[169] Cultivating Presence, Compassion, and Equanimity - with Joe Parent
3:17PM Aug 20, 2024
Speakers:
Joe Parent
Karen Roper
Keywords:
practice
breath
relax
alyssa
feel
posture
awareness
good
rest
interdependent
gently
work
little bit
thoughts
session
breathing
centered
people
slightly
open
Here we go. Hi everyone. Hope you're having a good summer. Can you hear me? Okay, it's good. All right, great. So we've been doing these for a while, and I just wanted to remind people that and correct me if I'm wrong, Alyssa, these are all on the nightclub site. Correct the recordings of these. We might have lost Alyssa, but I'm pretty sure that these are all on the night. The recordings are all on the nightclub site. Are you there? I mean, are these recordings all on the nightclub site, yeah,
if so, if you click on meditation group at the top, under Events, you can just scroll down and you'll see all the recordings there.
So I wanted to encourage people that you don't have to wait till Monday night, and you don't have to if you want to follow my instructions. You don't have to wait for the particular one that I'm on, but you can go and find them on the website and and play the recording. And at any point where we do the meditation practice, you can put it on pause and practice for as long as you'd like. And the sequence that I like to go through is a settling and centering and grounding practice, and then what's called close placement, where you open the eyes part way and just focus on the small space that your body's sitting in and the internal sensation of the breathing to work on really clarifying a sense of, Am I present or am I often thoughts? And then this the section that we do on open awareness or environment, working with perceptions, all of that kind of practice. And again, after the instruction, just put it on pause and practice for as long as you'd like. And then at the end we, I've been doing a compassion practice. Same thing for that. And you can, you can work with in different ways according to what's happening with you. You know the meditation practice isn't really supposed to be like an aspirin. It's not like, well, I'm going to do this to get through difficult circumstances, or do this so that I could, because I'm a little wild today, so I need to do more grounding at the same time, you can do a little bit of getting getting a little more stable and centered as the basis for your open awareness. And so as you progress in your practice, you you'll be able to do a little more shift, you might need a little less time to get centered and and and grounded, and then a little less time of the close placement, focusing practice, and a little more exploring the environmental awareness And sometime just resting in a natural state of mind, open to whatever comes and goes, but that requires a little bit of extra stability, because if you're just open to whatever comes and goes, sometimes whatever comes takes you and you go, go with it. So having a light touch, a sense of humor and kindness to yourself, make friends with yourself and work with the practices in that way. Now, earlier today, I was doing some teaching on these slogans that are called the The Mind Training slogans from Atisha, a an Indian teacher from over 1000 years ago, that they seem to have persisted so they're they're valuable and and they're about shifting our our attention from self centeredness to working with others. The one that I was working with today was was interesting, and it applies to doing meditation practice, and that is, and it also applies to a lot of things in our life. Interestingly, I was also teaching a golf lesson today, and the same thing applied, and that is. Is, if we are preoccupied and attached to the idea of results, it interferes with our process. I was also, I was watching some of the Olympics and the archery practice. There was a Korean team and the Chinese team were vying for the gold medal in women's archery, and the commentator was saying, if they start thinking about where the arrow is going to end up, it's going to be a bad shot. If they just focus on their process and trust their aim and and their technique, it's going to be a good shot. So when we do our meditation practice, we need to set up a proper intention or motivation. Now, in these Mind Training slogans, the ideal motivation is that we're doing this not for ourselves, but to to be able to better benefit others. So that's kind of the fundamental motivation in what's called the Mahayana Buddhist path, or the great vehicle in which we include others in our practice. And since we are interdependent with all the other beings on this planet and not isolated and separate from them, that's really the most effective way, because if we, if we focus only on ourselves, it's going to be partial. It's not going to be complete. It can't be because we're interdependent. And the interesting thing about the word partial is it has the meaning of incomplete, but it also has the meaning of biased or prejudice. So we don't want to be partial in that way. We want to have more of an equal view, seeing ourselves and others as interdependent and ideally, as one not more important than the other, which is challenging. That's why it's a practice. So the first level is not practicing so that, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna be more calm, so people are gonna appreciate my calmness more, not practicing for how people will see us. And then, if we can let go of that, we still might have this idea of, well, I'm practicing so that I generate more good karma, so better things my life will be better in the future, also not ideal. It's good, the idea of good karma and doing good things for people. But again, there's a notion of getting something in return, and then when we get into our own practice, it's interesting. I was reading a Pema children's book, start where you are, and she has a whole chapter about this. And I thought I'd read just a little bit. Thought people might appreciate this, and that is not hoping for a particular result. Is in is one of the most powerful teachings of the Buddhist tradition, and that as long as you're wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you're wanting yourself to get better, you won't. As long as you have an orientation toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are. So hoping you know, doing the practice again with an attitude of this is going to get me better. This is going to get me somewhere, especially if we impatient and especially if we are attached to the results that can actually hinder our progress. It's not that we're not interested in in becoming a better person, and that through this practice, we will be able to clarify our confusion and be able to relate with things better. But if we're going in looking for those results and impatient for those results and and saying, I I need things to turn out a particular way, I think you'll find it interesting in our lives when we look. Look at situations, and we start getting manipulative because we really want things to turn out a particular way that'll make us feel better about things, either feel better about ourselves or feel better about the situation. So it's something to to kind of look for as a red flag. Am I needing things to turn out a particular way, and am I kind of working it to make that happen? Which doesn't mean we don't want to have a vision, but within that vision, we have to we it's helpful to relax a bit and see how we're going to move in that direction and be able to change that vision as circumstances change. I have a story in my Zen golf book, The of
