[34] The Importance of Meditation for Attaining Lucidity – with Andrew Holecek
12:41AM Nov 23, +0000
Speakers:
Andrew Holecek
Keywords:
meditation
practice
mind
talking
question
breath
people
life
lucidity
couple
book
happiness
tradition
ego
week
literally
hand
lucid
deconstructing
breathing
Can you hear me okay? I wasn't supposed to be here tonight. But my dear friend Joe, Dr. Joe, famous sports psychologist, author, in the last minute had something come up and I have to say my race back to get this going. So here I am completely unprepared but what else is new? Actually, I'm not totally unprepared. I do have a couple things to say What a surprise. But first of all welcome if you're new to this event, what we do on these Mondays we started this maybe I don't know six, seven months ago, is we talk about meditation. We do it introduced a number of different styles of practice and the outset is after I'd make a few comments about upcoming things, addressed the issue like why, where does Why does meditation. What does meditation have to do with lucidity? As you'll see everything so but before I do that, a couple things is Alyssa always do this little shameless self promotion at the beginning. A couple of cool things coming up, Menlo death and dying Conference, which just was announced. I think now it's advertisement the meme and there's a link to that. This is a four day event that has some amazing people coming. Bob Thurman, Eben Alexander wrote Proof of Heaven Deepak Chopra. I mean, there's some really quite amazing people, the wife of the guy who wrote When Breath Becomes Air. And so I've been invited to do a couple of things, a presentation on the Tibetan views of death, and then join a panel. So I'm super excited about that. It's a really great group of folks. So check that out. Second thing is we still have a few more slots and then this is like the last event I have live until who knows what maybe I'll die before I teach again. Wouldn't that be nice? Well, last live events before I actually don't even know when my next live event is I think maybe June because then I enter in January, kind of yarn a season. Retreat season classically in India, that's my writing research season. So that's when I dive deep into all my writing research stuff. So anyway, there's a couple spots still left for the mela Silent Retreat program and this absolute jaw dropping place in Baja, above, just above Cabo San Lucas. So check out the site, even if you don't go check out this location. It's unbelievable. So I want to just say a couple of things. And then we'll have some comments about ways to really to practice but I wanted to say just a wee bit more because this exclamation point, I think cannot be stressed too much. And that is like the role of meditation and lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. It's like okay, like, what does this have to do with the nocturnal meditations? Well, everything that perhaps classically so much with traditional lucid dreaming, they don't really work in this arena. But definitely the deeper end of lucid dreaming absolutely, positively fullbore with Dream Yoga, and even more so as the yoga and the rationale, the logic, so to speak, is really pretty straightforward that when you're working with your dreams, what are you really doing right? What are dreams made of? Well, they're made of your mind. And so when you're working with your dreams, you're really working with your mind. Principally, your unconscious mind unique hybrid state of consciousness right? Where the conscious mind can meet and work with the unconscious mind directly. That's what makes the lucid dreaming arena so precious, so unique, and such a fertile opportunity for psycho spiritual development. But the single biggest thing, and those of you who have been attending some of the presentations over the last two years since we launched a nightclub, actually, it might be longer than that at this point. How often do we hear like literally every session every week? I'm having problems with lucidity. I'm having problems attending lucidity, what I do, my lucid dreams don't last very long. They're not clear. What can I do? Oh my gosh, if I had a penny for every time this question was asked, I could retire. And so the single biggest reason hands down Barna. The single biggest reason for all these issues lack of lucidity, lack of stability, lack of clarity, lack of duration, all of it. The whole shebang is lack of lucidity and clarity to the diurnal mind to your mind right here. And now.
