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During this year’s 8-week retreat Alan will grant the oral transmission and commentary to the teachings on the root text The Highway of the Jinas: A Root Text on the Precious Geluk-Kagyü Mahamudra Tradition and its auto-commentary by Panchen Lozang Chökyi Gyaltsen, tutor to the Fifth Dalai Lama. In addition, Alan shall grant the oral transmission and commentary to selected chapters from Naked Awareness: Practical Teachings on the Union of Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen by the great 17th-century master Karma Chagmé. Participants in this retreat should have a sound understanding of the Sutrayana teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, and have experience in the practices of shamatha, the four applications of mindfulness, and the four immeasurables.

Alan begins the retreat by thanking all the staff at ILTK, starting from the Director Filippo, his wife and everyone else who has been helping to offer such a wonderfully conducive environment. We will have teachings from the Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra – Alan has received the oral transmission of this text from Geshe Rabten. Alan also received the oral transmission of the other text he will be teaching on from Gyatrul Rinpoche, which highlights the union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen (Naked…

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Alan says that for each morning session we will proceed directly to meditation practice on the basis that each of us have individually undertaken our daily preliminary practices and prayers of Refuge, Bodhicitta etc. Alan describes Asanga’s powerful method of meditation focussed on the breath whereby one lets the body settle naturally without mental forcing and, following the Buddha’s instructions, one closely observes the in and out breath with repeated letting go of any thought. This allows…

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Alan begins by stating the only suitable focus of our motivation as Mahamudra practitioners is on Bodhicitta as it is integral to the Mahayana path. However the Bodhicitta vow is like a promissory pledge and not realistically meaningful unless it is accompanied by a plan or strategy for taking the path. Alan invites us to develop our vision to enter the path and incorporate it into our shamatha practice initially with self-directed loving kindness and then expanding our motivation outwards by c…

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Alan explains that the theme of “Stillness and Motion” contains a simultaneous awareness of the stillness of the awareness and the movements of everything else. According to the vision of the shravakayana, the nirvana that an arhat experiences is still, so here “stillness meets stillness”. Ordinary sentient beings experience moving awareness that is aware of moving events, so here “motion meets motion”. In contrast a Buddha realises “non abiding nirvana” and is neither immersed in samsara nor i…

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Alan began by sharing with the group a question from a student, regarding how can we actually develop Bodhicitta. He replied by saying we should start where we feel comfortable, in something that makes sense for us, which in the case of Bodhicitta, for most of us, can be the cultivation of the Four Immeasurables. The meditation is on loving-kindness, and includes Alan reading the Buddha’s own words on the meaning of developing loving-kindness. After the meditation we returned briefly to t…

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Alan starts highlighting the deep similarities between the approach to Mindfulness of Breathing taught by Asanga and a practice many of us are familiar with, Settling the Mind in its Natural State. We will do this practice later in a few days, but briefly, in this practice, we single-pointedly focus our attention on the space of the mind and sustain the flow of mindfulness “without distraction and without grasping”. Yangthang Rinpoche, great master and great adept, explained this phrase: "witho…

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Alan invites us to move day by day through each of the Four Immeasurables in sequence and we´ve already started with Loving Kindness. Alan´s interpretation is that this is a good place to start, especially nowadays, when religion is completely gone from popular media, as if the secular world is the only reality. It is very easy to lose sight of what could be, of possibilities, and this may be very depressing. But reality is comprised of actuality and also of possibilities. Loving Kindness ackno…

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Alan starts with an announcement regarding the practice on Sundays which has no schedule. There will be a shift of the day off from Sunday to Saturday, starting next week, to allow us to do some shopping in the village nearby. Settling the mind in its natural state is taught as a practice to take the mind as the path until it dissolves into the substrate consciousness. Thanks to this profound practice, insight may arise into the nature of the mind. The practitioner may note that all phenomen…

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Alan continues on the topic of the four immeasurables, now turning to the third one, Empathetic Joy. He explains that each of the four immeasurables serves as an antidote when another of the four immeasurables goes astray. First, loving-kindness turns into an antibody to empathetic joy, in case the latter becomes hedonic fixation. Alan adds that hedonia never turns well, it is all about acquiring, whereas loving kindness is all about a vision, a vision of what would truly makes us happy. Seco…

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This morning, Alan returns to the theme of parallels between the practice of settling the mind in its natural state and the mindfulness of breathing as taught by Asanga. He begins by making a crucial point: when the practice is going well, it is never smooth. Unpleasant bodily and mental sensations (nyam) are bound to arise. In fact, in the book “Stilling the Mind” (containing the shamatha part of Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence) there is a two-page long shortlist of the nyams. Even though some a…

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This afternoon we finish the cycle of four immeasurables by meditating on equanimity. Alan says that this is the grand finale, the indispensable basis for bodhicitta. Equanimity has different meanings in different contexts but in the context of our practice it means the even-heartedness when attending to other people, other sentient beings. As long as we attend to people as objects, some appear agreeable and others disagreeable. The point of this practice is to place ourselves in the position o…

