[32] Working with Awareness of Mental Perceptions- with Joe Parent
1:01AM Nov 9, +0000
Speakers:
Alyssa
Joe Parent
Keywords:
meditation
practice
awareness
mind
feel
andrew
posture
alyssa
kindness
radiate
gather
thoughts
little bit
breathe
people
open
white horse
filling
negative feelings
breath
So for those of you who don't know this is Dr. Joe parent. He has been a student and meditation instructor in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for over 40 years. He and Andrew have studied with many of the same teachers in both his three year retreat at Campo Abbey. They met in class on analytic meditation and debate the Joe hot in 1997. In June, Andrew actually taught together for the first time at the 2019 Sedona Dream Yoga Retreat. So he is going to be taking this Monday night session for us so I'm going to turn it over to him. And as always, if you need me, I'll be in the cap. Just let me know.
Thank you, Alyssa. I see Barry who won the debate. That's a you know, that's a good question. I don't think that Andrew and I debated against each other directly. And what we usually did in these debate classes, was there was a formula that you would work through to understand the system. One of the traditional ones was the question is a white horse white. And there be a whole debate about that. And the, you'd go through and say well, you know, is a white horse black? No. is a white horse green nose, White Horse orange, no. And then someone would say therefore a white horse is white. And I would say that does not follow. And the reason that does not follow is it you then say is a horse, a color? Say no a horse is an animal. Is White a color? Yes. Is White an animal? No. Therefore, the set of animals and the set of colors are their separate things. There is no overlap. So therefore a white horse isn't white. The color of a white horse because white, but a white horse is not a color. It's a horse. And that's how we would go through the debate very, is like putting your brain in a pen. In a electric pencil sharpener. And it sharpens it to a point. So where is Andrew is one of the questions. Alyssa, do you know where Andrew is?
I don't I was actually just looking to see if he had said anything in his emails but I'm not sure I want to email them earlier said he was out of the office so
or we could just use it like Where's Waldo and look at all the different pictures in your gallery. says his or any of these. Andrew? Where is Andrew? Like where's Waldo? Andrew asked me to do some of the sessions based on our work together. So I've been doing I think I'm doing now the second and fourth Monday of each month. Occasionally that changes and we have a guest instructor or I can't make it an Andrew covers. We were working as a team in that way. So that's where so whatever Andrew is doing now it's his night off. Hopefully it's something that makes him happy and is a benefit to others. So the other thing I wanted to do, I wasn't able to attend last week's program. If there are any questions or comments from that, or if anybody would care to summarize what was presented in the meditation last week. That would be very welcome. And also any questions you have about practice so that I can tune into them a little bit more as I do. The instruction as we go through the through the practice tonight. And I thought questions now might be good because usually when we do the practice, we're we're kind of so mellowed out or blissed out and our minds are so nice and quiet that questions don't come to mind. So if you have any, we can do that before we get started in our, our session. Or Would anybody like to volunteer and we'll unmute you and you can say a little bit about what you got out of last session.
Has How does it go in? In the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off anybody anybody?
No volunteers No, I did ask Alyssa but she's been moving in. And too many 1000s of things have gone through her mind to remember last week. Yeah, that's exactly right. Barry can you eliminate things for us? Where is he?
I saw him in the chat earlier.
Yeah. He may have left. Okay, well, if there's nothing Oh, here we go. Here. Leah, thank you for volunteering. Let's unmute.
Here we go. I think I'm available and my video is not on right now. I'm a little off on these things. Hold on. It's okay. Oh, well. Okay, so anyway. Yeah. There you are. Hi. I am its lair I'm so grateful for you to be here and of course with you know, every everything. It's very confusing about so well so many aspects are confusing for me or not confusing so much as pondering the practice of what consistency or staying with processes of meditation that take a long time to develop. I have to say I don't always get a chance to come to this show to these to these shows to these to these meetings. Right. So it's it's fun to be here but I II because of my schedule and my general nature. I'm not into sort of regular attendance. How bad is that? Or how just how distressing does that make you for example, if
I have no distress about that whatsoever? Absolutely. Absolutely not. I'm I'm in a deep state of not concerned.
