Alan Wallace Shamatha Teachings Fall 2010
92 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 13 years ago - ★★★★ - 5 ratingsWelcome! On this site you’ll find downloadable podcasts from the Fall 2010 Shamatha Retreat led by B. Alan Wallace in Phuket, Thailand. Follow along with the retreat as Wallace gives daily meditation instructions to help one cultivate attention and awareness as well as the qualities of love, compassion, joy and equanimity. Read more about Alan Wallace’s extensive background in Tibetan Buddhism at http://www.alanwallace.org/index.htm. Check out the Phuket International Academy Mind Centre at http://www.phuketinternationalacademy.com/piamc/phuket-international-academy-mind-centre. Also, feel free to check out the following forum to connect with other Shamatha practitioners: http://contemplativeobservatory.weebly.com/forum.html#/
We hope you will enjoy and benefit from these beautiful teachings!
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Episodes
Session 92: (Discussion Only) A Final Teaching, and an Expression of Gratitude to Our Teacher
December 30, 2010 20:30 - 1 hour - 30 MBAlan offers final words and we tearfully say goodbye. The session ends with a big group hug.
Session 91: (Discussion Only) Bringing Good Motivation into Daily Life
December 30, 2010 20:21 - 42 minutes - 16.8 MBAlan encourages us not to be discouraged when life dishes up difficult situations, and instead to bring our best motivation to daily life.
Session 90: (Discussion Only) Letting Our Minds Become Dharma
December 30, 2010 20:15 - 39 minutes - 15.6 MBAlan discusses bringing wholesome intentions into our daily lives as a way of letting our minds become dharma. Though we will continue to be mentally afflicted, if we can see our mental afflictions for what they are, we will be able to act on them less and less.
Session 89: (Discussion Only) Envisioning the Future You Would Love to Live
December 08, 2010 06:09 - 1 hour - 25.6 MBAlan talks about envisioning something new for ourselves as we go back into situations that feel old and familiar.
Session 88: (Discussion Only) Genuine Happiness in Everyday Life
December 08, 2010 05:17 - 35 minutes - 14.1 MBAs we anticipate the end of retreat, Alan mentions that the effects of retreat will not be lost as we go out and engage with the world. Genuine happiness can certainly arise outside of a retreat, as we go out into the world and lead an ethical way of life.
Session 87: (Discussion Only) Balancing Discipline and Gentleness and a Q&A Session
December 08, 2010 05:12 - 1 hour - 26.9 MBIn this talk, Alan encourages us to continue our practice in a spirit of loving-kindness for ourselves. He then answers questions about Arhats, colors of traditional monastic robes, and oracle to the Dalai Lama, Khandro La.
Session 86: (Discussion Only) Possible Effects of Shamatha on Cognitive Deterioration
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 29 minutes - 11.5 MBAlan offers some brief remarks on the 5 Dhana factors, as well some of the possible implications of Buddhist mindfulness on memory loss associated with aging. This is followed by a silent meditation.
Session 85: (Discussion only) The Four Immeasurables Keeping Tabs on Each Other
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 37.2 MBThis time Alan gave us advice on how to maintain protection from imbalances once we engage in daily life activities and that is becoming more and more familiar with the practices of the Four Immeasurables regarding them as our 4 best friends. We should know that whatever situation comes up there is a chance to practice. He shared a marvelous metaphor of 4 mighty horses (Four Immeasurables) pulling the chariot leading to awakening and when one of the horses falls stray there is always another...
Session 84: (Discussion Only) Some Brief Remarks on Selecting Your Shamatha Practice
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 26 minutes - 10.4 MBAlan offers some brief remarks on choosing which practice we’d like to engage in during these silent meditations. This is followed by an unguided 24 minute Gatika.
Session 83: Equanimity and a Great Encompassment of our Practices
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 40.3 MBOn this, the last night of led practice for this retreat, Alan first teaches on how the cultivation of shamatha and the four immeasurables are profoundly inter-related. With shamatha, we withdraw inwards, away from our ordinary identification with the limitations of our physical embodiment and our coarse psyche. Then with the four immeasurables, we expand outwards to identify with all beings. While leading the meditation on equanimity, we are guided briefly through all modes of shamatha and t...
