72 Mindfulness of feelings (5)

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

Teaching pt1: Alan continues with his commentary on the section on mindfulness of feelings in Ch. 13 of Shantideva’s Compendium of Practices. Regard feelings as feelings which stills cognitive fusion with them. Have great compassion for those who grasp onto joy. Those who do not grasp onto feelings experience true well-being. Whenever you experience pleasant feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from attachment, and abandon attachment. Whenever you experience painful feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from hatred, and abandon hatred. Whenever you experience neutral feelings, generate great compassion for all sentient beings who suffer from delusion, and abandon delusion. Experience no attachment to pleasant feelings, no aversion to painful feelings, and no ignorance with regards to neutral feelings. Recognize pleasant feelings as impermanent, painful feelings as unsatisfying, and neutral feelings as peaceful and identityless.
Meditation: mindfulness of feelings as above combined with great compassion. Apply mindfulness to the field of the body and the mind. Observe how sensations in the body and thoughts/images in the mind act as cooperative conditions for feelings. Let awareness be still as you recognize feelings as feelings. When encountering a pleasant feeling, recognize impermeance, unpleasant feeling as unsatisfying, neutral feeling as having no owner and no inherent existence. Weaving together great compassion... Whenever you encounter a pleasant/painful/neutral feeling, arouse great compassion for all those suffering from attachment/hatred/delusion. Repeat the liturgy and visualizations from this morning for each type of feeling.
Teaching pt2: Simply being present with won’t change conventional reality. Conventional reality needs to be challenged with direct realization of emptiness. Only then, can withdrawing or changing conceptual designation alter your reality.
Q1. I have chronic tinitus, and the severity of the whistling is normally correlated to my stress level. Here in retreat, I’m feeling very relaxed, but the whistling is quite loud. Is this being produced by shifts in prana??
Q2. How does the body exist? The bundle of space-energy-matter appears to the substrate consciousness as my body, but without the substrate consciousness, that bundle of space-energy-matter is still there.

Meditation starts at: 30:56