Okay. Yeah, I try to make the best out of it. And I really appreciate hearing the discussion from so many levels that are actually is kind of above my engagement. So especially when people talk about lucid dreaming. I'm very, I'm very interested in that. But
that's not exactly what we're doing in this one. Yeah, I understand that. That's more than 31 but I want to share something with you about not worrying too much about where were you are. So one of the things is that my my teacher, one of my teachers Trungpa Rinpoche said, Well you know, if you if you think you're really far away from getting it, understand that brilliant wakeful awareness is there all the time, always accessible? So it's, it's closer to you than an eyelash on your on your eyeball. Okay, and then but if you think oh, I'm making great I think I've got this now. Then there's a need for a little more humility and and the word is it's it takes a lot of work. Now, the key to this is that this particular approach to practice is a combination of it's it's referred to as both the sudden path and the gradual path. gradual path is that we it takes time to develop and stabilize the realization that you experience. The sudden part is that it's right there and instantly accessible. So in the moments when there's a gap in our busyness it's it's already right there. full blown awake, but to stabilize that that's what takes time. And we do that over a period of time. So that's why that's why it's gradual. Now. This is something that I discovered about the evolution of understanding that it happens in cycles. So that, for example, the first time I read a book by my teacher, I'm going to go Oh, I get this. Oh, man, that's Oh, yeah, I get this. I got it. And I finished the book and I go, wow, I got I I feel like I understood what he was saying. But a year later, I read it again. I went, Oh, wow. I thought I understood that now. I really get it. And each time you get it as much as you can get it and but you come back to it, because there are always more inserts. I've been doing this for 50 years. It's shocking to say that I've been doing it for 50 years, and still, when I'm sitting something happens I went, Oh, now I get it. That's how you do it. That's how you look at it. So have a lot of patience with yourself and a lot of kindness to yourself about how many sessions you can attend, about how long you can practice about how much you can practice. On the other hand, don't be too kind to yourself as far as Oh, you know, I don't really feel like practicing Moodle, watch some TV instead. It does take a little bit of effort. But once you get started, you know, I still remember an old comic from the 1960s where a character sees this huge pile of dishes and pots and pans and goes oh and it's just miserable and starts in each frame. They cheer up a little bit and at the end they're delighted and there's all this sparkling, spick and span dishes and pots and pans and they go oh yeah, job well done. And when I when I do writing, one of the recommendations that I've seen also from people who teach writing is just write out a sentence, even if it's a nonsense sentence, because you get started. And that's the thing about sitting practice. Getting to the cushion is like 90% of it.
Right, I agree.
You get to the cushion, and then it's not so problematic. The problem is getting to the cushion. So anyway, just thank you, Leah. That was very helpful. And I think that gives us the momentum to get started. So thank you very much. Okay, so shall we get started? Take your good posture. Upright but not rigid. You want to feel like you're not, shoulders aren't pulled back or slumping forward. You can just let your arms hang straight to your sides. Leave the elbows where they are and swivel your hands up. palm down on each side just behind your knees or wherever they end up. Or you can let them cross palm up in your lap, just to lightly lightly, suns lightly touching. Sometimes I have to stand up to show you this. Let's see. There it is like that in your lap
if you're if you let the back of your head feel like that extends upward slightly. Like someone was pulling you up by the Cadillac and that naturally pulls your chin in a little bit. Because you don't want to be floating up where you kind of space out. You don't want your head tilted forward he gets sleepy so that's head and shoulders, arms. Feel your sit bones under you and you can feel if you're tilted slightly one way or the other. You'll feel more weight on one side or the other. Just move back and forth a little bit like that till you find the center feature can be flat on the floor about hip width apart. Or if your legs are long, maintained minor or really long so that puts a strain on the back. So instead you can if you're in a chair, you can gently gently cross them in front of you and that's how you would do it. If you're on a cushion in any case. Most of the time we'll be breathing through our nose. It's okay as you breathe out if a little bit of air comes out your mouth and so you want your lips to be either just very lightly touching or very very slightly parted. And to begin our eyes we're going to change our gaze as we go through but to begin with, just let your eyes gently close and inhabit your body feel your body. Wiggle your toes move your feet, calves knees legs, just feel your legs. Feel your hips and pelvis area. Feel your torso, your lower body your back your chest. Shoulders, feel your arms. stretch them out, bring them back. Just move around and then return to that good posture. Feel your neck and your head and how it's balanced on your neck. Now having fully inhabited our body, feel your body breathing. Your body breathes itself you don't have to do it. It does it by itself
and here we are simply being being our awareness and our body we want to sweep away and in unnecessary tension. So start from the top of your head and do a body scan going down aware of your scalp, your face, your jaw. Sometimes there's tension around your eyes. Just let them relax tension in your jaw. Just let it soften. Just being aware of it. Let your awareness melt that tension like the morning sun. If there's some snowflakes on a leaf just touching it. Sun melts it down your neck, your shoulders off when we have tension in your neck and shoulders. Just feel it. Let it drop out. Your upper arms, chest and upper back ribcage all around. Lower back and deep belly forearms and hands hips and pelvis size knees calves, ankles and feet
