Podcasts about vajra essence

In this teaching Shunyamurti is reading from The Vajra Essence, Düdjom Lingpa's Visions of The Great Perfection, Volume 3, Foreword by Sogyal Rinpoche, Translated by B. Alan Wallace, Edited by Dion Blundell Description: The final period of every cycle of time is one of spiritual exhaustion, the soul's exile from the Light of God, the ego's nihilistic cynicism combined with narcissistic hubris, and the ominous approach of world destruction. We have arrived at that time. Fortunately, every spiritual tradition declares that such a hell realm is actually the most auspicious moment of all, for that is when the Inner Light returns—first only for a few—but then more and more souls become illumined. This is the true Festival of Lights. It is happening.

Eva Natanya is Executive Director and Resident Teacher at the Center for Contemplative Research at Miyo Samten Ling. A scholar of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Christian theology, and comparative religion, Dr. Natanya has served in many capacities as a spiritual teacher, academic lecturer, translator, and editor of Tibetan texts, writer, and retreat leader. Following a nine-year career as a professional ballet dancer with both the New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet of England, she earned an MA in Christian Systematic Theology at the Graduate Theological Union and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation examined the complex interactions of Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and Abhidharma teachings as they underlie the Vajrayāna philosophy of Je Tsongkhapa. She has worked closely with Dr. B. Alan Wallace on his translations for several books, including Open Mind: View and Meditation in the Lineage of Lerab Lingpa and Fathoming the Mind: Inquiry and Insight in Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence, and has co-taught meditation retreats with Dr. Wallace around the world. In a Christian context, she co-authored Living Resurrected Lives: What It Means and Why It Matters with Veronica Mary Rolf. She has spent more than three years in solitary meditation retreat, and remains in residence at Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, Colorado, guiding fellow retreatants in the details of contemplative training. Her website is: evanatanya.com. Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group. Interview recorded August 21, 2021 Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

Dr. Alan Wallace is one of our leading voices exploring the interface between modern science, meditation, Buddhism and spirituality and Tibetan medicine. He is the founding director of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies that has a mission to apply rigorous scientific methodology and inquiry into contemplative practices, and teaches and lectures worldwide. While studying at the University of Gottingen in Germany, Alan left for India and was ordained by the Dalai Lama as a monk of 14 years. He holds degrees in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford University. He later taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara for several years.  For the past 33 years, Alan has been a frequent translator and contributor for meetings between the Dalai Lama and world renowned scientists. He has written and translated over 40 books dealing with the science of mind and consciousness, Western scientific philosophy, lucid dreaming and many commentaries and translations of Tibetan Buddhist texts.  Some of his research on meditation has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Among some of this noteworthy publications are "Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism and Christianity," "Fathoming the Mind: Inquiry and Insight in the Vajra Essence" and "Dreaming Yourself Awake."  His personal website is AlanWallace.org and the Institute for Consciousness Studies is SBInstitute.com

This morning we were listening to Bob Newhart’s “Stop It” skit that Alan had talked about a while ago. So everybody out there with wandering minds, low self-esteem and all the like, take this advice to heart. As for today’s practice, Alan was front loading the session again with Padmasambhava’s pointing-out instructions, giving us the seeds for the silent, non-discursive meditation. Your own distinct awareness is pristine awareness, don’t look outside of yourself, but give up all attachment to and identification with your own body and mind. After the meditation Alan discussed the two strategies to deal with distractive thoughts, emotions etc. in shamatha practice. In Taking the Mind As the Path, you just let them self-release. The other strategy is that, when these distractions come up, to just cut them right off. You can do the same in lucid dreaming when something unpleasant happens. Finally Alan compared the images used by Dudjom Lingpa in his Vajra Essence when describing how sentient beings emerge from the ignorance of the ground with the way Roger Penrose describes light rays. Silent meditation cut out at 26:00 min