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The meditation starts immediately and it is silent. The practice is the full-body awareness of mindfulness of breathing. Questions: (1) Is there a written account of Asanga’s specific technique of Mindfulness of Breathing? (2) A clarification of the meditation object in this specific practice of Mindfulness of Breathing (3) Since I’ve started the retreat, I’ve been experiencing lots of mental chatter & physical discomfort. I’ve shifted my practice to “Taking the Mind as the Path” now, is…

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Alan begins with a commentary on the four immeasurables that ended yesterday with the meditative cultivation of equanimity, and explains how we are now left on an even open field which is in many ways the culmination of the monastic ideal. One has now stepped out of the realm of likes and dislikes and into the realm of evenly distributed warmth, kindness and compassion. This serves as the basis for crossing the threshold into the Mahayana, where this equality extends into the equality of self a…

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Alan says that the aspiration for Awakening and Bodhicitta takes us out of the present with a goal that has great significance and provides direction in our lives – the path of Dharma. One understanding of Dharma is as a way of viewing reality that brings forth a sustained well-being. This eudaimonia is genuine well-being that arises independently of pleasure or stimulation as occurs for hedonia which is ephemeral, thin or just a fleeting memory. Alan amusingly suggests that the practice of Min…

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Alan says he was advised that he inadvertently overlooked part of the oral transmission of Karma Chagme’s Naked Awareness text so he now delivers it for completeness (page 18 beginning “You are the protector of all sentient beings without exception…”). This afternoon’s topic is on the second of the Greats – Great Loving-Kindness (Maha Maitri). As with all the Greats, we require a fundamental shift from aspiration to intention whereby the intention in this case requires taking responsibility fo…

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Alan starts explaining that balance is a crucial theme in shamatha training where we cultivate relaxation without losing clarity, stability of attention without losing relaxation and vividness without losing stability. The balance of these three qualities can be applied to every activity in daily life, however there is no guarantee that it is meaningful. During the development of shamatha the faculties of mindfulness and introspection, which we already have, are refined through training and tur…

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We begin by exploring the third in the sequence of “Four Greats”, which is Great Joy or Maha Mudita. For Great Joy, as for the other great qualities we’ve analyzed so far (Great Compassion and Great Loving Kindness), we start with one question, “Why couldn’t all sentient beings never be parted from sublime happiness, free of suffering? Alan explores the underlying assumption in this line of the liturgy, which is that it is only because we all already have a Buddha nature, that the question even…

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Alan returns to the balance of the five faculties, starting with the different modalities of faith - appreciation, aspiration and belief - and the relation of belief with karma. The belief in karma depends much on the culture, but a confidence in Buddha and other great adepts who replicated his discoveries also may arise due to study, reflection, and meditation. Regarding the balance between intelligence and faith, including belief, Alan quotes William James: "Where preferences are powerless t…

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Alan begins the lecture by presenting the fourth of the Greats: Great Equanimity. Then Alan introduces Martin Buber’s explanation of an “I-you” relationship as opposed to an “I-it” relationship. In the latter case, if someone gives me pleasure then I like you, otherwise I don’t, as if the sentient being is no more sentient than a cellphone. To treat a sentient being as an “it” is utterly tragic, it’s dehumanising. This also happened towards animals. Descartes believed that animals had no consci…

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Alan explains that as we go deeper into the practice of shamatha, it appears more clearly that the three qualities of relaxation, stability and vividness are not only sequential, but they also reinforce each other in a reciprocal manner. In a similar fashion we have also the three higher trainings of ethics, samadhi and wisdom and among them ethics is the foundation: you can develop samadhi and wisdom, but if you do not have ethics you have nothing. The Buddha clearly said that the stronger you…

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Alan now goes beyond the sequence of The Four Greats (Great Compassion, Great Loving-kindness, Great Joy and Great Equanimity), to the Extraordinary Thought (tib. Lhag Sam), which expands on the momentum coming from these. It means “a resolve to free all sentient beings from suffering and bring them to to their fulfilment”. He points out that this is actually not yet bodhicitta, because the aspiration to achieve enlightenment is missing. Recalling Padmasambhava, he reminds us the importance…

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Alan addresses the theme of continuity which is essential for the path. In our shamatha practice we may often wonder if we are doing the practice right. Alan points out that the answer lies in whether we are staying in the ongoing flow of cognisance. As we move from coarse mind to subtle mind it is crucial not to lose cognisance (which is what happens when we fall asleep) but to sustain the flow of knowing and not infuse it with a conceptual framework. This is continuity in the formal practice.…

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This afternoon we come to the culmination of the series of discursive meditations which started with the four vision quest and the four immeasurables - bodhicitta. The definition of bodhicitta may seem religious, esoteric, abstract. Therefore, in today’s teaching Alan intends to bring it down to its roots. He begins by describing the state we often find ourselves in: we are suffering and we want it to go away. When the suffering eventually passes, there is breath of relief, but soon after a nag…