often we think our minds are behind our forehead but we want to let our awareness drift down deeper into our body that you're mindful back and down along the back of your throat behind your chest. Behind your solar plexus a true awareness drift down to the deep core of your torso a few inches below your navel just in front of your spine. It's quiet down there. I've been being at the bottom for clear pond. There's a little bit of movement as your breath goes in and out like gentle currents at the bottom of that pond
with each out breath just feel yourself sinking down. Really sinking into the Krishna chair that you're on. Breathe out and sink down even further down to the earth. Breathe out and merge with the earth. Feeling like you're so grounded, you're part of the earth but your upper body extends upward, majestically like amount. Be an observer of your breath, watching it coming and going. Like the Wind let your mind be open. In impartial sky have your mind open to all experiences like the sky that spans the earth body like a mountain. Breath like the wind mind like the sky rest in that
Mr gang shades that your eyes open gently about halfway looking out under your eyelids diagonally in front of you. You can turn sideways if you're looking right at your device or your computer
and your eyes are looking in a particular direction. But wherever they rest, don't focus so tightly on that spot. Just let them let your gaze soften and expand so that it says if you're not looking at an object but looking at the space that you're sitting in the space in front and around you.
Be aware of your breath coming in and out. Make the object of your attention. The internal feeling the sensation of filling as the breath comes in. Emptying as the breath goes out and keep in mind you're an observer rather than a controller of the breath. If a long breath comes in, a long breath comes in short, short, deep shallow doesn't matter. Just notice what it makes you feel like internally filling an empty
this is a way of developing mindfulness keeping your mind close to you. Wherever your posture, the feeling of filling in empty. And if your mind wanders off into a daydream when you realize it just make a little mental note wandering or someplace else. And bring your awareness back to your posture and the sensation of the breath filling and emptying as it goes in and out. We'll do that for a few Minutes.
You can sharpen your awareness for tuning in a little more to the details of the sensation of filling and emptying. There's a sensation of starting to fill the feeling of filling the sensation of the moment when you're completely full. Then starting to empty, emptying and empty. You can even be aware of the tiny gap of transition when you're no longer filling. And you just before you start empty when you're no longer empty and just before you start filling. Notice as much as you can have that without controlling it without manipulating your breathing. Just be an observer. And again, if your mind wanders, have a sense of humor about that just smile. Think I was someplace else for a moment or longer. And back to the posture and pick up wherever you are with the breathing, filling. Empty we'll do that for a couple more minutes.
Is the going shades just let go of any intentionality in the practice. Relax. Move around
we take a little little break in that way and take a fresh start and expanding into the open awareness or environmental mindfulness practice. So now for this take your good posture again. And raise your gaze. Look out straight ahead. Soften your gaze and open up your peripheral vision to the sides. It helps to soften your face muscles too. Because to open up as big a view as you can side to side, top to bottom. Notice colors, shapes and shades of light all around your field of vision without moving your eyes or moving your awareness colors shapes and shades of light and dark
listen for sounds. Here's the gong again
does it sound near or far? Listen for sounds in all directions. As far away as you can hear. Listen for sounds immediately around you. High and low pitch loud and soft.
Leaving your eyes open tune into bodily sensations. your sit bones pressing into your seat. The air on the skin of your hands and face
what muscles you're using to hold your posture cool dry air coming in your nostrils. warm moist air going up
your torso moving as the breath fills and empties. You might even feel your pulse your fingertips wrists or neck or in your chest. Your heart beating be open to any smells in the room. Anything you might taste you ate or drank drank recently. Mainly we tune in to hearing seeing feeling
and holding your posture opening your gaze, opening your ears opening your feeling. Let your awareness move as it will from sense perception to sense perception. Wherever it rests, explore that for a few moments. If another sense interests your mind. Brush there and explore that for a few moments. We'll do that whole thing for a few minutes. Again, if you lose track of your sense perceptions, being often thoughts in a daydream just make a mental note that was thinking this is sensing
Now make a shift from sense perceptions to mental perception. Watch for the next thought that arises make your thoughts the object of your awareness. Purchase thoughts arising your mind stay for a little bit and then disappear your mind is the container thoughts arise within the that as contents of within the container be the container and notice thoughts as they appear and disappear
mentioned this before. My teacher used to say that when the gang sounds as an individual as their best meditation because they just give up trying so hard and you're just being
we go further with that practice of looking at thoughts traditionally once we've settled our minds through the grounding practice and the close placement practice and done such environmental awareness being with our sense perceptions. We then can do a little bit of analytical meditation. And this is the insight part of tranquility and insight. First you have to have tranquility it's like trying to see through the rapids in a stream you can't because it's all churn turned up. But once it gets to the lake and stops moving, then you can see to the bottom so for example, having looked at those thoughts watch as your thoughts arise and ask Are they arising in my body or outside my body? Look and see what you can try it.
