[190] Mindfulness and Compassion Practice Joe Parent

2:59AM Jan 22, 2025

Speakers:

Joe Parent

Keywords:

Mindfulness

awareness

compassion practice

breathing

internal sensations

presence practice

spacious awareness

thoughts and emotions

selfless love

posture

relaxation

tension release

compassion contemplation

well-being

suffering.

Welcome to this session of mindfulness, awareness and compassion practice. This is part of the Night Club, and we do this meditation on Mondays. A couple of other teachers as well as myself. I'm Joseph, parent. Andrew and I have known each other for a long time. In fact, he's one of my golf students. I've been able to take the mindfulness and awareness practice that I've been taught over the years by my Buddhist teachers and apply it to golf in a book called Zen golf and a number of others, Gretchen has to leave in half an hour. That's okay. We'll we'll be doing some good amount of practice by then. So thank you. And Andrew was giving him golf lessons, and he also asked, so he asked me to help him teach in Sedona, and then asked me to do a couple of these evenings a month. So I'm happy to be able to share this. I also do my own practices on camera, much needed practice today. I have no idea what you're talking about. You mean, it's because it's Martin Luther King Day. That must be what you mean. I understand. So the I'm also going to put in the chat the class that I teach, a very similar one to what we're going to do tonight, on Thursday morning, at 9am Pacific Time, not every Thursday. So I'm going to put a link to my page that says when they are and there's this. I'm not going to click on it yet. I'm going to wait for a couple more people to arrive, because there's a funny thing, if you arrive after somebody puts a chat and you don't see the chat that was there before you arrived, I think that's what I've been told on on Zoom. So what we're going to do today is go through a sequence of practices that start with getting settled and centered, and then a presence practice where we're aware of working with our breathing and our internal sensations our Body, the space that we're sitting in and noticing if our mind wanders off into a daydream and returning it to the object of our attention, which would be our breathing, then we go from there into more expansive, open awareness of spaciousness, spacious awareness and the perceptions that arise within that, including thoughts. So working with thoughts and emotions are the combination of thoughts and feelings that go together. And then last, we'll do the some compassion practice, given the state that the world is in. That's what we that's what we need to do. And you can think of compassion as selfless love. Wasn't there an old song What the world needs now? Love, sweet love. That's the only thing there's there's not enough of or something like that. I'll work on the lyrics anyway. We don't have to sing today, so I want to make sure everybody's here. I'm going to put this link in, and if you appreciate the practice, we'll do it this coming Thursday morning, 9am Pacific Time, and then I'll be back on here, think next month, but I'm not sure which day it's in the calendars. Okay, so let's get started. Now, in this practice, we do it sitting up. Traditionally, there's a tendency, if we're lying down, we tend to fall asleep. If we're standing, we tend to want to move and start walking. And so you can adjust your seat, and if you need to move, I see some people have turned their video off. That's fine. You may be sitting somewhere else, but if you're looking towards your computer, make sure that you turn your device or turn your chair so, because we're going to do some of the practices with our eyes open and so that you're not looking directly into the screen. But to start with, let's get ourselves situated in our chairs or cushions on the floor, whichever you're doing as you practice. Now, if you're on the floor, on a cushion, your legs are going to be naturally crossed. In a chair, you're going to. Of your your legs so that your feet are in front of you and not stretched out too far or pulled in, so that your lower legs are perpendicular to the floor, and your knees and feet are both about hip width apart. Now if your legs are long or your seat is low and your knees are higher than your hips, you're going to want to just let your leg your feet cross one front of the other at the ankles, and let your knees widen out so that they're lower than your hips, takes the strain off your lower back and your upper legs, Okay, now then your torso, check your sit bones, make sure that as best you can your weight is evenly distributed left and right, and have your your torso, your back, your spine, upright, but not rigid, and then not at the waist or at the hips. Just tilt side to side. Put more weight on one sit bone than the other until you even them out, and that means you're centered upright, and then again, at the hips, not the waist, but the hips tilt slightly forward and back,

until

you're neither forward nor back, left nor right, and that's what leaves you centered, let your arms hang straight down from your shoulders, so the upper arms again are hanging straight down. Then swivel, bend your elbows and swivel your hands up, palm down on top of your thighs, so your forearms run along your thighs, top of your thighs. Now we're not reaching too far forward or pulling too far back.

