Myra and I have been talking for a while about co teaching program on Meditation, and so we're going to we're going to use today, since I have limited amount of energy as our as a experiment to see how it goes, how we dance together. We've danced together before, so we know we dance together well, but we'll see how it goes on Zoom. What we've been talking about is meditation practice and and having the the right view at the beginning, and then the methods as the path in the middle, and then understanding what we're looking toward as far as fruition goes. Now, there's a in general when we talk about the spiritual path, pretty much everybody, when we start says, has an idea of what this, the fruition is going to be, which is rainbows and unicorns and flowers and ooh, everything's nice, happy and peaceful, my rates echoing a little bit. If you could put yours on mute for now, so, you know, like, oh, and I'll be done with all this stuff that's, you know, in fact, the Yeah, it's, it's kind of impossible not to have that some kind of idea of things certainly going to be different. And of course, our expectation is that that it's all going to it's going to just only feel good. Now, as far as the teachings go, the notion of feel good changes over time, and the the the real question that comes in is, feel good, for whom? Because when we say feel good, what's the friend pour moi, then it's my version of what feels good, and it's picking and choosing and saying, I just want to experience this, and I don't want to experience that. So when we talk about the vision for the fruition, which we have glimpses of as we go along. We get the idea that, wait a minute, if I'm still there feeling good, that's a limited notion of feeling good. It's a feeling good that's beyond my conditions for feeling good. What qualifies for feeling good? And so if we, if we drop our expectations for what it's going to be like, that's a really good start. We could have some vision, however, that whether the good feeling or enlightenment, or whatever we want to call it, of the fruition of our practice. If we can just say whatever it is, it's going to be more vivid, more awake. That's realistic. The whole Buddhist path is about awake. In fact, that's what the the word Buddha means one who is awake. We sleep walk through the. So the our life and and this is the, you know, we do. This is the nightclub. So we talk about dream a lot, and as if we're in a dream, because we're super imposing our version of how we think things ought to be, or we would like things to be, or we pick and choose, and that super imposition that that covers up contact with how things actually are. And there are a lot of you know, examples of moments that we've, you know, experienced, where we encounter something that we go that really stops our minds,
where everything is very, very vivid. And we're there, but not so much there.
So we become part of the unified field of experience, rather than separate it out to I'm over here, and experience is over there. And when there's no separation, well then you're actually touching it like a live wire.
So I remember, when I was entering the Buddhist path, my teacher, he would he is from Trungpa, Rinpoche was from Tibet, but he learned English with a bit of a British accent, and so he liked to roll his R's. So he said, You know, before you get into this, think twice. In fact, think I can still hear it. Think thrice. He had a kind of high pitched voice. Think thrice. Because it definitely won't be what you expect. And it may be, it probably won't be what you're looking for. Now, ideally, we talk about it as being way more than what you're looking for,
but
you're going to get more than more than what you're asking for too. So that's something that Myra and I were talking about earlier. So what? What's the view, the basic and the basic ground is experience without an experiencer. The and and the radiance of of what we're experiencing is radiating without a radiator. It's not coming from anywhere, and it's not landing anywhere. So the ground is actually groundlessness in the path is working to uncover and undo our habitual patterns that keep covering things up and and distancing ourself from that ground because ultimately we, you know, we think confusion is the default state and looking for enlightenment. But what we think, what what's understood as enlightenment, is our natural state of being, without anything added on.