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The Dharma talks have been so good so far that a bird found us in the field as we were walking over to the meditation hall. He followed us over and hung around outside the hall before the session thinking about coming in to join us. This morning’s session was no less inspiring. Alan continues his strategy of addressing Ultimate Bodhicitta in the morning and Relative Bodhicitta in the afternoons. He discusses the hypothesis from all of Buddha Dharma that the nature of reality has been discovered…

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After two weeks in which we have seen a crescendo that culminated in aspirational and engaged bodhicitta, everything else now may seem an anticlimax. Actually this is the beginning. We arouse bodhicitta until it arises spontaneously. Within the framework of the Buddhist teachings on the primary mind & mental factors, bodhicitta is considered primary mind, it is core (the primary mind becomes bodhicitta). It is the motivation that can satisfy our eternal longing, it is the core meeting the core.…

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For the morning sessions, Alan says we will continue to focus on cultivating our shamatha practice, where a loose translation of shamatha is ‘peace of mind’ or, in Jackson’s translation of the Panchen Lama’s text, serenity. The surrounding peaceful Tuscan environment of ILTK and the graceful, kind and courteous staff are certainly conducive to practicing Dharma. Alan says that it brings him great satisfaction to obtain feedback from the ILTK Director that all participants are doing just that i…

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Alan begins by commenting that all teachings and sequences of practice have the goal of converging on realising the ultimate nature of mind, rigpa. This includes cultivating loving-kindness up to relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta, which in Dzogchen practice is no different from rigpa. The practices of shamatha and the four applications of mindfulness and so on, are directed towards realising the empty nature of our own mind and then converging on realising rigpa. Alan comments that th…

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This morning Alan moves on to the four close applications of mindfulness, focusing on the body and feelings. The Pali word “Vedanā” refers to primal feelings like pleasure, displeasure and neutral. Feelings are not included into the mental factors of the close application of mindfulness to the mind. Instead they are examined separately, since these are the ones we care about most. We don’t want pain and we want pleasure. In the first of the four noble truths, the Buddha recommends to understan…

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We begin the session with a review of a central practice in shamatha, mindfulness of breathing. Despite being so simple, mindfulness of breathing has its profundity validated, for instance, by being the practice the Buddha did both on the night of his awakening, and also at the time he entered his parinirvana. Alan went on to emphasize the importance of relaxation, namely in the body, with some comments about the key role that exploring, and developing the capacity to practice in shavasana, can…

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In order to explore the differences between shamatha and vipashyana, Alan begins explaining the meaning of the term bare attention coined by the great German scholar and practitioner named Nyanaponika Thera, the primary teacher of Bhikkhu Bodhi, one of the finest scholars and translators of Theravada Buddhism and the Pali Canon. Alan and Bhikkhu Bodhi never met but they have a long correspondence on the nature of mindfulness and its relationship to vipashyana. Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote to Alan: "Nyan…

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We return to the radically empirical observation of that we’re immediate aware of - appearances and the awareness of them. To understand the Dzogchen interpretation of where these appearances are coming from, we can start from scratch. Imagine you’re in a lucid dreamless sleep, resting in the substrate -alaya- and you’re aware of it, with the substrate consciousness, which is not even human. Then somebody wakes you up, and suddenly all these appearances arise - the person, your room, tactile se…

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The topic of this 8-week retreat covers the broad bandwidth from shamatha to vipashyana, to Mahamudra and Dzogchen because the text Naked Awareness is the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Alan is drawing repeatedly from the most foundational teachings of the Buddha, as presented for example in the Pali Canon. The Shravakayana is infact the grounding, the foundation on which you can build a skyscraper touching the sky. And the sky is Dzogchen. In the midst of this whole range of teachings it’s…

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Alan opens the afternoon session quoting professor Paul Davies and the emphasis that is commonly given in science to search for meaning outside ourselves: "Whatever strategy is used, searching for ET is still a huge shot in the dark. There may be no intelligent life out there, or even life of any sort. But to not even try would be hugely disappointing. Part of what makes us human is our sense of curiosity and adventure, and even the act of looking is a valuable exercise. As Frank Drake, th…

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Alan begins by reminding us that in yesterday’s afternoon session we took a roundabout approach of settling the mind in its natural state by first concentrating on the visual, then the auditory and the tactile domains before venturing into the domain of the sixth sense, the space of the mind. Today we will again “walk around the block”, as Alan says, however, not empirically but conceptually. Alan begins by referring once again to the passage of Karma Chagme’s text on shamatha, listing the vari…

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The session starts with meditation focused on the mind. Alan instructs us to discern the origin of mental events, to observe where those mental events arise and manifest, and to determine where they dissolve. After the meditation we return to the theme of siddhis. Based on this morning’s teachings, some of the siddhis seem plausible - if one masters the nimittas and if the hypothesis put forward by Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli is right. But there is still a nagging thought - says Alan. How to c…

