All right, hey everybody. And he's not here today, but I'll do the wave thing because it's so nice.
Hi,
everybody,
everybody.
Yeah So Joe, Joe parent is leading us today. Big thanks to Joe.
Hi everybody. Yeah, it's
nice. I feel like I'm imitating Andrew now yeah it's nice to see all of you. It's so good. It's so good. Cool, so. Yeah, so we'll get started here in just a sec. Same as usual, we'll go for about an hour. Joe will lead us in a guided meditation to start. And then after that if there's any questions or anything like that you could type them in the chat or if you want to come on live and ask and you could raise your hand so nice to be here with you I see a little baby in a screen that's really cute. Okay, cool. Well, I'll turn it off to Jim. Thanks.
Good afternoon or good evening depending on where you are in the world, or good morning, perhaps I was student I was just talking with in Australia so it's good morning for, for them, nice to see everyone, I'm delighted to be able to lead this meditation program, Andrew is on vacation. If you were here last week he probably told you he's going Skiing. Skiing with his family. So I'll be leading the meditation session today, and also his Thursday afternoon group. The, what does it call the end of the Hangout.
Yeah, the virtual Hangout, but I think we're shopping around for new needs, Looking for
looking for a new name for that. That's right. So, Andrew asked me to continue with meditation talking about Tom that as a, as a brief introduction for people. If you haven't been here before, we've been struggling with mindfulness meditation, which is, there are two aspects to mindfulness, you've probably heard the term, and one is that it is a state of being. The state of being fully present to your experience, what you're experiencing internally, your feelings and thoughts as well as from the outside your perceptions, moment to moment. And there's a sense of awareness that goes with that mindfulness of whether you are present or not. It's kind of like a monitoring function. In Tibetan they call it shin and Tremper attention and and vigilance. The other aspect is mindfulness is a practice, and that's the practice that we do which is to work with our breathing particularly but you can work with there lots of different forms of mindfulness of finding something in the present moment that you are anchoring your attention on. And then, being with that. And the vigilance function is that when you wander into a series of thoughts like a daydream. At some point you wake up, I was talking with Andrew about this and he likes my metaphor that, that you don't have to find wakefulness and this is the good news that in that moment when you wake up from your Daydream. You're already back to the present moment, our default state is the present moment. So we're always there. We always have the capacity for wakefulness, but it gets covered over with all of our thoughts and feelings and discursive commentary. Now I when I told Andrew was I feel like that overlay is like Swiss cheese it has holes in, because we don't go off in a daydream and just stay there. Something always pops us when we wake up so it's like we're going along on this overlay, and then we hit one of the holes in the Swiss cheese and instantly dropped down, and there we are in wakefulness again. So, the key to the practice of mindfulness is to set ourselves up with the anchor which we will do, that's in the present moment, where our mind does wander it has that tendency, and then we come back to. Then when we wake up from that we're already back, so it's not, it's not a question of bringing yourself back to the present moment is a question of remembering what you were doing, and the original definition of mindfulness, the word Sati, in ancient, I don't know if it's Sanskrit or Pali or it might be both but the ancient Indian language, Sati, simply means remembering what you were doing. So, in that moment of wakefulness you remember what the anchor was that you are coming back to. If it's your breathing, if it's an object of awareness and your perception, whatever it is, that's what you come back to. And that's the practice that's what you bring your attention back to and. And it's simply that we can understand this remembering what you're doing. As an example of mindfulness, and lack of it is, you were heading to the kitchen to do something or get something, you got distracted along the way you finished up with that and said, Oh yeah, I was going into the kitchen, you walk in you go. Why was I coming in here. And then there's our moment of books. Lack of remembering what you were doing. so it really is that simple. Now, what we're going to do today is we're going to do that practice for a little bit as our kind of foundation. Then we're going to do a little more of expanded or open awareness, in which we let the mind wander but it wanders among the sense perceptions, all in the present moment. And, and we'll do brief versions of that. And then go into tonglen practice tonglen means literally sending, and taking
it is a traditional practice, and if you. I'm not going to go through the whole detail because Andrew gave the history of it last time and you can listen to those, those recordings. But essentially, it's based on the low junk practices of training the mind, and it is going against our usual grain of wanting to take in only what's good and get rid of, but we don't want. And this is lifting it. So it's kind of friction for the ego, in which we take on what we don't want, and read out what we usually are attached to. Now, people have some questions about this because the when we're taking things on, of taking on negativity they feel like they get loaded down with the negativity, and, and it's really important to understand that the practice is really based on having some glimpse of egolessness some glimpse of feeling like you are not such a solid permanent fixed being, but more of a fluid entity. And I think Andrew talked about this that one physicist call said that matter was just frozen light. So, this is a sense of ourselves as a being of light in this, in a certain way. But for, for people who are just beginning to practice it's that that's not necessarily so easy so I'm going to give you some technique in tonglen. What we do is imagine negativity, whether it's for ourselves, or in the world, like illness, which we have plenty of, we don't have to work hard to imagine and find that in our world today, but any kind of suffering. And we breathe, the texture of that in, and it transforms in our heart and our heart is the has the capacity to radiate out the light of