You know, I one of my my vocation is teaching psychology for athletes, actually any kind of performance, business people, athletes, but primarily golfers, and what they tend to do is overthink things. And what I tell them is, you know, something's not working, so you add more on and you try another technique, and then you add more on to that. You. And that doesn't work, so you try another technique, and you add more on to that. And I said, what you're doing is you're playing moron golf, because you keep adding more on. So let's look at our lives that way. Are Do we have the right end of the stick of undoing the habitual patterns that cover things up, and accessing that natural wakefulness that's already there. And of course, that means that, since it's already there, the fruition is also the ground. So there's your seven minute survey of the path. So how do we begin? Well, if we understand that view, we can experience that view by working with our thoughts and emotions in our sitting meditation practice. So the first thing to do is do is to be able to do the practice so that we can ascertain, so we can determine for ourselves whether these thoughts and emotions actually have solidity to them, whether and then and then, what that points to is this version of ourselves, the way we see ourselves. Is there any solidity to that? Any substance? What my room are talking about is, is it rooted in anything? And that's a very traditional exploration that's given to students. Look Look at your thoughts, look at your emotions, look at your perceptions, and see where are they happening. What are they made of? How big, how small? What color all these questions to see. Do they have a substantial, permanent existence of any kind? And then we look at that, our version of ourselves, that as that, in that way, as well. Okay, well, I didn't expect to talk this much, so surprise, but that's really what we're trying to do in our practice. And so the sequence of practices that we've been doing is first to slow down the speediness, because you know how, if you have a stick of incense, this is a traditional metaphor, you have a stick of incense with that little glow on the end, and you wave it fast in the circle, it looks like a solid ring. Is that? Is that ring really there? No it's just that the instance, the the the Ember was moving so fast and it let and our visual perception made a tracing. And so when we slow it down, the ring disappears. So our start is to slow it down and move our energy down, because, as I've talked about before, nobody ever gets worked down. They only get worked up. Nobody's ever down tight. We're only up tight, and nobody has ever calmed up. So we start by working moving our energy out of our head. So so called. It feels like it's in our head. We don't know where it is, but our thoughts and emotions feel like they're flying around up here, and our emotions in our body as well, but we're going to move everything down into our body, settle center
and calm down.
Then we can start taking a look at what is arising in our mind within that calmer space. So let's begin, and you can start with your eyes closed. As the gong fades, let's connect with our posture. Now we're doing the sitting up. We've talked about that before.
So you want to have your sit bones pressing into whatever cushion or seat you're on equally, so you're not tilted left or right, forward or back if you can do the. Without leaning back against anything. That's good if you have to lean back, just try to be as upright as you can. And now for your legs. If you're on a cushion on the floor, you're already cross legged, probably. But if you're on a chair, you can cross your feet at your ankles in front of you, not extend too far out or pull too far in, and just let your knees widen out,
put your torso upright and your arms not reaching forward or pulling back so you're it's like your upper arms hang straight down from your shoulders, and your forearms go along your thighs, with your hands palm down on your thighs, you'll probably end up just a little bit behind your knees and
now
as far neck and head feel like your neck and the back of your head is an extension of your spine, straight up, so that you're you're not tilted back with your chin up in the air, or tilted forward with your chin down, or your chin extended out in front of you, so that you're craned out there straight line from your tailbone all the way to the back of the top of your head. And if the back of your head is vertical, straight up and down. Your chin will be tucked in a little bit naturally, without you having to try
for your torso. We're already we have it upright. You can do this little, little thing the center of your breast bone feel like it goes up and forward just the tiniest bit, just a half inch. You'll feel it opens your chest, across your shoulders, come back in line with your ears. Everything's much more aligned that way.
When it said, when you in the tradition, when you take this posture with all these various points set in that way, just taking the posture your the flow of your energy, means that you're already halfway to accomplishing tranquility.
Just taking that posture.
Let your jaw be relaxed, but not slack. Open your lips slightly touching or I mean, lightly touching or slightly parted. I do ideally breathe in through your nostrils, mainly in and out through your nostrils, but if some comes out through your mouth, that's okay. And there are some breathing practices that you do, breathe out through your mouth, we're going to let it be kind of whatever is comfortable. As far as the exhalation goes, your tongue can just rest naturally, or again, if you're comfortable, one of the traditional postures is to let it drift up and let the tip of your tongue rest very lightly against the upper palate, just behind your teeth.
