audio – Fire Kasina: Recent Episodes
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Chad Atlas went on a 9-day retreat in June, 2016 practicing the fire kasina at Joshua Tree in California with three friends, John Finnell, Chris Miller, and Gabe Hill. Chad recorded an audio diary, and he and his friends gave some written reports. Here are their bios and reports. Chad Atlas is a 35-year-old father,… Continue reading Chad’s Audio Diary and Friends’ Reports
Shannon Stein has been meditating like her hair is on fire since first encountering Buddha Dharma in 2010. She is a Lama in the Namgyal Lineage of the Karma Kaygu School of Tibetan Buddhism with a particular interest in Theravadin practice. She has a Masters degree in Social Work and has been providing individual, marital… Continue reading Shannon’s Audio Diary
I had originally brought with me a fresh diary and a nice fountain pen on which to record my experiences on the retreat, but it turned out the paper was so smooth that the ink from the fountain pen would take a very long time to dry on it, making writing in that diary impractical.… Continue reading Daniel’s Audio Diary
In this first instalment we discuss the circumstances and organisation of the retreat, the instructions for the fire kasina practice, the stages of concentration arising from the practice, problems in the translations of the standard texts, the need for both focussing and widening the attention, colors and the manipulation of colors, the ‘ebbing two-color’ phase,… Continue reading Retreat Summary (Part One)
In this final installment we offer a recap of the stages so far, and then move on to discuss the range of options for exploration that the practice offers, the two types of imagery in the ‘low resolution’ space (processions of images and images with a life of their own), the nature of images in… Continue reading Retreat Summary (Part Two)