As I say often over and over from Kabir, the Bengali poet, I think Bengali right. What is found now was found them. And so this is by somebody studies are showing meditators have more lucid dreams in the minds of a meditation master all their dreams of lucid. So meditation is colossal. And that's why we introduced this some of these six seven months ago as a way to really put the exclamation point on the importance of working with your mind in this capacity and the natural consequences of developing lucidity in the dream state and then parenthetically, of course the final lecture the legislations are the yoga the dream at the end of time, which is death. This absolutely 100% has complete applicability to acidity in the Bardot's after you die. And I'm going to riff a little bit about this in the middle of thing that Dream Yoga, which again transcends but includes lucid dreaming, came about principally as a way to prepare for death. Because that's where you go when you die, right? Where do you go when you die? You just transition from one dream to the next. Dream here is cold language for manifestation of mine. This is just all made of mind whether you whether you're aware of it or not. So we are always working with the mind whether we know it or not, always because that's all there is. And so by working with meditation directly, we're really accelerating our ability to work with mine directly. I was involved that I do this conference every month or so. It's called the consciousness or non duality group. This is where I get some of my guests like Ruben Lacan then came in SWAMI sarva Priya Nanda who, by the way forgot I'm interviewing him next week. Is this really probably the most, if not the most preeminent, certainly one of the most preeminent Western voices of Advaita Advaita. Vedanta so I met him. It is Continental. Just this morning, we had a session with a religious scholar. And there was a psychiatrist. There was just that was awesome. He's part of our group. He has MD PhD. He's a psychiatrist. He has a PhD in electrical engineering. And he shared this really kind of touching pointed riff about for the last 10 years, how we meditate like five to 10 hours a day. That's all he does. And the other scientists that were in the group were like their eyes were plugged guide, somewhat incredulous, and then I challenged him to just lend a little bit of support from the wisdom tradition, saying, hey, what this wonderful man is doing is fundamentally the only thing that's the only game of talents the only show in town. So really, truly look at your own experience. Promise you. You're always working with your mind always. And so the issue is, do you relate to the languaging? I sometimes use do you relate to it? Or do you relate from it? And relating from your mind, that's no relationship at all. That's reactivity. That's what creates the visual patterns as which generates karma. That's no relationship at all. Meditation allows you to relate to your mind instead of from it. And this is exactly what we can explore in the lucid dream arena. Because if we don't relate to our mind, in the dream arena, we're relating from it. That's no relationship at all. That's a non lucid dream. So this narrative of lucidity and this conjunction with meditation is enormous. So what we do here for those of you who are new again, this is the avenue I will say, after we do a little practice, I will guide you through one or two things. I'm going to read a short riff, something that really inspired me in the last week or so that I read, I want to share with you and then run a little running commentary on it. We'll do this for maybe half hour. And then this is an opportunity. I have to do a little bit of a hard stop today on the hour because again, I wasn't planning on being here. So I've got an obligation. But we'll have time for q&a and discussion. So you can ping a question in the chat column if you like. Always better always, always to raise your hand just go to the reactions bar at the bottom click raise hand. Always better for me because then I can gain, get a little feedback. We can have a little dialogue back and forth. But because this is a little bit different from the other presentations we do on this platform, in other words, it's not just blah blah, blah. We want to try to practice what we preach. So I'm going to invite us to just sit gather for a minute. I will say a few things about again, one of the one of the issues, I would say issues one of the concerns I started having a couple months ago with what we're doing on this track is the the TMI issue that
the aspiration behind what we're doing was to introduce you to a number of different meditations post mindfulness practices in the life of which there are literally dozens as you're starting to see. So it's it's a kind of a feast of different practices. And one of the near enemies of this is introducing so many practices that we actually don't have time to really incorporate them to work with them digest and really get them into our system. And so we're slowing down just a teeny, teeny bit to stabilize to incorporate the digest what we've talked about. And so, I will guide you through just a couple things. This is just a reiteration of some of the things that I've been working with you all with over the last number of months. And these are also one of the reasons I'm so comfortable and passionate about my particular approach now is this is what I do, literally every single day. I mean, this is the way I start my meditation sessions. This is part of the kind of array the armamentarium the skill set of meditations I engage him every single day. So go ahead and close your eyes for a minute. You don't have to I close my eyes because I'm looking at this busy screen right in front of my face. It gets a little distracting. But as Jeffrey was talking about last week the infrastructure practice is shamatha practice of qui essence tranquility pacification, virtually synonymous with mindfulness, but not quite. Technically speaking. Mindfulness is developed in the fourth of nine stages of shamatha. So Shabaka transcends but includes mindfulness itself.
began using the media of body and breath
we situate our awareness in the present moment using the medium of body and breath.
We literally metaphorically come to our senses, which only operate at the present moment.
It's amazing because these days with these weapons of mass distraction, all these phones
we are almost always elsewhere. Every time we check our phone we're checking out always elsewhere. diluting the experience of life
and then perhaps wondering why we may feel that something is missing. We're what's missing our attention is missing.
Very absence awareness attention creates the ineffable. Sense of deficiency.
Every authentic tradition worldwide has some infrastructure, style or form of this practice.