Session 82: Awareness of Awareness, Shamatha That Can Assist at the Moment of Death
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 59 minutes - 23.9 MBThis morning we had the last guided Shamatha meditation. Alan explained how in this transient world in which all things that are born have to die, we can tap into the substrate consciousness and even though it is also impermanent in the sense that it changes moment by moment, it is a continuum that carries from one life to the next. It is present even during deep dreamless sleep, comatose and general anesthesia and that’s the reason that we can wake up again. When dying, if you have achieved ...
Session 81: Going Outward with Equanimity
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 35.5 MBEquanimity is understood as a sense of composure in engaging with life situations and persons as well as even heartedness. Is an attitude transformation that gives you freedom. Since you conceptually designate, you can change the designation and there lies the power to be totally present, engaged, without grasping. Fully alive, revolutionary! It’s possible since we never leap outside the space of our minds. We then meditated on Equanimity. Suggested that we read the Patience or Fortitude cha...
Session 80: Awareness of Awareness and Potentially the Last Soap Box Speech on Materialism
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 50 minutes - 20.3 MBThis morning Alan took another stab at modern scientific reductionism – the tendency to reduce everything to an objective, solid reality, independent of an observer. He cited William James’ experience at Harvard Medical School in the 1860s to show that the idea of the brain being the agent – the source of consciousness- actually pre-dated any significant discoveries about the brain and its functions. All along, however, there have been people like William James himself and the entire Buddhi...
Session 79: Happy Gratitude and Empathetic Joy
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 36.3 MBAlan begins this session with an inspirational story about one of his foremost teachers, Geshe Rabten. This humble lama, who had completed years of scholarly work and consultation studies with the Dalai Lama, found true contentment in life as he meditated under a simple rock shelf. His dedication to this single pointed purpose demonstrates a shining example of loving-kindness as a practice. “Dharma”, Alan says, ”is Bodhicitta. We must meditate on it, cultivate it, and then allow it to flow ...
Session 78: Deactivating the Coarse Mind with Awareness of Awareness
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 36 minutes - 14.5 MBToday we take an excursion into our experienced sense of being the observer and probe inward to investigate. The practice - awareness of awareness – deactivates the coarse mind, the mind with which we identify. We do our best to do the practice from the vantage point of the substrate. Practiced correctly, shamatha will rise up to meet us. “Our practice here is softening [us] up for vipashyana.” Likewise with all the practices along the path, each prepares us for the next. “Let Buddh...
Session 77: Empathetic Joy and Sacred Tension
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 38.8 MBIn the Theravada context, cultivating Empathetic Joy (Mudita) is cultivating an emotion. There is so much to take delight in! This will add yeast to life regardless of one’s world view. When we get away from the retreat center we can really practice! In the Mahayana context, the practice is cultivating an aspiration, not an emotion. “Why couldn’t we all be free from suffering, why not?” If we don’t terminate after death, the Mahayana prayer takes on greater relevance. Only from the pers...
Session 76: A Clarification of Buddhist Mindfulness and Awareness of Awareness Practice
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 58 minutes - 23.3 MBThere are some terms we shouldn’t misunderstand, because if we do, we can waste a lot of time of practice. Alan gave an explanation of such terms: mindfulness, open presence, Rigpa, according to the Buddhist and non-Buddhist perspective in order for us to see the difference. After his brief lecture, this morning we came back into the first method of Awareness of Awareness (4th cycle), where we simply rest in the experience of being aware; a second part of the session followed by oscillatin...
Session 75: Compassion Practice and the Urge to Become
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 1 hour - 35.8 MBThe deepest level of suffering is caused by the three poisons, particularly the grasping to “I am.” While the “message of modernity” is that suffering is inescapable during life, Buddha’s message is that suffering will in fact cease if we attend to its source. To do this we must face our self-grasping. Lucid dreaming is the closest analogy to abandoning the ignorance of self-grasping. You may feel a recurrent pressure during this retreat, as if something is holding you back. This is a...
