Audio from Alan Wallace 2012 shamatha retreat

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Just found this: http://archive.org/details/ShamathaRetreatWithAlanWallace2012

 

The word 'shamatha' may be Buddhist, but the practice of focusing the mind on one object to develop clarity and stability is universal to all cultivation traditions.

 

TTC verse 10: 'Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness?...' and 16 'Empty your mind of all thoughts'.

 

Hinduism - last 3 limbs of yoga.

 

Even Alastair Crowley practiced some sort of concentration exercise.

 

For those of you who haven't read The Attention Revolution, or similar, you'll learn a lot of new stuff. Those of us who have will probably also learn a lot of new stuff, particularly from the Q&A's.

 

Enjoy.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hi SOS

Gee, I thought you knew about those. I've been posting links to them for quite a while now, but in the Buddhist section.

Alan Wallace's podcasts are so wonderful and he has a full array of practices.

 

Here is one retreat that I've listened to three times now.. becaue it is so informative and takes you through all the stages all the way up to pure Dzogchen..

 

http://archive.org/details/IntroductionToDzogchenRetreatWithAlanWallace2012

 

Also, here are some personal notes I made about this series of talks: (sorry, I keep missing 1 to 3 but they are worth listening to too)..

 

4 two guided meditations.

Compares life to a dream.

Mode of existence.

Three mundane jewels: wealth power and fame... Valueless at death. People on retreat

 

5 One guided breath meditation.

General talk about minor benefits of meditation, watching the breath, no breathing during cell phone- checking email, dalai lama and soft cushion on chair.

 

6 Talks about relaxation, stability and vividness

Anti-effort

The 8 concerns -abandon hinderances

 

7 shavasana corpse posture

One silent meditation 25 min.

 

8 two silent sessions are skipped

Talk is about questions and answers.

Dissolving coarse mind during meditation. Personal identity is dissolved. Fear and get over it.

Death and the substrate consciousness.

Length of sitting times

Background of Theravada

Sleepitate

　

9 start of watching thoughts as per Dzogchen

Two good guided meditations

Architecture of dharmadatu rigpa, microcosm, macrocosm

　

10 wonderful visualization meditation eyes partially open

Space of the mind

 

11 two meditations

Talk about shamatha

All practices have limitations

Defines Dzogchen as beyond stages of generation and completion

 

12 silent meditation only 25 min

 

13 2 meditations cut off

Questions and answers

Substrate dissolve into

Prana accumulates in heart, throat xfor dreams, etc

Senses dissolve

Tummo, dissolving into central channel, subtle mind,

Do absolutely nothing then the winds will dissolve into the central channel and go to the heart drop but it is not easy.

Path: shamatha vipassana trecko thodgal rainbow body

How to check out past lives by using the substrate

Remember what u had for lunch a year ago Buddhagosa

　

14 five obscurations whole path

Lots on path (if you had to listen to just one, I would pick this one).

 

15 can't practice Dzogchen from a coarse mind, first gear

One meditation silent session

 

16 history and commonality of rigpa, arahats science luminous bliss unborn unceasing

Vidyadata unborn unceasing resting in rigpa

Prajnamitra the nature of existence is clear light

Franklin Merrell-Wolff

There is no Buddhism in Dzogchen

 

17 pointing out instructions meditation

 

18 getting the view. Dreams clarity emptiness. First insight is often dull.

A spacious path to freedom Karma Chagme.

Stories about reincarnation and mundane psychic powers

 

19 two silent meditations

Spaced out danger: Must be a flow of knowing

Lucid dreaming

Really excellent talk about bliss, shamatha, stability, rigpa, the progression...

 

20 calichakra tantra

Rainbow body

Stories about masters

Industructible drop at the heart

 

21 awareness of awareness on second meditation

Invert and expand awareness

From padmasambhava. Book called Natural Liberation

Develop introspection

Do you need a guru?

Relationship to the guru

 

22 one guided meditation

on being aware of being aware

Center then release and repeat

 

23 No meditations

Question and answers

Stories about rainbow body

and cremation

Talks about continual knowing,

Vividness luminosity, subtle thoughts,

Insomnia-

 

24 two meditations second is guided. Phase 2 of awareness of awareness.

Talks about Richard Geer and reifying gurus

 

25. One silent session

Talking starts at 26 minutes

questions and answers

Cultivating introspection

By stage 8 you don't introspect anymore

question about prayer

 

26 two meditations : second is guided

 

27 one meditation session silent

Q&A location of awareness

 

28 Two meditations are cut

Q&A

Levels of practice

Rumination is grasping

Cat and elephant in a pool of water

 

29 general advice

two meditations, one silent

Second is "shamatha without a sign" guided -starts at 34:50

Meditation: calm mind with breath, focus awareness without an object up, then return, then right, return, left, return then take an elevator down to the heart. Then expand awareness in all directions without an object

Then come back to the center.

Meditation is from padmasambhava "natural liberation"

Talks about death

 

30 loving kindness meditation

 

 

TI

[doc benway]

Wallace is a great communicator.

Listen to him then read Nan Jang.

And just be...

 

_/\_

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Hey TI, I listened to the dzogchen one but only just found this shamatha one.

 

I'll probably listen to the dzogchen talks again after this... so much great stuff!

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hey TI, I listened to the dzogchen one but only just found this shamatha one. I'll probably listen to the dzogchen talks again after this... so much great stuff!

