17. Mind-Killing: Reclaiming Experience from Reactive Patterns

Chapter 17 of “A Trackless Path II

[…] is placed on developing equanimity, developing the ability to experience things without judgment. And it’s very interesting when one of my students—we were working on the four immeasurables—and he’s a stockbroker, and there was a guy in the office that everybody just ignored, nobody wanted to have anything to do with him. And of […]

17. Mind-Killing: Reclaiming Experience from Reactive Patterns

16. Teaching as a Role: Creating Spaces for Learning

Chapter 16 of “A Trackless Path II

[…] in the chapter On Parental Mind [Dogen and Uchiyama]. Now I said that one way to look at this book is it’s a commentary on the four immeasurables. The first, not the first chapter, but once he gets into that part of it Everything You Encounter is Your Life. That’s chapter four. And Seeing […]

16. Teaching as a Role: Creating Spaces for Learning

15. Meeting Life Fully: Equanimity, Joy, and the Full Catastrophe

Chapter 15 of “A Trackless Path II

[…] I read it, I couldn’t understand what he was really doing, and then the second time I realized it was a very high-level commentary on the four immeasurables actually, from a Zen perspective. In the first one—in the sequence of equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion and joy—the basis for equanimity is a remarkably simple statement that’s […]

15. Meeting Life Fully: Equanimity, Joy, and the Full Catastrophe

6. Breaking the Cycle: Tracking, Non-Conceptual Awareness, and Chatter

Chapter 6 of “A Trackless Path II

[…] fairly detailed description of this whole process, if you’re interested. But essentially, that’s what one is doing in practice. When you’re doing things like cultivating the four immeasurables, you’re raising the attention by significant levels, developing a relationship with those kinds of emotions. When you’re doing yidam practice, that’s jacking up the level of […]

6. Breaking the Cycle: Tracking, Non-Conceptual Awareness, and Chatter

3. Embracing the Human Condition

Chapter 3 of “A Trackless Path II

[…] if that really can happen. I don’t know. Ken: Along the same lines, Charles brought up equanimity, but we could really talk about any of the four immeasurables here. A very good way to break up the seriousness of things is to have a sense of humor. And one of the ways to bring […]

3. Embracing the Human Condition

1. Entering the Path through Confusion

Chapter 1 of “Practicing the Diamond Sutra

[…] I suppose that’s it.” Lets it go, which is actually a form of generosity. How many of you have heard of the four brahmaviharas or the four immeasurables? Loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. The social expression of loving kindness is courtesy. Good manners is how you express loving kindness in your interaction with […]

1. Entering the Path through Confusion

7. Blasting the Demons

Chapter 7 of “Chö: Cutting Through the Thickets of Thinking

[…] all experience. Student: [Unclear] Ken: No, no. You have the visualization going on, you blast that into emptiness. Another exercise is to cultivate any of the four immeasurables and blast that into emptiness. Faith in your guru—blast that into emptiness. You blast everything into emptiness. I like this translation … Student: [Unclear] Ken: Yes. […]

7. Blasting the Demons

5. Broken Heart, True Presence: Feeling What We Avoid

Chapter 5 of “The Warrior’s Solution

[…] point, and the other are phrases, a set of four phrases that you can use to recall presence. Yes? Dissolving the solidity of reactive emotions with the four immeasurables Student: [Unclear] Ken: Well, I’m trying to deal with an organization, and regard the organization as a solid entity. Is it? No! It’s not. I regard everything […]

5. Broken Heart, True Presence: Feeling What We Avoid

9. Nothing to Cultivate

Chapter 9 of “Pointing Out Instructions

[…] of his awakening. All of the meditation techniques we do. Such as the purification practices and things like mudra and yidam meditations and meditations on the four immeasurables and death and impermanence—all of this stuff has only one objective. And you can put it into two ways. One, it’s to help build a capacity […]

9. Nothing to Cultivate

3. Falling Without Reference

Chapter 3 of “Pointing Out Instructions

[…] emotions. They are loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. You know in the Theravadan tradition there are the brahmaviharas and in the Mahayana tradition there are the immeasurables. We could add a fifth to these—fifth or sixth—and those are devotion and faith, because these are also not organized around a sense of self. I […]

3. Falling Without Reference

7. Ethics and Balance in Mind Training

Chapter 7 of “Mahayana Mind Training

[…] becomes totally how you relate to the world. That’s what’s important. So, for some people it can be death and impermanence, for some people it’s the four immeasurables, for some people it’s taking and sending, for some people it’s mahamudra. Our retreat director, it was mahamudra. That’s all he did. And he was very, […]

7. Ethics and Balance in Mind Training

6. The Five Forces and Measures of Proficiency

Chapter 6 of “Mahayana Mind Training

[…] them, we feel more awake, like “Oh!” They resonate with us, speak to us. And other practices don’t. Our retreat director found the practice of the four immeasurables didn’t speak to him at all, didn’t help him at all. I find them extremely helpful. We have those kinds of differences. So, he didn’t encourage […]

6. The Five Forces and Measures of Proficiency

5. Refining Taking and Sending Practice

Chapter 5 of “Mahayana Mind Training

[…] it is. Once we move from a kind of basic meditation such as resting with the breath and reflective meditations such as death and impermanence and four immeasurables and so forth, where there’s a definite set of reflections, or sequence of reflections, and you move into practices such as taking and sending and from […]

5. Refining Taking and Sending Practice

2. The Origins and Purpose of Mind Training

Chapter 2 of “Mahayana Mind Training

[…] left out. So that’s why we do the prayers of refuge and awakening mind at the beginning. And to help that along we also do the four immeasurables, which again reinforces those. And that way we create a basis for practice. Becoming an active agent in practice Ken: Now we’re going to go to […]

2. The Origins and Purpose of Mind Training