If we contact the present moment fully
we discover this is truly what we're looking for. Full embodied participation and presence and life itself.
Very invite you to look inquire as a form of analytic meditation into those moments where you felt most content happy satisfied
and I promise you you will find a common denominator in all those instances of presence you must be present to win.
The pursuit of conventional happiness
we seek to acquire re establish or sustained certain environmental conditions
when those conditions are present elicit a feeling tone that we have Pemba label happiness
and so we spend really the entirety of our lives
it even says in the American forefather tradition on the pursuit of happiness
which the wisdom traditions contest can only bring about conditional relative happiness
which is why their form of happiness never sustains.
The Pursuit of Happiness ironically keeps you away generates.
keeps you away from authentic happiness, unconditional happiness. So this simple practice of meditation truly is the practice of unconditional happiness. Learning how to be content satisfied under any circumstance irrespective of conditions
and then my own practice every morning as I mentioned, several weeks back by then this is completely up to you if it feels right or not. I put my right hand over my heart center. And remember, as we discussed earlier, to contextualize my practice and put it in a larger context and perspective. Not just doing this for myself. Every morning I recite before the measurables we all send to you beings of joy, happiness and the root of happiness. Really be free from suffering and the root of suffering. We will not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering the dwell on a great equanimity free from passion aggression and prejudice.
This larger perspective inspires me to practice when I don't want to when I don't feel like it. Because then I do it. Really not just for myself, but for the benefit of others. And some of you who studied the dream yoga tradition to know this as one of the magic ingredients for lucidity.
Practicing Dream Yoga for the benefit of others.
Not only do I start my day with this practice I finish my day just before going to sleep with another session usually shorter but frames my day within the kind of sandwich of the meditative mind and also in the evening. doubles as a type of lucid dream onset of practice. Eastern spiritual sleep hygiene certainly my mind purifying my mind
because again, practicing mindfulness glides me into lucid dreaming lucid dreaming is mindful dreaming.
I wanted to share with you this reading very short. In a book I started reading a couple of weeks ago just released cynicism and magic. Intelligence and intuition on the Buddhist path by Shogun took about I think I might have mentioned a couple of sessions ago that I was reading this book and so this is in response to a brief q&a The End of Chapter Four Question I find meditation very boring and irritating. These being honest she that isn't really a question. That's a statement. But maybe you could comment on that also. How does meditation differ from introspection plus breathing? Budget? Well, that's not meditation. Meditation simply means you should sit at a particular fashion. Straighten your back. Do nothing work with your breath and follow the discipline. So commentary here refer to one said in a different setting. Talking about the power of posture, he simply said by taking the proper posture in meditation sooner or later you will find yourself meditating
you should sit in a particular fashion straighten your back and then do nothing. What I sometimes playfully say when people ask me what do you do with your meditation center? I say well, we do nothing. But we do it really well. It's not easy to do nothing. Well that's the art of meditation. Back to Rinpoche it's very, very simple. And a commentary here right away is that this is a challenge for Westerners especially academics intellectual types is they feel that they can somehow outsmart the traditions that somehow they can short circuit. They don't have to do whatever Jay in a different context talked about this the manual labor of meditation. Somehow in this modern age, with all the complexity, sophistication, technology in the life, we somehow know more. We don't have to engage in this level of simplicity. Well. We do we have to surrender to the simplicity. This is important. In a very real way, the modern complex mind doesn't stand a chance against simplicity. And that's in a very real way. One of the aspects of what this practice does it deconstructs the complexities, takes them apart. And also in this way is by design, frustrating. That's why the questioner said it's irritating and boring. In a certain way it's done that it's it's that by design because you're going on strike you're doing a sit in against the machinery, Buddha's languaging the five skandhas the operating system of ego you are literally boycotting literally frustrating the mechanism of ego structure, which is why it's felt as frustrating. Why it's boring and not easy, because you're working against the machinery of the ego construct a storyline that in fact is ego so you're interrupting the storyline that actually is ego itself that's all the ego is it's just the story. A narrative poorly scripted with a horrible ending called death. So meditation by design frustrates that narrative. That's why it's not easy. But the punctuation here is that the invitation is to surrender to the simplicity. Don't try to outsmart it. Don't try to adapt it, edit it. Surrender, sit, breathe. Labeled pay attention to the contents of mind back to him. We are not talking about meditation as a casual handling of reality. So that we could glide in midair. And so what he's bringing on here is that very often, especially when