Alan Wallace Fall 2012 Retreat Podcast: Vipashyana, Four Applications Of Mindfulness

In solitary retreat, it is easy to get caught up with all your own stuff coming from your own mind. This is attenuated being in a group retreat with others around. The 4 immeasurables help cultivate emotional balance, so when we encounter others, it’s like throwing a pebble into a swimming pool rather than a teacup. Alan recommences the meditation on compassion where we attend to others and their suffering. Meditation: compassion. Rumination is both tiresome and stressful, so an act of compassion for yourself, settle your mind in the space of the body and the respiration in its natural state. Compassion is not feeling sorry, but an aspiration rooted in empathy, a sense of common ground. Bring to mind a person or a community facing blatant hedonic suffering. With every in breath, “May you like me be free from suffering.” For the visualization, practice either 1) traditional tonglen method of drawing in the suffering in the form of darkness which dissipates entirely in a white orb at the heart chakra o