Introduction to Shamatha with Glen Svensson
4 videos • 101 views • by Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre Delhi “Few things affect our lives more than our faculty of attention. If we can't focus our attention – due to either agitation or dullness – we can't do anything well. We can't study, listen, converse with others, work, play, or even sleep well when our attention is impaired. And for many of us, our attention is impaired much of the time.” Alan Wallace Shamatha Day Retreat at Tushita Delhi on Saturday 28 October from 10 am to 4:30 pm During this one day event we learned how to develop and enhance our attention skills, how to strengthen our faculty of mindfulness. Within Buddhism this training is often referred to as shamatha practice – the practice of developing a calm, clear and focused mind. This practice is essential if we are to subdue and heal our agitated and unruly mind, to become masters of our own mind. During four sessions we focused on mindfulness of breathing, a technique that has been found to be very effective in the modern world. Mindfulness of breathing means settling your awareness on the sensations of the breath, continually returning your attention there whenever your mind wanders. With regard to this training we also looked at how to set up a good meditation posture, what faults can arise during the meditation and how we can overcome them, what stages we progress through in this practice and how we can adjust our life to facilitate this practice. Each session included instructions on the practice, a guided shamatha meditation and an opportunity to ask questions. Recommended Reading The Attention Revolution – B. Alan Wallace About the Teacher Glen has been a student and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism since 1995 and graduated from the seven-year Masters Program in Advanced Buddhist Studies of Sutra and Tantra at Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (Pomaia, Italy) in 2004. Since 2005 he has taught and led meditation retreats in India, Europe, North America and Australia with a clear and structured teaching style emphasizing the integration of philosophical view, meditation and daily life conduct.