Opening the floodgates of our inner virtues ( + Loving Kindness practice)

Épisode de Alan Wallace Live from Phuket! par B. Alan Wallace · 2 juin 2010 · 1 h 09 min

This afternoon we started with a reflection on how many times we see people as just "flat images" or appearances arising to our minds. In the supermarket, subway, etc, we see them as obstacles or merely objects in our way. Today’s intro deals with seeing through those images and realizing that a real person is there, looking back, with their own hopes and fears, joys and sorrows. Alan also emphasizes the importance of starting with ourselves, and describes these Four Immeasurable practices as digging in search of water. At first, the practices can be very conceptual and we actually feel like we have to pour water on the ground to soften it and allow us to dig. But eventually, just following the practice, we break into the "ground water," which just flows out unimpededly and plentifully. With this metaphor in mind, we go into the practice thinking of tapping into our hearts, and opening the floodgates of our virtue and well-being.

After the practice, we had several very interesting questions. The first one deals with the concept of "symmetry breaking," and Alan goes into a marvelous cosmological explanation o f what this means, and describes all configurations of mass-energy as space/vacuum just frozen by grasping (coming from both the Kalachakra and from quantum field theory). He then beautifully relates this to Buddhism, culminating in the Dzogchen view. After that, we had a very interesting question from Ana Lorena on the topic of hypnagogic imagery, and Alan gave his interpretation of this phenomenon. There was then a very interesting "unanswerable" question by Elizabeth which I cut out to use for this Sunday's bonus, and we finished this afternoon with some questions from Adeline mostly focusing on the "Four Modes of Enlightened Activity" (for more on this topic view some of the April/Early may podcasts).

As you can probably tell my creativity dwindled today and all I could think of was a picture of an actual floodgate. This can give you a rough idea of what it is like when you permanently and fully break into your inner virtues and happiness, but I think a better picture would be the entire walls just shattering into smithereens and a gargantuan flow of water bursting out. Unfortunately I couldn't find a suitable picture for that :(

Autres épisodes de « Alan Wallace Live from Phuket! »

• Ending Where We Began: Equanimity Permeated With Loving Kindness 11 juin 2010
• The Last Shamatha Practice 11 juin 2010
• Equanimity: Looking Ahead 10 juin 2010
• Of Trust, Devotion, or Lack Thereof (+ Awareness of Awareness Practice) 10 juin 2010
• Awareness of Awareness: Emerging through the Clouds of the Dense, Deluded, Compulsive Mind into Clear and Luminous Space 9 juin 2010
• Empathetic Joy: Using our Mind as a Best Friend (+ great Q&A incl. a deep question about love and attachment). 8 juin 2010
• Awareness of Awareness: A Smooth Transition from the Space of the Mind 8 juin 2010
• Compassion: Investigating a Hypothesis about the Very Root of Suffering (and the importance of not taking Dharma out of context) 7 juin 2010
• Settling the Mind in its Natural State: Sustaining a Continuity 7 juin 2010
• [Extra Bonus] Culminating in the Great Perfection: The Dzogchen View (Addendum) 7 juin 2010
• [Bonus] The Philosophical Evolution of an Individual through all the Four Schools of Indian Buddhism, Culminating in the Great Perfection. In 45 minutes. 6 juin 2010
• [Short Bonus]: How did ignorance and delusion arise in the first place? Will samsara end? 6 juin 2010
• Compassion: Freeing Ourselves from the Underlying Causes of Suffering (Attachment/Craving) 5 juin 2010
• "The Tempest," Settling the Mind in its Natural State 5 juin 2010
• Compassion: Focusing on the Blatant Suffering 4 juin 2010

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