Meditation Workshop: Bringing the Mind to Rest

Meditation Workshop:
Bringing the Mind to Rest

Event to be held at the following time, date, and location: Sunday, July 7, 2019 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (PDT) Wise Orchid Taijiquan & Qigong 2002 East Union Street Seattle, WA 98122 View Map

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Join us for a weekend workshop on the stages of meditation. Learn how to meditate, ask questions, engage in dialogue with other practitioners. Learn the foundational practices for calming your mind, recognizing your own nature, and cultivating your own personal practice. No prior meditation experience necessary, all students welcome. Be introduced to the key points of meditation Learn how to bring the mind to rest using various techniques Learn how recognize the innate qualities of the nature of mind Understand how we stray in the practice and how to eliminate errors in our meditation

What tastes better?

Imagine in front of you a shot glass and a pitcher, both filled with water. Maybe even do this experiment yourself.

Take one teaspoonful of salt and add it to the shot glass. What happens?

The water is cloudy and a lot of salt settles on the bottom and stays there.

Take one teaspoonful of salt and add it to the pitcher of water. What happens?

The water remains pretty clear, with a little cloudiness at the bottom and a little bit of salt remains on the bottom.

In which container will the salt completely dissolve more quickly? Obviously the pitcher.

Here is the real kicker, which water tastes better?

The shot glass of water tastes terrible. Gross. The pitcher of water tastes like regular water.

What's the point of this little exercise?

Our mind is the container through which we experience the world. When we are narrow-minded, or small-minded, our minds are very easily overwhelmed. That very same suffering, problem, or challenge, when met with an open mind is very easily dealt with and resolved.

What is a small mind? A mind that is rigid, fixated, agitated, tired, hungry, unfocused, restless.

What is a open mind? A mind that is understanding, tolerant, patient, resilient, kind, receptive, present, aware.

And here is the good news, we can train our minds to be more open. We can make it a daily practice to develop and embody this type of mind. We can also learn to recognize when we are being small minded, and we can learn to take those moments of recognition as reminders to practice.

What is the point of training your mind? You will enjoy your life more, and the suffering that you experience will not overwhelm you. Of course you will still experience pain and problems, but they won't taste nearly as bad.

Order Now: Heart Advice by Younge Khachab Rinpoche

For the past six years a team of generous students and myself have been working to put together a book from Rinpoche's teachings on the essence of the path of liberation. The result of much work is Rinpoche's first published book, Heart Advice: Essential Instructions on the Path of Liberation. In this book Younge Khachab Rinpoche explores the Buddha's teachings in a way that makes them practical and accessible to the modern Western practitioner. Rinpoche distills the very essence of the traditional textual tradition so that these teachings become meaningful to our own life and mind.

Heart Advice is for students who have explored the Buddha's teachings to some extent but want a firm foundation upon which they can build their own practice. It is for all practitioners of Buddhist tantra, Mahamudra and Dzogchen, to give an overview and context for understanding all of the Buddha's teachings.

Available to order now.











 Some of the topics in the book include:

• Understanding how the perception of the self gives rise to suffering in this life. 
• Examining the two truths and how they relate to our own mind.
• How to come to a correct understanding of the view of emptiness.
• How shamatha and vipasyana work together in meditation to actualize the view.
• Learn about the path of the bodhisattva and how to progress along the path.
• Understand the significance of the teachings on buddha nature.
• Explore how our innate buddha nature is obscured from the perspective of the different practice traditions.
• Learn how the Prajnaparamita, or perfection of wisdom sutras for the heart of all the Buddha's teachings.
• Explore the history of tantra and the significance of the ripening empowerment in the tantric path. 
• Understand the significance of the teacher in the Vajrayana.
• Explore the generation and completion stage yogas and how the wisdom of the tantric view gives rise to buddhahood in this very lifetime. 
• Explore the history of Mahamudra and some critical distinctions between Mahamudra and Dzogchen. 
• Learn about the Six Yogas of Naropa and their place in the realization of Mahamudra. 
• Understand how Mahamudra is realized through the four yogas. 
• Learn how to carry the essence of all practice instructions into one meditation session.

Rinpoche has a remarkable ability to see how all of the Buddha's teachings are connected in our own practice. In Heart Advice, he teaches us how to carry these various practice traditions onto our own path by understanding all of the Buddha's teachings as instructions for practice.

The teachings contained in this book have been of immense benefit in my own practice, and I find myself returning again and again to examine sections and to build connections to new material I am studying.

I hope that you will check it out.