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Alan starts off this morning’s session with a story about a delightful interaction between physicist Anton Zeilinger and His Holiness the Dalai Lama that took place at the 1997 Mind and Life Conference. The story culminates a year later with discussion of physics and philosophy and a visit to Anton Zeilinger’s lab, so that Anton could discuss his empirical evidence and show His Holiness how he made his discoveries. Aside from the fact that Alan likes telling stories, Alan loves the fact that An…

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We begin the session by returning to the practice of Taking the Mind as the Path. In the introductory comments to the meditation, Alan mentions the two-fold division of Buddha-nature (1. the naturally abiding Buddha-nature and 2. the evolving Buddha-nature). One is already present, while the other is evolving, transforming (the latter is a deliberate evolution or transformation towards enlightenment, this is the path). With this practice of taking the mind as the path, we rest in awareness, alw…

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Following up his commentary in the last few days on the description of mastering the dhyanas and the resultant siddhis, Alan says that in all traditions there is no specific “meditation manual” on achieving the dhyana levels except in the academic literature. Alan explains however that each tradition have their own practice and developmental methods e.g. lam-rim, stage of generation and completion, six yogas etc. However, all traditions agree that access to the first dhyana (shamatha) is suffic…

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Alan says we will now return to the central theme of balance, grounding our shamatha practice in relaxation and stability. We will later move to being aware of the sensations and movements of the body but attending to them from the perspective of stillness. Subsequently we will apply this to the practice of taking the mind as the path. In this method, our practice of attending to the mind can energise or arouse leading to tightness, and therefore we need to maintain a sense of looseness in the…

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Alan explains that phenomena that arise to the mind can be affirmations or negations. The negations can be further divided into simple and complex negations. In the discourse of the Arhat Nagasena with the king, the discussion leads to the conclusion that a chariot is not to be found as an inherently existent object. This is an example of a simple negation. A treeless plane is an example of a complex negation: trees are negated but a plane is confirmed. Alan emphasizes that the object of the p…

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Alan begins the session by frontloading the silent meditation session, and in the follow up of the morning session, asked us to investigate the distinctive qualities of space and awareness. To help us in that investigation, we brought forth the idea that space implies the quality of extension, unlike awareness. That being the case, these were the questions we were to contemplate: (i) is the space of the mind 2D or 3D?; (ii) has it got a colour, is it either black or transparent?; (iii) has it g…

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Alan started by bringing back the theme of the ultimate nature of mind, citing some approaches: (1) recalling the foray we made into an ontological probe into the nature of mind in terms of origin, location and destination - a classic vipashyana practice, especially in Kagyu (Mahamudra) and Nyingma (Dzogchen) traditions; (2) Karma Chagmé Chapter on Insight in “A Spacious Path to Freedom”, that draws the conclusion that mental appearances emerge from emptiness, their location and destination are…

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We’re going to return to the practice of taking the mind as the path. When we are attending closely to the space of the mind, do we have a sense of just a sheer emptiness, nothing, and then something happens in it, or in that vacuity, is there something happening? Isn’t it more like a “background radiation”, a fizz, a foaming, a shimmering in space itself that has a mood of dynamism, of pregnancy, of potential, ready to display as an appearance, a thought, or as a dream? And, considering the p…

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Alan begins by unpacking the distinctive characteristics of consciousness, which help us identify it vs. anything else that is not. Its characteristics are luminosity and cognisance. It’s very important to know experientially what we are talking about, and find the referent for each of these terms. There are two legitimate meanings to define the luminous nature of consciousness, the first of which is to be clear of any materiality, that is consciousness has no physical attributes whatsoever - n…

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Alan begins the session with a brief introduction to meditation that will follow, instructing us to meditate on the Shamatha method that we find most useful, and not to be worried if the method is advanced or not. We then move to a silent meditation. After meditation, Alan concludes the commentary and the oral transmission of the text ‘The Cultivation of Śamatha’, by Karma Chagmé (page 23). This section explores the highest stages of Shamatha, including the Form realm and the Formless realm…

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Alan shares with us an image that came to him this morning, originating probably from a martial arts film. In this image a trainee in martial arts is told to stand one-legged on the top of a telephone pole. And to just stay there…Our practice is much more challenging - says Alan. If your shamatha is flaky your vipashyana will be flaky, too - he warns us. But what is the foundation of shamatha? To answer this, Alan refers to Padmasambhava. Prior to practicing shamatha one should settle the body…

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Alan introduces the afternoon meditation by making a few comments about space. Our most primal space is the substrate. In dreamless non-lucid sleep, in anaesthesia and at the point of dying the substrate consciousness dissolves into the substrate. Even at this point, however, a sentient being still has consciousness, as opposed to e.g. a glass of water. The essential nature of the substrate is ‘avidya’ - ‘not knowing’. The substrate is obscuring the deeper reality, i.e. dharmadhatu. It does not…

