Alan Wallace Fall 2012 Retreat Podcast: Vipashyana, Four Applications of Mindfulness

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 are not doing the practice. In vipasyana, subjective awareness itself is established as empty as are the appearances arising to the mind and their referents. In dzogchen, samsara and nirvana are not only equally empty but equally pure and equally expressions of rigpa.

Meditation starts at: 11:55

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 samsara is actually non-existent, we sentient beings are by nature liberated. Realizing the empty nature of your own mind is realizing nirvana.

Alan gives instructions on gentle vase breathing which is an optional accompaniment to settling the mind. Practice this only in the upright position. Keeping your respiration natural, use a teaspoon of effort to maintain the roundness of the belly during both in and out breaths. Eventually, you will be able to do this on auto-pilot and direct your full attention to the space of the mind.

Meditation starts at 40:00

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 blessings from all the enlightened ones to do so.

Meditation starts at 8:15

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 experiencer, one penetrates the entire system of simultaneous interdependence with the object and the feeling as mode of experience. Finally, one views feelings from the perspective of rigpa—i.e., peaceful, pure, and luminous. The first step is recognizing the feeling as a feeling, by being able to distinguish between the stillness of your own awareness and movements of mind. Only then, can we choose to react wisely, such as following Shantideva’s advice of remaining as still as a log of wood in the presence of klesas.

Meditation starts at 26:30

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Regard feelings as feelings which stills cognitive fusion with them. Have great compassion for those who grasp onto joy. Those who do not grasp onto feelings experience true well-being. Whenever you experience pleasant feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from attachment, and abandon attachment. Whenever you experience painful feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from hatred, and abandon hatred. Whenever you experience neutral feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from delusion, and abandon delusion. Experience no attachment to pleasant feelings, no aversion to painful feelings, and no ignorance with regards to neutral feelings. Recognize pleasant feelings as impermanent, painful feelings as unsatisfying, and neutral feelings as peaceful and identityless.

Meditation starts at: 30:56

Teaching pt1. Alan begins a new cycle on the 4 greats. While the 4 immeasurables don’t require a particular world view, the 4 greats are firmly rooted in the buddhist world view. “With meditative equipoise, one sees reality as it is. When on sees reality as it is, the bodhisattva develops great compassion.” The liturgy contains four lines. 1) Why couldn’t we all be free from suffering and its causes? It is helpful to consider all sentient beings as referring to all those we encounter. 2) May we be free from suffering and its causes. There is no time limit on this aspiration. 3) May I free us from suffering and its causes. This intention is realistic only from the perspective of rigpa. 4) May the gurus and buddhas bless me, so that I may be enabled.

Meditation starts at: 24:33

In the Mahayana, equanimity is a sense of evenness or equality between self and other. In order to practice guru yoga where there is non-duality between your own mind and the guru’s mind, pure vision for both self and guru is needed.

Meditation starts at 5:13

Teaching pt1: In buddhist epistemology, valid perception depends on an object, sense faculty, and continuum of consciousness. While the Shravakayana takes all three as real, Madhyamaka asserts their emptiness. Alan continues with verses 93-103 of Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara which addresses the origination of feelings. In buddhist epistemology, feelings arise from contact, so Shantideva deconstructs contact. If there’s an interval, there can be no actual contact between an object and sense faculty. If there’s no interval, the object and sense faculty would be one. Consciousness is immaterial, so how can it have any contact with a material object? Without contact, how can feelings arise? If the experiencer doesn’t truly exist nor feelings truly exist, why does craving arise when looking at an object? Feelings don’t arise to the mind like objects of perception. Feelings arise together with the mind as a mode of apprehending the object. Mind itself has illusion-like nature, so feelings too lack inherent existence.

Meditation starts at 50:04

Teaching pt1: With respect to the Madhyamaka, 1) hearing means that you understand the View as presented, 2) reflection means that you relate the teachings to your own experience, and 3) meditation means investigation based on shamatha to penetrate to direct realization. Alan elaborates on verses 90-92 of Ch. 9 of the Bodhicaryavatara. Suffering arises in dependence on causes and conditions; however, neither suffering nor joy is inherently existent. They are conventionally there without investigation, without analysis. However, upon analysis, neither is there from its own side. Just as causes and conditions can shift to produce either suffering or joy, conceptual designation can also be shifted by the observer participant. Reification is the problem, and this is the antidote to reification.

Meditation starts at 43:44

Teaching pt1. Alan revisits the 4th immeasurable equanimity. The Pali canon emphasizes a sense of imperturbability or emotional balance. In this spirit, Alan reads a section from Dudjom Lingpa’s Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra. Hoping for and clinging to things regarded as good and fearing things regarded as bad will lead to misery and suffering. Whatever joys and sorrows arise, these are mere appearances which are not to be blocked. Just stop reifying—i.e., the feeling of joy or sorrow and its causes. The mind that reifies appearances is the root that needs to be blocked.

Meditation starts at 15:00