The Practice of Meditation. Audio. Berghof, July 2024

Teachings and retreat on Meditation Practice

06-14 July 2024.

This 9 day Retreat focussed on two texts:
The Mahamudra Instructions of Tipun Pema Chogyal and Notes on Mahamudra by Padma Karpo.
These texts show us how to identify and respond to the many kinds of obstacles that can occur in practice.
The aim of the retreat was to help us maintain calm, clear awareness whatever occurs. There were sessions of meditation practice.

The Mahamudra Instructions of Tipun Pema Chogyal
Text in English
Text in German by Robert Jaroslawski

Notes on Mahamudra by Padma Karpo
in English
in German

Audiobook prepared by Stuart Zinski and entitled The Practice of Meditation.

The audio recordings were prepared by Jonathan (Jon) Lever.  He took time to identify the topics on each day of the retreat and present them in separate recording snippets because we hope this is useful for you.
Also, for a better understanding of the retreat, each day is separate so that you can follow the flow of the teaching in the correct chronological order.

06-07. July 2024

01-02 Saturday, Sunday

  • 1-01 About Mahamudra and the focus of the retreat
  • 2-01 The ground - how are you
  • 2-02 Refuge
  • 2-03 Reciting the refuge
  • 2-04 Human birth - Bodhicitta - Buddha nature
  • 2-05 Emptiness
  • 2-06 Connectivity - limits and non-duality
  • 2-07 Text - Notes on Mahamudra - Padma Karpo
  • 2-08 Ordinary consciousness - original knowing
  • 2-09 Text - Co-emergent yoga - the world and you
  • 2-10 Death and impermanence
  • 2-11 Precious human birth
  • 2-12 Suffering
  • 2-13 Karma
  • 2-14 Your assumptions about who you are
  • 2-15 Nine round breathing
  • 2-16 Polarities and dialog
  • 2-17 Meditation posture
  • 2-18 Uninvolved open available
  • 2-19 The Vajra posture
  • 2-20 Inserting the five winds into the central channel
  • 2-21 Regarding speech the residual winds are expelled
  • 2-22 Thoughts of the past and future
  • 2-23 Meditating on concepts
  • 2-24 Whatever arises in the present - mind flows as it will
  • 2-25 Tilopa - rest with how it is
  • 2-26 Non-distraction - mind isolated
  • 2-27 Quiet sitting
  • 2-28 Distracted in an ocean of clarity
  • 2-29 Caught in delusion

08. July 2024

03 Monday

  • 3-01 Open sitting
  • 3-02 Five questions about the mind - shape and colour
  • 3-03 Size - big or small
  • 3-04 Come from anywhere
  • 3-05 Where is it abiding
  • 3-06 Going anywhere
  • 3-07 Working with the questions
  • 3-08 How about the things in the room
  • 3-09 The mind - the minds contents - involvement
  • 3-10 Dharma paths and your situation
  • 3-11 Mind isolated
  • 3-12 Mind not moving at rest whatever
  • 3-13 Mindfulness of the mind itself - non-distraction
  • 3-14 Kindness - compassion
  • 3-15 Not forgetting what you are becoming familiar with
  • 3-16 Tranquility - one-pointedness
  • 3-17 Question - intentionality
  • 3-18 Sitting with the breath
  • 3-19 Distraction and vulnerability - reframing
  • 3-20 Praying to the Guru - Lama Khyenno
  • 3-21 From dissolving into one-pointedness
  • 3-22 Consciousness - ego as distorting factor
  • 3-23 Beyond the limits of our world
  • 3-24 Question - How to make the teachings a living reality
  • 3-25 Truth - relative - absolute
  • 3-26 The three kayas
  • 3-27 Question - complete - the perfected state
  • 3-28 Question - the importance of the view
  • 3-29 Text - rest for as long as you can
  • 3-30 Equipoise - a dynamic balance
  • 3-31 When separation pray to your Guru
  • 3-32 For sinking dullness agitation
  • 3-33 Garab Dorge - stay on this
  • 3-34 Question - nature of Rigpa awareness
  • 3-35 Meaning - conclusions - judgements