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Alan begins the session with a sutta from the Pali Canon - the Suda Sutta or cook discourse, which begins with a foolish cook who didn’t take the king’s preferences into account and highlights the importance of acquiring the sign of the mind. The foolish cook never acquired the “sign” of the king. Alan mentions the movie Avatar in which there was a touching scene with the line “I see you”, and the phrase carries the meaning of understanding someone. In this way, the foolish cook did not “see” t…

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Alan begins by recalling that Panchen Rinpoche presented two methods for dealing with thoughts. One of the methods that Alan didn’t cover yet in this retreat consists in cutting off thoughts as soon as they come up. Hovering in the immediacy of the present moment, as soon as a thought comes up, just deflect it. One moment and it is gone. And then you rest in silence, not waiting and not slacking off, resting in the awareness of being conscious. The meditation is on Awareness of Awareness.…

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Alan says he is starting with a bang this morning and explains that an Arhat is a foe destroyer of mental afflictions (klesha) in that they have completely annihilated all mental afflictions and all their progeny – the vasana, or mental imprints or seeds. A Jina is beyond that of an Arhat in the next step towards becoming a Buddha because a Jina, (a conqueror or victorious one), has extinguished both mental and cognitive obscurations. The cognitive obscurations stand between an eighth stage Bod…

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The theme for this session comes from the pith instructions that we’ve recently covered from the Panchen Rinpoche’s text (stanzas 16 to 23), which are prevalent in the Mahamudra lineage. Alan’s prelude to the meditation returns to the question concerning whether the space of the mind is either a sheer absence of appearances or whether it does have characteristics that can be ascertained i.e. it is transparent and 3-D. We will continue investigating the nature of consciousness through the practi…

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Alan starts explaining that throughout times, lamas have given pointing-out instruction on the nature of the mind. With respect to this it is crucial not to conflate the different dimensions of consciousness. During the day we experience different states of mind, like sleeping, dreaming, waking, or being immersed in a conceptual or non-conceptual mind. In all these cases the common nominator of the mind is consciousness. Alan explains that the defining characteristics of the mind are luminosit…

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Alan begins the session on a playful tone, saying he invited a guest speaker to lead this afternoon’s meditation session. After a brief commentary, we then move on to the session, that consisted of Alan reading pointing out instructions to rigpa, by the Lake-Born Vajra, a speech emanation of Padmasambhava. After the meditation, we return to the Panchen Rinpoche’s text transmission, and begin the section on vipashyana, focused on identifying the ultimate nature of mind. Alan continues the or…

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Alan starts remembering the pointing out instructions of Padmasambhava that he read yesterday. In the preface, Padmasambhava says he is pointing out to what he called by many different names: atman, middle way view, emptiness, tathagatagarbha, alaya, perfection of wisdom, and so forth. And then there are two phases: in the first he challenges us - “what do you mean … Observe your mind!?” Just do it! In the second, he poses a hypothesis: “Is is that way or not? Observe your mind!” The first ph…

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Alan starts by giving us a suggestion: for our whole life, from now until our enlightenment, we should evaluate our practice in a eudaimonic way - based on what we brought to the practice, on how we responded, and not based on what happened to us during the practice. An important point is that shamatha and vipashyana practices can be very dry, not sweet, not warm; so the more we can sweeten our practice with devotion, with four immeasurables the more balanced our practice will become. We have t…

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Alan reminds us the pointing instructions of Padmasambhava when he repeatedly said “observe your mind, observe your mind”. For some people that may be sufficient, for others perhaps just observing the mind is sufficient, but for most of us while we observe this ordinary consciousness of the present, that is what he is referring to, saying this is the same as the Buddha nature, rigpa, this is your ordinary consciousness of the present moment. At the same time it’s perfectly true that we can be a…

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Alan begins by recalling Padmasambhava’s pointing out instructions presented earlier, stating that if one is extremely gifted, ripe, that could be sufficient to cut all the way through to rigpa, primordial consciousness. We are now going deep into vipashyana territory. Alan then comments on the practice we did earlier, which engages in the search of the mind with questions. For the meditation Alan reads Padmasambhava’s Pointing Out instructions from Natural Liberation to identify awareness (…

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In this morning’s teaching Alan elaborates on the notion that rigpa is right where we are looking when observing the mind. But do we see it? We are looking right at it but not seeing it clearly due to the thick layers of obscurations. However, one crucial theme that pervades all levels of observing the mind, from the coarse to the most subtle, is the non-duality of luminosity and emptiness (seltong in Tibetan). Alan explains that we can see it already at our level of practice. As we observe our…

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Before the meditation, Alan comments on the uniqueness of the contemplative practice. He refers again to Kurt Danziger’s article (link available in Retreat Notes), explaining why introspection was largely abandoned by 20th century psychology. According to Alan, eliminating introspection is comparable to astronomers no longer wanting to look at the sky. One of the reasons introspection was considered a failure was the so called “leading the witness” bias. It was due to the fact that researchers…

