Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga

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 know the dream as the dream, which means to know that whatever we experience does not really represent something, it is just an empty appearance. But likewise during our waking state, when traumatic experiences or mental afflictions arise, we have the choice whether we want to be a victim and get abducted by them or whether we learn to see them too as empty appearances. We don’t have the choice whether they arise in our minds or not, but we can choose to remain like a piece of wood, as Shantideva puts it, and let them dissolve back into the space of the mind again. If we want to be able to make that choice it is important that we learn to recognize our mental afflictions, thoughts etc. as soon as possible as they arise. The method that can help us do this is Settling the Mind, which we did in the silent session to

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 our parents showed to us throughout our lives is something we easily forget, we tend to focus more on the bad things that they did to us. For in-between sessions Alan recommends again to train our prospective memory. On the one hand this regards dream yoga, recognizing during daytime anomalies that we encounter, and remembering to do something, like a state check. Then, when we go to sleep we should remind ourselves to recognize it when we dream. On the other hand, prospective memory can also be trained for empathetic joy, that we remind ourselves during the day to keep our eyes open for others’ happiness and their virtues. We don’t remember things we don’t attend to, so specifically looking out for all the occasions of virtue that we witness, also virtue done by us, will give us more material to recall during ou

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 merge your mind with space. At the beginning of the talk, Alan comes back to the topic of causality, which he addressed in the morning session. He quotes George F. R. Ellis, a brilliant mathematician and cosmologist, who proposed a fourfold model of reality consisting of matter and forces, consciousness, physical and biological possibilities, and mathematical reality. Ellis argues that all of these are ontologically real and, while being distinct from each other, all related through causal links. The question Alan then raises is simply: Well exactly how real are they? He then continues to explain how mereological sums work, that is e. g. that we call the sum of all planets we know, plus the moons, plus the sun, our solar system. However, what happens if you take one planet away? Is it still our solar system? What if

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 being happy, but about cultivating a feeling of a shared joy. Furthermore, it is the antidote for the near enemy of compassion: depression or despair. So when we are cultivating empathetic joy, it is important to note that we are, of course, not deluding ourselves into thinking that all is good. However, as humans have the tendency to focus on the negative, we are merely balancing that out a bit by focusing our attention on the positive in a positive manner. Thus, we change the “What” and the “How”. After the meditation Alan elaborates on our habit of reifying the past. The meditation we just did serves as a good example: How often has it happened that when you do that meditation, you think of the same three or four events? That shows how extremely selective our memory is and how small a portion of our past we actual

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 transitional process of dreaming (Natural Liberation p. 141) with a discussion of buddha nature. Alan emphasizes that included in this section of the text are practices for seeing the illusion of dream appearances in both nighttime and daytime. Even people who have little recall of their dreams while sleeping will have plenty of practice to do. Break for silent, unrecorded meditation at 11:12

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 generating the aspiration that we and all beings be free of this deepest dimension of suffering. In the teaching afterward, Alan discusses how the misunderstanding of “not self” as “no self” whatsoever can be allied with the tenets of materialist neuroscience to justify the catastrophic view that humans are robots with no moral responsibility. Meditation starts at 5:20

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 sensations of the breath, and taking the mind as the path before settling into objectless awareness. Following the meditation, he answers questions about the role of vipashyana inquiry in awareness practice; a standard for judging the validity of views; dharmakaya as informed and informant; the logic of taking the fruit as the path; and what Buddhism has to offer to people who are mentally handicapped. Meditation starts at 1:10

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 ourselves and others be free of the suffering of change and the mental afflictions of craving and attachment that give rise to it. Meditation starts at 24:30

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 comments on Buddha’s awareness, which is omnipresent throughout space and time. If one can cut through to primordial consciousness, this opens the door to reality. The practices we have been doing are not only for the sake of fathoming the nature of the mind, but also phenomena. Therefore, knowing the mind implies knowing the physical world. Alan elaborates on the topic of tumo, levitating and other incredible and extraordinary experiences arising from samadhi. The role of consciousness has been marginalized by the mind sciences. Alan encourages all of us to create a revolution. Let’s have contemplative observatories! Meditation starts at 00:01

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 a meaningful sequence to the four immeasurables with profound wisdom. Loving-kindness involves a vision and action, it is not only an aspiration. We cultivate the causes of happiness for the sake of people to flourish. Elaborating on the topic of loving-kindness, Alan makes reference to the importance of Gross National Happiness of Bhutan versus Gross Domestic Product of USA. We need vision in order to see that samsara and mental afflictions are in the nature of suffering. With this, one needs to have loving-kindness, to know that one is worthy of happiness and to identify the roots of virtue within oneself, otherwise there is no hope. Compassion is about truly opening you heart to the suffering you experience and then opening your eyes to the suffering around you. What we attend to becomes reality. In order to c

