Refresher Course on Deep Concentration; Live Course on Zoom
Daniel P. Brown, Ph.D. & Dustin DiPerna, M.A.
July 18th, 9:00am-12:00pm EST
$150 General Admission
This course will review the stages and practices of Asanga’s sems gas dgu [Nine Stages of Staying]. Many POGW practitioners find that over time concentration deteriorates as part of regular daily practice, in part because we develop sloppy habits, and in part because of everyday busyness. This refresher course will hopefully get you back on track.
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
Dustin DiPerna is a visionary leader, entrepreneur, and recognized expert in world religions. He has committed his life to making timeless spiritual wisdom relevant and accessible for a rapidly changing global society. Through writing, teaching, coaching, and entrepreneurship, Dustin helps individuals and groups to find happier and more fulfilling ways of being in the world. He is author of three books - Streams of Wisdom, Evolution's Ally, and Earth is Eden - and co-editor of The Coming Waves.
Dustin has spent more than a decade of close study with American Philosopher, Ken Wilber, who has publically declared that Dustin’s work “fundamentally alters the way in which religion or spirituality can (and should) be taught and practiced.” For the past 8 years, Dustin has been practicing and studying in the spiritual lineages of Mahamudra and Dzogchen under the direction of Daniel P. Brown. Dustin has a lifelong commitment to being both student and practitioner.
Dustin has held positions with the Integral Institute, the Integral Spiritual Center and the World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders (WCORL). As an entrepreneur, Dustin first launched Integral Publishing House as a platform to publish a series of carefully curated books, each selected to stimulate the development of deeper levels of consciousness and culture. He next co-founded WEpractice, a training program to help people move beyond the limitations of individualized spiritual practice to discover the power of groups in transformation, integration, and healing. WEpractice has trained over 500 practitioners as well as a new cohort of leaders who continue work around the globe. Dustin played a central role on the leadership team for the Global Cooperative Forum in Interlaken, Switzerland, exploring how a deeper understanding of spiritual awakening might inform cooperative efforts of social action. Building on this success and sensing the need for deeper collaboration among global organizations, Dustin launched the World Business Commons in partnership with the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame. His latest venture, Bright Alliance, is building an endowment for the continued preservation and dissemination of the great treasure trove of human wisdom sourced in our world's great religious traditions.
Dustin holds an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and an MA in Religion from Harvard University. An avid lover of art, design and nature, he lives in California with his wife, Amanda, and daughters, Jaya and Rumi.