not at all meant as a rhetorical question. Basically, people can suffer mentally and/or physically. Dharma of course offers a solution to the first type of suffering. However, as what concerns physical suffering e.g. caused by aging, sickness and death there are two strategies to deal with it. Option 1 is you find an effective treatment and then you are hedonically better off. Whether that is in the form of a pill, or physiotherapy or reaching the stage of completion, at which point you can change the constitution of your body down to the molecular level, doesn’t matter much. Option 2 is the one you need when there seems to be no effective treatment in which case you need to either release all grasping onto the pain you experience as intrinsically yours or (if yo

In this talk Alan weaves everything that we had a look at in the past weeks together: From Shamatha, Vipashyana, the 4 immeasurables to the Dzogchen perspective. The guiding topic is equanimity and how it manifests in different types. These are: 1) In your Shamatha practice equanimity can be understood as the releasing of action. So when you achieve the 8th stage on the way to Shamatha you can drop introspection altogether, because there no longer is anything to be monitored. In that sense, when you finally achieve Shamatha you release all action. 2) When you achieve the fourth dhyana you experience equanimity in terms of feeling: no pleasure, no pain, no indifference, just flat-out evenness that is peaceful but not pleasant. 3) The equanimity that is cultivated when practicing the 4 immeasurables is again different in that it is imperturbability or even-heartedness. 4) As you continue on your path you will have to back up your samadhi with wisdom and as you develop that you finally slip into meditative equ

Since we finished the first cycle on the 4 immeasurables we moved on to a new dimension: The cultivation of great compassion. This is necessary due to the fact that it is difficult practicing equanimity when so many elements are just so uneven: You have physically attractive and unattractive people, smart and not so smart, funny and boring, some like you while others don’t, some are more virtuous and some less. So, if our physical appearance, our personality and our psyche is all there is, then we will face a hard time practicing equanimity. Thus, we need wisdom - wisdom of emptiness of self and all phenomena. It is the wisdom that really gets to the roots of the problem, which is delusion. While practicing equanimity in its basic form we can overcome aversion and attachment to a great degree, but we never get to the root (delusion). Apart from that, Alan explains the meaning of what Westerners often just perceive as “the Asian way to say hi”, that is having your palms pressed together and turned inward with

Alan guides a meditation on the empty fluctuation of appearances arising in open space. In the commentary that follows, he muses about the instant that the breath ceases in the fourth dhyana as being--from the perspective of that meditator--the last trace of having a body. Similarly, the daytime dreaming practice of the impure illusory body leads to an emptying of the body and mind until only awareness and space remain. At that point one is prepared for the practice of the pure illusory body, which begins with perceiving the empty nature your own guru as Vajrasattva. You then perceive the entire world of illusory appearances as being empty of inherent nature and primordially pure, which is good preparation for liberation in the bardo that follows death. To conclude, Alan answers questions about merging mind and space and the role of humor in dharma practice. Meditation starts at 0:40

Alan guides a meditation on the fourth immeasurable of equanimity practiced with still awareness and within the context of taking the mind as the path. The practice begins with allowing someone to arrive in awareness unbidden and joining compassion for their suffering to the in-breath and the wish for their genuine happiness to the out-breath. This tonglen practice can be done between sessions with all beings who make an appearance within the space of the mind. Meditation starts at 5:48

We continue deepening our practice of settling the mind in its natural state, which is considered the optimal technique for dreaming yoga practices. Alan elaborates on reification and the fact that we become so vulnerable to suffer when doing so. Alan gives the instructions for this practice, which is built upon being free of distraction and grasping, either gross or subtle. The perspective we are trying to emulate in this practice is that of the substrate consciousness. We are seeking to approximate viewing the mind not from inside the mind but rather from the perspective of the discerning but non conceptual luminous bright and blissful substrate consciousness, which is the origin from which all the subjective impulses emerge. This practice is a fantastic daytime preparation for lucid dreaming. After meditation, Alan continues with the text on page 145 regarding the ten analogies of the impure illusory body. Alan elaborates on the practice of equalizing when encountering situations that the eight mundane co

We move on to the culmination of the fourth immeasurable: equanimity. It is the antidote to reifying negative appearances that destroy our wellbeing and ruins our relationships with others. In this podcast Alan briefly comments on the powerful and transformative practice of tonglen. Meditation starts at 06:25