 

Hey SOS

Oh, I didn't realize..

Just so you have something to look forward to, here are many of his retreats, going back a few years. I've listened to nearly all of them.

 

http://podcasts.sbinstitute.com/

 

So how are you doing with your breath meditations?

 

I had a very interesting session this afternoon, after work.

 

I set my "Insight Timer" for 1 hour and did my usual breath meditation, with a slight twist. I found that it is easier for me to maintain attention on the mental representation of the breath if I imagine a white disk of light going up on the in-breath, and then get brighter at the top ( in the gap between the in-breath and the out-breath), and then going down, then again getting brighter at the bottom of the out-breath. Usually, I do this visualization once I get the "mental representation of the breath". The visualization occurs somewhere around the nostrils or tip of the nose.

 

This time, I decided to add a little bit of color. I started by visualizing a yellow disk in the same pattern as I just described. Yellow represents the earth element. I followed that yellow disk up and down for about 7 minutes. Then I switched to (you guessed it) white. White represents the water element. Spent 7 minutes on that. Next, I switched to red, the fire element for about 7 minutes, then green for about 7 minutes and then finally blue (for space). I was succeeding pretty well at keeping a continuous flow of attention. After that, I went back to visualizing the white disk. However, something interesting was happening.

 

I decided to pay particular attention to the whole up and down path, with even more attention.

 

Gradually, at the same place where I was visualizing the disk moving up and down, the disk started to disappear and I could see the air particles moving upwards as I breathed in, and moving downwards as I breathed out. Then I noticed that the background where I had been tracing was no longer a kind of cloudy white but was gone, revealing a very clear open dark blue space behind it!

 

I concentrated on upping my attention and I could see the fine little bubbles of air molecules moving in a stream, with perfect formation. They looked like a tiny sequence of white balls of light. I thought to myself, "Hmmm. I'm experiencing clarity and vividness".

 

Then, all of a sudden, I started to get really interested in what I was seeing. As I did, the scene grew even more clear and vivid. I then understood that 'interest' produces vividness, and that I can control my interest as a separate entity. At that point, I thought to myself, "watching my breath is finally very interesting!"

 

When happened next kind of blew me away. As I was increasing my interest and vividness, my root chakra started pulsing and within seconds, I had a huge surge of tingles coming up through the center of the body. I was very surprised. I didn't think that kundalini could get aroused from breath meditation. I kind of hoped that it would go away so that I could get more practice at cranking up my 'interest', the vividness, but the surge was too powerful and it made short work of the whole session. I had to stop and let it pass.

 

So, I'm not really sure what happened there other than I've learned that breath meditation can be very interesting, that I can increase my interest and this causes great vividness. It just shines.. luminous.. great detail..

 

I do recall one podcast where Alan Wallace talks about how after a while, if breath meditation becomes 'interesting', you have reached some kind of milestone. I would never have believed it.. Can't wait for the next meditation session!

 

 

TI

Edited July 16, 2013 by Tibetan_Ice

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Great, thanks!

 

Anapana's going well, not yet got a nimitta, but I will when I just get a bit more stability and vividness.

 

I am definitely well grounded in the relaxation aspect, people who don't know I cultivate at all ask stuff like 'why are you always smiling?', lol. I can handle not being stimulated for longer than most people.

 

My meta-cognition is much better, I catch my thoughts before they snowball in nonsense negative rumination quicker than before, that's obviously great on the virtue/mental health side of things.

 

People have asked if I have an eidetic memory. I don't, I just remember stuff better because my mind isn't as clogged with a hailstorm of other stuff.

 

While meditating lately, it seems I've been getting close to the 'body asleep, mind ultra-awake' Alan Wallace mentioned, because I've moved, and for a brief instant there had been resistance like sleep paralysis then I jerked suddenly - but it wasn't a trance, my mind was a little bit more awake than awake.

 

Maybe if I can get a bit deeper and not need to move, I'll get to purely mental awareness and therefore nimitta.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I've listened to all the 2012 shamatha retreat now, I've got a much better understanding of resting the mind, awareness of awareness, how shamatha ties in with alaya and rigpa, the 9 stages and other stuff than I had before. Excellent.

 

I'll listen to the Dzogchen retreat again now. I don't intend to formally follow Dzogchen, but the theory and principles from Alan's overview should really complement my current mix of Zen, Taoism and Yoga.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Seeker of Tao

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hi SoT

That is awesome!

I was going to recommend, did you try one of the earlier breath meditations as suggested by Alan that was putting more attention on the out-breath and then letting go at the bottom of the out-breath? Waiting for the in-breath to kick in? The more relaxed the body is through letting go, the more the nimittas appear. Also, try to really relax and let go of your brow muscles, your nose and face. That really helps too. Just a suggestion.

 

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I actually find myself relaxing on the out breath and arousing vividness on the in breath automatically. I guess it's a natural mechanism when you get out of your own way.

 

Currently my major practice is anapana (1 hour) and I just changed my minor practice from metta (28 mins) to resting the mind (30 mins), also a little chi stuff.

 

I think when I'm a bit further on I'll make resting the mind my major and anapana my minor.

 

Then, I may replace anapana with awareness of awareness. In the home straight, I'll just focus on awareness of awareness.

Edited August 10, 2013 by Seeker of Tao