Chakras and energy channels
Chakras and energy channels

Great Retreat Teachings, Part 1: The Winds of Meditation (2011, Bowie)

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Using Prana To Avoid Subtle Meditation Obstacles
Especially In Deep Retreat

 
One of the greatest obstacles to meditation, especially during extended periods of deep retreat, is subtle dullness and distraction. We can spend hours, for weeks or months, in a state of mind where our thoughts are simply rambling through the issues of our life, even though we are sitting completely still and calm within our thoughts. This mistaken meditation leaves us feeling dazed and unclear, and prevents us from reaching the high spiritual goals which meditation is meant to bring us.

The great meditation classics of India and Tibet describe a special type of prana, or inner wind, which we can learn to direct through our body in order to bring our mind out of this subtle wandering and return it to sharp, single-pointed focus

The great meditation classics of India and Tibet describe a special type of prana, or inner wind, which we can learn to direct through our body in order to bring our mind out of this subtle wandering and return it to sharp, single-pointed focus. In these four days of teaching at Diamond Mountain Retreat Center, Geshe Michael Roach will take us on an exploration through the nature of these subtle meditation obstacles, and inner techniques to overcome them by moving the prana through our channels and chakras.

We’ll be using new translations on the subject of the prana of meditation taken from major texts such as The Levels of the Listeners, by Master Asanga (350AD); A Middle-Length Teaching on the Steps to Enlightenment, by the incomparable Je Tsongkapa (1357-1419); A Teaching on the Path to Bliss, by His Holiness the Third Panchen Lama (1738-1780); and A Gift of Liberation, by Pabongka Rinpoche Dechen Nyingpo (1878-1941).

In the end we’ll discover a bright, clear, and loving focus that can take us to the heights of spiritual realization

We will first learn, experientially, how to recognize the subtle obstacles to meditation. Then we’ll cover the mental and pranic techniques for preventing them. In the end we’ll discover a bright, clear, and loving focus that can take us to the heights of spiritual realization.

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