Session 74: Attending to the Space of the Mind, and a Discussion of Dharmadatu and Dharmata
November 19, 2010 08:29 - 58 minutes - 23.5 MBIn the intro, Alan explained the difference between the space of the mind with its 6 fields of experience (dharmadatu) and ultimate reality, nirvana, emptiness, absolute space of phenomena (dharmata). Like Dudjom Rimpoche said: dharmakaya it’s the nature of your own mind. He goes from that and when he talks about open presence, “if excitation arises, then loosen up, if laxity arises, then focus more clearly”. So, within Dzogchen is it possible to take emptiness (sunyata, dharmata), as the ob...
Session 73: The Five Obscurations Applied in Education and a Practice in Compassion
November 19, 2010 08:28 - 1 hour - 37.9 MBOnce more Alan gave us magnificent reflections about the 5 obscurations, which are responsible for the suffering of change. On this occasion he referred to these obscurations from a universal perspective imagining how it would be like to have an educational system where students could receive specific teachings supporting them in overcoming those obstacles. He pointed out that when we throw away the 5 obscurations then our inner resources can manifest. Alan continued with a meditation session...
Session 72: Settling the Mind and Applying No Antidotes
November 19, 2010 08:28 - 46 minutes - 18.5 MBGood Morning to All Shamatha Minded Sentient Beings, This morning Alan went into more detail on settling the mind in its natural state. He opened with a quote from Dujom Rinpoche. “Whatever comes up in the mind don’t apply any antidote.” ( while doing Settling the Mind in its Natural State). He also talked about having confidence in oneself and having a balanced mind. We reviewed the 5 Obscurations and the antidotes for them. And then, how being present, relaxation, and looseness are essentia...
Session 71: Compassion and the Possibility of Ending Suffering in this Life
November 19, 2010 08:28 - 1 hour - 38.1 MBThis evening we return to compassion, with a focus on how Buddhism runs against the grain of modernity in terms of its approach to suffering. We can achieve lasting and total freedom from suffering while still alive; we don’t have to wait for death to bring salvation (as in modern mainstream Christianity), or total annihilation (as in the materialistic, neurocentric view of mind). Then, following the meditation session, Alan answers questions concerning ‘settling the mind in its natural state...
Session 70: Settling the Mind and Being a Student of Buddhism
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 55 minutes - 22.3 MBThis morning we began the cycle of Settling the Mind in its Natural state following the instructions that the Buddha gave to Bahia “In the seen let just the seen be…” “In the heard let just the heard be”,” In the mentally perceived let just be the mentally perceived…” So we don’t elaborate or label. We suspend judgment as if you are listening to a fascinating person or are seeing other people’s mind. Reality is speaking to you. Bare, naked. Alan mentioned that the quintessential instructio...
Session 69: Loving-Kindness Practice Drawing From the Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Traditions.
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 1 hour - 36.4 MBAlan starts by mentioning that within all physical and mental impermanence, what remains always constant is a person that wants to be happy, loved and smiled back to. The Bodhisattva is a friend of the world! You can practice without having to believe anything; from the Theravada tradition softly sending Loving-Kindness to all; from the Mahayana view expanding the Loving-Kindness until you feel responsible for alleviating the suffering of all beings or, from the Vajrayana tradition, generatin...
Session 68: The Build-up to Mindfulness of Breathing (Apertures of the Nostrils)
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 35 minutes - 14.2 MBThis morning Alan used the Russian-dolls imagery (the dolls that stuck within each other) as his mold. First, he applied it to our mindfulness of breathing practice. Settling the body, speech, and mind are all contained within one another. The mind is at rest when the inner voice is quiet. The inner voice is quiet when the respiration is flowing unobstructed, not forced and unconstricted within a properly aligned body, which is relaxed, still, and yet in a posture of vigilance. We then ...
Session 67: Loving Kindness and Achieving a State of “Not Going” (Nirvana)
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 1 hour - 37.1 MBOnce again cultivating loving kindness through the practice of Tonglen, Alan advises to start with ourselves as we concentrate on our own merit and then move outwards to others. As we continue through the practice focusing on loved ones, then neutral persons and finally those with whom we have difficulty, we are really starting the practice where we will end. The ultimate goal is to breakdown all barriers. This meditation is a flow of benevolence for others and ourselves. Listen further f...