And feel like not just your spine, but can that it continues, that there's a line from your tailbone up that continues up along the back of your neck and the back of your head to the back of the top of your head. And feeling that it won't be a straight line, there's some natural curvature, but feeling like it's a straight line naturally makes the back of your head straight up and down, so your chin pulls in a little bit. Otherwise, if the chin floats up, we get spaced out. If it tucks down, we get sleepy. And if it pushes forward, it's like we want to go somewhere, and it and it, it. It makes our our posture, not straight, upright. You see people bent over forward, it's because they've been leaning forward their whole lives, trying to go somewhere rather than just be where they are. Feel like the center of your chest, and you can try this if it's too uncomfortable. You don't have to do it, but the center of your breast bone. Feel like it, push it slightly up and forward, just a tiny bit quarter of an inch, one centimeter up and forward. What you feel is your chest opens up, your shoulders come back a little bit in a better alignment. You may even even feel your your shoulder blades pinching a little bit. But now, as you breathe in, you feel like it really opens your chest and opens up your breathing. We're going to be breathing in through our nose, unless you have unless you're really clogged, but breathe in through your nose, and mainly out through your nose. If a little bit comes out through your mouth, that's okay as well, so that your lips can be either lightly touching or slightly parted and leave let your tongue either just rest naturally wherever it is, or if you'd like, it can float up and just rest the tip of your tongue very lightly on the upper palate, just behind your front teeth. Now it's said that that reduces the flow of saliva, but I don't want you to be worried about that. This is not a rigid don't move at the cost of your life practice. If you need to swallow, just swallow. But be aware that you're making a choice to do so. Feel the need to swallow. Go, think, say, Okay, I'm going to. Swallow now and go ahead and do that, and then reconnect with how your lips and your tongue are. If you have a sharp pain, definitely move. If you feel uncomfortable and feel like you need to adjust your posture again, aware of your intention. Then go ahead and move and then reconnect with whatever the practice was.

And for now, having taken the posture, let your eyes gently close. Let's scan for any unnecessary tension. We hold so much tension that we're not aware of. You need to have some tension to hold your posture, your back, that little bit of your breastbone that I was saying, to raise the back of your neck and the back of your head, how your hands are and your your your torso in relation to your legs. But anything you don't need to hold that posture. You want to let it melt and just flow down and into the earth. So start at the top of your head. Check out your scalp, forehead, eyes, ears, the rest of your face. Let any tension just melt and flow down and out of you. Your jaw. Often we hold tension in our jaw that we don't realize if you need to move it a little bit, go ahead and move it and then retake the way you were holding your lips and tongue your neck. Feel that tension that you might have in your neck and your shoulders. We walk around with our shoulders up by our ears, and we don't even know it, breathe out. Let your shoulders sink down, let the tension melt and flow down and out of you. The in breath is energizing, the out breath settling your upper arms, your chest and upper back again, just the tension you need to hold that breastbone up a little bit, then breathe out. Let everything melt around rib cage, all around solar plexus, middle of your back. Let the tension melt and flow down lower back, deep belly, sometimes in our deep belly and pelvic area, we are holding tension and don't realize we're clenching. So breathe in and then breathe out and let it relax, let it melt without losing your posture. So that lower back hips, deep belly and pelvic region. Breathe out with the tension. Melt down, thighs, forearms and hands,

knee. Knees, calves, ankles and feet.

Feel your sit bones pressing into the seat of your chair or cushion. Breathe out. Sink down. Let your weight really sink in. Don't hold yourself up. You're not perching on your seat. You're sinking into your seat. You're connecting with the earth. Breathe out, sink down. Imagine that you're part of the earth. Breathe out, sink down, as grounded as you can be, but upright like a majestic mountain

within that, let your awareness rest deep in your core. We're three dimensional beings. There's a distance. Not to back. We're not just what we see in a mirror, but there's depth, and you can feel that as you breathe in, your whole lower torso expands in all directions, and as you breathe out, it contracts, but let your awareness rest deep in your core, few inches below your navel, just in front of your spine.

Let the body breathe itself. Be an observer. Just notice the rhythm of your breathing.

Shorter, long, breaths, deeper, shallow, there's a rhythm, a gathering as you breathe in, letting go as you breathe out, and

the rhythm similar to the shore on a quiet day, the water gently running up the beach and then back down to the ocean. Feel up empty down. Just enjoy that rhythm. Tune into that rhythm with your eyes closed, resting deep in the core of your torso. We'll do that for A couple of Minutes. You

as the gong fades, maintain your posture, refresh it if you need to. And. Now gently open your eyes about halfway. This is close placement or presence practice. Now we're aware of the space that our body is sitting in and you're looking down under your half open eyelids, so you're only looking a couple of feet in front of you, and you can soften your gaze so you're not looking at at anything particular, but just looking at the space you that your body sitting in, probably aware of your and can see your lap, in your hands,

