Alan Wallace brings the worldview around shamatha practice into perspective and discusses the importance of the Four Noble Truths.

Alan Wallaces introduces us to his coined phrase “Obsessive Compulsive Delusional Disorder” and relates how shamatha practice helps us restore mental balance.

Alan Wallace guides us through a preparatory practice for this course in which we learn to settle the body, speech, and mind in the natural state. Find a comfortable, quiet place to sit and follow along with the recording below.

In these two chapters from Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up, Alan Wallace covers the relationship between the Dharma and happiness and then discusses how moral discipline is a foundation of spiritual practice.

Alan Wallace relates shamatha practice to our search for happiness, and goes into more detail about the practice as a part of the Buddhist path.

Alan Wallace gives us an overview of the course and begins to introduce us to shamatha practice. After this video, you may want to jump ahead to the practice session for this lesson before moving on to the second video and reading.

In this first lesson, Lama Alan Wallace gives an introduction to shamatha meditation and relates this to the two types of happiness—that which comes from within, and from the external world.

Follow along with this guided meditation as Alan Wallace leads us in a closing practice to dedicate the merit we have gained from learning and practicing together.

Alan Wallace comments on the final pages of The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers, taking us through Düdjom Lingpa’s song of experience. Read along in the excerpt below or on page 156 of the PDF of the root text found in Lesson 1, or in your copy of Heart of the Great Perfection.

This is called illumination by primordial consciousness of the face of the Great Perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.

All modification, alteration, hope, fear, doubt, negation, affirmation, grasping, exertion, investigation, and analysis are imputed by the intellect, and the intellect is not ultimate. The ultimate transcends the intellect, so you must know this critical point. When you are utterly settled, you may fall into error, and while you are present in the aspect of emptiness, thoughts may become hidden, beyond the scope of the creative expressions of pristine awareness. In this case, I say that thoughts become ethically neutral in the boundary between the mind and pristine awareness. Not veering away from the nature of existence of the Great Perfection of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is a sublime and utterly crucial point. With it, all gods and demons and all of saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are liberated within themselves, with no distinction of good and bad. (more…)

In this final lesson, Lama Alan Wallace completes his teachings on The Foolish Dharma of an Idiot Clothed in Mud and Feathers and comments on Düdjom Lingpa’s song of experience.