80 Developing Pure Vision & the Power of Equanimity

Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen

Alan began by introducing the practice of Equanimity and by giving a snapshot of his experience the day before at a virtual reality laboratory founded in 1991 in Pisa. Alan then drew a deeply meaningful parallel between the reality we can experience in a lab with such refined instruments and the reality we experience while we are in a lucid dream. He invites us to do our best to see that all appearances to our mind are empty appearances as in a lucid dream, and yet they are deeply interconnected and clearly influencing each other. This should allow us to develop a sense of equality and an even loving kindness for all beings. We should go beyond appearances, in some way to “see through” them and see that we all have the same Buddha nature. The reason why we do not respond to all sentient beings in the same way, with equanimity, is because reification comes up and we fuse the person with his or her behaviour, which sometime may be very disagreeable. All that appears to us as disagreeable arises from delusion, from misapprehending our real nature, our Buddha nature. By practicing Equanimity, by seeing the equality of all beings, and by seeing their lovability and pleasant qualities we may go beyond our grasping to their behavioural appearances. But this unconditioned loving kindness needs to be balanced with wisdom. The meditation is on the cultivation of Equanimity. After the meditation Alan says that by cultivating pure vision, by purifying the way we apprehend all sentient beings living around us, we can see their lovability and kindness and finally really apprehend their Buddha nature. Alan concludes by making very useful remarks about the proper way to practice Guru yoga and the importance of equanimity, the foundation for all other practices. Meditation starts at 22:42 ___ Please contribute to make these, and future podcasts freely available.