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 bring the Indo-Tibetan understanding of it into our modern world. In a way the relationship between teacher and student is completely symmetrical, and that regards the courtesy and respect between both sides. Where it is not symmetrical is on the level of knowledge, the student comes to the teachings to learn, the teacher to be of service, and the relationship is established totally for the sake of the student. In the Indian tradition the teacher is called guru, and that could be translated for us as spiritual mentor, somebody who has a great knowledge and leads us to true insight. The Tibetan understanding of lama is different from that, it is more a spiritual guide, somebody who is leading you along a path, so that you don’t fall into pitfalls or have to take detours or the like. But that means that you need trust i

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

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 from Natural Liberation. After the meditation Alan explains one crucial sentence from the text. As he explains that sentence, he touches upon the different understanding of ultimate bodhicitta in the Sutrayana tradition and Dzogchen. In the Sutrayana tradition ultimate bodhicitta is understood as realizing the emptiness of all phenomena and relative bodhicitta as the desire to achieve awakening for the sake of all sentient beings. Now, whereas in the Sutrayana ultimate bodhicitta and relative bodhicitta both have to be cultivated and balanced out (like the left and the right hand) in order to avoid any extremes, Dzogchen once again refrains from that effort. In the Dzogchen tradition you “simply” release all grasping onto your identity as a sentient being and thereby practice from the perspective of a Buddha. From

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 afflictive, the 4 immeasurables - loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity - directly lead to the cultivation of virtues. Meditation starts at 14:29

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 meditation Alan discusses Freud’s statement in The Future of an Illusion that a view of the universe that doesn’t take into account the role of mental perception is an empty abstraction of no practical interest. He then proposes a playful approach for how concepts in Buddhist cosmology such as the four continents might be integrated with contradictory scientific evidence without resorting either to fundamentalist denial or opening the gates to all claims and saying they have equal validity from their own perspective. Meditation starts at 0:55

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 I experience the fulfillment of my heart’s desire. - May I receive from the world what I need to realize my aspiration. - May I realize the inner transformation necessary to realize my aspiration. - May I experience meaning and fulfillment by offering to the world the greatest good possible with my own unique skills and background. Meditation starts at 7:00

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’s citation of tantras. After the meditation Alan picks up on John Wheeler’s quantum universe concept that all constructs are coming out of semantic information (and also rely on the ‘one that is informed’, the information and the referent). Not only can the universe be considered an information processing system, but so can ‘man’. This brings us to an empirically based view relative to the observer/participant. Parallels are drawn to madhyamika through the intersubjective invariant. Placebo (subject expectancy) effects are potentially explained through the information and processing model. Throw in some Stephen Hawking, strange loops etc and eventually Alan asks “what if Dzogchen is not the unique domain of buddhists?” Meditation starts at 17:16

Very short podcast where Alan talks of his boundless enthusiasm for the teachings before entering into a silent meditation (not included in the podcast).

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 foundation on shamatha, but shamatha alone is meaningless. Practicing shamatha by itself does not make you walk the path to enlightenment. Alan explains the two main obstacles for the spiritual path: self-centered and self-grasping. Then, Alan explains how to use mental afflictions in order to transform them into the path. When they arise it is a wonderful opportunity to check if we are reifying. This becomes crucial for the practice of dzogchen. Practice dharma, observe your own mind. Following that, Alan elaborates on what we observe is always relative to the instrument of measurement, either in science or in the investigation of the mind. Alan comments on the important role of the observer. Alan raises the issue described by madhyamika prasangika school and how it resonates with quantum mechanics: when engaging i

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 to heart. As for today’s practice, Alan was front loading the session again with Padmasambhava’s pointing-out instructions, giving us the seeds for the silent, non-discursive meditation. Your own distinct awareness is pristine awareness, don’t look outside of yourself, but give up all attachment to and identification with your own body and mind. After the meditation Alan discussed the two strategies to deal with distractive thoughts, emotions etc. in shamatha practice. In Taking the Mind As the Path, you just let them self-release. The other strategy is that, when these distractions come up, to just cut them right off. You can do the same in lucid dreaming when something unpleasant happens. Finally Alan compared the images used by Dudjom Lingpa in his Vajra Essence when describing how sentient beings emerge from t