If you experienced, experienced memorizing outside your body where above you below you in front and back to one side or another
are they appearing out of thin air? Do they stay in one place? Look
if you think your thoughts arise from within your body where your head your torso different places one place look look for that place.
If you think you found a place does it stay the same? Or does it change look?
And finally, look. Are your thoughts the same as your mind? Are they different than your mind?
What's the relationship of your thoughts and your mind? Look?
So that's the investigation practice that's done kind of analytical meditation that leads one to insight about the nature of mind. And traditionally, a teacher would ask you to do that and then say what did you find? When you look what did you see? You would reply and then the teacher might send you to look at for other things to explore other things, investigate other things. And in that way refine your insight and we can have some discussion about that in a few minutes. But I want to end the session with a little bit of compassion practice because you know, it's kind of what the world needs now, you know, as the song goes, what the world needs. Now, the times are so challenging. So let's just imagine in our heart center, an orb of light. It can be like a crystal made of light or just a sphere of light. That it represents your true nature of wisdom and compassion that has transformative properties to turn anything negative into the opposite positive energy to begin with, let's express kindness to ourselves. And you can do this with your eyes open or closed. It's up to you to be aware of any negative feelings you have physical discomfort, emotional anguish, mental suffering, depression, shame, guilt, fear, anxiety, any of those emotions that you They could also be anger frustration, any any negative feelings. Physical, emotional mental, that you have. Recognize them and then as you breathe in, feel like you're gathering them from all parts of your being into that light in your heart. Your heart center instantly transforms and radiate out from there. The cool moonlight of kindness extinguishing the fires of negativity in your being gather the negative energy in radiate out cool relief
gathering gather in struggle create out freedom and ease with yourself.
Gathering negative feelings towards yourself really positive acceptance, kindness and compassion to yourself
and now expand your awareness to others. Those closest to you people you know and even beyond that as many beings as you can include first gathering your negative feelings towards any of them. Transform that in your heart center the light in your heart center transforms and radiate out kindness and understanding gather in your negative feelings about others. Really, kindness and understanding. It doesn't mean you agree with them. It doesn't mean you approve of what they do but their actions come from confusion and their own negativity. Gather that from them and radiate out clarity and kindness gather in the struggle of others radiate out freedom and peace gather in their unhappiness radiate radiate out contentment and gathering their hatred and anger toward other people and other beings transform it and radiate out their feeling fill them with the feelings of kindness and compassion
take away their hatred. So the most love
take away their anger chosen was peace?
Let go of the visualization
just rest for a moment
and it's important to take what ever benefit may have come from your practice. session and share it with others. It becomes much more powerful than just doing it for yourself. Even even there can be a hint when you're doing compassion practice for others. It's to make the world a better place for you. So we want to take any of that and share whatever benefit would come for us with others. So you can repeat after me or say it in your own words. Made the practice I have just done. Be a benefit to others as well as myself. You can expand that generosity by even feeling wishing that the benefit goes even more to others. Than to yourself as much as you can. So thank you, and we can stay on for another few minutes if people have questions or comments on the practices. Oh here's one that came in. Thank you Tim. It seems that there are so many type styles or permutations of meditation. Do you have a favorite? Do you feel that any one form is better than the others? This was very peaceful. Oh, you're very welcome. Let's start one of my favorites actually is the awareness of the feelings of filling and emptying. But with attention to detail, starting to fill filling in full started empty at a certain point during that practice. It's so occupying of the mind of my attention that I kind of give up trying to think in between and there's just this open relaxation No, no for that's for me. Then beyond that, when we do the open awareness, the environmental awareness stopping trying to figure out where my mind should go and just hanging out in the space. That's really, really a great feeling. And, and the bigger version of that feeling that we talked about, of close placement of the details of the practice. So really the best is this resting in the true nature of mind. Now is anyone better than the others? Really? The reason that so many different kinds of meditation are taught there are two reasons One it stages on the path. So one one produces a positive experience, but often leaves a hangover so then the next practice deals with that hangover. But then it leaves a subtler and subtler and a little hangover and as you move along. Each one is subtler and subtler. Until there's a feeling of no hangover. Now, that feeling is what is the ultimate realization of the nature of mind. But then you stabilize that. And I remember my somebody asking my teacher Trungpa Rinpoche Do you remember the moment when you were enlightened, you became enlightened? And you said, Well, it's not so much there was a moment. But it's a transition that I used to have flashes of wakefulness, amidst the confusion. And now I have flashes of confusion amidst the wakefulness and I think he was being generous. Because there weren't very many of those flashes.