So just check on your whole body, fully inhabit your body. Feel how your feet are on the floor,
how your hands and forearms are on your thighs. Sit bones pressing into your seat. Chest slightly uplifted and open.
Back of the head vertical and.
Now the in breath is energizing, the out breath more relaxing.
So with each out breath. Just feel like any unnecessary tension is melting and flowing down and out of you. Breathe out and let the tension from your face and jaw and neck flow down and out of you.
Breathe. Out and let the tension from your shoulders and arms and chest flow down and out of
you. Breathe out and let the tension from your lower back and deep belly and pelvic region melt and flow down and out of you.
Breathe out, thighs, forearms, hands and knees. Breathe out. Let everything flow down and out of you, through your legs and feet.
Let your awareness just come to rest after that, deep in the core of your torso and
I feel how it expands front and back and side to side as you Breathe in, contracts as you breathe out.
Just let your mind rest there, relaxing with that rhythm like a quiet day at the shore, the waves coming up the beach and back down, breaths coming in and expanding out and contracting do that for A couple of Minutes.
You As the gong fades, Simply open your eyes and
Notice what you're feeling. Notice what you're seeing,
hearing, smelling, tasting and thinking
and simply resting in that openness
is the basic practice and
now I want to turn things over to myRA, and we got a late start, so we'll probably go right to the top of the hour. And if people can stay longer than they can have a we can have some discussion at that point.
So slowly, with this little change between the voices that you're listening to, just come back to feel your seat again, the grounding of the body, and allow the body to if you want to close your eyes, you close your eyes. If you feel very comfortable with the eyes open, remain there and
and notice that we will being guided. We slowly enter this space of sensations, of awareness, of movement or taste or feeling. And what we're doing is refining kind of feeling more
so when we're doing this for a while, we may be in contact with more wants or thoughts of one thing or desiring, or maybe we remember something that did not make us feel good and we feel aversion to i
or maybe we get agitated or just tired,
or maybe we even doubt, what are we doing here? Because I have so much to do, or maybe it's not what I wanted to do tonight, or maybe doubting the whole process of meditation. So being aware of those fluctuations and little movements of the mind is almost like when we are. Dream, and do not remember that we're dreaming. We don't remember all our dreams, so all the experience of the day. So in meditation, we come in contact with those little fluctuations that maybe sometimes there are little obstacles in this process. So So each one of us have will have different little movements of the mind, different clouds that come through. So let's take a couple of inhales and exhales, and let's go again in to that space where we were before, and just notice what comes up, knowing that they will come and they pass, and it's the awareness of those movements, that brain depression that Joe was talking about. So let's inhale to the no very slowly snows to the nose. Inhale
hold at the top
and exhale so slowly, almost like you're hearing the sound of the gong again
two more times, inhale,
a soft, pause
and exhale slowly.
One more in this time where we exhale, just notice the body relaxing even further, grounding, feeling supported
and letting go and
with your eyes closed or open, just notice what comes up Are any of those little movements. So little movements of the mind become more present In this Silence and
every time that you notice one of those fluctuations of the mind As an awakened moment and
You feel like you have to shift your body a little bit because there may be pain or maybe you were Getting a little drowsy. Just Notice that
I Just you
those little fluctuations or little obstacles that may go by they are not their. Problem is how we relate to them. Are we judging
the we Lose the object completely and
and slowly, without any movement of the body, begin to just let The thoughts flow it away, coming back to the body, maybe you notice your breath in your body, almost like you're resetting, realignment and
and coming back to the sensations around the room where you're At
maybe with a sense of gratefulness and joy to have this opportunity.
We bring into mind a way that you can share this gift,
imagining how everybody, everywhere, It can benefit
from our practice.
As we take an inhale to the nose and let it go slowly
and slowly begin to bring movement to the body. Is opening the eyes very
slowly,
and if you can move as slow as you can, don't move too fast. You
and notice the sensations in the body. The meditation has a very good lasting effect.