kindness and compassion, and we sometimes think of it as, as kind of a darkness like smoke or light coming in, And then a radiance of cool light going up. The problem is people feel like and I saw one of the questions last time was, what do you do with all the dark heaviness that you take in. And the idea is that there's really not so much for you to take in, but it's hard for us to feel that necessarily that openness, so this practice starts with a letting go, and a flash of openness, a flash of what's called absolute bodhichitta your absolute heart of enlightenment, or awakening, in which you open your mind and make it essentially the same as all of space. From that openness, we take on the negativity, and I'll guide you through that. and it's helpful. There's so many different versions of this, but there are a couple that will be helpful as a transition kind of training wheels, so that what you imagine in your heart center, and your heart centers that at the center of your chest at heart level, not the physical organ, but the heart center. If you imagine a column of energy in your body, like the meridians and acupuncture in the tradition of Tomlin there's a sense of a central channel, and then that is a the heart chakra heart center. In that imagine, either a ball of light, or the way I've been teaching it, you imagine a beautiful clear crystal, made of light in your heart center, any shape that you want, Any color that you want. And that's what has the Met, and it is, it represents your true nature which has this incredible transformative power. So any negativity that comes into the crystal gets immediately transformed into positive energy. So it comes in with this check texture of of heaviness and darkness, but it transforms into what you can imagine, is the moonlight. A cool soothing moonlight of kindness and compassion for kids really. So that's going to be the basis. And so you can use either a ball of clear a bright light, or this crystal, made of light, as the
transformative power unless you transform the negativity of that you encounter into positive energy. And so I'll lead you through all the different phases and then we'll have some time for question and answer. Okay, so let's get started. I have no gone here. Take your seat. Sit comfortably upright but not rigid. And I like to start with a little bit of grounding, practice so you can let your eyes gently close. And we'll start with a body scan, just kind of scan from the top of your head down to your toes and sweep out or melt out any unnecessary tension and tension you don't need to hold your good, upright posture. By the way, it's helpful to feel like the back of your head extends gently upwards so that your, your chin doesn't float up in which we get spaced out or tilt down your head tilting down which would get sweeping the top of your head here and look for particular attention spots like cheekbones your jaw,
neck and shoulders, arms, chest, back, lower back deep belly sometimes we hold more tension or deep belly than we realize.
To Jaws, neck and shoulders, deep belly are places to be my hips and pelvis, thighs, forums and hands. Knees calves ankles and feet. You can take a nice deep breath in and as you breathe out. From the top of your head all the way down just sweep out all that unnecessary tension, anything you don't need to hold the posture. We usually think of our minds as being kind of up behind our forehead, but let your awareness drop back and down, let it fall back to the back of your skull and down behind your throat,
down the back. Just in front of your spine behind your, your chest, past your solar plexus. The true awareness dropped down like a leaf gently settling to the bottom, beautiful clear.
Let it rest down there in the deep core of your torso below your navel. It's quiet down there, there's a little movement of currents. As you breathe in and out like gentle Eddie's at the bottom.
The true awareness rests there, and imagine yourself just sinking down. Sinking down and merging with the Earth, feeling completely grounded like you're part of the earth. Extending upward in your upright posture like a mountain.
Let your breath come and go, naturally, don't force it. Be an observer more than a director, letting it come and go like the wind. Relax your mind. Let it be open to whatever you're going to experience. Like the sky looks over everything on the earth without bias or partiality,
it like a mountain. That's like the wind. Mind like the sky. But your eyes gently open looking somewhat downward, I kind of 45 degree angle the diagonal,
wherever your eyes rest don't focus so much on that point. But just let them rest in that direction, and relax your gaze soften your gaze, so that you really are seeing and aware of the space that you're sitting in including your body.
Breathing in primarily through your nose. You can breathe out through both your nose, mouth, your lips can be slightly touching or slightly parted, whatever is most comfortable.
Be aware of the sensation. The internal sensation of filling his breath comes in. That's going to be our anchor internal sensation filling as the breath comes in.
Emptying as the breath goes up with awareness of our posture. Do this for a couple of minutes. Chilling emptying awareness. If your mind is drifted into a daydream series of thoughts moment you realize it, don't judge yourself, just smile, have a sense of humor about it because our minds do longer
reinvigorate your posture, return your attention to that internal sensation of feeling. An empty breath comes in and goes out. If your eyes closed and you got a little sleepy. Just open them a little wider and raise your gaze. Pay attention a little higher and feel the sensation of the breath coming in and out of your nostrils. If your mind is kind of wild and full of thoughts. So each time you come back it goes off again. Lower your gaze. Really try to place your attention, deep in your torso. Feeling that showing and emptying as deep as you can and your choice
will do that for a couple of moments. Let your gaze race. Bit looking almost straight ahead. The practice we just did was called close placement, which you hold your awareness close to. That's why it's the internal sensation of showing them.
Now we expand to environmental mindfulness, so that your attention be more with the out breath
in, breath comes in but as each out breath goes out, let your mind mix with the breath, ride the breath, and mix with the space. Open up to the space that you're in, sensitive in all directions. Again softening your gaze, opening up to the widest of your peripheral vision, above and below to each side.