09. July 2024

04 Tuesday

  • 4-01 Embodied participation - Tsatsa making
  • 4-02 Participating - for the other
  • 4-03 About Guru yoga
  • 4-04 Question - why meditation with eyes open
  • 4-05 Question - shamatha with closed eyes
  • 4-06 Guru yoga practice
  • 4-07 Practice in hot weather
  • 4-08 Text - pure support of body speech mind
  • 4-09 Useful for you - Dharma paths and vows
  • 4-10 Text - imagine Buddhas body - moon disk - sphere
  • 4-11 Tantra - imagination
  • 4-12 Imagine a moon disk
  • 4-13 Disolving identification - value
  • 4-14 Imagining a sphere
  • 4-15 Everything is imagined
  • 4-16 Text - using the breath as support
  • 4-17 The vajra breath
  • 4-18 The characteristics of your breath
  • 4-19 Merge your mind with your breath
  • 4-20 Attention to the five elements
  • 4-21 Breath using Om Hung Aa
  • 4-22 Using the support of the vase
  • 4-23 Involvement with sudden arisings - death - the bardo
  • 4-24 Question - clear light moment after
  • 4-25 Question - mantra recitation while dying
  • 4-26 Question - what kind of I in the dying process
  • 4-27 Living with conditions
  • 4-28 Not entering into involvement
  • 4-29 Question - willfully establishing non-involvement
  • 4-30 Sitting relaxed and open
  • 4-31 Something better than nothing
  • 4-32 Question - gaze in open sitting
  • 4-33 Text - not even a single thought
  • 4-34 Not making something of it

10. July 2024

05 Wednesday

  • 5-01 Dis-integration
  • 5-02 Dependent origination
  • 5-03 Questioning the qualities of the mind once again
  • 5-04 Sharing experience of how the mind is
  • 5-05 Question - starting from a view influences result
  • 5-06 Text - cutting involvement with the thought
  • 5-07 Practice without involvement
  • 5-08 Our felt-sense of individuality - continuity
  • 5-09 Text - arising and ending of thoughts revealed
  • 5-10 Question - an agent doing the relaxation
  • 5-11 Question - causes of certain thoughts to arise
  • 5-12 Question - persistent recurring thoughts
  • 5-13 Question - examining the mind with thinking
  • 5-14 Question - container of thoughts - ocean
  • 5-15 Text - discursive thoughts arising and ceasing
  • 5-16 Question - without support - present with the flow
  • 5-17 Practice - calm abiding
  • 5-18 Text - abiding like the flow of a large river
  • 5-19 Brahmins thread - tightness and looseness
  • 5-20 Reflections on tightening
  • 5-21 Question - difficulty meditating with open eyes
  • 5-22 Question - agitation in daily life - meditation - integration
  • 5-23 Question - allowance to feel tension
  • 5-24 Text - resting as when the rope tying the straw is cut
  • 5-25 Reflections on the practice
  • 5-26 One-pointedness as basis
  • 5-27 Text - Resting like a child gazing at a temple
  • 5-28 Resting like an elephant pricked by a thorn
  • 5-29 Question - watching a thought arise
  • 5-30 Text - Like an ocean free of waves - lack - excess
  • 5-31 Collapsing the distinction between abiding and movement
  • 5-32 Question - ocean without wave
  • 5-33 Question - emotions
  • 5-34 Question - breathing thoughts in and out
  • 5-35 Question - stillness - sounds - not in time
  • 5-36 Text - how one-pointedness is in itself

11. July 2024

06 Thursday

  • 6-01 Fragmentation - one thing many things
  • 6-02 The benefit of not being special
  • 6-03 Text - introducing vipassana
  • 6-04 Analysing the root of abiding and movement
  • 6-05 Practice - what is the essence of this abiding like
  • 6-06 Experiences of the essence of abiding
  • 6-07 Text - abiding - movement - awareness
  • 6-08 Reflections on abiding - movement - awareness practice
  • 6-09 Small Dharma study groups - learning by doing
  • 6-10 Text - the looker and the looked at
  • 6-11 Questions - awareness self-existing
  • 6-12 Subjectivity as an arising
  • 6-13 Question - border between self and other
  • 6-14 Text - free of assumption and its assertion
  • 6-15 Unawareness - an account
  • 6-16 WIthout even a name - the gurus kindness
  • 6-17 Analysis done by inherent awareness
  • 6-18 Question - teacher - opening the door
  • 6-19 Question - finding the way out of the jungle
  • 6-20 Question - into the outside world
  • 6-21 Question - implanting the view - transmission
  • 6-22 Text - identifying vipassana
  • 6-23 Discursive thought recognising itself
  • 6-24 Sitting with an unpleasant thought
  • 6-25 Arising and vanishing
  • 6-26 Question - merging with the storyline
  • 6-27 Text - the best kindness
  • 6-28 Practice with whatever comes
  • 6-29 Available - no agenda
  • 6-30 Compassion inseparable from emptiness
  • 6-31 Question - outward effects of practice
  • 6-32 Text - analysis in terms of the three times
  • 6-33 Question - cutting the root
  • 6-34 Question - thinking about the future
  • 6-35 Question - prediction of place and date of death
  • 6-36 Question - enlightenment as motivation
  • 6-37 Text - no existence through birth cessation abiding
  • 6-38 Question - chair as just a concept
  • 6-39 Text - analysis in terms of things and non-things