This morning we were listening to Bob Newhart’s “Stop It” skit that Alan had talked about a while ago. So everybody out there with wandering minds, low self-esteem and all the like, take this advice to heart. As for today’s practice, Alan was front loading the session again with Padmasambhava’s pointing-out instructions, giving us the seeds for the silent, non-discursive meditation. Your own distinct awareness is pristine awareness, don’t look outside of yourself, but give up all attachment to and identification with your own body and mind. After the meditation Alan discussed the two strategies to deal with distractive thoughts, emotions etc. in shamatha practice. In Taking the Mind As the Path, you just let them self-release. The other strategy is that, when these distractions come up, to just cut them right off. You can do the same in lucid dreaming when something unpleasant happens. Finally Alan compared the images used by Dudjom Lingpa in his Vajra Essence when describing how sentient beings emerge from the ignorance of the ground with the way Roger Penrose describes light rays. Silent meditation cut out at 26:00 min

This session begins with the 7 line prayer of Padmasmbhava and on into the meditation. Alan clarifies the two excerpts he discussed yesterday from ‘The Vajra Essence’, and ’The Enlightened View of Samantabhadra’ regarding the placement exam of merging mind with space and the paths that beings of various capacities should take. Listen out for the wonderful response Gyatrul Rinpoche gives Alan when Alan talks about giving up teaching and focusing on meditation (a response we are all happy Rinpoche gave). Meditation starts at 05:33

This session begins with the 7 line prayer of Padmasmbhava and on into the meditation. Alan clarifies the two excerpts he discussed yesterday from ‘The Vajra Essence’, and ’The Enlightened View of Samantabhadra’ regarding the placement exam of merging mind with space and the paths that beings of various capacities should take. Listen out for the wonderful response Gyatrul Rinpoche gives Alan when Alan talks about giving up teaching and focusing on meditation (a response we are all happy Rinpoche gave). Meditation starts at 05:33

In this session we are finishing off the instructions of Padmasambhava. Alan goes right into meditation and the central theme is releasing the mind into space. After the meditation session Alan finishes reading and explaining the section on shamatha from Natural Liberation. He continues giving advice on how to practice in between sessions by way of maintaining awareness of space. Alan quotes Shantideva and illustrates how his thoughts resonate with dzogchen. In this practice we are giving up everything for the sake of nirvana. We are giving up everything we are attached to and everything that we identify with. We surrender all at once by releasing the mind into space! Alan goes back to the book Vajra Essence and explains the procedure to be followed by the three types of beings according to their capacities: great, middling and inferior with regards the practices of the Great Perfection. To conclude the session Alan comments on what Dudjom Lingpa said regarding people encountering these profound teachings. He said that these people had already a vast contact and engaging with Buddha-Dharma in past lives. These teachings only come with a lot of previous momentum. Therefore, do not let yourself be intimidated by these profound teachings. If inspiration arises while listening the teachings, that’s all you need to have in order to be ready for these practices. Meditation starts at 00:50

In this session we are finishing off the instructions of Padmasambhava. Alan goes right into meditation and the central theme is releasing the mind into space. After the meditation session Alan finishes reading and explaining the section on shamatha from Natural Liberation. He continues giving advice on how to practice in between sessions by way of maintaining awareness of space. Alan quotes Shantideva and illustrates how his thoughts resonate with dzogchen. In this practice we are giving up everything for the sake of nirvana. We are giving up everything we are attached to and everything that we identify with. We surrender all at once by releasing the mind into space! Alan goes back to the book Vajra Essence and explains the procedure to be followed by the three types of beings according to their capacities: great, middling and inferior with regards the practices of the Great Perfection. To conclude the session Alan comments on what Dudjom Lingpa said regarding people encountering these profound teachings. He said that these people had already a vast contact and engaging with Buddha-Dharma in past lives. These teachings only come with a lot of previous momentum. Therefore, do not let yourself be intimidated by these profound teachings. If inspiration arises while listening the teachings, that’s all you need to have in order to be ready for these practices. Meditation starts at 00:50

We conclude the teachings on the transitional phase of living from the Vajra Essence with a meditation found in the text and a commentary on it. We practice the meditation as an exercise of prospective memory so that after death, in the bardo of becoming, we will recall our backup plan for becoming lucid and attaining enlightenment. The crossing over practices of Dzogchen are done without visualization, but according to masters who have achieved this stage, primordial consciousness spontaneously appears as the absolute space of the great bliss of Akanistha with five of its aspects manifesting as the five Buddhas. A primary tenet of Dzogchen is to not look for the Buddha outside yourself. Only when you cut through delusive appearances do you recognize who you are. Meditation starts at 09:28