I thank you for the opportunity to share and help Joe this tonight because COVID Or think he did a great job. I love the subject today. Of course,
it's dear to my heart.
Thank you. Let's, let's dedicate the benefit of our practice to others, and you can repeat after me or put in your own words. May the practice we have just done be of benefit to others as well as ourselves. And if you're feeling or want to cultivate generosity, you can generate the wish that the practice we've just done be of even more benefit to others than to ourselves.
So if you have any questions or comments we have a few minutes. Thank you, Myra,
I guess a joy, if you allow me. The little idea that we were discussing is that sometimes it's like when we have set today. I don't think it's it's nothing new for some of us that have been meeting here
for so often, but sometimes I was telling you, let's click. Sometimes we forget go to Basic and noticing that, noticing those basic emotions or thoughts or obstacles to the process of meditation, I actually doors that those little ops, because we need the obstacle to grow. I mean, we need also each other, but noticing the obstacle is like recognizing and being lucid in a dream. It's being awakened in life, sometimes we don't have to label it the same way. Maybe Joe and I studied different things with different names, but it's just to notice That little cloud that comes In
that's sweet. Thank you.
Something Myra and I were discussing also with some of the other people involved in nightclub and something I was wondering, and you can put your answer in the chat or chime in directly, if you if you'd Like, the balance between the instructor giving guidance verbally and the space to do the practice yourself. Do you feel like it's good to have some extra space to work on it yourself? Do you feel like it helps to come in on a the instructor to come in every minute or or to to give additional guidance, wondering what people's experiences, I really
think it's important for you to space it out and give us time for ourselves. My experience with another person was that he talks most of the eight and 80% of the time, and it doesn't give us the space to do it ourselves. So I have a strong reaction to what you just. Asked, and I totally agree. Thank you. And I hope you feel better. I had the flu, and it did the same. Did horrible things, and takes a while. You have to be really patient to get better and take care of yourself. So I wish you the best. Thank you.
Sometimes the only purpose when we talk, or when I when I do it, and I do not know when I'm going to do it. I do not plan, okay, I'm going to be 10 minutes quiet, and then five minutes of it is for the ability to kind of because the mind is going to distract and the mind is going to go so it's almost like bringing it to the sun, to the moment. And he has different purposes. I know some great teachers, like Robert Thurman. When I went to there, he never stopped talking, and I love to hear him, but I could not meditate. So in our favorite t shirt too. So it is a balance, but just feel always free to give us feedback, because we're facilitating the practice, but it's our we're all each other t shirt, so just let us know.
What am I bringing a little bit more of more formal teachings? Because we do it in a very secular way here, which it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to have that title. But what? What did you guys feel like I
thank you. Pat, yeah,
yeah. Just to clarify, I didn't mean less guidance at the beginning of the each section of practice. I think that it's important to be clear and thorough about that, but then after that, the space to do it and not keep commenting, yeah, is what I was asking
about. I don't know if it's too non secular, secular, but
if anyone would be interested in having you teach us Tonglen, and we could add that in, I love to do Tonglen in a group.
