The Nature of Mind in Stillness and Movement
A four-day retreat originally taught February 28-March 2, 2020 at Wonderwell Retreat Center in New Hampshire. These sessions of instruction and guided meditations introduce The Ninth Karmapa’s precise and detailed guidance on developing the single-pointedness of shamatha through a range of techniques that begin with common objects to anchor attention and culminate with maintaining stable, vivid awareness with awareness itself as the only object. Once the mind is made serviceable with shamatha, the practice explores the nature of mind with vipashyana inquiries that reveal our truest depth of being, our Buddha Nature.
(With thanks for assistance in web posting to Matt Lombardo)
Downloadable Class Notes and Resources
Downloadable class notes and resources for entire series
Class Audio
Class 1 Introduction to Dzogchen and Mahamudra practice and the sublime preliminaries.
2 Guided Meditation: Vision quest—your heart’s desire.
Class 3 The first of the three phases of Mahamudra Shamatha practice—Settling the Mind that has not Settled—using breath meditation with some preliminary pranayamas.
Class 3 Audio
4 Guided Meditation: Settling the Mind that Has Not Settled with breath meditation and the pranayamas introduced in class 3
Class 5 Stabilizing the mind that has settled with progress in mindfulness and introspection. Three levels of resting in stillness.
6 Guided Meditation: Cultivating stillness with Mahamudra antidotes to excitation and laxity
Class 7 A brief instruction on the practice of non conceptual engagement with an external visual object and short guided meditation.
8 Q&A
8 Q&A Audio
Class 9 Enhancing the mind that has stabilized by bringing mindfulness and introspection to post-meditation practice.
Class 9 Audio
10 Guided Meditation Using the mindfulness and introspection developed with visual appearances to witness objective and subjective mental appearances with still awareness.
Class 11 Employing the technology of shamatha to undertake the science of vipashyana in order to know directly the nature of existence.
Class 11 Audio
12 Guided Meditation Identifying luminous cognizance and discovering its nature
13 Guided Meditation Realizing the nature of existence with the pith instructions of Yangthang Rinpoche.
14 Guided Meditation The four conditions that should imbue your meditation.
15 Q&A
15 Q&A Audio
16 Morning prayers recited each day of our retreat before breakfast
16 Prayers Audio
Class 17 Is the mind in stillness different in nature from the mind in movement?
18 Guided Meditation Is the mind in stillness different in nature from the mind in movement?
Class 19 - Final Class. Capturing insights gained for the future.
Class 19 Audio