We conclude the teachings on the transitional phase of living from the Vajra Essence with a meditation found in the text and a commentary on it. We practice the meditation as an exercise of prospective memory so that after death, in the bardo of becoming, we will recall our backup plan for becoming lucid and attaining enlightenment. The crossing over practices of Dzogchen are done without visualization, but according to masters who have achieved this stage, primordial consciousness spontaneously appears as the absolute space of the great bliss of Akanistha with five of its aspects manifesting as the five Buddhas. A primary tenet of Dzogchen is to not look for the Buddha outside yourself. Only when you cut through delusive appearances do you recognize who you are. Meditation starts at 09:28

The Tibeten term ‘nyam’ has no similar term in English. It is a class of experience that is part of the journey. Alan described a nyam as “an anomalous, transient, psychosomatic experience that is catalyzed by authentic meditative experience” and went on to describe various nyam that have arisen or may arise. You cannot tell what kind of nyam may arise, no one has plain sailing. The point is to be with it and not reify it, and the analogy to a lucid dream was given (when you are non lucid in a dream you reify it as being real). Recognize it for what it is. In the second part of the session, Alan continued the reading from Dudjom Lingpa’s “The Vajra Essence” on the bardo of living, and providing a commentary that ranged from Milarepa, to lucid dreaming, shopping ’til you drop to the great transference rainbow body and everything in between. One question was asked - on moving from the desire to form realm on the breath This session began with a silent meditation that is not included in this podcast

The Tibeten term ‘nyam’ has no similar term in English. It is a class of experience that is part of the journey. Alan described a nyam as “an anomalous, transient, psychosomatic experience that is catalyzed by authentic meditative experience” and went on to describe various nyam that have arisen or may arise. You cannot tell what kind of nyam may arise, no one has plain sailing. The point is to be with it and not reify it, and the analogy to a lucid dream was given (when you are non lucid in a dream you reify it as being real). Recognize it for what it is. In the second part of the session, Alan continued the reading from Dudjom Lingpa’s “The Vajra Essence” on the bardo of living, and providing a commentary that ranged from Milarepa, to lucid dreaming, shopping ’til you drop to the great transference rainbow body and everything in between. One question was asked - on moving from the desire to form realm on the breath This session began with a silent meditation that is not included in this podcast

The meditation was Mindfulness of Breathing with a literal interpretation on the theme from the Pali canon “When breathing in long one knows that one breathes in long”. Alan starts by reading from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence, the beginning passage of the first three bardos or transitional phases. Alan stresses that in order to get the most benefit out of these teachings, we should recognize who is presenting the teachings to us. It is important that we don’t reify the teachers, but see through the lineage of teachers that passed this down to us right to Samantabhadra, who stands for our own pristine awareness. According to the Vajra Essence, we are in the transitional phases as long as we are not liberated. The essential nature of the transitional phases is pristine awareness. But since we don’t realize this, pristine awareness cristalyzes into the ethically neutral state of substrate consciousness, which itself doesn’t wander in samsara, but becomes the ground from which a sentient being within the six realms arises. Dudjom Lingpa then lays out the sequence in which the coarse mind of a sentient being manifests out of substrate consciousness. The substrate itself is of the nature of unknowing, and therefore as long as the substrate consciousness is dissolved in the substrate, like a sword being hidden in its sheath, it is in a state of only implicit awareness. Then due to the germination of karmic seeds, the substrate consciousness gets catalyzed and it becomes explicit. Then from the substrate consciousness afflicted mentation (klishta manas) arises, which is the primary root of self-grasping, the raw sense of “me” being over here and “not me” being over there. Then out of this, subtle and coarse mentation (manas) arises, with the subtle mentation being still non-conceptual, a simple differentiation of this versus that, and the coarse mentation being fully conceptual, enabling us to make sense of the world. Finally, the coarse mind (citta) arises in response to appearances. Questions: Q1: In the metaphor of the sword and the sheath, what is the sheath referring to again? Q2: Why does the Vajra Essence state that the substrate consciousness is being free throughout the three times? Meditation starts at 08:02 min

