One Week Retreat - Shamatha and the Four Immeasurables
D5S2 - Taking the Mind as the Path: Doing Even Less
David Oromith · 75 minutes · recorded August 22, 2025
A second session with the same method, to get a bit more familiarity with it before moving on. David reads Lama Alan: in each of the two shamatha methods so far the practice involves doing less and less, and here you are doing even less, no longer preferring thoughts to be absent. He reads him again on how this quality of awareness lets the mind heal and unknot itself as resentment, craving and arrogance come up in a space of loving presence, and answers one participant caught between resting in awareness and attending to thoughts, and another who feels dullness and a sense of falling with the eyes closed.
Anxiety and fear Attachment and craving Habits and change Sleep and rest Open presence Shamatha (calm abiding) The four immeasurables