Breathe out and open right the breath out and open. Let your awareness move. Aware of colors, shapes and shades of light and dark in your field of vision,
where it sounds coming in from all directions, near and far. Where bodily sensations were thoughts, floating by in Skype you're all these are happening in the prison. Relax your attention on the breathing. Just let your mind be with your perceptions, particularly sight, sound, physical sensation, and mental perceptions. What's arising and subsiding in your mind.
If you get caught up in a series of thoughts like a daydream. Just smile. Reconnect with your posture ride the breath out again. Invest in open awareness, Your sense perceptions. Now raise your gaze even further looking a little bit above horizontal. Imagine that your awareness extends out beyond the room that you're. It extends out to the horizon in all directions. It extends out to the sky in all directions and above you.
It extends beyond the sky having the space in all directions. out among the stars. Imagine that your awareness extends. So far, in all directions. Beyond the farthest stars. Rest for just a moment that infinite opens.
From that open. We can begin the tonglen practice. Whatever you're comfortable with, leaving your eyes open, lowering your gaze or closing your eyes. Imagine in your heart center. If you would like a beautiful clear crystal, made of light of any shapes that you'd like, or a ball of light,
or just whatever sense you have of the heart of enlightened heart of awakening, which includes the heart of compassion and rouse a strong wish to alleviate the suffering yourself and Opie. Traditionally, we start online with something called the forum measurables before measurable minds of compassion, wishing that ourselves and all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness that our selves and all beings are free from suffering and the cause of suffering. That ourselves and all beings have access to the deeper joy beyond conventional happiness and suffering that is ourselves in all beings can rest and ultimate equanimity. Beyond the stormy waves of attachment aversion and now in the total and practice the slogans about it. One of them said begin the process of sending and taking with yourself. So bring to mind your own suffering. Any physical ailment. Any negative experiences. Unwanted feel any negativity you have toward yourself, blame, shame, guilt, frustration, anger, and imagine that you draw all of these negative emotions if you want to give them the texture of a dark heavy fog or smoke, you can do that however you want to feel them needs a feeling texture. Bring that feeling of negativity and as you breathe in, You we exchange on the breath as you breathe in, imagine that you're gathering all this negative energy from yourself, your body, mind, spirit, from your whole being, into the crystal are light in your heart center, and they instantly transform. And as you breathe out from your heart center radiates cool moonlight, kindness and compassion
that shows your being with a soothing relief, freedom from suffering, that shows your being with happiness and contentment. As you breathe in, You gather all the negativity. It transforms.
And as you breathe it out radiates to fill your whole being. A cool white moonlight,
kindness and compassion, puts out fires of trauma. If you need more than one breath together. Take a little time gather all of that and then take a good breath to gather it all in
transforms and radiate to your being. If you want to rest in that cool. Pacify cone relief. You can do that for a couple of breaths,
find the rhythm that works for you. Gather as you breathe in, radiators are free. Having done that, natural wish to alleviate other suffering as well arises. If you can calm your torment. Free yourself from suffering. It's natural to wish others especially those close to freedom from suffering.
You can start with one person that you know is struggling with illness or mental anguish. Any kind of unhappiness, any those negative feelings that you know they want to be fruitful, gather those in as you breathe in, you draw those from that you've freed them from those feelings and you gather them in to that Crystal Light in your heart center. They instantly transform and as you read out, it radiates out to them and fills their being with a cool moonlight of kindness and compassion. It shows their beings with relief from suffering, and feelings of contentment and happiness of peace and joy. When you're ready, you expand that to all of your love all your family and friends. They all share in some experience of illness and happiness, struggle, suffering. Breathe in and gather that from all of them at once into your heart center.
Your transforms and radiate out to all of them. That cool moonlight, that fills them with peace and happiness. Relief from suffering. Imagine them all gathered around you. Breathing in through, through all your pores through your whole being into your heart center. As you breathe in reading out from
in all directions, all of your pores. A cool Moonlighter shows its casing, expand the circle to include all beings. Once you know, once you've never met. Once you have a good relationship with one of the potent practice Krypton lenders, even to include someone you don't have good relationship.
When you do that you can identify that person. And the struggle is both from your side and there so as you breathe in their negativity, you breathe in your negativity toward them, you gather for yourself. Both of those qualities into the lighter crystal in your heart, radiate out freedom from that negativity to you and to them. Because you have something in common, neither of you want to. So, both of you want happiness.
And as best you can exclude all beings in every direction, all creatures, large and small, throughout the world throughout the universe. And there's a quality is the ability of that pure awareness that is your nature in your heart center to accommodate all the suffering in the universe. You can gather it all in as you breathe in, And that heart of enlightenment, instantly transforms radiates out in all directions. Light it pervades the universe that cool moon light that pervades all beings in the universe. It's freedom from suffering with peace. If you feel any kind of inadequacy about reading at all the universe. That's a perfect example of what you can then turn to yourself again. Breathe, that feeling of inadequacy, into your heart center
and radiate out feelings of confidence and courage to show up whatever arises in your mind that you want to take away the negativity from use that as the object of your talk. Breathe in that negativity.