12. July 2024

07 Friday

  • 7-01 Without commentary without hope
  • 7-02 Text - the original knowing of intrinsic awareness
  • 7-03 The middle way
  • 7-04 Question - the risk of acting crazy
  • 7-05 Question - illusory nature of other people
  • 7-06 Question - emptiness - unborn
  • 7-07 Question - appearance - projection
  • 7-08 Sameness and difference - diversity
  • 7-09 Question - releasing karma
  • 7-10 Equanimity fixation and openness
  • 7-11 Question - limited perspectives and awareness
  • 7-12 Question - special quality of the ego
  • 7-13 Text - beyond diversity - equipoise
  • 7-14 Question - ordering experience
  • 7-15 Text - appearance like an illusion
  • 7-16 the ground non-elaborated
  • 7-17 Question - recognising the ego-self
  • 7-18 Question - moving on through the stages
  • 7-19 Text - the yoga of one taste
  • 7-20 Question - one taste - tantra
  • 7-21 Text - within the dream - as if
  • 7-22 Question - one taste - all at once
  • 7-23 Question - dream yoga
  • 7-24 Text - erroneous dreams within the sleep of mental dullness
  • 7-25 Question - non-erroneous dreams
  • 7-26 You cannot step out of your mind
  • 7-27 Relaxing on the occurrence
  • 7-28 Practice
  • 7-29 The mind and the body in practice
  • 7-30 Text - face and complexion
  • 7-31 Question - no choice - free will
  • 7-32 Question - why face as metaphor
  • 7-33 Question - ethics - the immediate field - contact
  • 7-34 Question - the face before you are born

13. July 2024

08 Saturday

  • 8-01 Learning and preparation
  • 8-02 Reflections on dharma - ordinary life
  • 8-03 Agency and inspiration
  • 8-04 Question - non-sensical as refreshing
  • 8-05 Comment - it is hard not to do
  • 8-06 Text - three realms - single great desire
  • 8-07 Appearance and emptiness - water and ice
  • 8-08 Comment - warmth connection compassion
  • 8-09 Awakening to the one taste of many
  • 8-10 Equal in taste - water and waves
  • 8-11 Question - the bodhisattva vow
  • 8-12 Text - all have the guardians nature
  • 8-13 The manifold arising with one taste
  • 8-14 Question - can the policeman get enlightened
  • 8-15 Comment - anything possible - Trungpa Rinpoche
  • 8-16 Text - Emptiness pervades all that occurs
  • 8-17 Emptiness
  • 8-18 Text - the yoga of non-meditation
  • 8-19 This is the end of the path
  • 8-20 The quality of here and now
  • 8-21 Disolving your conceptual mind
  • 8-22 Question - compassion at the end of the path
  • 8-23 Question - the six yogas of Naropa
  • 8-24 Question - one taste - mediatating sky to sky
  • 8-25 Question - compassion - goal or tool
  • 8-26 Question - mahamudra dzogchen differences
  • 8-27 Question - what is the endgame
  • 8-28 Question - no border between self and world
  • 8-29 Question - the tilt of the face
  • 8-30 Question - maintaining the enquiry
  • 8-31 Discussion - back to compassion
  • 8-32 Question - who is balancing

14. July 2024

09 Saturday

  • 9-01 Text - without thinking about - without considering
  • 9-02 Conclusion - identification of Mahamudra
  • 9-03 Analysis of obstructions deviation and strain
  • 9-04 The thing to be discarded and the antidote
  • 9-05 Going astray with regard to the path
  • 9-06 Experience - awakwning - understanding
  • 9-07 Colophon to the text
  • 9-08 Question - terminololgy - elaboration - confirmation
  • 9-09 Question - how to engage fruitfully with materialist views
  • 9-10 Question - This retreat has been a lot of listening
  • 9-11 Comment - participation and the dancing
  • 9-12 Question - no one to hear
  • 9-13 Comment - having the teachings with us
  • 9-14 Question - Lama khyenno melody
  • 9-15 Dharma will not forget you

The complete Retreat to download (8 ZIP-Files)

Berghof 2024 1,2 Saturday Sunday
Berghof 2024 3 Monday
Berghof 2024 4 Tuesday
Berghof 2024 5 Wednesday
Berghof 2024 6 Thursday
Berghof 2024 7 Friday
Berghof 2024 8 Saturday
Berghof 2024 9 Sunday

 

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