a man who gets into a argument with somebody, and he decides he wants to have a sword fight with him, but the guy's pretty good, so he goes to the best sword master. It's called kendo, the art of the sword, and in Japan, in in the Japanese martial arts, and he goes to the master and says, I need, I need to get really good at the sword, because I got to challenge this guy. How long is it going to take if I come and study with you, because you're supposed to be the best? And the master said, maybe 10 years. He said, No, you you don't understand. I need to get really good, really fast, because I got a fight with this guy and and he said, what if i i every day and I work on it every day with you? He said, Well, maybe 20 years. Said, Whoa, no, you're going in the wrong direction. I said, I need to get better really fast. What if I practice day and night with you? He said, Well, maybe 30 years, because somebody as impatient for results as you does not learn very fast. So that's how we we can relax a little bit with our practice. And what did one teacher say, if you feel like it's you're you're having a really good practice session, it's not such a good session. If you feel like you're having a really bad practice session, it's not such a good session or a bad session, and when, when I was in retreat. Trungpa, Rinpoche. Rinpoche said, if things are going really well, don't get too excited. If things aren't going very well, don't get too depressed. The idea is to be with the practice and trust in our awakened nature that sometimes it's a little more obscured and sometimes it's a little clearer, but over the long run, with our practice, it's going to clarify and relaxing into that nature And saying whatever is going on there's my basic goodness, my awakened nature, is still there and functioning, and I can trust that, so I can relax. And at the same time, that's that's kind of the absolute perspective at the same time, when you find yourself often thoughts. Use the techniques to ground yourself and center yourself more and but do it with a sense of humor. It's all about a sense of humor, and then you can be kind to yourself and not beat yourself up about it. So that's the prelim for today. Let's get into the practice, because we go through these stages, and in the the first stage, we're going to do with our eyes closed to get ourselves centered and grounded. But then we're going to have our eyes open, so you're going to want to have your seat pointing in a way, or your device moved in a certain way that you're not looking directly into the screen when you're when you're gazing more out. So make your adjustment and take your seat and really let yourself breathe out and sink into the cushion of either on the chair or on the ground, whatever is cushioning, whatever your sit bones are pressing into. Let them really sink down. Don't worry about your posture at first first sink down. Let's. Let the seat hold your weight rather than perching on it. And you can feel if you're tilted, if your sit bones are more weight on one than another, just even them out as best you can. And then if you're on a if you're on a cushion on the floor, just cross your legs gently and be and and it's good to have the cushion high enough that your knees are lower than your hips. If you're sitting on a chair, you can have your feet flat on the floor, about hip width apart, with your lower legs perpendicular to the ground, but if your knees are higher than your hips, then just cross your feet at the ankles in front of you and widen your knees so that they're lower than your hips. That'll take the strain off your lower back and your legs. Now we can work on our torso posture and feel like your spine and the back of your neck and the back of your head are all extending gently upward so that we're upright, but not rigid. Just very, very gently. Don't strain at all. But it'll feel like it'll it's not actually, but it'll feel like a straight line from the back of the top of your head all the way down to your tailbone, and then in front the center of your breastbone, your sternum, feel like it moves slightly up and slightly forward, and what will happen is your chest opens up, your shoulders go back a little bit and end up nicely on a line below your ears. You might even feel your shoulder blades behind you pinch a little bit, but now you have open chest, open heart, and that gives and the pointing slightly upward gives you an uplifted quality, feeling of elegance, a regal Quality, like a king or queen on the throne. And
if you have your chest slightly raised in the back of your head, straight up and down, your chin will be naturally in a little bit, rather than sticking forward or tilted up or tilted down. If we learn our chin sink down, we get sleepy, let it float up, we get spaced out forward. It's kind of like we're in a hurry to get somewhere. So gently, the chin comes in, and it happens naturally. If the back of your head is straight up and down, your jaw is relaxed, your upper arms are hanging. Your upper arms hang straight down from the shoulders, so you're not reaching out forward or pulling back. And if your upper arms are hanging straight down, and you leave your elbows, where they are when you swivel your hands up onto the the top of your thighs, palm down your forearms, kind of run along your thighs. So that's your arms. Your jaw is relaxed, but not hanging slack open. Your lips are either very lightly touching or slightly parted. We'll be breathing in through our nose as we breathe out, mainly through our nose. Some air coming out your mouth is not a problem. So if your lips are slightly parted, that's fine, your tongue can just rest naturally, or if you'd like, if it's comfortable, you can let it float so the tip of your tongue rests against your upper palate, just behind your front teeth. It said that that minimizes the flow of saliva. It's also said In the yogic tradition, if your chin is tucked in the way I did, not forcefully, but just tucked in naturally, that way, that that angle of your chin, your jaw and your your neck, minimizes the rushing flow of thoughts slows it a little bit. These are all. These are all from yogic experience, yoga experiences. And again, let your eyes gently close, really feel all these aspects. Of your posture fully inhabit your body, feel your your legs, your torso, your arms, neck and head.
