Alan Wallace Shamatha Teachings Fall 2010

If you want firewood, you can trim off all the leaves and branches and wait for the tree to die and fall over. OR you can cut the tree down at its base - at the root, and you have firewood now. Likewise for investigating the mind: you can go at it intellectually – using logic, forming hypotheses, picking off one idea after another or you can go for the root by way of direct observation, though direct experience of the mind at close range in the practice of awareness of awareness. Urging us on to the practice, Alan invokes our Star Wars hero; “Be like Luke Skywalker going after the death star. May the force be with you… … and the death star is TOAST.”Other subjects include: the Dalai Lama and the book – The Good Heart, a great quote from physicist Anton Zeilinger, atheism, agnosticism, Stephen Hawking, and more. Listen for yourself. See for yourself.