Through all the pores of your being, into the light in your heart center. It transforms and radiate out the opposite, And you breathe in illness radiate out. You breathe in anger radiated out a patient's breathing suffering. Really relief and happiness for he's in discord. Radio. as to gone quiet. Let go of a visualization. Lower your gaze, reconnect with basic mindfulness practice presence, feeling the breath come in feeling depressed. We're in a severe posture. Do that for a few more breaths. Thank you. So I often find after this practices, everybody's mind is pretty quiet. So questions don't immediately arise. So I wanted to share with you. It's, I'm in Southern California and it's pouring rain today, which is unusual. And, and, in the Tibetan tradition, when it's raining, they say, oh, It's very auspicious. It's the rain of wisdom. And then someone asked what a teacher, you know what about when it's sunny. Oh, that's very auspicious. It's the son of wakefulness. So, they seem to find a way to make everything as spacious which is wonderful. One of the questions that came in said is this like reverse medication. And Andrew has talked about that and there are different versions of what reverse Meditation means, this is certainly a reverse meditation in the sense that it goes against the grain of ego. That usually. Our intention is that good things come to us, bad things go away, and we get rid of them. And all of the low junk, or mind training slogans are oriented around this.
For example, one of them is drive all blames into one, which means I'm going to take the blame, usually we want to give the blame to others and be off the hook, but instead we take the blame. Another one is profit and victory to others loss and defeat to myself, which is really a reverse of how we usually go about our life. But there's a purpose to this and the purpose is to say, Okay, I want to transcend self centeredness and operate from the basis of compassion. But you can't do this. If you don't have the, the deeper sense of security that your real nature is wisdom and compassion. So to understand this properly the opening slogans are all about that. To recognize that our nature is beyond conventional good and bad in it. And if you look at the nature of mind, the real nature of mind has its, it's not a thing. It's a potential. It's a capacity and mind has the capacity to know, and the capacity to feel. Those are the two qualities, all the contents of the. They call it the costumes that are our beings from our experience from our genetic makeup, all of this costume that that mind is wearing. I'm looking at the whole costume party. The windows, all these different costumes have a mind pretending to be one thing, one person or another that mind is the capacity to know the capacity to feel. It's reflected in this and this, and Sun Sun of wisdom is actually a good metaphor for that. Because Sun produces light and warmth. So we call it the light of enlightenment, and the warmth of compassion. So those capacities. When they are raised to their highest level, are the highest virtue of human of human capabilities, wisdom, and selfless love knowing and loving wisdom, ultimate wisdom and ultimate compassionate self as well. So that's what we're aspiring toward, that's what mind has been everyone online has the inherent capacity for those two things. That's why we call it enlightenment. The light of wisdom. And, and we could probably should call it and work from it. But that's what compassion is that they go together. So, a really important part of this practice is to generate that strong wish to alleviate our own and other suffering. Any other questions.
Yeah, Alex is a live question.
Hi, Alex. Hello.
Hello. Hello. Hi, Joseph. Wait, as much as a tie, everyone. Hi, Andy. Hi, Joseph, I'm so happy to see you. And you all so happy to be here with you all. I just said, I'll try to be as always I have like all these topics are going around in my mind and sometimes I struggle to bring up the essence of what I want to ask, but here I go. I've been, I've been getting like involved with a girl, and she's, she's bipolar. And I have sort of tried to share with her what I know about meditation and she has. She started her practice, you know, but her condition, it's pretty strong is like Nora. Nora light case, we would, I would say, you know, we getting to know each other more, we have this yoga traffic barrier she lives in the north Syria of Mexico. So we are trying, but it's hard at times because she has this mental condition. So, how can how can I help her or
I have a favorite ask and I would also like to ask you put in the chat room, your email address. I will correspond with you because we want to talk with everybody about the practice, but I'm happy to share whatever I can, with you.
Okay, sorry for that that, and thank you very much.
Let's do that. Andy, do you have Barry's chat.
Yeah, I posted Barry's comment in the document. Okay.
Yeah. So Barry asked if there's specific practices that we can use beside tonglen to provide protective shields for family, friends and people who may be the victim of repeated abuse. Mantras are practices for putting protective shields around people or groups of people to keep them from receiving such threats and abuse. That, that's an interesting thing. There are some traditions, especially in the tantric traditions, in which they talk about those things. The reason that I've been cautioned not to is because they can then somewhat easily be abused and turn to, I want to protect this person, But not that person. And it's not a, it's a slippery slope, and not a far reach to say well, if I can use this mantra to protect my friend, maybe I can use this to harm my enemy, or harm their enemy. So, we have to be really really careful and cautious about that. In fact there's a story from one of our lineage in my tradition, a lineage figure from one of the original lineage founders of Milarepa, in which he actually did that and learn black magic and cause tremendous art, and he had to do a long almost his whole lifetime of purification, to make up for that. So we want to protect you from from doing such a thing. But once you are doing the tongue line and generating that if you don't have. And again, the whole point of this practice is to not make it your personal project or your personal issue. If you don't have your axe to grind your version of things. Then insights will arise on how you can actually do ordinary things to help protect people. My teacher the budget region. One of my favorite quotes is good intentions mixed with confusion, are a recipe for disaster. So the first step. And that's why it says, All of this begins with yourself. The first step is getting yourself clear. If you have clarity and no personal stake. Then you have a natural connection with those people just because you don't have a personal stake doesn't mean you don't have karmic connection with those people that you care about, but then you can see what you can do to truly help them. And so the best is to quiet your emotions in regard to that and calm your suffering in regard to how you're relating with them. Then do the total Len, to help, feel like you are extending that wish for their freedom from that suffering, and then say, What can I do, and you know we all it always comes down to the Serenity Prayer. Make a difference that I can accept what I can't, and know the difference between the two. So I hope that's helpful.