As you breathe for each out breath, just feel all of the unnecessary tension is slowing down and out of you. You need a little bit of tension to hold your posture, your back upright, your chest raised a slight bit, everything else, let it soften, let it relax with each out breath, you can use the image of the tension melting and flowing down and out of you
with each out breath.
And now let your awareness drift and rest slowly. Rest, rest in the core of your torso, the deep torso, it's a couple of inches below your navel, just in front of your spine. And
resting there, you can feel your lower torso expand and contract as the breath comes in and out. Feel your depth front to back as well as side to side and
breathing in your lower torso fills or expands. Breathing out, it contracts or empties and
when we rest our awareness down there, it's kind of quiet, like the bottom of a clear pond.
Just gentle currents, flowing, expanding, coming in, contracting, going out and
leaving your awareness focus there gently, let your eyes open about halfway, look down under the eyelids, so that you become aware of the space that Your body is sitting in as your body breathes itself, you can relax and just be An observer, trust that the body will breathe itself and
I just feel that expanding and track contracting, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, but a natural rhythm, like gentle surf coming up the beach and back into the ocean, slowly running up the beach, Then turning back and drawing back into the ocean and
you may hear sounds, thoughts may appear in your mind. Just let them come and go, and if some thoughts take you away off into a daydream that happens again without good or bad, just smile and say, Oh, that's wandering. Drop your awareness back into your core. Connect with your posture and the feeling of filling and emptying. We'll do that For a Few Minutes And
If you've gotten sleepy, perk up your posture, let your eyes open all the way and follow the breath coming in Your nostrils and going all the way down, coming up and all the way out.
If you feel like you've been off in thoughts almost the whole time, keep your gaze low and pay more attention to the texture of the experience deep in your core, filling till it's full, reversing direction and emptying till it's empty, Feeling until it's full, and emptying till it's empty, we'll practice for A couple minutes More You
You can move a little bit. Refresh yourself.
Take a moment to reestablish your posture,
just relax again with your posture, feeling your body and. Now that your eyes be open fully, but not try to look up and out, but just wherever you're looking naturally so they'll the gaze will rest slightly below horizontal. Again, be sure you're not looking straight into the screen of your device, and soften your gaze, open up your peripheral vision, side to side, top to bottom, aware of the bigger space that you're sitting in in front and around you.
Today, we'll work on mixing mind and space, on the medium of the breath. So breathing naturally, not pushing the air out, but just letting your body breathe naturally. The air comes out your nostrils, maybe a little out your mouth, and it goes out into the air in the room and mixes with the atmosphere in the room diffuses out and eventually becomes inseparable.
In same way our awareness can be very focused and tight, let it open as the breath goes out and mixes with the atmosphere in the room. Let your awareness open up, soften your face muscles, soften your gaze. Let your awareness open out and mix with the space in the room. Let your mind be one with the space in front and around you, if you're outside, all the way out into the space. And the practice here is not to do anything in particular, the body breathes in, but you just rest in that space without having anything to do.
Ride out with the breath to open your mind into the space and hang out there till the next. Out breath, out open and rest again. If your mind wanders, come back to your posture. Out breath, open to the space. We'll Do that for A few Minutes. You
And now, as best you can on the next out breath, go out, let go and rest in spaciousness without any concern for your breathing, just open space, letting thoughts and perceptions come and go.
If you're taken away in a series of thoughts into a daydream, just come back to another breath, go out, let go and rest in spaciousness. We'll do that for a couple more minutes.
In today, rather than another practice, we can just set an aspiration for how we go about our everyday lives with the motivation to be of benefit To others, and a general wish for all beings, so you can repeat after me, may I and all beings enjoy contentment and well Being, and the sources of contentment and well being i May I and all others be free from suffering,
physical and mental, and be free from the causes of suffering, physical and mental,
may I, in all beings, achieve so? State of peace of mind beyond hope and fear.
