
Teachings & Practices
An Overview of The Path
The levels of teaching in the Pointing Out The Great Way lineage offer a precise and comprehensive path designed to take students all the way from ordinary dualistic mind to full Buddhahood.
In the following lecture, Dan gives a systematic overview of the entire Buddhist path using a model he calls the Three Maps, which include a taste of awakening, stabilizing awakening in all times and all situations, and the path of dharmadhatu exhaustion leading to full Buddhahood.
COMING SOON
Concentration Meditation
Developing your concentration skills is the foundation of training your mind and makes all of the advanced practices possible.
The Tibetan compound word, zhi gnas (pronounced "zhi-nay" or "shi-nay"), captures the two goals of concentration training. The term zhi ba (pronounced "zhi-wa") means “to become calm” because, from the event-perspective, the unfolding contents of consciousness become calmer and more organized. The term gnas ba (pronounced "nay-wa") means “to stay” because, from the mind-perspective, the mind stays continuously and completely on the intended object of concentration.
Overall, concentration is said to make the mind “serviceable” because the skilled concentrator is able to keep his or her mind on whatever is intended for as long as needed, without any distraction whatsoever.
Ideal Parent Figure Protocol
One of the unique contributions that Dan Brown made to the teaching and practice of Tibetan Buddhism in the West is the integration of a clinically-based psychological perspective. In the following lecture and practice, Dan weaves together modern Attachment Theory and a practice he called the Ideal Parent Figure Protocol with a classic Tibetan compassion practice called the Mother of All Beings.