The meditation was Mindfulness of Breathing with a literal interpretation on the theme from the Pali canon “When breathing in long one knows that one breathes in long”. Alan starts by reading from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence, the beginning passage of the first three bardos or transitional phases. Alan stresses that in order to get the most benefit out of these teachings, we should recognize who is presenting the teachings to us. It is important that we don’t reify the teachers, but see through the lineage of teachers that passed this down to us right to Samantabhadra, who stands for our own pristine awareness. According to the Vajra Essence, we are in the transitional phases as long as we are not liberated. The essential nature of the transitional phases is pristine awareness. But since we don’t realize this, pristine awareness cristalyzes into the ethically neutral state of substrate consciousness, which itself doesn’t wander in samsara, but becomes the ground from which a sentient being within the six realms arises. Dudjom Lingpa then lays out the sequence in which the coarse mind of a sentient being manifests out of substrate consciousness. The substrate itself is of the nature of unknowing, and therefore as long as the substrate consciousness is dissolved in the substrate, like a sword being hidden in its sheath, it is in a state of only implicit awareness. Then due to the germination of karmic seeds, the substrate consciousness gets catalyzed and it becomes explicit. Then from the substrate consciousness afflicted mentation (klishta manas) arises, which is the primary root of self-grasping, the raw sense of “me” being over here and “not me” being over there. Then out of this, subtle and coarse mentation (manas) arises, with the subtle mentation being still non-conceptual, a simple differentiation of this versus that, and the coarse mentation being fully conceptual, enabling us to make sense of the world. Finally, the coarse mind (citta) arises in response to appearances. Questions: Q1: In the metaphor of the sword and the sheath, what is the sheath referring to again? Q2: Why does the Vajra Essence state that the substrate consciousness is being free throughout the three times? Meditation starts at 08:02 min

Welcome to Thanyapura Fall 2014 retreat. This session outlined what will be covered in the retreat. The teachings are based on two texts: Padmasambhavas Natural Liberation, and excerpts from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence. The teachings focus on three of the six bardos (living, meditation and dreaming). Alan describes himself as a dharma chef, serving up a juicy offering. Shamatha is the starting point. There are 36 people on individual retreats at Thanyapura, but all crew members together - so be considerate to others. Now give up all attachment to this life and devote it to Dharma.

Welcome to Thanyapura Fall 2014 retreat. This session outlined what will be covered in the retreat. The teachings are based on two texts: Padmasambhavas Natural Liberation, and excerpts from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence. The teachings focus on three of the six bardos (living, meditation and dreaming). Alan describes himself as a dharma chef, serving up a juicy offering. Shamatha is the starting point. There are 36 people on individual retreats at Thanyapura, but all crew members together - so be considerate to others. Now give up all attachment to this life and devote it to Dharma.

This morning we have our last silent meditation in the second cycle of Shamatha without a sign. Alan gives a short preamble, stressing the importance of having contentment in once's practice: knowing right in the moment of the practice that one does it correctly and taking satisfaction in it. Also, having deep faith that one can, in fact, achieve Shamatha is indispensable for progressing along the path as hoping, doubting, fearing, aspiring, and giving up can diminish one's progress. It is crucial, also, that one has a deep conviction that the time spent on the cushion is, for the time being, the most meaningful thing once can do. After the meditation, we go back to finishing the topic of stages of the path to Shamatha. Alan begin by Garchen Rinpoche's quote who said that the reason why many well-aspiring practitioners don't see the results they would like to see is that they lack faith in themselves. Hence, one has to have not only faith in the practices themselves and their source but also in oneself and the power within that is capable of bringing about profound transformation. Afire that we go onto the Vajra Essence text where Padmasambhava by way of Dujong Lingpa summarizes the path of Shamatha and its effects possible through the power of familiarization. The text also points out how important the many turbulent struggles along the path (nyam) are and how they are signs of progress, and finally, how they can be transformed into wisdom of realizing emptiness and stability, and eventually: primordial consciousness. Meditation starts at: 7:29 (silent, not recorded)

After el short introduction, we go into a silent meditation session on the three spaces. Right after the meditation, we go back to the theme of the "spirits". Alan talks about how scientific studies, from halfway through the 17th century up until now, have "dealt" with both internal and external spirits. He points out that a contemplative inquiry has been more and more ignored over this period, which ultimately yields a disenchanted Universe. At the end of the session, we go into the subject of spirits again, this time from Dzogchen perspective, quoting the Vajra Essence from Dudjom Lingpa. Finally, a story about spirits and nuns near the cave of Tilopa. Meditation starts at: Not recorded (silent meditation on the three spaces)