Session 66: Refining Mindfulness of Breathing with Stability
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 32 minutes - 12.9 MB“So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.”1 In this short talk Alan gives these succinct instructions; “Have your concentration tight enough that there is not space for thoughts to take hold… Don’t give involuntary thoughts an inch.” He also discusses how to count ...
Session 65: Freshening Up Our Loving Kindness Practice
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 1 hour - 35.3 MBDiscursive meditation, because it is repetitive, can become stale. Between sessions, look for sentient beings with whom to interact, each time is a fresh interaction. Add fresh yeast to the practice. Invite more and more beings into the practice. The object is sentient beings. We are generating an aspiration which gives rise to a feeling, not simply a feeling. Alan suggests we envision the aspiration to achieve Shamatha with all the inner and outer requests fulfilled. Question topics inc...
Session 64: Back to the Infirmary and the Pure Land of Tushita
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 44 minutes - 17.6 MBPressure in the head and headaches are not habits we should build while meditating. Therefore, this morning, Alan gave a detailed reminder of how this should be approached: back to Infirmary. This is by giving special attention to release all thoughts and tension during the out-breath and by focusing on the earth element (sensations of firmness and solidity). The tension might come from the feeling of anxiety that there are only 2 ½ weeks left for the retreat to be over. So, Alan used ...
Session 63: (Discussion Only) Spiritual Friends, Setting a Sleep Schedule, the Suffering of Bodhisattvas, etc.
November 18, 2010 23:52 - 1 hour - 26.3 MBFollowing a silent meditation session, Alan addressed a wide range of questions from students: Post-retreat advice regarding refuge, ethics, and the importance of spiritual friends • Can I drink one or two beers without affecting my meditation? • How to adapt yourself to wake naturally at 3AM • How to use meditation on a physical, visual object as a calming technique • Can bodhisattvas or arhats suffer? • Discussion of alternate pronunciations of Padmasambhava’s mantra and the Vajrasattva man...
Session 62: (Discussion Only) What it Means to Have a GREAT Meditation
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 33 minutes - 13.1 MBWe started with a silent meditation with free choice on practicing one of the Shamatha practices. Then Alan gave some examples of the path of Shamatha. He joked that commenting on your daily meditation practice as being “bad” or “good” or having “highs and lows” is like the habit of coming home to a spouse and reporting on your day. Alan encouraged us not to measure and evaluate our practice in a hedonic way, but rather to think about what we can bring to our practice in terms of motivation...
Session 61: (Discussion Only) Encouragement for Practice, Expanding Awareness, Controversial Lamas, etc.
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 1 hour - 30.5 MBWe started with a silent meditation with free choice on practicing one or more of the Four Immeasurables. Then Alan gave a little bit of advice and encouragement to all the meditators about dealing in a healthy way with all kinds of obstacles that arises on continuous practice. After that there were 5 Q&A. The first one about the practice of the Four Immeasurables, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th about the three methods of shamatha that Alan has been guiding and the last one about controversial teachers...
Session 60: Tonglen Suffused with Equanimity
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 1 hour - 37.4 MBThis evening we return to the practice of Immeasurable Equanimity, with some profound instructions drawn from Karma Chagme Rinpoche, a great Tibetan master and patriarch of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen lineages. Alan discusses the ways in which the Dharma we practice can be conditioned by our sense of personal identity, history and cultural context, and how achieving Shamatha and the Four Immeasurables allows us to free our Dharma practice from this limited context. He also explains the Four Gr...
Session 59: Having Appropriate Expectations in our Awareness of Awareness Practice
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 41 minutes - 16.3 MBIn this session Alan made an analogy between the practice of visualizing a Buddha image in the first stages of shamatha and the clarity we can expect to have in the first stages of the practice of awareness of awareness. According to Tsongkhapa we should be satisfied with maintaining just enough contact of the image in the first stages. As we progress on the path of shamatha we develop greater clarity and in the final stages we can see the image as being tridimensional and as vivid as in a dr...