There's a live question from Karen.
Hi, Carol.
Hi, thank you so much. I just wanted to say thank you because I started out, reading about tonglen and deciding alone, never do that and then you know through doing this with Andrew weakly I've been giving it a try, but, but tonight when you said to give it a texture. I immediately was like, I immediately got these dark rattling rocks that were like rushing in, like, in a Dyson and and being transformed and the idea of the crystal really worked for me so I was able to do it on the in and out breath tonight very, that idea of texture, really did it for me so I just wanted to thank you.
I'm glad you know I, I want my book that Disney asked me to write a walk in the woods, meditations on mindfulness, with a bear name who I needed to put tongue Lanyon for families and kids. So that's how I came up with the, the crystal made of light, so that it didn't feel like the heaviness was landing on you.
Because now, like like I love to watch my Dyson vacuum spin inside. So like the crisp, like collect all this rattling rocks and then see it just transformed into the light. I love it.
It's good, and Jane also wrote that she felt the same about the texture. That's good, that's traditionally how it's taught, you know, this feeling of a heaviness and, and when we have our emotions and our, it's easy to it's easier to feel it start with ourselves. Now, Andy. We're supposed to just go an hour, so if people need to go. What I'd like to do is I'd like to dedicate the merit for people who need to leave. And then I'm happy to stay on, I had budgeted longer. So, if that's okay with you we can stay on for another 15 minutes or so. So traditionally what we want to do and and Tomlin is the epitome of this, that we want to share whatever benefit comes from this practice, because we do get something, we get a benefit. I was reading the Dalai Lama said, if you have to be selfish. Be selfish that you, that you, you want to get the benefit of being kind to others. So, we wanted, but we still want to share that. So you can say this in any way you want I'll repeat it the way I usually do and then you can repeat it after me or put it in your own words. But we conclude by saying, made the practice I've just done be of benefit to others, as well as myself. And if you feel are feeling generous, in the spirit of Chung land in the spirit of, or you want to cultivate generosity, you can say, made the practice that I've just done be of even more benefit others than myself. And very realized beings finished by saying made the practice I've just done the benefit to others instead of myself. But because we are inseparable from others. We all get the, the benefit, always comes back to us, and more comes back to the less we walk, or need. So, um, if you had to leave. If you have to leave. Goodbye and I hope we can do this again soon. And I do my own practice. If you want to send me an email. I guess Andy can post my email and if you want to send me an email, I'll put you on the list to get a notice about my own practice, and I will be helping Andrew out with this on occasion. Any other questions. Well,
there's a chat question from Eric, It's on the document and real quick so your email it's the one I've been corresponding with you at the at Zenvo.
Dr. Joe at Dr. Joe parent, calm, Okay. Eric, looking for words of encouragement. Going to say by what practices or might recommend when I visit. Oh going by to say, say goodbye to my. Oh, I'm not picking up the whole thing sorry. Hang on. My nana, huh. Yes, this is interesting with the someone passing away. So let's talk about that situation when someone is passing away. So, Um, first of all, the interesting thing with people that is, that are close to us. They can pick up our vibe. And one of the things that holds them back from going on their journey is worrying about you. So the best thing that you can say is, I love you, and I'll be okay. Which is kind of a flip, but it's really, and, and then while you're sitting there. Work with your breathing. And, and you can do the tongue let. And if you are really there and work, working with your breathing. As human beings, we're like tuning forks, you know, tuning forgive you if you ring one of the one tuning fork, you get a particular note, if there's another one that's held by touching it but nearby. It starts vibrating at the same pitch. So, so, um, you want to have a state of mind that you want her to have, which is one of openness, of letting go,
so that she can let go of feeling of, of confidence and courage. So that she picks up that confidence and courage and feels like you're going to be okay and she doesn't need to stick around to take care of.
When someone dies, there's an energy that there's a notion that they still exist in the mental body after they've lost their physical body. And this is, you know, I don't remember personally. But this is what I've been taught and what you want to do is then toggle left for the person who has passed away. And the idea is that they are going to unfamiliar territory. They will be fearful. They will be confused. And so what you want to do is take in as you breathe in, Breathe in fear and confusion and breathe, courage, and clarity. Maybe confidence, the three C's courage clarity and confidence. But breathe in fear, confusion and anxiety. Three out, courage, clarity and peace. Those are pretty good, because that's what they will be experiencing. And that's a great practice that you can do to help them on their way in their journey in a way that, that if you believe in continuity of consciousness from lifetime to lifetime will give them the best chance for a very positive rebirth. If you don't, it will still give you the feeling that you're helping
and giving. And, and then you are letting go, which can only help them, and help you. I hope that's helpful. Eric, you can get on, if you have another, you want to further
and give Eric the option at least cuz he mentioned.
Do you want to unmute.
