There we go. Hi everybody. How are you? Nice to see familiar and new faces. What we're going to do today, sometimes I have a topic that I talked about before the session but today what I'd like to do is just get right into it. And and what we'll do is go through the sequence of practices and leave a little extra time at the end for a discussion because some people have to leave right at the top of the hour. And so that way we'll have a little extra time for answering questions about the practice exploring the topics and things like that. I mean, my summer garb here, I'm in Ojai, California and it's in the 80s today so we go right from winter to summer, we don't bother with that spring stuff. And everything starts growing. So you'll see you can see in the chat, the link to Andrews event. I'd like the secret to happiness. And then you can come and join me again Thursday morning and there's the link to the page that has the Zoom link on it and the scheduled for April and May. So let's get let's get to it. And what we're going to do is a sequence of practices in the Maha Mudra tradition that I am part of an Andrew is part of we there's one recommendation of doing long periods of intensive practice, but there's also a recommendation to do short periods. of intensive practice and then take fresh starts. So what I'm going to do with today is go through a sequence of short practices, and you can do them on your own and it's best to do them in this order of sequence. You can spend more or less time on each one. For beginners, the earlier practices it's more important to spend the time of stabilizing and training the mind. If you've done that for a while you touch base with that and then go further into the awareness and compassion practices. Now the all the purchases that we're going to do the first few first couple are really tuning into and synchronizing our mind and body. Because the mind and the body will function best when we're synchronized when we're in the same place in the same time. And our body is always in the here and now that our mind can be a time machine and go into the past in the future. So what we want is we want to have the mind connected and and more in our body than thinking about our body. So I'll go through those practices then. The practice of close placement is called that because we keep our mind close to us. So that we're starting to become aware of the difference between being here and when the mind starts to wander and then is off and come back to what we were focusing on. It's like having a getting a new puppy and you wanted to learn its name and you wanted to learn to come when you call it so you don't just let it run around and hope that it comes back. You have it on a short leash. When it pulls away. You gently pull it back and that's the basic practice of mindfulness. The idea of coming back to what we're doing in the present moment. And then the awareness practices opening up to kind of environmental mindfulness, tuning into the sense perceptions, opening up and having essentially what we all hope for a very open mind that leads into beyond the the mindfulness without a particular fixed object. It leads to a contemplation practice, and that's our compassion practice. We're still working with our breathing as a way of connecting with the environment and with our world. But it's a contemplation in which we imagine others and extend compassion and kindness to them. Now, one of the reasons we work with breathing well, there are multiple reasons we work with breathing. One is it's something that our body does without us having to pay attention to it. We'd be in a lot of trouble if we forgot to pay attention to breathing and then we stopped. So our body takes care of us that way. And it breathes whether we're paying attention to it or not. The other interesting thing about breathing is we can actually control it to some extent. So that if I say, you know, breathe in and hold your breath for a few seconds you can do that. But like life, it's limited the control that we have over because if I say breathe in and hold it for 10 minutes, that's probably unlikely. And our breath Another aspect is our breath is a reflection of our state of mind. When we're uptight and people who've been on this program, have heard me talk about this. We're always uptight and calm down. We're never down tight and calm up. Though when we're uptight, our breathing is up here and very shallow. When we're relaxed, it happens naturally and deeply. So our breathing is a reflection of our state of mind. And finally, our breath is our connection with the environment. We're breathing in our world, what's outside the atmosphere around us? And it becomes part of us. When we breathe out, part of us were breathing out into the atmosphere. And you really can't find that place. That point in time or space, where as you're breathing in when does the outside air actually become your breath in your lungs? And part of that air actually goes into your bloodstream. And then when you breathe out, when does it stop being your breath and start just becoming part of the atmosphere? I mean, it depends if you had a lot of garlic and onions for lunch. It takes a little longer but at some point you're expands into the atmosphere and stopped being your breath and starts being just the atmosphere. So this conceptual separation between ourselves and the environment. It's revealed to be conceptual because we can't find when the atmosphere stop starts to become us. And when our breath starts to become the atmosphere. Okay, so that's why we're going to use our breath throughout these practices. Now, to begin with, we want to be in a position where we're comfortable, but also not get drowsy. And able to pay attention. So when you were in class, and the teacher wanted to pay you to pay attention, the teacher would say sit up and pay attention. So we do want to sit up. Traditionally, if one tries to do this practice lying down it's very easy to fall asleep. If one tries to develop this practice, while standing, there is the impetus to walk and we do have walking, mindfulness practice that we actually incorporate into longer sessions. But for our purposes, what we want to do is be in neutral. And that's the sitting position. We're not inclined to walk and we're not inclined to lay down and fall asleep. In sitting up, let's go through our posture. So we will also wanted to make the breath flow easily. And so we start with our sit bones. You can feel them they're the two, two bones right and left the press into whatever cushion you're sitting on, whether it's a chair or a cushion on the floor. If you're on the floor, cross your legs and make sure your cushion is high enough so that your knees are slightly below your hips. Same thing in a chair, if your legs are long, if you're if they're shorter if you can just place your your feet flat on the floor hip width apart