what's just in front of You and around a little bit to the sides and let your main attention rest again, deep in your core, aware of your breathing and how it's filling and empty, expanding and contracting. You it,

and if your mind wanders off into a thought that leads to another, into another, into a daydream, so that you're not even aware of where you're sitting or what you're doing at a certain point that will pop and you'll be back in the present moment at that point, just you can make a little mental note wandering, but don't judge yourself. Smile. Reconnect with your posture, reconnect with your deep core, eyes half open, aware of breathing space you're sitting in. In your posture,

a sound may happen, a thought may come and go, just let those go by, and only if you're taken away and have and become aware of that that you make that mental mode of wandering. We'll do this For a Few Minutes. You

I take a moment as the going fades to move around a bit,

retake Your posture,

sink into your seat, and now let your eyes just be open naturally, and your gaze will again, be sure that you're not looking directly into your screen, and your gaze will rest naturally out in front of you a little bit below the horizon, soften that gaze, open up your peripheral vision. You can actually consciously soften your eye muscles, open up your peripheral vision so you see the bigger space in front of you, to the sides, almost all around above and below, and that's the space in which your breath is going out and mixing with the atmosphere. So we use the breath almost as an analogy, that as the breath goes out, you ride it out, you open your awareness, more open to the space around you. Our awareness is often so internally focused, so less on this, more open to that.

Breathe out. Let your awareness open to everything that you see, colors, shapes and shades of light and dark and

breathe out, open your awareness in all directions to everything you hear, loud and soft, high and low, pitched near and far and

to breathe out and open your awareness to everything you're experiencing, smells, tastes, bodily sensations and thoughts appearing in the spacious awareness of your mind. Breathe out, open, rest and spaciousness.

So we're riding the breath out, riding the breath out, and at some point you can just rest there in spacious awareness. Body is taking care of the breathing by itself. And

notice thoughts rising up and dissolving like waves and

I notice thought labels arising from Something you see or hear or feel, smell, taste, I

again, if one thought leads to another to take you away into a daydream, you realize you haven't been seeing what's in front of you. You haven't been hearing sounds, you haven't been feeling sensations. You mentally. You were in a daydream, but you've woken up, so return to posture, breath going out, open To perceptions. We'll do that For a Few Minutes. You

I notice if you heard a Sound, if a mental label appeared, and then a mental feeling appeared, of like, dislike, just notice, sound, visual perception, bodily sensation. I

smell, taste, I

as the going fades, if you need to move a little bit to refresh your posture, go ahead and do that, then Let your gaze be a little higher, out to the horizon. We're going to do a compassion contemplation, kindness and compassion.

Imagine that you can see all the way out to the sky the vastness of the sky in all directions. And all the beings on this planet are under that same sky, different different places, but the same sky.

And under that sky is an atmosphere, and all beings on this planet share that same atmosphere,

different places, but the same atmosphere. And all beings share the same ground, the earth that we're on now, if they live in water, that water, the oceans, the lakes that's still on the earth, connected to the ground below, all these different places, but all the same earth.

And reflect on the fact that there are certain things that make us have a feeling of well being,

health,

happiness, physical feelings, mental feelings, well being in body and mind and

and everyone else has very, very similar feelings of what brings well being and.

Can we all know what makes us unhappy, what makes us suffer, physical and mental suffering in body and mind, physical pains and disease, mental anguish and fear and anxiety, we'd like to be rid of these, and so would everyone else.

And sometimes we feel like the way that we go about trying to get that happiness and remove the suffering only makes things worse. You know, that's pretty much the same for everyone. So we're all in this together. We're all equal in that way.

So let's include everyone ourselves and everyone else, rouse the wish that we all can enjoy well being in body and mind. Feel that don't just think it, but feel it as best you can. You

and feel as best you can. You can leave your eyes open or close them, whichever helps the wish that ourselves and others really could be relieved, freed of the suffering in body and mind.

As much as we wish that for ourselves, try to wish that for others, because they're feeling the same way. There's equality that way.

Sometimes we feel helpless, but we're going to do a practice that at least in our imagination, can help. It can start with one loved one, a small group of people that you care about, and then expand it to include more and more people, everyone you've ever met, and eventually the whole world. And what you're imagining is that as you breathe in, you can actually draw out and relieve all beings, including yourself, of suffering in body and mind. And as you breathe out, imagine that you could send to yourself and all beings this feeling of well being, peace, health and happiness in body and mind.