May I in all beings and
rest in the state of mind, free from attachment and aversion and
I thank you for your practice, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free we can have some discussion, and we have about six. Six minutes to the top of the hour, but I'll stay on a little longer if people want to stay on for a couple more minutes. So Alyssa, if you let people unmute themselves,
yeah, of course. I
Yes. Michelle wrote, glad you can refer to the recordings. Yeah, I wanted to remind people of that. And in some of the sessions I've done, we work with perceptions and work with our relationship with thoughts, and do a compassion practice of exchanging self for others on the medium of the breath, so they're all there.
And we'll do pretty much the same thing as I did today, tomorrow morning on my website. So you're welcome to come to that zoom as well. I think if Alyssa, people who come late after you post it in the chat don't see it, so if you could post it again, that would be great. Yeah, of course.
Melissa, you're so pretty.
Oh, thank you. That was very kind.
I have a question. Beatrice, yes, I was just wondering, would this be a good practice, possibly, for someone who was dying, how to sort of eject their consciousness, send it out into space?
There are specific practices that, in the tradition that I've been taught for a person who's who's dying, for the person who's dying, there's a practice called dejection of consciousness, but It is with an intention to go towards a towards a particular enlightenment. I mean, we've all heard this, go to the go for the clear light and all of that. But certainly, I would say the the most important thing is a practice that can quiet the hopes and fears, particularly fears that go with that situation. I have a good friend who does hospice work, and that's really the main thing for two things, one, helping the person let go, and so a pretty common thing is to not to tell them they're going to be all right, but to tell them you're going to be all right.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's all the stuff leading up to death, but then I'm just thinking about in the actual practice. Yeah. There's all that thing about the white bingo Bindu and the red Bindu joining. It is complicated, and
you need particular transmissions for the but I think the that the idea of letting go, going out and letting go certainly would be, would be useful. I think it's a good idea. I can't really say I haven't tried it or worked with anybody in that way, but I think that that it's probably a good idea. Beatrice,
I don't have a Tibetan teacher, I mean, other than, other than listening to Andrew, but I'm not in the Tibetan tradition. So
I think Andrew, I think that would be good question for Andrew, for working with a dying person, and what, what practices if they're not a Buddhist, and they don't have that experience. What kind of meditation would be good for them to instruct? Karen, what were you thinking?
I I think, I think you more stick with what their tradition, what the person's tradition is. You don't try to impose Buddhist stuff on them. Yeah, that's what Andrew said in this book. Yes, complicated and Yeah, not really helpful. My aunt just died on Saturday, and she was, you know, she's not a Buddhist, but her daughter was there with her and holding her and. And the whole point was to keep her very relaxed and to make it a really calm thing. And, you know, they did that for a couple days as she, I mean, I want to, yeah, I think you don't want to do that red channel and white and all that stuff on somebody who doesn't practice it. I think that that just this nice meditation is would be good. I feel so much more relaxed and calm than when I then I did at six o'clock.
Yes, I like this. I got into this practice too today, Joe. So thank you very much.
You're welcome.
So,
Karen, no,
I was just trying to Tuesday, but the 30th and then the next one is August 8. I was trying to remember that
those are my sessions. Yes, so what's August 8? Another one on a Thursday, Thursday, Tuesday, Tuesday the 30th, Thursday, the eighth,
okay, oh, I could, okay, sorry. Is it Tuesday at 9am Pacific Time, correct? Thank you.
We'd love to see you as many of who want to come you,
okay, 10 mountain, okay,
some of us are myself included a time zone challenge. So it's good to good to know good to know that
I have a question for you came in through the chat. Dr Barrett, okay, it says. Dr Joe, how do you think the recorded meditations compared to doing it with a live group?
Was this in the chat? Yeah,
it came directly to me. Oh, okay, got
it. Say it again.
It says, Sorry, how do you think the recorded meditations compared to doing it with the group live?
Well, the that it's interesting because we're kind of not live. We're on screens. So I don't think it would be tremendously different, especially because during, you know, the discussion is different, but during the actual practice, everybody's muted and on the screen, and you're not looking at the screen. So if you listen to the instruction, you listen to the instruction. So it wouldn't be that, especially if you haven't done that particular session. You know what was there was a one of the one of the TV networks, when they ran reruns, they said, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you. So if you weren't at that session, you're hearing it fresh and new, and won't be that different.
But you can try it and let us know.
Well, thank you, everyone. Be lovely to see you tomorrow morning. Otherwise, when am I on again? Alyssa, two weeks,
I believe. So. Yeah, so Jeffrey will be next week, and then you got it.
So what does that make it? That's August
the 12th. Yeah, that's right.
So this time on, on this station at August 12, lovely practicing with all of you. Thank you so much.
