Guided Self-Transcending Meditation

4. Third Category: Open Monitoring Meditation (Vipassana)

In this lesson, Tina deep dives into the third category of meditation practice: open monitoring (vipassana). She provides a brief background and explanation of the open monitoring category of meditation and talks about a range of skills that get developed through this category of practices, including the capacity to observe phenomena, equanimity, and ability to cut through the normal perception of reality. She also covers a series of insights that open monitoring meditation enables practitioners to realize.

5. Guided Practice: Open Monitoring Meditation

In this section, Tina conducts guided open monitoring meditation. She starts with a brief review of the open monitoring meditation category, main objectives, and instructions. She then continues with a guided practice. This section will serve as an instruction for us to practice open monitoring meditation on our own.

6. Off the Cushion Practice – Embodiment

In this section, Tina talks about the path of embodiment or the different ways we can practice off the cushion to aid the process of self-transformation, thinning of sense of self, and dropping our conditioning and patterns, which eventually leads to awakening. She expands on the topics of conditioning and patterning, covering defilements, which are emotional or mental states that tend to drive our actions without us being aware of them. Tina also explains how the defilements correspond to the feeling tone of our experience (Vedanā). Tina highlights Enneagram and psychological work as tools that help us identify personality that we can work with on our journey to awakening.

7. Ethics

In this lesson, Tina deep dives into the topic of ethics and the importance of off the cushion practice and psychological work to avoid spiritual by-passing and potential ethical issues. She talks about the code of ethics for teachers, how awakening does not solve personality/psyche issues, and our responsibilities as students. Tina provides some guidelines and suggestions that we can apply to behave ethically on our journey to awakening.

8. The View

In this section, Tina introduces The View, a central idea in Tibetan Buddhism. We need to understand and cultivate it in order to engage in the self-transcending category of meditation. The View is an interpretation of our human experience that shapes and affects the content of our consciousness, including thoughts, sensations, and actions. Tina talks about three elements of the View – essence, nature, and compassion, describes each element and highlights the importance of bringing it into our lives.

9. Fourth Category: Self-Transcending Meditation (Dzogchen)

In this lesson, Tina deep dives into the fourth category of meditation practice: Self-transcending. She provides a brief background and explanation of what the Self-transcending category of meditation is within the Dzogchen tradition. Tina continues with instructions on the self-transcending meditation based on the Dzogchen Rigpa practice.

10. Guided Practice: Self-Transcending Meditation

In this section, Tina conducts a guided Dzogchen-based self-transcending meditation. She starts with a brief review of the self-transcending meditation, main objectives, and instructions. She then continues with a guided practice. This section will serve as an instruction for us to practice self-transcending meditation on our own.

11. Awakening as a Potential for Everyone

In this lesson, Tina summarizes the topic of awakening. She discusses its accessibility for every person and provides practical suggestions we can leverage to be intentional about our journey and keep our motivation high during periods of doubt. Tina also explains the benefits of practicing for the wellbeing of others, serving as a more stable ground for staying on the journey irrespective of life circumstances.