If it's painful to think of all that suffering, breathe in and soothe that pain. If it feels good to send out peace, health and happiness to others. Send that good feeling as well. Share that with others. We share their pain, we share their happiness. We'll do that for a few minutes and

If you'd like, you can go deeper, and not just the conditions, but the causes

and so on. Our capabilities for love, wisdom, acceptance imagine that all beings are filled with that capability. As you breathe out and as you breathe in that you're it's like drawing poison from the snake bite that you're extracting from all beings the poisonous emotions of hatred, intolerance, greed, jealousy, lust for power, pride and most of all, ignorance, breathe in free all beings from those poisonous emotions, breathe out, open up their Hearts, kindness and compassion, love and understanding and wisdom and

Now let go of the visualization. Come back to your deep core, connected presence in Your body with your breathing and

quiet your mind.

That concludes the practice. We traditionally want to dedicate the benefit of this practice, not just to do it for ourselves, but to do it for others, so you can repeat after me or put it in your own words. May the practice I've just done and everything I do going forward be of even more benefit to others than to myself. That's ultimate generosity. So thank you so much. And I'm going to have just a few minutes, but I can stay a little past the hour. I'm going to let everybody unmute themselves now, and if you have a comment or question about the Practice, this would be good time to discuss it. You

Hi, Linda, hi, oops. Is it?

Can everybody hear me? That was excellent. Thank you. Thank you. I feel so much better now. Today was like a crazy, crazy day for me, just because of what Karen had mentioned and and in Dr, parent, I know that you're in LA, so you guys are going through a lot there too. So

thank you. I know people who've lost their homes, and I live Luckily in Ojai, which is just this time so far anyway, outside the fire areas, I'm you know, but the whole, even the atmosphere there is bad. My sister lives between the two fires air in the area between and she has wearing masks whenever she goes outside. So the even, the whole air, even if you're not in the fire zone, the whole air is bad. So it's, it's pretty rugged, and it's, it's bad today and tomorrow morning, I was hot in the sun. It was 90 degrees today, and dry, bone dry, single digit humidity and and in Ohio, a bit of wind, but not, not really bad, but they're supposed to get 50 to 70 mile an hour winds down in LA, so it's going to whatever they even if they've contained the fires, it can just blow out of control. So thank you for that compassion.

Well, you know,

I just quickly want to say one thing, I live in Ohio, and when you. When you close the window because of the dog barking. I thought, is that the dog next door? I didn't I was here. I was hearing a dog barking too. I

didn't close the window. Oh, you didn't know. So what else must have I I'm just sitting here where we can talk where you live. I live down in Miramonte, near the across from where the right it is. It's closer to, oh yeah, it's closer to Oak view, actually.

Well, at that time, I was on North Ventura street downtown, but I've just moved to to the mirava mobile home park for seniors and we must do some golf. We must, you know, you've got to teach me some golf. You're my dad was a scratch golfer.

Okay, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my email address in the Okay, in the chat, and you can email me. Okay, anybody else. If you have questions, you can also just email me, and you can do it through my website as well. I have the that's the link is there from, from my website too. So feel free and and Karen, I've, I've known Karen. Oh, I don't know just what, 40 years, something like that. No, 5050, 74 I think it was

1974 came to Naropa from Volvo.

There you go. So, just 50 years, barely acquainted.

I I'm left feeling just quite tender,

quite sort

of tender, and opened up and settled a bit, and

I don't know something

well, just try to have as big a mind as you as big a mind as you can around the coming shit storm. Oh, excuse the expression. But which, which could be coming from anywhere. I mean, the elemental forces are going kind of nuts right now, and it's kind of a reflection of our the extremes of it's really interesting to me, the extremes of the elements are matching the extremes of the psychology of people in the world. It's very much in sync in that way. You know, everything's much more polarized and extreme. The the hots are hotter, the colds are colder, dries are drier, wets are wetter. So it's kind of goes together.

It was helpful to the last compassion thing, actually really trying to do that,

hopefully that our leaders cannot be empowering people.

Yeah, pull the out, extract the poisons. You know, when, when, when, when Vladimir Putin was, you know, one month old, a year old, he wasn't thinking, I think I'm going to take over Ukraine, you know, and Donald Trump, when he was one year old, didn't think, I want to kick all the people who don't look like me out of the country. You know, the babies weren't thinking them. So the poisons that have developed, whether it's past karma or environment, you know, the the environment they were brought up in, whatever it is that's that's added on to their natural state of mind, which is the capacity for love and wisdom. We all have the capacity for love and wisdom, but it's all covered in various materials, you know, so the kind that you have to scrape off your shoe sometimes. Okay? So let's, let's wish, wish that that could be scraped away and the goodness could come out. It's all we can do. And then if there are things we can actually do about it, are there further pain, we should do it? Karen,

I was in a. In the context the other day, and somebody complained about talking politics, that was a different thing. And so I don't know if there's other Trump supporters in this group right now, or can I say something?