ego gets involved as a type of spiritual materialism. It brings this feel good copper plan here. I mean, why else are we doing this? Really? We're doing it to feel better to be better well, but better by whose criteria? What does that really mean? The path really if you haven't discovered a URL any authentic spiritual path meditative path is not about feeling good. Unless you're talking about basic goodness. It's about getting real. And this is usually when people drop out. Hey, this doesn't feel so good anymore. It's not living up to my expectations right? Expectation is premeditated disappointment. When should not have expectations, drop all the agendas, drops the hopes and fears stay with the majesty of the simplicity of the present moment. We're talking about meditation in terms of serious work, actually putting in our effort and energy and time and doing it wholeheartedly properly. Precisely. So the commentary here is like Yogi Berra, the other famous yogi, from the baseball world, right. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. And so here what this means is you don't have to perfect
every aspect of meditation, but you have to have a reasonable understanding of what you're doing and why. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect and that's why people can engage in these practices and actually inflate their ego classic spiritual materialism. A study came out actually a series of studies that were summarized last year in a somewhat seminal paper in Scientific American of all places that had a header quote, from Trungpa Rinpoche, talking about spiritual materialism, which he coined almost 50 years ago and his classic book cutting through spiritual materialism that studies have shown is really humbling. On we're going although studies don't apply to be now that somewhere off that's definitely repeated studies are now showing that a lot of meditation is actually just creating meditative and spiritual narcissists. The truly using these technologies that are designed to transcend the ego to inflate it. You sit on your cushion and you do it. You may be tempted to listen to music, that's it, or sit sunbathing on your front lawn. Thinking is meditation or go to Acapulco, and swim or skydive. Those things are not regarded as meditation. We have so many problems and complications. So we need to simplify things right so is remember the big Marie Kondo thing for like a year ago the gal who made everybody invited people to clean up their closets right? Marie Kondo, your closet, Marie Kondo your house as kind of cool. Well, this is Marie Kondo for your mind. Get rid of the clutter, simplify surrender. The sitting practice of meditation is the only way to get your head together, as they say. Well, interestingly enough, your commentary is I would say, yeah, maybe get your true heart mind together, but you get your head together by deconstructing your conventional mind. I mentioned this alluded to this at the outset. This famous I think now should be famous line from Rubin Lockington. This visit neuroscientists at interview right amazing statement resting in the present moment is annihilation. Amazing. Resting in the present moment is annihilation. deconstructing the storylines, deconstructing the narrative structure, the ego, deconstructing the five skandhas whatever operating system the ego has. Meditation deconstructed through the simple process of presence, human beings, not human doing. You have to sit and actually do it. You have to follow this particular technique and discipline. There's no other way you can't philosophize again, here. He's saying you can't think your way through this. You can't think your way out of it. You have to surrender your thinking mind. This does not mean you're going to surrender discriminating intelligence not at all. It just means don't try to outsmart with these traditions for 1000s of years across different traditions, not just Buddhism. Buddhism did not invent this practice by the way, the Buddha did not invent this. He inherited this from the developing Hindu roboticle tradition at the time. Back to him this does not mean that the rest of life is anti meditation. You can work with meditation and action. He wrote a book on that topic. Once you have experience and discipline, and you can handle long stretches of sitting. But I would recommend not experimenting with other things before you have developed this foundational discipline. So this is just a caveat that yes, indeed. In fact, the more levels that's the point is to take the principles that we glean from this discipline from this manual labor and that eventually extended into the entirety of your life where your entire life becomes your meditation. That's really the fruition but we're kidding ourselves if we think we can actually do that. Without this infrastructure grounding. It's like thinking that you can study advanced calculus before you do algebra, mathematics, right. And so this simple, basic practice that sometimes we hopscotch over to get to the goodies is of paramount. Importance. Because if we don't have this bounding, the other practices, the analogy I use. It's like having a telescope with a fuzzy lens like the Hubble when they first tried it didn't work. Or a telescope that's constantly vibrating. There's no focus. There's no insight. So these foundational practices are everything. And so for a few minutes, let's do it again together. And then if you have any questions or contributions,
more than welcome to share, but for a few more minutes we turn to body and breath.
I was so inspired by this MD PhD this morning. He says I practice for the last 10 years I was blown away actually. The last 10 years I practice five to 10 hours a day. High Five
remember if you are distracted any form of mental content, thought fantasy image anticipation, regret doesn't matter.
