Living Meditation with Dan Brown
(via Zoom)
Sept 2nd
7:30p-9:30p Eastern Time
$25 Sustaining
$35 Supporting
$15 Community
(free to Pointing Out Way membership holders, registration required)
Dan refers to this as 'meditation improv' in that there is no set agenda for the evening. The first hour is spent on questions, comments, and discussion about meditation practice and spirituality in everyday life, informed by Eastern and Western philosophy. The second hour is then a guided meditation based on the discussion.
This ongoing class and practice community offers the opportunity to explore the path and meditations to understand and awaken to the True Nature of the Mind.
This realization frees awareness from obstruction and reactivity and allows awareness to be natural, unbounded and free. This freedom allows for the flowering of the positive qualities of mind and behavior that lead to a life of joyful service in the world; living meditation.
It has been our experience that the transformation to living meditation does not take time, just sincere practice and motivation. We welcome you to come journey with us.
Pointing Out Way Sangha
For students who have completed a Level 1 Retreat with Dan Brown or any of the Pointing out Way teachers, there is an ongoing sangha that meets any Wednesday night when there is no teacher.
Daniel Brown is the author of 15 books including Transformations of Consciousness (with Ken Wilbur & Jack Engler), and a book on Mahamudra, Pointing Out the Great Way: The Mahamudra Tradition of Tibetan Meditation-Stages (Wisdom Publications), and two books on public dialogues with H.H. The Dalai Lama. He is also the co-author of a book on the Bon A Khrid lineage of Bon Great Completion Meditation.
In graduate school at The University of Chicago he studied Sanskrit with Hans van Beutenen, and also studied Tibetan, Buddhist Sanskrit, and Pali languages in the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison WI. He spent 10 years translating meditation texts for his doctoral dissertation on Tibetan Buddhist Mahamudra meditation.
He has studied meditation practice for about 45 years, beginning with reading Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and its main commentaries in the original Sanskrit with the great historian of religion professor Mircea Eliade, as well as practicing Patanjali's stages of meditation directly with Dr. Arwind Vasavada. At the same time, Dr. Brown studied the Burmese Theravadin Buddhist mindfulness meditation, first with Western teachers in the United States like Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Christopher Titmus, and then directly with the originator of the Burmese mindfulness tradition, Mahasi Sayadaw in Rangoon, Burma and other masters like Tungpulo Sayadaw and Achaan Cha.
Most of his meditation experience has been squarely centered within the Indo-Tibetan Mahayana Buddhist tradition. He lived with his Tibetan root lama, the Venerable Geshe Wangyal summers between school for about a 10-year period. Geshe Wangyal, H.H. the Dalai Lama, and the Venerable Denmo Locho Rinpoche, former Head Abbott of Namgyal Monastery, the Dalai Lama’s monastery were the main students of senior teacher Ling Rinpoche in the Gelukpa lineage.
Dr. Brown first learned Indo-Tibetan concentration and insight meditation with Geshe Wangyal, and then years later co-taught concentration and insight meditation with Denmo Locho Rinpoche and Yeshe Tapkay at Geshe Wangyal's retreat house over a 15-year period. Dr. Brown learned Mahamudra from numerous Tibetan lamas mainly in the Tilopa/Marpa tradition and its subsidiary traditions, such as the Dwags-po/Karma or 'Seat' lineage, the 'Bri gung' or 'Five Parts' lineage, and the Drug pa or 'One Taste' lineage, and also from the ecumenical Rime movement wherein Mahamudra and Gelukpa emptiness practices were integrated and Mahamudra and Great Completion practices were integrated.
Dr. Brown spent 10 years translating meditation texts from Tibetan and Sanskrit, including translating Tashi Namgyal’s great commentary on the Mahamudra, Moon Beams, as well as translating most of the important Mahamudra meditation practice texts found in Jamgon Kongtrul’s great collection of meditation texts, The Treasury of Instructions.
As a Western psychologist he spent 10 years conducting outcomes research on beginning and advanced meditators.
He has taught meditation retreats for 20 years.
More recently, Dr. Brown has been studying the Nyingma Dzogs Chen [Great Completion] lineage from Garab Dorje and Vairocana with Rahob Tulku Rinpoche, and the Bon po A Khrid and Zhang Zhung snang gyud lineages of Dzogs Chen [Great Completion] lineages with H.H. the 33rd Menri Trizin, Abbott of the Menri Bon Monastery, Donaji, H.P. India, and spiritual head of the Tibetan Bon religion.
Dr. Brown is currently translating both the A Khrid and Six Lamps Bon po Dzogs Chen teachings into English.
danielbrownphd.com
pointingoutway.org
It is the mission of the Boston Center for Contemplative Practice to provide balanced financial accessibility to our services. We believe that what we offer should be for everyone. We offer scholarships for our professional trainings and we offer a 3-tiered, self-selecting pricing system for events and classes.