Thank you, Joey. When I do a whole session, almost always at the end I include a section of Tonglen and what what Joe is referring to when we took Tong Tonglen, that's a combination of two Tibetan words that mean taking and sending. And so we we put ourselves in the attitude of
it's based on some egolessness that we're not so concerned about ourselves. And in fact, we say, you know, if there's something different, you know, if something difficult, I'd rather I have it. So we take in the suffering and then send out the goodness or wellness or well being. I if there's not that sense of not, not so solid sense of me and what I'm getting out of this or losing from this, if there, if we still have, if we still have that, some people get a little hung up and say, Well, I can't take all this stuff in. It's overwhelming me, and I don't want to give out all my happiness. What's going to what am I going to have left? So that that's it can't be based on that. So because people have different levels of practice. When you introduce it, I usually start with just cultivate the wish. I wish that whatever suffering is going on in the world. I wish that, if I read, I breathe in I can imagine I could relieve people of that suffering. Could draw it out of them like poison from a snake bite, and that as I breathe out, if I could share with them any good feelings and in send to them all the well being that they could possibly have just. Having that wish and cultivating that is how I often started. So there are different levels of doing the practice, and I think that that's important, but it's we and you know, maybe in a future session, I'll spend a little more time on that. Thank you. Joey, I
was wondering whether maybe we can have one session that is Tonglen. I mean, there is so much to do, and we can just maybe concentrate your feedback is absolutely wonderful. That's what we're looking for, because there's so much on Tonglen. We simplify not we don't simplify it, because the essence is there and but Tonglen actually is one of the highest practices. Tonglen was not talked back, taught back in the day, and told you were up in two years and years of study, because it takes so much for us to be a little left centered, that Tonglen was one of the highest practices, and now they are so easily accessible that people just sometimes do not understand
the depth
of the practice. I mean only doing Tonglen and do it from the heart and finding that compassion in ourselves is we would be in the other side.
So. And
the good thing about Tonglen that I, in fact, I heard something limpa, because I'm doing one of those wisdom with him, that you don't force the compassion. If you get the Tonglen and you get to feel it, once you get to that space, the competition Bodhichitta comes in, you don't, you're don't, you're not seeking it out, your heart opens and you're in. And so it's a wonderful practice. So thank you so much. And Joe is the one that consistently brings it in all his classes. Yeah, I'm not reading all that because my vision thing, but I was asking Stacy if she's still there to save the comments for us. Have you been looking at them? Joe,
yes, and thank you for your comments about the pacing and timing. I was talking with someone who was saying that different people function with different pacing, and that some people are more fast paced and need just a little bit of instruction, and then go, and then a little more and then go, as opposed to a longer period of instruction. So trying to balance that out that way,
any other suggestions or things that you guys would like us to bring
forward, if
it's within our understanding.
Kitty, I do agree with Tim, the group meditation is always a wonderful addition. They're just, it's new, not we're little boxes, but, you know the sense that we are doing it together? I like that. I mean, I meditate two or three times a day, but it's not quite the same. I really appreciate this. I agree. Yeah, that's
good. I that's the idea of sangha.
Good. Thank you, kitty. I
Any, any questions about the, just the basic way of getting started, of going through or comments or suggestions, going through the posture, and then going through the kind of kind of body scan, softening, centering, because I spend a good amount of time on that, Karen. Karen likes that.
I think that's great, because it puts me because I get in my head and I love to start that way. That's great. Both of you have a good pacing and balance between talking in space. I arrange my life to. Come here when you're on that's a street.
I have to confess that I look for you, many of you, but there's the people that Yes. So I just want you to know that we do this because this is our calling, in a way, is what we love to do. But just remember that we get from each other. It's not from here there, for sure, you bring a lot of wisdom.
I bring a little bit of humor too. So
I love that. You know, we need hum. You know that cracks actually, that's the space. Be careful when we crack. There is that space.
Well, you can't get too sanctimonious, you know, that doesn't help.
Yeah, that's, you know, that's been, my main thing, has been the expression sense of humor. And when we talk about, you know, these waves of emotions, and people think, Oh, I'm gonna, when I can do the meditation, then I'll even everything out. But you know, as we've said, it's, it's not a sedative. What did you say one time? It's more of a laxative. Yeah, all the shit comes up, it comes out, but that the relationship that we can make with our thoughts and emotions is is a sense of humor, and here's an interesting practice for you to do you can take with you, and you can do that all day, every day, all through the day, whatever you're experiencing and reacting to just say, am I taking this personally? I and
then
the, of course, the other one is, how would I react if I was, if I was, if I had a sense of humor about it? But it's an interesting question to ask. Well, thank you all so much for your kind attention. I'm pretty close to add a guess. Okay, thank you. Thank you all so much.