Yeah, can you hear me.
No, yeah, I don't think I have anything to follow up that that's super helpful.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, badly.
Yeah, this,
these practices have been amazing I'm super thankful that they've, they've come when they have so appreciate, appreciate it.
I don't think we have anything else at the moment.
I want to say goodbye by encouraging people to, especially in this time of the pandemic, and political upheaval and environmental chaos. We got the trifecta. And it's really easy to get very caught up in the speed and energy of good and bad. And, and anxiety. So it at any point, it's really helpful to do what I call, stop drop and breathe. You know when we were kids we were trying to get your clothes on fire. Stop, drop and roll. Just stop dropping breathe is whenever you find your mind on fire. Stop what you're doing. Take a breath. Freeze it down, drop into presence and awareness and physical, physical presence. Breathe take a couple of breaths. And you can find the opportunity to do that breathing, and use your electronics as a signal. When the phone rings, that's your like the Zen tradition of the temple bell, that's the bell that signals up. Time to take a breath, then pick up the phone, your texts, get three at least three breaths, you don't have to answer me. And you can use your microwave if you're using a microwave and putting it on for 30 seconds. Take a few paces away, and breathe and when it goes off, that's the end of your session so you can do a 32nd session or a one minute session, but use opportunities throughout the day, if someone puts you on hold. You get to meditate. If you if you're driving you come up to a red light. You get to meditate. Keep your eyes open, so you see when it turns green, otherwise the horn will be the end of pyramid behind you will be at the end of your meditation, but use that opportunity. One breath makes a difference. So thank you and may the benefit of our practice, make the world a better place.
So one last question came in, if you want to take it from my lane. And sorry so your email, it was Joe at Dr. Joe parent calm right.
I'll type it in. Okay, sorry
about that, I bring on a lane in
the chat for everybody.
Hi, Joseph, thank you so much for tonight. I had a question with the.
That's my email address so let me know. Yes,
thank you. No, that's okay. I had a question about when we raise the gaze in meditation, and we take in awareness to the stars. I have a real hard time with that. I'm closer when the gaze is you know I'm okay when the gaze is closer but the further out, it gets and the more spacious. I get lost. I mean it doesn't have any tips.
Yes. don't raise your gaze. Just imagine the universe.
Okay.
Collective you need to close your eyes and imagine that your awareness extends out in all directions, It's more of a feeling than actually going.
Okay, I think that's what I was getting with with the gaze raised I think that's what was messing me up.
That's okay. Okay. Can you imagine the horizon in all directions,
I can. Yes.
Can you imagine the sky.
I can
then imagine the sky at night. With the Stars. Yes, and the empty spaces between them is infinite.
There you go.
Okay, that helps a lot. Thank you so much.
You know we have to find a way to work with this. Oh, Wendy asked a really good question. You're welcome, Elaine, I hope that's okay.
Can you dedicate your practice prior to magician, that's a great question. Here's the tradition. The tradition is you start with an aspiration, you start your practice with what's called pure motivation, you start your practice by saying, you know, I'm doing this practice, not just for myself. I'm, I am doing it for myself so that I can clarify my awareness that I can attain enlightenment. Even glimpses of enlightenment, so that I can benefit better benefit all beings. So you start with that aspiration. And then you finish with that dedication, it's a sandwich. It's the pure motivation sandwich, and really to understand how this all this whole thing works for everybody, you got to stay on gets to hear out the whole thing works is that it's all in glimpses that we then gradually expand. So those holes in the Swiss cheese of our discursive mind and, and emotional upheavals. The holes get bigger. Until they join together, so the, so these little glimpses these little periods of awareness, get longer and longer. So, and then this period over here, then we're lost than that period over here, the part of being lost and distracted gets smaller and smaller and then now here's a bigger one. So that gradually. There's more of the Enlightenment and less of the confusion. Gradually, there's more of the intention to benefit others and less of the worry and concern for ourselves, but it happens little by little, and we just expand those little bits and those little glimpses, until it covers so much more of the territory. And someone asked my teacher Trumper and Shay. Do you remember the moment when you attained enlightenment. And he said, Well, I don't remember it as a moment. But I remember a shift that I used to have flashes of samsara, that's the word that means confusion. He said, There is samsara and nirvana, right, said I used to have. I used to have flashes of Nirvana, sorry, let me start over. I used to have flashes of nirvana. And now I have flashes of samsara. So we start from the confused perspective and delight in these moments of enlightenment these glimpses we have. And at some point hopefully for all of us, it shifts, and our reference point is wakefulness. And occasionally we get lost. But then we come back to, oh yeah, now I remember who I am.
And that is who we are. So thank you so much everyone. I love it that Poor Laura blew it on the time change,
but it is recorded and you're gonna post it and do you want to tell everybody how they can access this.
Yeah, the recording will be in the community. The Zoom recording will be in the nightclub community within the next few hours, and then we'll put it up good.
He's good. Hours Wow, that's impressive.
It's easy to get the one up on the community but putting it on the website, it's been a bit slower so sorry, and thanks for talking to us enjoy, appreciate it.
My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you. I'll stay on, if anybody has another question. Put it in the chat and I'll stay on till most everybody's gone.
