Learning Mahamudra

Ken McLeod presents a comprehensive and experiential journey into the heart of mahamudra, one of the most direct and profound approaches to meditation in the Tibetan tradition. Ken draws from texts such as Clarifying the Natural State and Lamp of Mahamudra, reframing this classic material in plain, contemporary language, free of jargon and cultural overlay. Each session builds on the last, exploring themes such as the nature of mind, the dynamics of attention, the role of boredom and resistance, and the unfolding stages of practice—from stability and simplicity to one taste and non-meditation. With humor, clarity, and deep personal insight, Ken guides listeners toward an embodied, moment-to-moment experience of what we are and how life actually unfolds.

1. Listening to the Stammering Voice Within

Ken opens the first session of a six-week mahamudra course by encouraging students to reflect on their own spiritual questions—the “stammering voice” within that seeks something real. He explores how ancient texts, when understood experientially, can point directly to the nature of awareness. “What you are is simultaneously the vivid awareness of everything you experience, and everything you experience.” Topics covered include the challenge of translating practice texts, the importance of personal relevance in meditation, the view of mahamudra, the six realms of emotional reactivity, and three foundational levels of meditation.
2. The Capacity to Know

Ken begins the second session by introducing a Celtic fairy tale that provokes reflection on longing, wisdom, and spiritual readiness. Emphasizing the difference between understanding and direct experience, he encourages students to approach practice not intellectually, but by building the capacity to rest in awareness. “Don’t try to understand it. It’s not going to work… you’ll never actually develop the stability in your being, which is what this is really about.” Topics covered include the difference between knowing and understanding, the primary practice of five experiential steps, insight meditation, life as a field of sensation, and how to bring attention into daily activity.
3. Clear, Empty Knowing

Ken opens the session with a blend of humor and depth, reading from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to illustrate how mahamudra invites us to live fully in our own experience. He encourages students to rest in attention and directly perceive mind as it is—ungraspable, yet undeniably present. “This clear, empty knowing is what you are. It doesn’t come from anywhere. It is what you are.” Topics covered include shamatha and vipashyana, the pointing-out instructions, the union of seeing and resting, and the importance of developing capacity over understanding.
4. Jumping Off the Cliff

Ken opens this session with a disarmingly simple Sufi quote and a story about a documentary on nonduality, then guides a deep exploration of personal longing and the nature of experience. Through probing exchanges with students, he illustrates how belief—even in meditation—can obstruct practice, and how true insight arises when we let go of needing answers. “Any cognitive answer to these questions—I am … fill in the blank, life is … fill in the blank—is a stopping of awareness.” Topics covered include the eight sayings in mahamudra, the nature of awareness, the challenge of cultivating non-clinging, and how jumping off the cliff becomes the path itself.
5. Fresh, Artless, Unbound

Ken begins this session by clarifying how effort and non-effort intersect in mahamudra practice, guiding students through the paradox of “no distraction, no control, no work.” He emphasizes that true meditation isn’t about creating experiences, but relaxing deeply into whatever arises. “You actually have to know it experientially… not intellectually—that we don’t exist. And that’s why it’s freedom.” Topics covered include the difference between constructed and lived experience, the meaning of natural wakefulness, integrating meditation with daily life, and the nine resting instructions found in Clarifying the Natural State.
6. Nothing Whatsoever, Yet Aware

Ken concludes the series with a rich and wide-ranging discussion on integrating meditation into daily life, meeting boredom, desire, and aversion as practice, and the stages of mahamudra development. He emphasizes that spiritual growth isn’t about achieving experiences, but learning how to rest in the full immediacy of what’s arising. “We are nothing whatsoever, yet awareness is present… and what we are and what life is, are not different.” Topics covered include boredom as self-obsession, building capacity in one-pointedness, the union of seeing and resting, one taste, and non-meditation.

Learning Mahamudra

1. Listening to the Stammering Voice Within

2. The Capacity to Know

3. Clear, Empty Knowing

4. Jumping Off the Cliff

5. Fresh, Artless, Unbound

6. Nothing Whatsoever, Yet Aware