B. Alan Wallace and Chandra Easton in Marin, CA
July 18-22, 2012
B. Alan Wallace
Shamatha and Vipashyana in the Dzogchen Tradition
In his mind treasure, The Sharp Vajra of Wisdom Tantra, the 19th-century Dzogchen master Dudjom Lingpa clearly explains four quintessential practices that are each indispensable on the Great Perfection path to enlightenment. They are meditative quiescence (shamatha), contemplative insight (vipashyana), the breakthrough (tekchö), and the direct crossing-over (tögal). In this retreat Alan Wallace will give a detailed commentary on the opening section of this text, together with guided meditations, focusing on the shamatha and vipashyana practices of “taking the mind as the path.” This is a widely emphasized combination of practices in the Dzogchen tradition as a whole, and it provides a profound and insightful means to explore the mind and eventually dissolve it into its relative ground-state, the substrate consciousness. This is a necessary foundation for the practice of the breakthrough and direct crossing-over in the Dzogchen tradition.
Chandra Easton will lead an Insight Yoga class from 9:30am to 11:30am each morning preceding B. Alan Wallace's class, which begins at 1:00pm and ends at 6:00pm.
Suggested reading (not required):
The Attention Revolution by B Alan Wallace
Full program Sold Out but afternoons only (no yoga) available contact insightyoga@gmail.com
Cost: $695 ($595 if paid in full by Apr 18, 2012) nonresidential, accommodations and meals not included.
$200 deposit towards this course
Balance towards this course
Directions to Deer Run Zendo
 |
|
B. Alan Wallace
B. Alan Wallace began his studies of Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture in 1970 at the University of Göttingen in Germany and then continued his studies over the next fourteen years in India, Switzerland, and the United States. Ordained as a Buddhist monk by H. H. the Dalai Lama in 1975, he has taught Buddhist meditation and philosophy worldwide since 1976 and has served as interpreter for numerous Tibetan scholars and contemplatives, including the Dalai Lama. After graduating summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he studied physics and the philosophy of science, he returned his monastic vows and went on to earn his Ph.D. in religious studies at Stanford University. He then taught for four years in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and is now the founder and president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies (http://sbinstitute.com). He is also the director and chairman of the Phuket International Academy Mind Centre
(http://piamc.com) in Thailand, where he leads meditation retreats. He has edited, translated, authored, and contributed to more than thirty books on Tibetan Buddhism, medicine, language, and culture, and the interface between science and religion. His most recent books include Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity, Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality, and Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness.
|
 |
|
Chandra Easton
Insight Yoga
Chandra Easton began studying Tibetan Buddhism in 1996, in Dharamsala, North India, at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, founded by H. H. the Dalai Lama. While there, she studied Tibetan language, Buddhist philosophy, and meditation. In 1997, she resumed her studies in the Religious Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara where she worked on the translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts with the Buddhist scholar, B. Alan Wallace. She also had the good fortune of studying Tibetan language with Ngawang Thondup Narkyid, one of the official biographers for the Dalai Lama. While at UCSB, she taught Tibetan language, as well as supervised the cataloguing of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon for Davidson Library.
Chandra has been studying yoga since 1991 and began teaching in 2000 after training with Integrative Yoga Therapy (IYT), as well as Sarah Powers and Paul Grilley. She blends her studies of Vinyasa, Shadow and Yin yoga to create a practice imbued with sensitivity and strength. In her classes, she integrates her background as a translator of Tibetan Buddhist texts into her teaching of both yoga and meditation as a way of facilitating a direct experience of mindfulness, introspection, and compassion in one’s practice.
Her primary Buddhist teachers are H. H. the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gyatrul Rinpoche, Lama Tsultrim Allione, and B. Alan Wallace. Her primary yoga teachers are Sarah Powers, Zhander Remete, and her husband Scott Blossom. Chandra lives in Berkeley, California with Scott and their two children, Tara and Tejas.
|
|
|