Simply let that thought calm. Let it go. Return to body and breath
the hitching post and stabilizing factor to tame the mind
all the while knowing thoughts are never the enemy never problem.
They're just the play of your mind
and appropriate relationship is the problem. Sticking to the thought getting lost in it going lucid. That's the problem.
The untamed mind is extremely sticky.
Grass is if his life depended on it. Because of one level it does.
egoic mind is defined by grasping stickiness.
Don't try to stop your thoughts let them come put a welcome mat on the front of your mind and an exit sign on the back
which point you realize thoughts are utterly harmless. Self liberating as they arise like writing and water
So once again what does this have to do with lucid dreaming everything
Stephen LaBerge and actually now other neuroscientists are saying you've heard me say this before waking consciousness is dreaming consciousness with sensory constraints. Dreaming consciousness is waking consciousness without sensory constraints. So we all know the only fundamental difference really same underlying consciousness just with or without sensory input. So you want to be lucid at night be lucid during the day. So questions, comments, contributions. I'll check the chat column see if a
couple come in there. While you're looking there as Katie has her hand up, so I'll unmute her. Yeah, fire away Katie.
While I look at some of these questions here
there we go. Hello. Hi.
Yes. So I'm taking this Renae class. We're reading Crazy Wisdom by Trungpa.
Oh, nice. Yeah, with Clark and the usual suspects. The usual
suspects are great. It's about Padma sun. Bhava the
prayer. That's incredible book. Oh, absolutely. It's one of his best.
I mean, I really feel that sense of deconstruction when I read it, you know, but but I, you know, he really, he spends a lot of time talking about how you can have Crazy Wisdom without hopelessness. And so so I you know, and peep not just me, but the people you know, in the talks, you know, asking him about it and I I just kind of felt like why just have to give it up. I don't know if I understand hopelessness but, but tonight with you talking and what we were doing, I thought maybe hopelessness is not seizing onto your thoughts. Like when he's gone to your thoughts. It's like you think he goes going to work right. Exactly. Exactly. So so I really Yeah, I thought I'd run that by you let you talk about it, but it was like a big aha after weeks of like, what is this hopelessness, and no, I think that's what it is. Right?
Totally, totally. Yeah. You know, Rinpoche said in another context, if we ever gave up hope, samsara to work, enlightenment would be near at hand. So we all we all have, just take a look at your experience and we do not all have it we are artists is still lingering hope. Oh, the carrot is dangling out there just just lined up because the nibbles work just enough. Oh, well, the next job will make me happy. Yeah, the next house will make me happy the next lover will make me happy, right. So we always think we have hope we have hope we have hope. But as you know, he hope and fear that these are kissing cousins. These are the kissing cousins that generate samsara better the parents have the eight worldly Darwin's we live our entire lives ringed by the eight worldly dharmas. The parents of those are hoping fear. So this does not to confuse hope and aspiration. It's really to look at Hope in exactly the way you just said it that the or to put it very blunt terms it hopefully I won't offend anybody. And kind of more raffle setting one time. Remember Jay also said nostalgia for samsara is full of shit. So give it up, right. Give up hope. Give up hope. Yeah, that's gonna work. And usually again, this is why people don't turn to the spiritual path until they realize the futility of the conventional trajectory that is hopeless. And not only is it hopeless, it's killing the planet. So basically you got it. It's about on so yeah, thank you for that. That's great.
Well, thank you for that. You know, like I said, I struggled for weeks it was like, Oh, I think that's it.
