Fall 2011 Shamatha Retreat

Alan discusses how to approach one’s shamatha practice in a wise way - not by focusing upon “how it went” but rather on one’s application and effort. One should see that in every moment, no matter how good or bad, one is “accomplishing shamatha”. Turning to empathetic joy (47:47), he urges us to attend to and draw out the goodness in others. He deals with questions (72:26) regarding the notion of attending to thought without grasping, how to induce lucid dreaming, distinctions between vipashanya and shamatha and discusses the Buddhist perspective of Carl Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious.