PODCAST

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness

B. Alan Wallace

Teachings from the eight-week retreat at Thanyapura Mind Centre, Phuket, Thailand

religion & spirituality buddhism

All Episodes

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92 Practice post-retreat (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/17

Teaching: Alan shares the conclusion of phase 1 of the Dudjom Lingpa’s Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra. Phase 1 covers taking the impure mind as the path aka settling the mind. You identify the impure mind that is dissolved into substrate consciousness. How never to be separated from the experience of the practical instructions when distant from sublime spiritual friends. A sublime spiritual friend reveals the path. It is important to distinguish between path and not path. We need

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91 Awareness of awareness (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/17

Teaching: Awareness of awareness is also known as shamatha without a sign. Sign refers to a target, so there’s no vector of attention. During the meditation, when you do the warm-up exercise of directing awareness in the 4 directions, don’t meditate or visualize the 4 directions. Just send out your antenna, or expand the space of awareness. Meditation: Awareness of awareness. With your eyes open, evenly rest your gaze in the space before you. Simply be present in the present moment.

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90 Practice post-retreat (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/16

Teaching: Alan presents the conclusion from Karma Chagme’s Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Emanation of Padmasambhava’s speech, Atisha addressed how to combine all the teachings of the 3 yanas into one practice. The fivefold practices are: 1) bodhicitta as motivation, 2) meditation on one’s own body as the deity, 3) meditation on one’s spiritual mentor as the deity, 4) view of non-conceptuality (insight into emptiness and rigpa), 5) dedication. Alan also introduces the 4 reliances: Rely not

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89 Settling the mind (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/16

Meditation: Settling the mind preceded by settling body, speech, and mind.  1) settling body, speech, and mind. Let your awareness come to rest in its own place. There may be knowing of knowing. Let your unmoving awareness illuminate the space of the body and the objective/subjective experiences. Observe them like an out-of-body experience. 2) settling the mind. Let your eyes be open, gaze vacant. Direct mindfulness single-pointedly to the space of the mind and its contents. Begin with

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88 Mindfulness of phenomena (3)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/15

Teaching: Alan completes his commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Composite phenomena are impermanent and unstable, rising quickly and passing away. This points to impermanence and relative reality. Although this is just the way things are, people may react with depression to the hedonic present, anxiety to the hedonic future, and PTSD to the hedonic past. Composite phenomena are also unmoving and empty, like an optical

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87 Mindfulness of breathing (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/15

Teaching: All the teachings are included in settling body, speech, and mind in their natural state. According to Asanga, sensations of the breath become increasingly subtle until prana dissolves into space. Conceptualizations diminish further and further until mind slips into non-conceptuality. Keep it simple. It’s the nature of the practice. Meditation: Mindfulness of breathing preceded by settling body, speech, and mind.  1) settling body, speech, and mind. Let your awareness illuminate

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86 Mindfulness of phenomena (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/13

Teaching pt1: Alan gives his commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. This section challenges our view that we’re leaving the Mind Center and returning to the mundane world. Contemplating phenomena as phenomena can be understood in terms of the 3 turnings of the wheel of dharma. In the 1st turning, we closely apply mindfulness to phenomena. Because phenomena deceive, the 2nd turning instructs viewing them as empty, illusion-like.

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85 Great Equanimity (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/13

Teaching pt1. Alan completes the 2nd cycle on the 4 greats with great equanimity. Literally, it refers to freedom from attachment to the near and aversion to the far. There is nothing closer than our own awareness. Thogyal—direct crossing over or leaping over—means traversing the bhumis in leaps and bounds to complete enlightenment. Meditation. Great equanimity preceded by mindfulness of the mind.  1) mindfulness of the mind. Let your mind release all thoughts about that which has already

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84 Mindfulness of phenomena (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/12

Teaching pt1: Alan gives his and the Dalai Lama’s commentary on the section on mindfulness of phenomena in verses 105-112 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Just as the mind does not come into existence, in the same way, we come to certainty that no phenomenon comes into existence. That which we perceive cannot be more real than our perception of it. Two objections are discussed. 1) If conventional truth doesn’t exist, then does nothing exist at all? If phenomena are just apparitions

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83 Great Empathetic Joy (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/12

Teaching. Alan continues the series on the 4 greats with great empathetic joy. When you become lucid in a dream, happiness arises from knowing reality as it is. As long as you remain lucid, nothing in the dream can cause suffering. Therefore, the instruction is to stay lucid by not losing the recognition of the dream as a dream. Shamatha helps you sustain lucidity. Vipasyana counters our ingrained tendency to reify everything. When you break through the substrate consciousness to primordial

