What is the nature of the mind? And why do we need to understand and realize this?

Currently we are the slaves of our mind – dominated by mental afflictions such as anger, craving and confusion and often overwhelmed by negative thoughts, emotions and memories. And as such we experience a lot of dissatisfaction and suffering in our life.

By coming to realize the conventional nature of our mind – that our mind is clear and knowing – we tap into the clarity, stillness and bliss already present within our mind but currently obscured by our mental afflictions. And thus we begin to heal our agitated dysfunctional mind, achieve emotional balance and become masters of our mind.

And by coming to realize the ultimate nature of our mind – that the mind is empty of independent existence – we can eliminate our mental afflictions from their very root and thus achieve liberation from all suffering and abide in a state of genuine happiness. And not just for ourselves but so that we can also effectively help others in their struggle to overcome suffering and find genuine happiness.

During the Friday evening and Saturday sessions we will describe and practice various meditations that will enable us to realize the nature of our mind. In particular, we will be placing special emphasis on the shamatha practice of settling the mind in its natural state – the practice of simply observing the mind and all the mental events arising within the mind – as means to realize the conventional nature of the mind. This practice is also well known for its ability to heal the mind and enable us to become masters of our mind.

We will also introduce the shamatha practice of awareness of awareness – the practice of simply resting in awareness – particularly as a basis for the vipashyana practice of investigating the underlying ultimate nature of the mind. And finally we will look at how these various practices can be integrated into our daily life so that we can progress in the practice and thereby receive maximum benefit from them.

Glen Svensson (originally from Queensland, Australia) has been a student and practitioner of Buddhism since 1995 and graduated from the seven-year Masters Program in Advanced Buddhist Studies of Sutra and Tantra at the Lama Tzong Khapa Institute in Italy in 2004.

Since 2005, with a teaching style emphasizing clarity, he has taught extensively in Australia, Europe and also India where he frequently leads both introductory and intermediate level courses in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and meditation at Tushita Meditation Centre in the town of McLeod Ganj (Dharamsala), home-in-exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.