Well, I think we can leave particular politics out of it, but just the the you don't have to mention any particular person, because it's beyond a person. It's a worldview and and you can talk about the worldview.

Well, he's already pardoned 1600 people who rioted and January

people putting a 25% tariff on Canada. He's pulling out of the pair. Paris Climate path agreement and the first day, and he canceled the app where people can sign up for appointments, for immigration, whatever I mean, appointment to get to interview.

That's why I said he shut down that whole app. Well, he Yeah, all those

people who had already,

yeah, it's horrible. And he actually froze your screen. Oh my gosh. How did he know you were talking about this stuff? You better be careful. I gotta laugh out of Joey from that one, we couldn't hear you. We couldn't hear you. Karen, it shut your screen, you're frozen. Oh, yeah. Tim wrote, We hope our meditations can up level things. Yeah, well, that's something we can we can do. Lost carrot, see, they took her right off the screen. God, I guess you got to be careful what you say.

You never knew. It's so bizarre. What's going on in the world. You never know. So

I don't want to stoke any any fears. But I do have a friend who used to work in the NSA, and I asked her what she did, and she said, Can't tell you. You know why? You know that's the if I tell you, I got to kill you, that kind of thing. And and she said, if your device is on, someone can someone knows what's going on. Yeah, you Karen, you froze, and you're muted. Now I muted. I was explaining that. I was explaining that they were listening and they weren't happy about what you were saying. So out you went. But I was, you know, so we, you know, I kind of joke. There was a a one of my favorite comedians was Craig Ferguson, and he would start his show by saying, so, we're coming to you live. But of course, if you're seeing a rerun, greetings, Chinese Robot Masters. So so sometimes I feel like that. You know that whoever's listening don't take we don't we don't really mean it personally.

Oh, I forgot this is being recorded, isn't it? Oh, well, yes. Well, it's Inauguration Day.

It's Inauguration

Day. And Martin Luther King, juniors, that's right. And greetings, Chinese Robot Masters, if, if, if this is being played in the future. So, yeah, you know the the the if, if you get serious about it and fixated on it in the sense of it, would I like this once the instructor said, take your game seriously, but don't take yourself seriously. So take the world seriously, but don't take yourself seriously. And say, Okay, I need to keep a sense of humor about it so I don't lose my marbles. And then, given that, what can I do and not be. Beating your head against a brick wall is not a benefit. So you find out, what can I do that will make a difference, and what I you know, what does it say? If there's something you can do about it, you know, it's like, what's the Serenity Prayer? Give me the strength to change what I can accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two. So that's how we have to operate. Okay, thank you everybody. Great to see you. Was there? Was there an email announcement about tonight? Did people get an email announcement about the schedule and today? Because I didn't see one, they usually send one out. I got one. You did get it good? Okay? I got it good. I was wondering if we were at a small group, because they didn't send one out. But if they sent it good, well, hopefully we'll a few more period, a few more coming. Okay, take care, everybody.

Bye, Joe, just gonna listen to,

I'll visit with you here in Ohio. Bye, bye, thank you. Bye, Karen, I'm gonna, I don't know if I'll have time to visit with you, but I'm gonna try to come back to Boulder at the end of the month to see ginger, if I, if I, if I have a gap, I'll let you know, and we'll connect for coffee or something. Jerry, you got any jokes? Last, last joke for me? There. There goes. Karen, come on.

Okay. Did I tell you about I was talking to someone the other day, and they were in a bad mood, and they said, You're a nobody. And they walked away. I didn't feel very good about that, but then I thought, wait a minute, you know when I was growing now. They said, nobody's perfect. Oh,

perfect. They said, You were perfect. Good. That was pretty good. I like that chair. Good one. That's a good one, all right, so I got one for you when i i was on this train, and I noticed that the guy in front of me was laughing every now and again, and I got curious, and I watched him for a while, and I noticed between the laughs, sometimes he did this. Now I got really curious, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and I said, sorry. I don't mean to interrupt. I don't mean to be rude, but what are you laughing about? And he said, Oh, on long train rides to pass the time, I tell myself jokes. And I said, and what's this thing you do? He says, Oh, those I heard already. So have a good evening. See you. I don't think I'm on this Monday, some Monday in February. All right, bye, Joe, bye.