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82 Mindfulness of the mind (4)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/11

Teaching pt1: Alan completes his commentary on the section on mindfulness of the mind in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. The mind is not really seen anywhere—e.g., inside, outside, in the skandhas, in the elements, etc... From what does the mind arise? Does the mind arise from an object? If so, are they the same or other? Mind cannot see itself just as a blade cannot cut itself. Ordinary mind is never still, being conscious of one thing after another. A stable mind is still,

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81 Great Loving-kindness (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/11

Teaching pt1. Alan continues the series on the 4 greats with great loving-kindness. Hedonic well-being is important, and the understanding of cause and effect in the natural world by modern science has made important contributions. In union with shamatha, knowing reality as it is through the wisdom of dependent origination and emptiness leads to durable eudaimonia. Meditation. Great loving-kindness preceded by mindfulness of the body and the mind.  1) mindfulness of the body. Seated on its

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80 Mindfulness of the mind (3)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/10

Teaching pt1: Alan begins his commentary on the section on mindfulness of the mind in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Where is the mind that becomes attached, hateful, or deluded? It has no location, basis, or form. The mind is not seen by any of the buddhas. The mind is like an illusion because it apprehends events with unreal projections. Even though one looks for the mind everywhere, it is not to be found. This means it is unobservable which means it doesn’t arise in the 3

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79 Great Compassion (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/10

Teaching. Alan repeats the series on the 4 greats, starting with great compassion. Focusing on the cause of suffering, we have experienced during the retreat that the mind caught up in rumination is very vulnerable to suffering. Mind is beaten up by samsara. Without shamatha, the mind is dysfunctional. When the mind is able to rest in the substrate, there is no blatant suffering. The proper way to view shamatha is not as an end itself, but as an on-ramp to the path of awakening. Meditation.

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78 Mindfulness of the mind (2)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/09

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with verses 104-105 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. Since awareness cannot precede, co-occur, nor follow the object of awareness, awareness is not inherently real. Similarly, no phenomenon comes into (inherent) existence. Inherently existent phenomena cannot causally interact with anything. Only conventionally does awareness arise in dependence on an object.  Alan talks about the entry point of the 5 paths and 10 bhumis as outlined in Asanga’s Abisamaya

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77 Great Equanimity (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/09

Teaching pt1. Alan continues with the series on the 4 greats with great equanimity. There’s a similar liturgy beginning with 1) why couldn’t all sentient beings abide in great equanimity free from attachment to those who are close and aversion to those who are far? There are various levels of equanimity. In settling the mind, still awareness and a lack of preference for all arisings are crucial for the mind to settle in its natural state. If you respond with anything other than equanimity, you

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76 Mindfulness of the mind (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/08

Teaching pt1: Alan revisits the 3rd application of mindfulness to the mind. Mindfulness means recollection. Here, we are taking the impure mind as the object of investigation. Specifically, we are examining the reified sense of “my mind”. Alan continues with verses 102-103 of Ch. 9 of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatara. The mind is not located in the sense faculties, sense objects, nor in between. It is nowhere to be found. Therefore, it is non-existent. As this impure mind which keeps us in

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75 Great empathetic joy (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/08

Teaching pt1. Alan continues with the series on the 4 greats with great empathetic joy. Unlike empathetic joy in the Pali canon, great empathetic joy is an aspiration. There’s a similar liturgy. 1) Why couldn’t all sentient beings never be parted from happiness free of suffering? This doesn’t refer to hedonic pleasure but eudaimonia. It also refers to freedom from all three kinds of suffering. 2) May we all never be parted from happiness free of suffering. 3) I shall do it. 4) May I receive

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74 Mindfulness of feelings (5)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/06

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. When experiencing a painful feeling, develop great compassion for beings who fixate on feelings, totally identify with them, hold them close, misapprehend them, and ruminate about them. Let the feeling arouse compassion. One may also use a wisdom approach by inquiring who is the one who experiences the feeling? By gaining insight into the emptiness of the

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73 Great Loving-kindness (1)

Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of... ·

2012/10/05

Great compassion is the principal practice of the 4 greats. Alan continues with great loving-kindness. Meditation. Great loving-kindness. Visualize the primordial buddha Samantabhadra, deep-blue in color. From now until perfect awakening, take refuge in Samantabhadra, the dharma revealed by all the buddhas, and the sangha of vidyadharas. At the crown of your head, Samantabhadra melts into light, streams down your central channel, and reforms at your heart chakra, merging with your body,

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Fall 2012 Shamatha and the Four Applications of Mindfulness

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