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Alan begins by talking about the fact that he would love to see a revitalization of contemplative inquiry, and he reiterates the idea emphasized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama that in Buddhism there is a science of the mind, not just a philosophical or religious tradition. Not everyone who reads science wants to become a scientist, and likewise, this retreat is not for everyone. It is intended for those seeking the path. For the scientific assertions within Buddhism and other traditions to be t…

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As we begin to venture into the next section of Panchen Rinpoche’s text, in this session Alan starts the inquiry into the object of negation. The object of refutation is a self that exists prior to and independent of any conceptual designation. This is connate ignorance, but with prajna, the sharp sword of intelligence, we can apprehend the absence of that self. This applies also to all phenomena. In order to expand the discussion of this topic, Alan brings in quantum physics, questions about h…

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Alan reminds us of Padmasambhava’s pith instruction that makes the path to enlightenment so easy - to observe one’s mind. However, for most people this is not sufficient to progress as we have obscurations, particularly conative obscurations that are difficult to be rid of as we are all so busy, despite that for many of us our survival isn’t dependent on such busyness. Alan reviews the operation of some of the types of obscurations including the conative; attentional including the categories of…

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Alan says we will return to vipashyana territory, based on the current theme of the Panchen Rinpoche’s text on emptiness. Alan describes two technical terms central to Prasangika Madhyamika – the basis of designation (or imputation) and the designated (or imputed) object. He illustrates how each and any of our senses or mental activity can provide valid bases of designation (e.g. the body parts of someone), but that does not mean the designated object (e.g. a person named such and such) exists…

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Alan reminds us that we are now more than five weeks in retreat and during that time he taught a variety of methods for shamatha, vipashyana and mahamudra. All the teaching he is transmitting are responses to the questions: What do you want? What is your heart’s desire? What will truly bring you happiness? These questions can initiate a dialog with our deepest dimension, our Buddha nature. From our conscious mind we may ask our heart what we truly desire. The Meditation is about loving ki…

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Alan begins the session by frontloading the meditation, indicating what sort of inquiry we will find later when we return to the Panchen Lama’s text, by reflecting on three questions: (i) how do we exist?, (ii) how do we appear? and (iii) how do we apprehend ourselves? Before moving on to the actual meditation, Alan made some additional comments about the importance of, in our dharma path, actually gaining experiential realization in each section of the path, before moving on to the next one (a…

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This morning, Alan integrated all theories and practices we’ve been doing during these last five weeks. He started by coming back to the pith instructions from Panchen Rinpoche yesterday: examine very closely the way of existing or the way of abiding, the way you appear and the way you apprehend yourself. And then he explained that the way of abiding and the way of appearing are different things, giving two examples: (1) Robert de Niro, as a very gifted actor, appears in many different ways - a…

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We continue to follow the strategy presented by Panchen Rinpoche, examining carefully the way we abide, in contrast to the mode of appearances. As we all know, we appear in very different ways, ever changing - even from day to day, we don’t look the same. But in contrast, when we think of our childhood, we think ‘that was me when I was a child’. Or when someone says something about us when we were adolescents, we feel ‘it’s referring to me’. There is something that abides. What is it that bears…

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This morning’s session outlined that there are two routes to liberation – one of faith and one of contemplating enquiry. The route we are studying during this retreat is the latter. Alan explained that the near enemy (or false facsimile) of Loving Kindness is self-centred attachment. He guided us to look back and examine the multiple manifestations of ourselves that we perceive as we function in a socially engaged world – some we like, others we dislike, sometimes we are virtuous and sometimes…

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We started the session by going directly to the Panchen Lama’s text, as Alan revised an initial translation he had proposed for an earlier part of the text. After that update, we continued on that section of the text (stanza 29), which served as the basis for the meditation session, which was silent. The instructions were to rest initially in awareness of awareness, and then return to the investigation on the nature of our existence, using the 3 questions we had already posed: (i) how do we exi…

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“I’m in the mood for weaving” - with these words Alan begins the morning session. And he does weave together - loving kindness, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, Shakespeare, Shantideva and much more…Loving kindness stems from the primal drive of caring. Insofar as the mind rests in its natural state, this flow of caring is unimpeded - says Alan. If we rest in this state and someone is in pain or experiences great joy - our heart is moved. We care even for beings that are not real - movie and boo…

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In the next section of the text, Panchen Lama is taking us from the limited domain of examining the self and establishing the absence of inherently existent self to the domain of all phenomena. Alan reminds us of a previous reference to the six elements in the analysis of the self. At that time, we examined these six elements individually and collectively in order to establish that they were empty of self, and that the self was not to be found outside these elements either. We have not done a…