Session 58: Equanimity, Karma, Free Will and Penetrating Past Appearances
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 1 hour - 37.7 MBAlan explains that Equanimity is similar to the Serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. It’s not being indifferent. You remain calm. It’s a state cooled from the flames of Samsara, imperturbable. In Theravada Buddhism is a cultivated emotion. In the Mahayana tradition is an aspiration. Don’t judge people according to their appearances, because that’s where attachment and aversion...
Session 57: Awareness of Awareness and More on Catatonia-Inducing Materialism
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 49 minutes - 19.7 MBThe point of awareness of awareness is NOT to prove that there’s no one who is aware because there is. Not finding any-specific-one who controls the attention and concluding that we don’t exist (and therefore no one else exists) is a nihilistic, not the Buddhist view. Unfortunately, it is exactly that close facsimile of the Madhyamika view that is most often picked up and allied with by the archetypical scientist materialist Alan likes to debate with. “We are just our brains. We are just ...
Session 56: Taking Delight with Empathetic Joy
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 1 hour - 36.2 MBAlan reviews for us the process of cultivating empathetic joy. It is possible to find many rewards in this practice as he explores the unfolding of empathetic joy in its three flavors: Attending to the kindness shown to us by others, taking delight in one’s own virtue, and creating an aspiration for happiness for all sentient beings. You will especially enjoying listening to Alan’s own personal story of the way he discovered dharma near the end of the question and answer session.
Session 55: Awareness of Awareness and Cutting Firewood
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 54 minutes - 21.7 MBIf you want firewood, you can trim off all the leaves and branches and wait for the tree to die and fall over. OR you can cut the tree down at its base - at the root, and you have firewood now. Likewise for investigating the mind: you can go at it intellectually – using logic, forming hypotheses, picking off one idea after another or you can go for the root by way of direct observation, though direct experience of the mind at close range in the practice of awareness of awareness. Urging ...
Session 54: Empathetic joy and Achieving Greater Balance by Attending to the Good in the World
November 18, 2010 23:51 - 1 hour - 35.9 MBStrong mental afflictions catch our attention. We do not notice good deeds as much as bad. This is especially true of the media. We need to make a conscious effort to have an antenna up for joy. In a single meditation session we can take delight in doing the practice well. Even if our mind wanders, we can bring it back joyfully. The meditation includes the Mahayana prayer: May we all never be parted from genuine happiness and the causes of happiness. Why couldn’t we? May we never be ...
Session 53: Keeping it Simple in our Awareness of Awareness Practice
November 18, 2010 22:52 - 53 minutes - 21.2 MBAwareness of awareness is “the most profound practice” according to the Buddha, and he gave us this morning very meaningful advice on how to know we’re doing it correctly. You may wonder that if you’re doing such a profound practice, you should be getting profound results… But, nothing! This doubt comes from an expectation for deep results. How do you know if you are doing this practice of awareness of awareness correctly? You could ask the following questions: 1. Are you aware that y...
Session 52: Compassion For Those Who Are Grasping
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 1 hour - 37.8 MBGrasping the “real I” and “really mine” is at the root of suffering. How do we get rid of grasping? All of Dharma. After 8 weeks we may find that although our thoughts are still like a cascading waterfall of garbage, we don’t have to eat it any more. Even if we can’t stop it, we can cut our suffering by developing discerning mindfulness, by not reifying ourselves and our ruminations, and by not acting while afflicted by grasping. One sign of meditation progress is that our obsessive tho...
Session 51: Settling the Mind in its Natural State and the Ever-Present Substrate
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 48 minutes - 19.4 MBAlan starts the session with an explanation of mindfulness of breathing, saying that, with time and practice, there may be a moment where you do not detect the breath anymore, and you can no longer find any sensation. He recommended doing 2 things: relax more deeply as you are breathing out, and as you are doing so, attend sharply to pick up the sensation. Then, in the explanation of settling the mind, he said that the substrate is not a mere absence of thoughts. It is something that can b...