Thanks. Yeah, that was awesome. See you out next week, everyone.
Hello, how are you can stay on. I will chat right now. So let me see if I can unmute you. There you go.
Awesome, thank you, thank you very much.
Oh, let's just do it now. I budgeted I budgeted another 12 minutes in my schedule so we're good.
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
So what do you do about somebody who's bipolar. First of all, it's important when you're not with that person, do the tonglen practice.
Okay, yeah,
right. Yeah. and use it to help clarify your attachments and understand your own attachments that way. Okay, and say, of how you need her to be. It's important that you let go of that, that you're interested in from for her rather than your version of her. Do you understand what I mean. Sorry, stuff
like, like Lolly like letting go of my, my, the way I would like her to be exactly, letting go the way I would like her to be, and more accepting, The way she is
also tuning into what's really best for her based on how she wants to be. Now, the problem with the bipolar is when someone is depressed, extremely depressed are extremely manic. Right. They're not exactly thinking straight. So, I'm. My teacher said, There's a limit to what meditation can do when someone's brain chemistry. Overwhelm overwhelms them. And, and, really, you know, to say, oh this depression is just your thoughts. They go, you have no idea. Because they're in a deep, dark place.
Oh, my God. Yeah,
it's true when you and when they're saying, I'm fine, and you go, No, you're out of control, they're saying I'm completely in control, you don't understand me. And that will block all communication. So you know the only thing to do is to, first, you also have to protect yourself and not get sucked into the whole thing. But also, you know, if they are on medication. See if you can find a gap. And, but it's kind of hard, because if they're manic, that's what happens, they go off their medication and then they feel great, and they don't want to come down. And if they're depressed, they're so depressed they say Why bother. It's not going to help me anyway, is almost a better chance with the depression for them to take the medicine than with the manic. But it is a very painful and frustrating situation and holding your seat and not getting swayed and not saying I need you to be different than you are. That's a challenge. At the same time, when they're depressed they can hurt themselves. And when they're manic, they can do things that can cause harm to themselves and others. I have a relative who opened 52 credit cards. When he was manic and his wife begged me to help you know and I said, You got to get him to take his meds Oh, I can I can cancel the credit cards but I know the root, the root problem. Yeah, It's a brain chemistry. It is a brain.
I met her the first time, just recently, and I was in her proximity I went I pick her up from the, from the bus station to care where wherever she was want to stay you know, we chat for like two hours and I could send her in and I can see here that she was, her mind was kind of sliding, if you may. I could see her she was, she was, she wasn't really here.
Yeah, if you can, If you can catch it before the slide starts, you can say, I just want to check with you. Are you still taking your meds.
She is at least but. Yeah,
but in that case if it's sliding maybe she isn't.
Okay.
And in that in that situation, you have to you have to hold your seat, the best thing you can do is stay calm and not feed it. But, you know, I've been with people in that situation, and I, I had one person, try to give them a flower essence, oil, you know, essential oils, and, and I said look, You're, you're taking a peashooter against a tank. It's just, you know, then, then you have to try to make her in a safe situation as she can be and you in a safe situation as you can be.
Yeah.
and ultimately you may have to, you know, excuse yourself, which is painful and hard to do.
Right, yeah. Yeah, well. Oh, that's
when you're there. Keep breathing. Create the tuning fork of calmness. But again, if she's really going and the brain chemistry is kicking in. Again, that's, you know, like, trying, trying to cover up the fire with a, with a little piece of cloth. Yeah,
I follow up perfectly, what you're saying. Just,
I hope that
I'm very grateful. Thank you, thank you.
Um, good luck, not easy.
I know, I know I know I'll see I'll try. I don't want to, like, I spoke with her because we had an issue, and she actually she, she, she, she stopped everything they finish everything you know and I say, okay, that's fine, you know, but then she called me today and say, no, no, you know, I don't wanna I don't want to try everything out, let's talk.
Yeah you have to have clear boundaries.
And I'm grateful that I am, you know,
yeah clear boundaries, yeah.
Okay, thanks to me. Yes, give me more time. Thank
you. My pleasure, Evelyn. I'm going to unmute you, if you want. I see your hand is up. Hi. I can't see you. Oh,
I see your name. Can you do video if not, go ahead and ask. It's fine. Don't worry about it. I hear you.
Well, you hear me.
I can hear you.
Okay, all right. Okay, that's a reason I felt this this computer needed a microphone.
Right. You're good, you're good. Ah, there you are,
yeah let me know if you really need to go and I can ask you,
I'm fine. I got a couple of minutes,
okay great. Um, so, I think you've touched on how when we start the motion of the practice, it needs to be grounded in the palm of your hands. Is that right,
well you you use them, it's not so much the Brahma Vihara is as the they represent your intention. And that is the strong wish to free beings from suffering. That's the main one, you see for tonglen it's more of the suffering than the happiness. It's more of the, it includes that it includes loving kindness, You know that that's the foot happiness is, is the maitri, and compassion is karuna, but but loving kindness is the wish for happiness for beings. Compassion is the wish to freedom from suffering. But the you know, it's a package it's a nice package. Yeah. So it's really setting that strong intention, that's the strong motivation. So it doesn't matter if you actually do the Brahma viharas. It only, it's only the first two that are made, the main thing here
to remote questions. So, do you recommend eyes open or closed during
I rip, I recommend doing what really lets you immerse yourself in the practice the best. C is analytical meditation we have a concept and we have a visualization. And some people find it easier, and some people do both, when they're doing it for themselves they close their eyes. Then when you're doing for others, they open them and imagine everybody around them. And some people both closed and some people are both open, so you try. Try it one way, try it another way, say, Yeah, this is going good and some days you may, you may say, You know what I just need to close my eyes on this one. No, no hard and fast.
