We restart the cycle in our teachings with a return to mindfulness of breathing. This practice has a strong analog with the meditation on loving kindness for oneself from this morning: both help establish a strong, reality-based foundation that is crucial to further practice. With loving kindness for ourselves we develop the basis for extending our aspirations toward others, and with mindfulness of breathing we develop the basis of relaxation required for all forms of meditation practice.

Alan defends his occasional soapbox homilies on the intersection of science and buddhism by placing them in the context of the Noble Eightfold Path, noting that authentic view and intention require questioning values, maintaining an open sense of reality, and directing one’s motivation.

Meditation Begins 23:50

Q&A 49:50

* Tending to our time, ourselves and others during retreat.

* Continuity of imagination in the four immeasurables.

* What is tonglen?

* Advice: be kind to yourself.

* The natural propensities related to shamatha.

* Imagining a dark shadow instead of actual suffering.

Tonight’s practice of awareness of awareness gives our sense of spaciousness a workout. Just as it’s possible for one to be small-minded, where limited perception causes an imbalance in what we take to be important, an expansiveness of awareness and attention can be cultivated giving us greater depth of understanding and openness to the world. The guided meditation instructs us to extend our perception in various directions, taking no object and without visualization.

We’re instructed to keep a correct posture during meditation the same way we avoid falling out of bed while deep asleep, by assigning the task to our body intelligence.

Then a polemic on the topic of non-overlapping magisteria and how it relates to having an expansive mind and genuine well-being in times of adversity.

Q&A

* The difference between thought and realization.

* Evaluating one’s practice in the moment.

Meditation starts at 13:35

Tonight we begin with a primer on lucid dreaming with techniques from modern oneironaut Stephen LaBerge and dream yoga from the Indo-Tibetan tradition. Then we proceed deeper into the practice of awareness of awareness. Alan reiterates the importance for the six prerequisites for shamatha training and describes the process of “rolling back the carpet” of the eight consciousnesses: past the five senses and the ruminating mind, past the obscured mind (manas), greeting our sense of self or “I” (ahamkara), and finally arriving at the alayavijnana.

Meditation begins 34.26

Q&A 58:29

* Different practices, same shamatha?

* Semantics: bhavanga versus alayavijnana.

* The far side of dullness and tiredness.

* Morning and night people, and entering into practice like a helicopter.

* The bashful maiden as a metaphor for thoughts that vanish with the light of awareness.

Here we allow our favorable and unfavorable perceptions of others to arise, recognize these as fabrications, and then probe beneath them to the common ground from which to view other’s desire to be truly happy. Meditation begins at 14:50 Closing … Continue reading →