Fall 2013 Shamatha and the Seven-Point Mind Training

Alan starts the session by describing his first interview with His Holiness on the topic of pride in one’s dharma knowledge.

Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche presented three approaches to learning and practicing dharma. The first is to study a great deal like eating a banquet. The second is to really focus on a few texts and the third is to receive quintessential teachings from a qualified lama. All of them fill you up.

You can come to meditation by way of the view or come to the view by way of the meditation.

The Three spaces meditation – First rest awareness in outer space, then rest in inner space and then rest in the non-duality of inner and outer space.

By meditating on delusive appearance as the four Kayas, emptiness is the unsurpassed protection. Alan provides an explanation of this statement.

Meditation starts at: 16:34

We go right into meditation on the rise and fall of the breath at the abdomen. Burmese method to stabilize the mind.

Stage 2 of Shamatha is reached when you can stabilize your mind for up to a minute at a time. Alan discusses how to use the 9 stages of Shamatha – as sign posts, not as goals. If you set as goals then turn the 9 stages into poison. Achieve this stage by the power of thinking such as counting the breaths. Most of the time your attention is not on the object. This is to be expected. In between sessions maintain mindfulness.

Meditation was silent and so not recorded.

As in the three fold space meditation, where we are trying to view space from the perspective of rigpa, here in Asanga's method we are trying to attend to the object from the perspective of the substrate. The substrate illuminates but does not enter into the object - no grasping. So we attend to the tactile field and within that field the sensations of the flow of prana correlated with the breath but without grasping. Alan also explains stage four of the nine attentional states leading to Shamatha. Here coarse excitation has stopped but the problems of medium excitation and coarse laxity are present.

Meditation starts at: A silent meditation session at 5:58, not recorded.

Line from Seven Point Mind Training - 'By meditating on delusive appearances as the four kayas, emptiness is the unsurpassed protection'.

Alan gives an analogy of lucid dreaming and the 'waking state' to refer to the way inner and outer space is perceived and how they can be non-dual.

Alan explains how to transmute equally all that comes up, whether we are in a spa or if people treat us badly. It is easy to practice Dharama in the 'spa' but you know how you are doing (with your practice) when you come up against difficulties.

Alan quotes from a Guide to the Bodhisattvas Way of Life - 'There is nothing that does not become easier with familiarisation'. Start by giving special attention to the small things that irritate you and release all resistance and let it be. Then you can work up to bigger irritations.

You can view enemies, illness and mental afflictions as opportunities for growth.

Qu: Metaphor of an arhart and a Buddha in the context of a lucid dream.

Qu: Regarding awareness of awareness practice and the role of discrimination and free will.

Qu: Regarding where mental afflictions come from.

Meditation starts at: 21:02

Alan discusses the Theravada classical approach of attending to the sensations and the tip of the nostrils, as described by Buddhagosa. Although the Buddha did not teach this specific technique, we can have confidence in the Sangha who have practiced it and learn from them too. Alan emphasises the need to not create tension in the face when doing this practice.

Alan talks about the acquired sign and the counterpart sign.

Alan outlines the characteristics of the 3rd of the 9 stages of shamatha - resurgent attention or 'patch like' attention.

Meditation starts at: Silent session at 13:45. Alan advised not to record.

Alan starts the session by describing his first interview with His Holiness on the topic of pride in one’s dharma knowledge.

Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche presented three approaches to learning and practicing dharma. The first is to study a great deal like eating a banquet. The second is to really focus on a few texts and the third is to receive quintessential teachings from a qualified lama. All of them fill you up.

You can come to meditation by way of the view or come to the view by way of the meditation.

The Three spaces meditation – First rest awareness in outer space, then rest in inner space and then rest in the non-duality of inner and outer space.

By meditating on delusive appearance as the four Kayas, emptiness is the unsurpassed protection. Alan provides an explanation of this statement.

Meditation starts at: 16:34

We go right into meditation on the rise and fall of the breath at the abdomen. Burmese method to stabilize the mind.

Stage 2 of Shamatha is reached when you can stabilize your mind for up to a minute at a time. Alan discusses how to use the 9 stages of Shamatha – as sign posts, not as goals. If you set as goals then turn the 9 stages into poison. Achieve this stage by the power of thinking such as counting the breaths. Most of the time your attention is not on the object. This is to be expected. In between sessions maintain mindfulness.

Meditation was silent and so not recorded.

We begin the evening session with the practice of Tong Len, focusing on gratitude towards all those people in our lives who enabled our physical survival, then those who helped us on our spiritual path, and finally on all the difficult people we encountered in our lives who catalyzed our mental afflictions and, hence, provided us an opportunity to see the afflictions and realize their impact. The practice of seeing kindness in difficult people is not to become ignorant, but to see beyond their vices and appreciate the opportunity to observe your own afflictions manifesting and to practice applying antidotes. In fact, without adversities, there would be no motivation to pursue a spiritual path. Therefore, we need to be equally grateful for kindness coming from difficult people as we are for that coming from kind/pleasant people. After the meditation, Alan continues the topic started in the morning, explaining the four yogas of the Mahamudra path and how they correspond to the bodhisattva path, namely: the yoga of one-pointedness, yoga of simplicity, yoga of one-taste, and yoga of non-meditation.

Meditation starts at: 00:30

We start today's morning session with the last (silent) meditation in the cycle of merging mind with space. After the meditation, Alan gives a big-picture context of the path (marga) in Mahayana Buddhism, namely in Mahamudra and Dzogchen. By elaborating on the steps and stages of each path, Alan makes it clear - once again - how Shamatha is an indispensable step if one aspires to cultivate genuine realizations on his/her path. He also points out how often unskilled teachings/teachers can confuse the qualities of Shamatha practice with much higher realizations and when this happens, the practitioner not only does not progress on his/her path but is also deluded regrading the realizations, which is the danger of inauthentic teachings. Hence, one should not abandon the ground practices of Shamatha and other preliminaries (Tong Len, Lam Rim, etc.) before venturing out into more esoteric practices.

Meditation (left in so you can practice along with us) starts at: 02:00