Contemplative Studies Program Blog
Compare the pervasive attitude towards death found in industrialized verses indigenous cultures. Then ask how our attitude towards death changes our relationship to life?
The lam rim reflection on death has three sub-reflections:
1) Death is certain. Can you identify one thing that doesn’t...
Life is beginingless and consciousness is infinite.
Over the course of evolution our karma has compelled us to ascended and descend to various pleasant and unpleasant states of existence. But fundamentally we have always been trapped in a condition of blindness, not knowing who we really are,...
Step 8 emphasizes the need for the student to be as prepared and qualified as the teacher for an optimal learning experience.
We are responsible for avoiding the 'three defects of the vessel'. Our mind is like a vessel, the teachings are an elixir. We can’t be:
1) too full
2)...
Find a Real-world Mentor.
Question for you, since we are at step 7, what is it about our culture and social media use that makes reflecting on more than three steps or points a challenge? And what is it about you that helps keep you moving forward on a more enduring path?
Distinguish the...
Step 6 concludes the Six ‘Ordinary Preliminaries,’ a container or crucible for our visualization practice.
Can you integrate your personal spiritual practice - yoga, dance, martial arts, art, writing etc. - into this container?
Conclude your daily practice by offering a...
Seven-step Mentor Bonding Process = a virtual reality psychotherapeutic encounter that we can have as many times as we wish, for however long we need, at no cost.
1) Admire Qualities - orients us towards the good in others countering the negativity bias.
2) Make Offerings - builds reciprocity,...
Work with virtue and vice using the mentor-bonding process.
The engine of enlightenment is a sacred relationship.
It’s in the context of a close relational bond that we will eliminate vice, and cultivate virtue, and achieve enlightenment. No one makes it alone!
We must strike a balance, a...
If you’d like, start memorizing the steps and recalling them prior to hitting play on the next video in the series. By the end of our journey they will be installed in your heart.
Humans learn best through mimicry with more skilled parental figures or mentors. Unlike childhood we now get...
Steps 1-6 are called the Ordinary Preliminaries and have to do with our meditation practice.
Prepare your body for meditation with a dignified and comfortable posture.
Prepare your mind for meditation with one of three kinds of motivation depending on your predisposition and capacity.
1)...
The altar is our workbench.
What’s on the altar is that which we aspire to become.
The purpose of offering is to exercise or cultivate good qualities that will hasten maturation or manifestation.
With a pure heart offer anything - pure water, fresh fruit, flowers, lit candles, sweet...
Create a sacred space to do the work.
What is the relationship between the environment and our state of mind?
Do we prioritize our psychological growth enough to designate an actual workspace for it?
What design elements would go into a space to make it inviting for you?
What about Mother...
Awakening in 30 Steps is a series of contemplations on each of the lam rim steps from Dr. Miles Neale's book Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human.
The lam rim is not a linear sprint to a final destination, it’s a spiral-like process of gradual awakening.
...