The end of the explanation of shamatha without a sign by Padmasambava in the 14th century, the very last line is 'bring your mind to space and leave it there'. Dujong Lingpa's mind treasure in the 1860's picks up right where this left off, 5 centuries apart, 'merge your mind with empty external space'. Alan discusses the practice further so as to talk less through the meditation. After the meditation, Alan reads a short passage from the Vajra Essence. Alan then discusses where shamatha practice and mahamudra practice intersect, where they are distinct practices from each other, and where confusion sometimes lies between the practices. Meditation starts at: 12:31

The guided meditation is settling the mind in its natural state. Before this meditation starts, Dr. Wallace points out the two types of vividness (qualitative and temporal) and the continuity of stability. After the meditation, we go back to the Seven Point Mind Training. The aphorism "Examine the unborn nature of awareness" is discussed. From the Pali perspective, Dr. Wallace talks about the issue of the culmination of the path (realisation of Nirvana) for an arhat. Next, some quotes from Mahayana Sutras, including one by Nagarjuna. Finally we go into Dzogchen perspective in which a section of the Vajra Essence from Dudjom Lingpa is quoted. Meditation starts at: 5:56

With a new cycle we return to settling the body, speech, and mind in their natural states. In the Vajra Essence, Düdjom Lingpa intimates shamatha can be achieved simply by fully releasing the body, speech, and mind. When we remove all activity, our mind naturally gravitates into alignment, the pranas equalizing into the central channel. But in order to allow this a solid dharma practice alone is not sufficient; we must have a conducive environment, lifestyle, and community. This is especially true when going into a solitary shamatha retreat, which requires having few activities, pure ethics, a release of rumination, and importantly, having few desires and being content (to avoid living the parable of the elephant and the cat). Q&A * The four jhanas and the experiences to expect after attaining shamatha. * Comparing the bliss of shamatha with that of tummo. Meditation begins at 30:07 Q&A Begins at 1:09:01

Today we proceed deeper into the practice of settling the mind in its natural state. We are given the second of five benchmarks as described in the Sharp Vajra Tantra by Dudjom Lingpa : the ability to discern between the movement and stillness of awareness itself. We will attempt in this practice to be simultaneously aware of the movement or stillness of both the space of the mind and our point of awareness. We hope to accomplish this in the moment using single pointed mindfulness (the first of the four types of mindfulness, as noted in the Vajra Essence). The meditation leverages the technique revealed in Bāhiya's teaching ("In the seen, let there be only the seen...") to "spiral in" on the space of the mind. Q&A: * Deepest fear of shamatha: loosing one's sense of self. * Clarifying Tenzin Choegyal Rinpoche, and a tangent into splitting photons as a metaphor for bifurcating mindstreams. * Meanings of mindfulness. * When events from home destabilize one's retreat. Meditation starts at 23:02

Reading from Vajra Essence regarding the difference between consciousness, substrate consciousness and Rigpa. Meditation on awareness of awareness expanding out to all directions (26:30) Questions (51:23) How does the "naked" healing process of the mind by way of settling the mind happen with other shamatha methods? How lasting or fleeting are the changes to the coarse and subtle bodies caused by altering the flow of prana through shamatha practice? Person getting headaches from meditation – what suggestions to prevent it? Question related to rigpa being necessary to explain extrasensory perception such as precognition and remote viewing What is meant by the compassionate display of rigpa? Difficulty seeing rigpa as compassionate. Question regarding how to move away from not liking oneself and feeling guilty over past unwholesome activities.

Deep…During this extremely inspiring afternoon, Alan started by explaining how to recognize the object of attention of the practice of awareness of awareness for those that find this practice elusive. Also he explained, with the parallel of mosquitoes flying around a fan, how the oscillation works against thoughts. At the end, this practice leads to resting the mind into luminosity and emptiness. After this clarification, he went on to present his opinion of some aspects of how is being presented the dharma related to these degenerated times. We should try to avoid to be playing the last piece of music with the orchestra of the sinking Titanic by relying on the notion of the path that starts with afflictions and finishes free from them. He mentioned again the lack of emphasis put into shamatha nowadays. Moving on, Alan kindly shared with us another sublime passage from Dudjom Lingpa’s Vajra Essence that distinguishes the ground of the coarse mind from rigpa, giving detailed and extremely inspiring descriptions, and clarifying the notion of the path. Then it followed the practice of awareness of awareness (55:02), probing into the agent to ascertain its nature, essential. Finally, we got a very rich question (79:44) about the differences between the Mahamudra terminology and its path and those of Dzogchen. Alan made again a gift to us of it… Please settle your body, speech and mind to listen to these teachings. Enjoy