Got, you got it you got so let me let me look here. Okay, let's see here. So here's a longer question from Peter. Yeah, so Hi, Andrew. You once remarked to me that following one's breath and meditation with the assigning open numbers one through 10 to the inhalation and exhalation went to five yes, that this is conscious a numerating of the breath was a kingdom meeting meditating with training wheels and so on. Yes, this is the kind of numerology that has been proven substantiated by both the Heart Math Institute and the people who work with resonant or coherent breathing five breaths. I think I talked about this earlier in this program tonight. I can't remember that the ideal respiratory respiratory rate now is like five breaths, five seconds for inhalation. 5.5 Actually, five breaths, I'm sorry, five seconds for the insulate inhalation, five seconds for the exhalation actually brings about heartbreak and then body coherence or resonance. This is super interesting stuff. Baby if I have to see if I picked up this earlier but from 1927 till now. We have accelerated as a Western civilization our the rate of our respiration is increased 70% We are literally breathing faster today more shallow. And it actually has a deleterious effect on our psyche on our Soma. Depressed people studies have also shown depressed people also breathe very shallowly. So now more and more when I do my training programs like we'll do on Planet Omar I did it so Dota I'm starting to work. I was inspired by the interviews I do with Charlie Morley and Amanda Morley, not related but in those interviews, remember we talked about this? We don't know how to breathe, we don't breathe properly, most of us. So in this kind of meditation, what is on in one's mind so to speak. When one discards the training wheels or ceases assigning numbers to the best cycle? Uh, okay, well, nothing outside of that. It depends on Peter here depends on whether you're kind of using this. If you're using it as a training wheel as a training wheel to breathe properly to come into the body to come to the present. Moment. And then the training will falls apart. And then it depends or should both depart falls away. And then what's in your mind really depends on which practice you're doing. So if you're doing this meditation, then the kind of technique frame references coming back to body back. If you're doing open awareness of the different set of instructions, if you're doing inside but passionate, that's a different set of instructions. So it depends on what you're actually doing. Is one than simply sitting and undistracted silence again depends on the practice. Yes, I've one level going all the way to the top. Maybe this is going to elicit more questions and be satisfactory isn't the answer. highest form of meditation is actually called non distracted non meditation. There is another topic to talk about highest form of practice is actually man distracted, non meditation that's sure to confuse some people. That's awesome. Well, generally, if one is no longer counting one's breath and meditation, what is one then doing with one speech faculty? Well, again, silence, silence speech faculty being breathing. You're simply let me finish the question here. So the speech faculty then, is the speech faculty then doormen? Yes. In the mind is resting in emptiness. Well, if you're doing open awareness or formless meditations, then yes, so everything here Peter depends on what practice you're framing. Like after you look let the training wheels fall away. What's the practice? See that so I can't answer that with specificity. That's why it's nice to have people live depending on the framework of the practice that you're actually doing. But what I teach here is the importance of using breath. And I think Joe's talked about this as well. He turned me on to this book by James Nesta. I think it's called Breath. There's a lot of really interesting books coming out on this topic. So it's a big deal. And it's um, you know, it's a little bit like Charlie talks about his book, how they just came out, lucid, lucid breathing, being aware of what we do to others, or not to because when we're not doing lucid dreaming, during the day, let's work with lucid breathing. Learn how to breathe in a more lucid away. Okay, so what else came in here?
A little longer. Can you say more about your nighttime lucid dream after practice? Sure. Yeah. So every night depends on you know, testing. If I'm in a formal retreat, it's more rigorous. I have a whole standard rigamarole there. So every night Let me tell you what I do. Now. I do my evening meditation. And then I have my own little things there. So I usually have a little recitation I do what's called protector practice, just my thing. But the most important thing does is Ay, ay, ay sound on my mind doing this practice. Sometimes I'll do but really speedy. I think we've done this earlier. In this Monday night session, the NightBot purification thing. I set the intention that infrastructure intent, perfumes everything. Tonight, I'm going to have lucid dreams. Tonight, I'm going to have good dreams. I'm going to remember my dreams. And again this may seem like it first of all is the last step to coordinate. Well, maybe at first is a little bit like learning how to walk you don't remember it but it took time to get all this figured out to learn how to walk. I've done this and others who work with these nocturnal practices for so long. It's just like walking for me. It's automatic. So then when I go to bed, I do a little aspiration. I work with a magic induction techniques of devotion and compassion. So I do a liturgy to expand that takes about five seconds. Then I do a very brief visualization thing. Connected to Amitabha. Then I do the breathing thing again. This is your ask this I'm telling you so that I do literally Hands on belly just like I teach in my programs. 21 breaths I count because usually when I lay down like again, too sloppy, too loose. It's hard to meditate when I lay down because of the association between postures. So at first I like lay down I count. Often I won't even get to 21 but sometimes intallation wanted one inhalation, one exhalation. 