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Alan talks today about the second of the four immeasurables, compassion. Like loving kindness, compassion is an aspiration and requires conative intelligence. It is the wish for sentient beings to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. As such, we can ask ourselves how we’ve been doing so far at eliminating our own suffering? How is it working out for us? Alan highlights two points. The first point is that, as Buddhaghosa states in the Visuddhimagga, the proximate cause for compas…

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NOTE: only the first 50 seconds come from the back-up recorder, and the quality is not optimal. Apologies for that. Alan begins the session by commenting on the difference between the way phenomena appear and the way they exist. It’s very common when we are pointing the finger at something, at an object or a person, to reify that object or that person. But that object or person appearing really over there, from its own side, autonomous, objective, is a lie, it doesn’t exist. The meditatio…

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Alan continues the meditative contemplation of compassion that we may be free of suffering and its causes by describing the aspiration as simple, yet deep and subtle. This is because there are three types of suffering that become deeper and subtler the more we investigate. Firstly, blatant suffering of pain, misery, unhappiness and so on; secondly, suffering of change in that we do not understand that our attachments to people and objects or ways to be happy etc., will change as they are not pe…

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Alan says that in the context of shamatha meditation there is a pyramid with the foundation being the ease, relaxation and stillness whereas at the top of the pyramid there is the clarity, vividness and acuity. The practice of vipashyana is all at the top of the pyramid. In practicing vipashyana we are cultivating the psychological factor of prajna, which in Buddhist psychology means discerning intelligence. When prajna is cultivated to its perfection, then it is translated as the perfection of…

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Following the classical sequence of the four immeasurables, Alan today turns to empathetic joy or mudita. He explains that the near enemy of compassion is grief and despair or, expressed in a modern term, depression. During the cultivation of compassion, we attend to a great extent to the evil things in the world. Especially for us, living in the 21th century, the exposure through the media to the myriad manifestations and sources of suffering can be overwhelming. Among many other reasons, this…

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We started the session with a quick review of the four types of mindfulness, with Alan mentioning that usually, for the untrained mind, there’s not even the capacity to distinguish between stillness and motion, with cognitive fusion with movements of mind occurring as a most common experience. Alan then did a review of the four types of mindfulness that we will experience as we embark on the practice of taking the mind as the path: (1) single-pointed mindfulness (which allows us to simultaneou…

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Alan starts by saying that this retreat has been embedded in the Buddhist teachings. It would be meaningless to teach Mahamudra in a secular way. It’s been wonderful to be totally immersed in a way of viewing reality and a way of practicing and leading our lives that have these three elements, profoundly integrated: the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of virtue and the pursuit of understanding or knowledge. In the Medieval period, the pursuit of genuine happiness, eudaimonia, was not conceiva…

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Alan starts by explaining that there are two approaches to Mahamudra: the Vajrayana and the Sutrayana. The Vajrayana approach is embedded in the Kagyu tradition, where Mahamudra is placed in the culminating phase of the stage of completion. The assumption is that you’ve already laid a solid foundation in Sutrayana practice – bodhicitta, realization of emptiness, renunciation – moved on at the stage of generation, then at the stage of completion – the six yogas of Naropa – and then the cherry on…

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Dear Friends, This is a trimmed version of podcast 79, which includes only Alan’s response to the article “Buddhist meditation and cognitive sciences”, by Daniel Simpson. Link to the article. · From the article “Buddhist meditation and cognitive sciences”: o Regarding the kinds of dialogues that are promoted by the Mind & Life Institute, anthropologist Geoffrey Samuel comments, “much of what happens in this process is less a dialogue between equal systems of thought than an assimila…

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Alan began by introducing the practice of Equanimity and by giving a snapshot of his experience the day before at a virtual reality laboratory founded in 1991 in Pisa. Alan then drew a deeply meaningful parallel between the reality we can experience in a lab with such refined instruments and the reality we experience while we are in a lucid dream. He invites us to do our best to see that all appearances to our mind are empty appearances as in a lucid dream, and yet they are deeply interconnecte…

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Alan began the session with the warning that this afternoon’s session would be dense, which prompted laugh from everyone in the room, given that all previous sessions have already been pretty dense! He then elaborated on the three higher trainings (ethics, samadhi and wisdom), saying that in the beginning of the path, the importance of ethics could not be overemphasized. He gave some detail on how to cultivate ethics, namely exploring its two facets: non-violence (both overt and covert) and ben…

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The “four immeasurables” we meditated on last week are common to many Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions. They can be cultivated while striving for individual liberation. Today, however, we cross the “continental divide” - as Alan calls it - to the “four greats”. Starting with the great compassion, Maha Karuna. It is sometimes referred to as “unbearable compassion”, as even an arya bodhisattva, overcome by compassion, can burst into tears. Especially in the 21st century, in face of so much su…