Session 50: Compassion Practice for the Suffering of Change and the Dissatisfying Nature of Hedonic Pleasure
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 1 hour - 38.7 MBThis evening Alan taught us more about the cultivation of compassion, but now going deeper, from the compassion for the blatant suffering of sentient beings to the compassion of the suffering of change which emerge from the 5 obscurations (attachment, malice, dullness, excitation and uncertainty) and he pointed out the unsatisfying nature of hedonism. Then he raised the questions: what is it dukha good for?; Can I make it meaningful? And the response is that dukha can be our best allied makin...
Session 49: A Discussion of the Elements and Settling the Mind Without Conceptual Designation
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 42 minutes - 16.9 MBGood Morning, This Mediation is settling the Mind in Its Natural State. Alan said that because he didn’t answer two questions last night he would answer them this morning. The first question was about the elements. The second question was about grasping. After the meditation, Alan said a couple of more sentences about the prerequisites before starting the practice of settling the Mind in Its Natural State. Darlene
Session 48: Two Approaches to the Four Immeasurables and a Practice in Compassion
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 1 hour - 38.5 MBThis evening, as we return to the theme of Immeasurable Compassion, Alan offers an expansive and truly remarkable presentation of how the Buddhist approach to suffering runs directly against the grain of modernity’s approach to suffering, and finally how the bodhisattva’s response to suffering departs radically from that of a hinayana practitioner aspiring to the state of an arhat. Challenging, mind-expanding and deeply inspiring; one hour of Alan at his finest.
Session 47: Settling the Mind and Avoiding Reification of Appearances and Emotions
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 51 minutes - 20.8 MBThis can be a challenging practice. In today’s approach, drawing from the teachings of the Buddha to Bahia “In the seen let it just be the seen”, we applied it to the visual field, then the auditory, the tactile and finally to the mental. The main instruction for this practice is “without distraction and without grasping”. Distraction refers to the tendency to follow a chain of associations. For example, when we see an attribute of an object, like a color, we start superimposing concepts base...
Session 46: Extending the Field of Loving Kindness
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 1 hour - 28.5 MBThis afternoon Alan deepens into the subject of Loving-Kindness. He cites sources from the Mettā Sutta found in the Pali Canon; the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) written by Buddhaghosa , and, of course from the Buddha itself when he says we shouldn’t doubt the Four Immeasurables as explained in the Kalama Sutra. Explains that what we are cultivating an aspiration, that the object of this discursive meditation are all sentient beings. He then guides the meditation saying that we co...
Session 45: Mindfulness of Breathing (Apertures of the Nostrils) and Fighting the Good Fight
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 38 minutes - 15.2 MBThis morning Alan raised the emotional issue of the warrior returning home from the front. Going down memory lane he recalled the various ways heroes have been greeted upon their return. Some were welcomed and accommodated with gratitude; others were left to paddle for themselves. And then he got to the point: how about those of us taking time from their lives to face the most noblest (and bloodless) of all battles – the one with our own afflictive emotions. How would we be received when the ...
Session 44: Loving Kindness and Attending to Others with the Correct Magnification
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 1 hour - 37.6 MBAlan reminds us that the practice of loving-kindness first begins with loving ourselves. As so often is the case in meditation practice, we often discover our own shortcomings rather than our assets. Being judgmental, feeling self-contempt and lack of worth leads us to further mental afflictions. He recommends that we attend to these faults (cravings, hatred, jealousy, pettiness, to name a few) and identify them as delusional obstructions to our own healing. The solution is to view these as m...
Session 43: Synergy and Balance - Mindfulness of Breathing with Stability
November 18, 2010 14:31 - 33 minutes - 13.2 MBAlan discusses synergy this morning. In the “infirmary” this is experienced while one balances maintaining the initial state of clarity with deepening relaxation. With this practice alone one can dispel 95% of the troubles with meditation. In mindfulness of breathing with stability (focus on the sensations of the breath in the abdomen) discipline is introduced to strengthen stability and balanced with deepening relaxation and vividness. For those interested, today’s practice leads the way i...