I can question, when we switch from ourselves to the second person, someone who we might know you're suffering. Is it the same as metta practice. Yes, I know when the student says not to practice metal practices for someone who might have an attraction towards sexual attraction towards.
That's interesting. That's a, that is the meta is, is a Pali word. My tree is the Sanskrit. For that, and both of them mean loving kindness. And I think the admonition is because this is, it's love but it's selfless love. It's the wish for others to be happy, not the desire for the other person. And if you have the, if you, if you have that kind of attraction and desire. I don't know and you have to work with your tradition. And what the precepts are for that. We never talked about that particularly with my, my teacher when I learned it, but I, you know, it seems to me that if you have any sense of using that as a way to get closer to them for selfish purposes. That's not probably not such a good idea.
Yeah, I guess it's just because I was in a trip recently, and the instructor leading the retreat mentioned that, and then I was just reminded of this situation and wondering if there's a parallel.
I know that you, it was a matter of retreat they were probably in the more traditional, one in which desire is considered a hindrance.
My final question. It's not super really
final ever or just
final for today I need to let you go so that you know I don't hold you here forever, for Andy.
I'm okay. I love being able to help.
I work in healthcare. And I find that in certain. I'm a geriatric caregiver. And I find that in
need your help.
I'd be honored, super honored. I find that in certain cases, when patient, I know I'm supposed to use client but I just find clients. Yeah. Especially when there's been a really close connection made, or, you know, I've taken care of the person for a long time. I do things that are like, it's so hard to remember my training. So, example. Yeah, in the moments where you know someone's really suffering or in great pain. I have been trained to, you know Let them struggle, and, and, I mean, depending on the situation like I might have to go call the nurse or the doctor. But then, especially during the act of diagnosis. A lot of my training has been, you know, allow the person to struggle, you know honor their dying process. And, you know, unless we've talked beforehand about the vigil and how it is that they want to die. Like, don't, don't reach out and hold the person's hand or don't reach out and put that person. That's weak. I find that, just so I find it, not hard to do, but hard to remain totally economists,
right, and that's, and that's when you use the tongue learn practice. Right, so you breathe in, instead of feeling. You see, one of the things that it may be, is that you need them to not be suffering because it makes you so uncomfortable.
Yeah.
Did I catch you a little bit. Okay, so, so, so I Oh, this makes me so uncomfortable I wish they weren't suffering. But that's for you. He said, But if you say you know what they need to go through this to let them go. And I will try to gather their suffering for them not for me to read freed them from suffering for them by breathing it in transforming and radiating out the cool moonlight and your equanimity, your need for them to stop only adds to their suffering. Because then they say I'm suffering, and I'm causing you see there's part of them, that may pick up. I'm suffering, and I'm causing poor Evelyn to suffer. Yes to watch me do this. Right. Yeah. so you don't want them to feel that you want to say, I'm okay. You go ahead and go through your process. Now, if you want to take the Buddhist perspective of lives and continuity and karma. You can say, this is the best thing that could be happening to them because they're using up. They're, they're burning up the bad karma that whatever they've had over lifetimes. Through this struggling, it's purifying their negative karma, so that when they leave, they will have less obstacle in the Bardo.
That's, that's super helpful. Okay,
thank you. It's so it's a particular religious or not religious, but, you know, Buddhist, and Buddhism isn't a religion in the same way but it's a particular book perspective of continuity of consciousness from lifetime to lifetime and karma. But if you believe that, and I don't have any reason to doubt it. Better safe than sorry. And then say, oh good, they're using up their negative karma, I will maintain my equanimity and radiate equanimity to them as much as possible, so they're not worried about me, and they can process their own stuff and purify it in whatever way they are purifying it, so their journey will be with less obstacle.
Thank you so much. This is, yeah, it's, I, I've been aware of my, my own attachment to certain patients and and how I breeds and some of them probably pick up on that. And just this piece that you just said is really super super helpful
to be aware of your own discomfort with what you're what witnessing.
Yeah.
And how do you want them to get over it so that you don't feel so bad. That's not your job. Yeah. So what you do is when you realize that yo boy, I'm uncomfortable with him suffering, breathe that uncomfortable with them suffering in, and breathe equanimity out to yourself. I can handle all. I don't need things to be a particular way for me, you breathe in, I need things to be this way for me read that to yourself I don't need things to be any particular way for me so you do that for yourself. And then you say, I wish things to be the best for you however they're better for you to turn out. If it's better for you to go through this to purify your karma. That's what I wish for you. It's better for you to be free from the suffering, that's what I wish for you. Whatever is better for you in the long run. That's what I wish for you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, I'm going to say goodbye, everybody. Thank you.