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Tonight we return again to the theme of the path and to the four applications of mindfulness discussed yesterday. This time, Alan gives a presentation of the four application of mindfulness in the context of Mahamudra. First, however, he points out that contrary to some views which present Buddhism as “selfish” - centred only on “me” and “mine”, as in “my body”, “my mind” - in the four applications of mindfulness the Buddha actually gave instructions to attend to the body, feelings, mind and ph…

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Alan begins the session by talking about the importance of settling the body, speech and mind in their natural states. After that he goes to “An Introduction to a Parable and its Meaning Taught by Siddha Orgyan” about a wish-fulfilling jewel on page 87 of Naked Awareness. The wish-fulfilling jewel is, of course, our own Buddha Nature. He then talks about the importance of clearing out our sense of ourselves as ordinary sentient beings, in order to practice from a new platform and realize who we…

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Alan begins by saying that Panchen Rinpoche has made a magnificent job in bringing together these two great traditions of Gelug and Kagyu. Alan then comments that if we are operating from the perspective of a sentient being, it is going to take at least 3 countless eons to achieve awakening. But, if we realise emptiness with the very subtle mind (rigpa), not with the substrate consciousness, then we will be slipping into the 4th time - this is the warp drive. In this way we will proceed very ra…

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Alan continues the teaching on the four greats by venturing into Maha Mudita, Great Empathetic Joy. In the Mahayana Buddhist context, reaching the path of accumulation entails the achievement of shamatha and bodhicitta, and then sealing it with insight into emptiness – there is no going back from there. Alan comments that Buddhism is not evangelical. Moreover, there are many paths from all wisdom traditions, and the book by Aldous Huxley’s entitled “The Perennial Philosophy” he read many years…

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Alan first reads and discusses two of the parables and commentary in Karma Chagme’s text “Naked Awareness” on page 88 of the orphan son, and page 89 of an old man losing his cord. He comments on realising the nature of one’s own mind right down to the ground – the in-dwelling mind of clear light, Dharmakaya, Buddha-nature. Then Alan comments on the different approaches found in the Gelug and Dzogchen traditions. The meditation is a guided Avalokiteshvara practice based on Karma Chagme’s “Na…

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Note: this is the only lecture for today, 19th May, because Alan will give a public talk at the University of Pisa. Alan starts with reading “The analogy of seeing a rope as a snake” from “Naked Awareness”, on page 91. Here a man mistook a rope for a poisonous snake and got frightened until a friend showed him that it was just a rope. Alan comments that there was no eye dysfunction. While the visual perception is always non-conceptual, in a very short time, the conceptual mind takes over, r…

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Alan begun this morning Dharma talk with one of his favorite parables (Naked Awareness p.93), and it is about a king who asked an illusionist to create an illusion as a means of causing his son to be drawn to Dharma. Alan pointed that just as the prince couldn’t recall the very first moment of falling into that trance – otherwise he would be lucid –, we are never able to recall the first moment of a mind wandering – otherwise we would be aware and able to say “hello thought, good bye thought”…

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The next session of the text in this chapter is on guru yoga (Naked Awareness p. 273). In the introduction, Karma Chagmé says “The best way to counteract obstructive forces, avoid pitfalls, and enhance your practice is guru yoga.” The central point of this practice is to realize the indivisibility of your own mind with the mind of the guru, or rigpa. It means that this practice is designed to melt away any sense of difference, any separation, between your ordinary consciousness of the present…

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Dear Friends, Today the whole group made an historical visit with Alan to the site of potentially the first Contemplative Observatory - a land blessed by Khadro-la where people can achieve shamatha, as she commented. The podcast includes two parts: (1) Alan’s summary of the current situation (the sound quality is reasonable, and just the first 3 minutes are missing, sorry for that) (2) Group recitation of the Shower of Blessings and further dedications from Alan (the sound quality…

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To introduce the essence of Buddha nature, Alan reads and explains the final parable of the chapter “An Introduction to Parables and Their Meanings” from page 94 to 96 of Naked Awareness. There is an analogy between Buddha mind and our mind: like the essence of gold is immutable, even if you can melt it and mould it into many different forms, similarly the essence of our mind is immutable all along, while we wander in the cycle of existence. If the essence of our spiritual awakening were not pr…

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Alan started the session by going directly into meditation, in a practice where we directed our awareness towards the space of our body, the space of our mind and, finally, awareness itself. Following the meditation, Alan did a quick reflection over the theme of strategy for our path, highlighting as before some of the underlying assumptions behind scientific materialism. Afterwards we returned to Naked Awareness, and Alan concluded the oral transmission of the text, with a closing secti…

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Alan started the session with a guided meditation summarising all the practices we have done during this retreat, culminating in Dzogchen non-meditation. It is never too soon to begin the Dzogchen practice and on occasion try to rest in non-doing, non-meditation - says Alan. It is good to sow the seeds for future practice. The rest of the session is devoted to questions from participants, especially those who have not had their interviews with Alan. The questions asked concern: 1) Vipashya…

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Alan ends the 8-week retreat with a meditation. Celebrations follow.

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