5.5 seconds minimum. I often don't even get to 21 before it's lights out. But if I do if I get to 21 that I transition to all the stuff I do in my throat so I'll leave it at that because I don't want to go too far up this unless you want me to. But I do this like I do this every night. I mean it's just automatic. I don't even think about it. Okay. For batch okay, how does the marriage generator for meditation benefit all beings? Oh, that's a great question. Right. So yeah, Rich. We talked about this way back a little bit when I talked about Tom limb and the power of merit. Remember, look up the series about the proper dedication of merit. And I talk a little bit about where this how this works. And this is interesting, because this is what we were talking about this morning with with this science group thing that I was with that fundamentally this goes really deep that literally connected to what I said earlier that fundamentally when you take a very close look at things, you will discover, I promise you this, you will discover that everything is of the nature of mind. It's not it's not the world is not made of matter of fact, this morning, I made this pitch. This is very interesting. If you take a very close look at your experience. The only thing you have is your experience. Think about it. The only thing you have is your experience. Nothing else. Everything else is inference. You only have your experience. And so when we talk about things like manner physicalism materialism. Well, one of the ways to really look at that is to look at the regularities of your experience, isn't it? That's one way to talk about this morning we talked about in terms of ontology, the notion being that I argue this is a sidebar, but I think it's an important one. And you'll see how it ties into your question. There what we call ontology physicalism materialism is nothing more than labels we attend to the regularity of our experiences. Think about that. That's all it is. And so we make this this massive mistake that the world is made of matter. And then I have this pathetic little mind stuck in this little skull inside his brain. I mean, that's just ridiculous. And so with that view, then yes, what I do with my little tiny mind in my tiny little thoughts, how can it affect the world it's made out of billiard balls of mountains of matter. Zippo effect, but is Robert Thurman talks about beautifully, and I think in the when I did the riff on merit, if the world is made of mind, which it is heart, mind spirit, if the world is made of mind, heart spirit. Then what I do with my heart, mind, spirit has a connection to yours. And so therefore, to really understand the power of merit, karma and all this kind of stuff and dedication, you really have to make this colossal transformation from the mistake of saying the world is made of better materialism. physicalism. So the massive change of seeing the world is made up of the substance of mind. So that's a huge question. If you want to run with it and want to come on, that's great, but maybe that's enough for now, just in case there's somebody else that wants to say something.
I think he got all the questions through the chat. There was one that came through. We're going to move book club and say, Are we also going to do webinar on Wednesday or whatever we decide about that. For next week. You mean yeah, for this week? Or this this week? Yeah.
Because Turkey Day? Yes, I forgot. Yes. So no. We are doing thank you for asking. We are doing beaucoup Wednesday for those of you who are doing that thing. And then because we're doing that and yes, I think we might have paid earlier. If we did here's the deal. Have I made it here's here's my maximum around all this stuff, right? Bless it are the flexible, never bent out of shape right.
Bless another flexible for
they're never bent out of shape. So I think we may have paying in if we do I apologize that I was going to do a webinar this Wednesday. But because of Thanksgiving, and the fact that we're doing the evening session, because we can't do it on Thursday. I was going to bump the webinar till next Wednesday. Is that okay? If it's not tough. It's the best I can do. It's just a slightly busy week, honestly. So it's the best I can do this week. So yes, just to rephrase it for my little snippy attitude. It's not snappy, it's playful. It's Wednesday book group because we can't do it Thursday. Next Wednesday. I'm planning to do a webinar and then I go to then I go to my first build those two weeks and cuddle so come hang out with the cowboy if you want more. And next week during the webinar, I'm going to finish stage five on all altering identity and changing appearances at that level. We that was a pretty rich topic that we started last session with a webinar so we're going to finish that Okay. Perfect. Alrighty then. Are we good? Oh,
yeah. What time is book club club is at 8pm Eastern Time, same as this. Yeah, six
o'clock. pm Eastern. So unless there's the last minute thingie it's probably good for me because again, I was not planning to be here. But I was able thank goodness to show up. And Joe has been so great. He's He's I love working with this guy. He's really He's very gifted, especially as a meditation instructor and this guy's he's really good. So there's a reason I keep inviting him back. So I was able to swing into less men and do it so it's not a problem. But anyway, unless there's one last little thing from anybody here Are we good to go for today?
Yep, looks like we're good to go.
Okay. Hey, thanks, everybody. If you don't show up for Wednesday, Happy Thanksgiving. We have lots to be thankful for really. There's a lot to be thankful for. But otherwise, I'll be with you all on Wednesday night. We'll continue our little romp through the Dream Yoga Book. Okay, everybody. Nice to see you all in cyberspace. See you soon.
Thank you bye. Thank you. Bye bye, Happy Thanksgiving.