The story Alan narrates at the very start of this episode comes because there was a dog outside the teaching hall, and as we were coming in for the lecture he would try to get in between our legs, or at least just stick his head in. He clearly looked very determined and excited to learn about Mudita, and it was hard to get Alan inside the teaching hall sans-dog. Moving to the actual lecture, Alan explains today's practice, in which we cultivate empathetic joy towards others both in terms of hedonic pleasure and then of genuine happiness. Alan gives several examples of each, and notes, also with great examples, that we can learn to use the mind just like we learn to drive a vehicle. It can go from our worst enemy to our best friend. After the fairly silent practice [again, if you want more verbose practices refer to the beginning of the podcast series], we went into very interesting questions. The first ones were by Enrique, based on The Vajra Essence and returning to yesterday's point on achieving Shamatha through the union of Shamatha and Vipassana. Alan talks about close Vipassana-style insights that can arise through the Shamatha practice of Settling the Mind, and quotes another mysterious (you'll see why) passage from (possibly) the Vajra Essence.In the last half of the session, we have a very meaningful question about how to distinguish between true love (or loving kindness) and attachment, and the relationship that grief from loss has to attachment. Alan starts by talking about the delicate and difficult act of throwing out attachment while retaining love, and we learn the origins of the phrase "throwing out the baby with the bathwater." Who said we only learn Dharma? Alan also covers the examination of a relationship both from the coarse and subtle levels, and the delicate interplay and entanglement of feelings, highlighting the toxicity of attachment even in happy relationships, and proposing a "reality check."He also integrates a question from Tsapel, and shows how to cultivate Loving Kindness both from the monastic perspective and within ordinary society. We reflect that if you were "incomplete" and your relationship with "your other half" makes you "complete" then you are bound to suffer, and end on the importance of recognizing the difference between genuine Loving Kindness (or Love) and attachment and not mistake one for the other.Enjoy these very profound reflections. This quite artistic photo from Malcolm shows our friends and silent (or sometimes not so silent) fellow sentient beings :) I had to include them in the podcast before sending out more sky photos!

This afternoon we went into a very practical and powerful practice on Compassion, focusing on the blatant, glaring, obvious pain that can arise in both the physical and mental domains of experience. Alan starts by giving a brief overview of this blatant suffering, and what can be done to cure it mentally, including praise for the pharmaceutical industry in relieving the symptoms. He then highlights how this blatant suffering is something we have all experienced, and how it really can take posession of our entire (untrained) minds and not let us focus on anything else.After this very useful meditation, we followed up yesterday's topic of Bodhicitta. First, Alan answered that it may in fact be possible to be a Bodhisattva without knowing it, and even be a Bodhisattva while preaching another religion or having almost all types of jobs. He also makes a reference to a study which suggests that babies may be undergoing past life recall sometime during their third trimester of gestation. This time Alan covers a different way to develop Bodhicitta, with more of a "discovery" approach. For this, Alan draws on the magnificent text, "The Vajra Essence," and talks about Dzogchen. We also go into a brief, fun, and very enlightening tangent about monastic debating, complete with authentic sound effects from Alan dating back to his debating days. After the discussion of Bodhicitta, we have a brief question from Enrique about overcoming coarse laxity and stages 4-5 in Shamatha practice, and a final anonymous question about etiquette issues which sadly got cut off due to an electrical problem, but this time it was only 1 minute before Alan ended anyway so not much was lost! So read up on some gompa etiquette if you are interested.At first I thought of using a picture of some debating monks, but then I decided on this NASA picture. For the first time instead of using a distant galaxy I am using our planet, where we can immediately see the enormous ammount of blatant suffering in order to inspire us to realize Bodhicitta and achieve perfect Enlightenment to be able to liberate every single sentient being from suffering.