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This eight-week retreat will focus on three of the six transitional processes, namely: the Transitional Process of Living, with teachings on śamatha and vipaśyanā, the Transitional Process o...
As a bonus, at the end of our retreat Alan presented to us the teachings on Sukhavati from Karma Chagme. If you missed your chance for the t...
What better way to end a retreat than with Shantideva’s beautiful verses about embracing bodhicitta! The verses cited today are often used f...
In the silent meditation we are once again asked to balance earth and sky and to proceed at our own pace. After the meditation we finish the...
On the penultimate stage to the cultivation of bodhicitta we return to the great resolve: I shall free all sentient beings. Alan points how...
At the beginning Alan shares extremely uplifting news as what concerns “Project Contemplative Observatory”. After having failed to build one...
Alan starts by talking about his last dharma talk and once more making clear that his anger was not directed towards any person, but simply...
The session begins with a guided meditation on variations of taking the mind as the path, beginning with maintaining peripheral awareness of...
“Why couldn’t all beings never be parted from sublime happiness free from suffering?” This question beginning the meditation on Great Mudita...
Before the meditation, Alan elaborates on the importance of preliminary practices and the accumulation of merit in order to prepare the mind...
Alan highlights the practice of balancing earth and sky. The core of the practice is to develop a deepening sense of ease, relaxation and gr...
In today’s session Alan talks about the importance of purification and accruing merit in order to proceed quickly along the path. The Sanskr...
Whereas the Four Immeasurables are the best friends of Vipashyana in weakening the mental afflictions before wisdom finally gives them the r...
Alan reminds us that the text by Padmasambhava strikes one as religious and mystical if viewed from a eurocentric perspective. However, it i...
Once again we come back to the culmination of the 4 immeasurables: the cultivation of equanimity. By way of referring to the Dalai Lama as w...
In his brief instructions before the silent meditation, Alan reminds us of the importance, before all else, of releasing control of the brea...
Alan begins by emphasizing once again the importance in Dzogchen of the relationship between the student and the guru. In Sravakayana practi...
Alan reminds us that the advanced practices of “not meditating on anything” (page 176, Natural Liberation) are intended for those who have a...
Alan prefaces the meditation with his reflections on compassion being a hard sell to avowed materialists. If not sick or dying, cultivating...
Alan starts the session commenting on the importance of the sense of community and supporting each other. Emphasizing this, he explains a st...
This short podcast includes a meditation on compassion focusing on the three types of suffering: suffering of suffering, suffering of change...
Alan started the teachings today with the question of how we know whether we are practicing dharma or not. After all, you could e.g. do sham...
Before our session of loving-kindness Alan lists some of the benefits of the practice, like sleeping and waking up in comfort, having no bad...
Alan started the teaching this evening by posing the question why we should venture into these practices of apprehending the clear light of...
In today’s teaching we focused on the preliminary practices (Ngondro). If we do Mandala Offerings etc. with blind faith and without any unde...
Before the silent meditation Alan briefly reviews what he has already explained a couple of days ago: If the visualizations keep you awake o...
Since in October 1950 Tibet was invaded by Chinese troops and has been oppressed ever since, today is a good day to practice Bodhicitta. Ala...
After some reflections on environmental crises and the radical inequality of the distribution of wealth in the world, Alan guides a meditati...
We have finished the cycle of meditations on cultivating the aspirations of The Four Immeasurables and The Four Greats and Alan urges us now...
Alan starts the session recalling Gautama’s experience when he endured extreme hardships, which made him lose his samadhi. Alan emphasizes t...
Alan starts the session with a brief introduction of the meaning of the aspiration of immeasurable equanimity and its etymology. Further, Al...
After the silent meditation we went on with Padmasambhava’s instructions on night-time dream yoga. He suggests different methods for becomin...
Alan started by providing us with the flow of context for today’s practice, Great Empathetic Joy. The Four Greats have the even-heartedness...
Before the silent meditation Alan talks about how the different practices that we had a look at in the past weeks work together and how they...
Before the meditation starts Alan talks about the practice we did yesterday, that is great compassion. He underlines that the first question...
In this talk Alan weaves everything that we had a look at in the past weeks together: From Shamatha, Vipashyana, the 4 immeasurables to the...
Since we finished the first cycle on the 4 immeasurables we moved on to a new dimension: The cultivation of great compassion. This is necess...
Alan guides a meditation on the empty fluctuation of appearances arising in open space. In the commentary that follows, he muses about the i...
Alan guides a meditation on the fourth immeasurable of equanimity practiced with still awareness and within the context of taking the mind a...
We continue deepening our practice of settling the mind in its natural state, which is considered the optimal technique for dreaming yoga pr...
We move on to the culmination of the fourth immeasurable: equanimity. It is the antidote to reifying negative appearances that destroy our w...
In the teachings before the meditation Alan emphasizes that we have a choice in our daily lives whether we let ourselves be caught up in ign...
In today’s meditation we took up the topic of empathetic joy again, which is often overlooked when we choose amongst the variety of meditati...
The meditation is all about going back to shamatha and Alan’s suggestions are: 1) Do whatever works, 2) As a general recommendation: balance...
Alan talks about the cultivation of empathetic joy, which among the four immeasurables is the one that is often easily overlooked. However,...
Alan begins with further instruction on a Dzogchen approach to mindfulness of breathing. After the silent meditation session, he introduces...
Exploring the wisdom necessary to discern the causes underlying the unease and discontent that characterize our experience, Alan leads a med...
Because a runaway, ruminating mind may still be an obstacle at this point of the retreat, Alan leads a meditation that spirals through the w...
Alan begins with a clarification of how the practice of silence at a Mahayana retreat is different from that at a Sravakayana retreat. The m...
We start the afternoon session with meditation on mindfulness of breathing. After meditation, Alan briefly finishes the commentary on the vi...
Alan welcomes two new participants to the retreat and emphasizes the importance of friendship and empathy among all of us. Meditation follow...