Fall 2011 Shamatha Retreat

Instruction and meditation: Awareness of awareness (“The Shamata Express”)

The most common question/concern asked by current retreatants about this practice is “Am I doing it correctly?” It is simpler than you think. In fact, don’t think. If you have uncertainty, it is a sign that you are doing more than necessary. There’s already the seed of the practice in both the mindfulness of breathing and settling the mind in its natural state. Now we are just peeling away the layers, seeing what is left: awareness. Don’t elaborate or adorn. You are simply not attending to anything else except awareness. You are withdrawing into awareness. It’s not that you are coming into your head, into a cramped space. It’s not that. Awareness has no locus/no location. However much you extend your awareness is where it is. It’s not attending to appearances or locality. It is no place in physical space. You might feel hyper, tense or tight – especially in your chest. Then balance the practice with mindfulness of breathing. Go out on a limb and then go back to the trunk.

Meditation starts at 6:13

Back to meditative cultivations of equanimity, Alan emphasizes maintaining the equilibrium in the face of whatever arises. Alan also talks about the cognitive and affective aspects of equanimity.

Meditation starts at 34:46

Questions (59:40):

Alan answers questions about the feeling of energies in circulating in the body while practicing, the visions a non-Buddhist can expect in the dying process in reference to the descriptions posed by several texts on the bardos, if the acquired sign can arise if one focuses on a rock and about the conditions and time necessary to achieve shamatha.

Shamatha without a Sign - all discovery no development. With Awareness of Awareness we discover bliss, luminosity and non-conceptuality of the substrate consciousness. Alan discusses the things that are in the way of discovering our natural inner resources: looking outside instead of inside, to many commitments, addiction to hedonic pleasures and mental afflictions. The lion guarding the gate is a sense of self which is just an appearance, a mental construct.

Meditation starts at 14:29

Alan continues his talk by emphasizing that hedonic pleasure cannot be the sole measure of something good/beneficial. Only through difficulties we encounter with others can we develop the paramitas. Whatever happens is also presenting an opportunity and helps us develop strength of mind in order to digest whatever the world dishes up.

Guided meditation (33:08) focusing on the causes of happiness, starting with rejoicing in those who are doing something beneficial, those who are cultivating samadhi, those who are cultivating wisdom, and in one’s own positive factors both inner and outer.

Questions (58:13):

Q1) The events during the bardo of dying even when experienced cannot be reported upon because the has died. What are possible avenues of collaboration between buddhism and modern science to shed light on such questions?

Shamatha without a sign is a process of discovery and exploration rather than development. It involves experiencing and discovering, through one's own experience the natural states of mind of bliss, luminosity and non-conceptuality. In this practice, one looks deeply into cognition itself to discover the blockages, these being a sense of I am. So we look deeply into such questions as: Who is in charge? Who is the agent of action?

Meditation starts at 10:11

Alan discusses how to approach one’s shamatha practice in a wise way - not by focusing upon “how it went” but rather on one’s application and effort. One should see that in every moment, no matter how good or bad, one is “accomplishing shamatha”. Turning to empathetic joy (47:47), he urges us to attend to and draw out the goodness in others. He deals with questions (72:26) regarding the notion of attending to thought without grasping, how to induce lucid dreaming, distinctions between vipashanya and shamatha and discusses the Buddhist perspective of Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious.

Talk

Last night’s discussion of pointing out instructions may have left some feeling hopeless as so many of the qualified teachers have died. Important to know that if receive authentic teachings that is enough don’t need the pointing out instructions. Referenced teachings on DVD from five years ago in which Yangthang Rinpoche said to rest in luminosity and emptiness and said don’t tell me you can’t do it. Discussion of the emptiness of the mind.

Meditation (43:26)

Meditate on compassion at the deepest level which is our essential vulnerability to suffering. Visualize your own suffering and the causes of suffering as darkness dissolving into the light orb at your heart. Then continue with the same meditation for others.

Questions (68:25)

1) You talked today about the emptiness of the mind. When I attend to the space of the mind it ripples like Jello.

2) In Dzogchen you talk about clarity and emptiness. How does that relate to the awareness of awareness meditation?

3) As you said, everything in the world we get we eventually loose. This is so obvious to understand intellectually but that is not enough; we must experience at a deeper level. Can you comment on that?

4) How does the subtle energy body exist? Is it mental energy or physical energy? Does your knowledge of physics help explain how it exists?

Talk

Comparison of breathing meditation and settling the mind in its natural state. Breathing meditation is best done in a quiet environment – settling the mind can be done in a noisy active environment. Much like the difference between a monk in a monastic environment and a Bodhisattva engaged in life.

Meditation (18:20)

In settling the mind in its natural state one can focus on the foreground – what thoughts etc. are going on in the space of the mind or the background – the space of the mind between thoughts – this way you are never left without an object. The ongoing flow of knowing both when there are contents and when there aren’t. Enhance vividness and may detect murmurings of the mind that you might not otherwise be aware of.

“Not in a million years”.

Alan discusses modern concepts of mindfulness and meditation practice, which involve mere non judgmental attention to the present moment and whatever arises in that moment. He discusses their origin, the similarity they have in name to the awareness of awareness/shamatha without a sign practice, their benefits, and the extent to which they provide a suitable vehicle for the attainment of shamatha and other types of meditative attainment.

Meditation starts at 14:46

Dharma talk: Meditative cultivation of Compassion and the Suffering of Change

On the “most wanted” list of mental afflictions is hatred. Craving/attachment is the #1 culprit in the suffering of change. Craving and attachment are always carried by a conceptual line (i.e. they are one step removed from reality). There is the sense of “If only……” (I had this or that, I would be happy). The object of desire seems static (it is an object), but everything is in flux. Arhats are free of suffering because they are free of attachment. They feel pain, but the experience is different because there is not grasping at “my body.” The pain just arises in space.

The two parts of Buddhist ethics are (1) doing no harm and (2) being of benefit. If we were all ethical, 95 percent of the blatant suffering in the world would vanish.

Shamatha is one level of Samadhi. You achieve a more balanced mind and have the experience of bliss, non-conceptuality, and luminosity (it is moment to moment, but the experience is there). These three qualities are how craving/attachment, delusion, and hostility are experienced from the view point of rigpa. We can get glimpses of this in shamatha which is designed to lead us along our authentic intention and actually has a chance of success.

There are three types of desires which can be expressed thus: “I want to feel good,” (pleasure), “I want to feel alive, alive, awake, excited,” and “I want to feel safe, unafraid, secure.”

However, if you get what you want, it will eventually erode and change (therefore, the suffering of change).

Our aspirations must be in the realm of possibility (e.g. to be free of unnecessary suffering via releasing attachment to the desire realm and to have a balanced mind; it is still not permanent and unchanging, but we can work in that direction). We will still have to experience natural catastrophes, sickness, old age, and death.

Meditation on Compassion and the Suffering of Change (46:27), beginning with ourselves and moving to those whom we care about and eventually further and further out.

Questions and Answers (71:10):

1. What are pointing out instructions?

2. When you are experience laxity and excitation at the same time, which do you tackle first?