I remember at one point, he said, Oh my gosh, I just was thinking about something. I haven't done that for years. That was rather shocking. So the other aspect is that we all have different inclinations and experiences from this life or if you believe in the continuity of consciousness for many lives. So there there are better fits for each of us. But it's really important not to say, Oh, I picked this meditation because I like it and it's not so challenging. Then we're missing the point. We want to challenge our habitual patterns. And so finding one that really connects with you isn't just about finding one that you take pleasure in. Ariella said, Oh, thank you. That's very sweet. You love that my guidance is not Buddhist. Oh, whoops. It is. But it's not in. I don't I don't. Something that I've done all along in my practice is not try to use too many of the, you know, that kind of wording. I remember. Some someone was saying I was actually conducting a wedding. And there were a lot of non Buddhist people there. And in the text, it said, you know, we're taking the path of the Bodhisattva which means beings who put the welfare of others before themselves. And I said, Well, you know, there are people here who don't speak any don't haven't read those, those words or that language. Let's just cut to the chase. So I just dropped that. You know, I said, you know, these people or these two friends are entering the path of those who put others before themselves. Oh, so we don't have to use the jargon. We can speak directly with each other. So so it was Buddhist without being Buddhist. And yeah, thank you for your comment barrel about the steps to the practice. Bury. Just observing thoughts that you let go of is the opposite of trying to recall dreams. We're trying to grasp and keep thoughts in our mind. Hmm, that's interesting. Okay. So I'm trying to recall dreams. Now. I'm nowhere near I have nowhere near the expertise that Andrew does about this. But in my experience, the recalling dreams is not so much trying to grasp what they were. Because that's like, but they just slip through your hands. It's more putting yourself in a state of acceptance and receiving and being open to whatever recollection is still there. Not trying so hard. So from that point, of view, the it's not that you Yes, in this case, you're not letting the thoughts come and go. Just letting them go. You're trying to gather without grasping what you experienced. It is different in that this is more like an analytical method. The recall of dreams is more like a content practice. I wouldn't even necessarily call it a meditation. I would call it a a training your mind to be more aware of your dreams in the service of becoming aware of them while you're dreaming. So it's all it's all like a dream calisthenics, that you're working to get your mind in. shape, so that it's better at catching them while you're dreaming. That's my understanding. That'd be a great one to ask Andrew on on Thursday.
Is there a book that is a collection of these analytical meditations? One thing that I can think of is progressive stages of meditations on emptiness. I can post suits from God. So let me see if I can type that in here. If someone else can do that. I know there are some of you are very good at finding the books. It's progressive stages of meditation on emptiness, or meditation on emptiness by Khenpo, tsultrim, Gatso or Gampo. If someone can post that that would be great. There are also different texts one is called pointing out the Dharmakaya which is the oh thank you Alyssa good. Um, I don't have the book with me. I'm I'm away from home right now. But there's
I'm not sure we see ocean of definitive meaning, but I know shorter text is called pointing out the Dharmakaya and by the ninth Karmapa, and it goes through the investigations, it goes through the tranquility meditation, and then the Insight meditations going through these investigations. So you, I'll type it in
if someone can find that, that'd be great. Oh, yeah. Finding pointing Dharmakaya Yes. Trungpa Rinpoche That's exactly it. Good. Thank you. Good job on that. So go ahead and grab them. Any other questions hand raise questions, comments. You can either put them in the chat or raise your hands. We'll do just one minute of waiting meditation waiting for comments.
I think maybe that's my favorite part of the class. So thank you all so much. And stay safe, stay healthy. Have a good evening, or morning, wherever you are. Let's just say good morning because the sun of wakefulness is always rising. And Alyssa let's mute everybody and say goodbye
Ciao. Bye bye. Thank you everybody. Wonderful to be here with you. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Okay. I don't think Marina is there tonight. I think she might be in another