54 Taking Delight in Good Fortune

Spring 2011 Shamatha Retreat

In this session, Alan Wallace guides a meditation on mudita, or empathetic joy. He first speaks for some time about the opportunity of a precious human birth, and the power contemplating this opportunity has to shift the mind towards gratitude and delight.

The guided meditation begins at 21:55 in the recording.

Alan then answers these questions from the group:

1. When we are practicing settling the mind in its natural state, thoughts always come. Do them come from the substrate consciousness or the space of the mind?

and

In awareness of awareness, is this awareness from rigpa or substrate?

2. Is awareness of awareness equivalent to the skandha of consciousness?

Is it essentially rigpa?

If so, do other phenomena manifest rigpa differently?

Is that which concentrates equivalent to or associated with volition?

3. In awareness of awareness, I find it difficult to divorce the physical from what I'm doing. When releasing, I feel my body relaxing, and then when withdrawing, I feel my body tensing up. I don't know how to separate from these physical feelings.