so that your lower legs are are perpendicular to the floor or vertical. But if your if your legs are long, then you can just gently cross them in front of you so that your knees are slightly below your hips. No. You want to be sitting up and feel like you start with your sit bones that they're pressing into the cushion. But have your feel like your back is very upright, not stiff, but upright. And that there and this isn't how it actually is our spine has some curvature to it. But imagine that there's a straight line from your tailbone to the back of the top of your head. I'm going to turn slightly sideways you can see that so from the tailbone to the back of the top of your head. What that does is create the feeling of a firm back. What we're what we're looking for, is for our spine to be like a tent pole and the rest of our body to be able to relax and just hang loose. It's an old expression hanging loose from that tent pole like Canvas before it stretched out into a tent. Lay your arms hang straight down from your sides. Leave the elbows where they are and just swivel your hands so that their palm up, palm down. I'm sorry, palm down on each thigh respectively. There'll be a little bit behind your knees depending on the length of your upper legs and your forearms, and hands. Now here's an interesting aspect to the practice. If you find the midpoint of your sternum, it's about four fingers with finger widths above the little notch at the top of your ribcage there at the front of your ribcage and that little point 10 If you find it, you can find a little tender spot there. Of your breastbone. Of your sternum. Now, if you imagine that is extending slightly up and slightly forward at the 45 degree angle, just like a half an inch. When that goes up and out. Your shoulders naturally go back a little bit and your chin naturally comes in a little bit. And that's the end you'll find your breathing is easier. It's an open front. Turn back. Don't strain don't do too much. It might only be an it might only be a 10th of an inch but it's just that feeling of slightly up and forward with your breastbone. Everything opens up. Your chin comes in naturally. The back of your head is like straight extension from your spine. Because the Virgin floats up like this we get spaced out. If it tilts down like this, it gets sleepy. Okay, so as you can see I'm not looking directly at my computer screen. And I want you to do the same thing when we open our eyes. We because we're going to be part of the practice the main practice with our eyes open. When we open our eyes, we don't want to be staring straight into the screen. It's not really good for your eyes. And we want to have some space in front of us. The breath is going out into space. So from that good posture, oh let's let's talk about our lips and our mouth. We want our jaw to be relaxed but our mouth not hanging slack open so soften it but leave your lips so they're just barely parted or just very lightly touching. We won't always be breathing in through our nose. The one we breathe out it can be mainly through our nose. If a little comes out through our mouth, it's not a problem. Some people are more comfortable just breathing in and out through their nose. And your tongue can just remain natural or if you're more comfortable, let it slip up and rest very lightly behind your front teeth on your upper palate.
Close your eyes now let's fully inhabit our bodies. Too often we're like, we're inhabiting our head and it's like our bodies, a vehicle that's carrying us around, but we're looking down at it from our head. So let's get in right from the ground floor. Wiggle your toes move your heart your feet move your ankles, to your toes, your instep. Your arches. Heel ankles. We use our feet so much but we pay not enough attention to how we're using our feet. calves and shins and knees. To your thighs, hamstrings quads. hands resting on your thighs but mainly feel your thighs. We're working with our lower body right now. Our upper legs go into and join our torso. And those hip joints or the sit bones are you can actually push your right so I forward in the left thigh back and vice versa and feel how those joints work. That's the connection of your legs to your torso. You know even at the your weight to your lower torso, deep belly, pelvic region lower back buttocks genitals, whole works of your lower torso
your stomach your back this distance between your navel and your spine. For three dimensional we act like we're two dimensional much of the time. We have a thickness we have a width and a height and also a thickness front to back and depth or ribcage is three dimensional all the way around. As you breathe in, you feel you can feel your whole torso expand. It's your diaphragm pushing down, expands your lower torso. Your lungs filling expanding your upper torso your shoulder blades chest, feel that just slightly raised slightly forward. Shoulders shoulder joints use them that's where your arms are connected to your torso. The way your legs were connected the hips, your for your upper arms, biceps, triceps, your forearms, wiggle your fingers fully inhabiting your limbs and your torso
you can actually move your torso slightly left and right until you find that midpoint that's neither left nor right. tilt slightly forward or back at the hips not higher but just add the hips until you feel like you're not tilted forward or back. That's what centered feels lump. Your neck feel centered on your shoulders that way, the back of your head extending upward.
Now we're fully embodied from toe to head. Let's scan and just soften any tension that you feel you don't need to hold your posture in the top of your head, scan down your forehead your scalp, eyes, cheekbones, and jaw. Sometimes we're holding more tension or jaw than we realize to the point where it's almost like our ears are even tense. Just let that whole jaw area soften without losing your lips just slightly touching or slightly quieter. neck and shoulders and the tension. Just let them hang your shoulders Hang on. You don't need to hold them up for you to stay upright. Spine extends up your shoulders hang down. For upper arms, chest, shoulder blades and upper back. Just let the tension melt and slow down out of the ribcage all around. Lower back stomach deep belly. Sometimes we have a clenching deep belly or genitals area that we're not even aware of. Just let it all soften all around our pelvic area. So forearms and hands no more tension than you need to hold your question. Knees calves a closing feet
let yourself sink down sink into the chair. Sink into the cushion whatever you're sitting on. Sink down and make your connection with the earth solid and stable like a mountain with your breath come and go like the wind in observer rather than directly. To your mind, be open to whatever you're going to experience like the sky. open to whatever floats you're crossing open. Everything below it on the earth by looking around mountain just like the wind, mind like the sky
if your awareness drift down deeper into your core let it rest deep in your core a few inches below your navel just in front of your spine
your lower torso is expanding and contracting as the breath comes in and out
it's quiet
that's going to be our anchor. Feeling and filling. Expanding as the breath comes in. Emptying and contracting as the breath goes
there's no need to try and feel free to come in as naturally as as you can. There. is no need to push it out. There acceleration happen as naturally as you can.
With your eyes open about halfway, look totally downward. Under your eyelids aware of your body sitting in space wherever your body in the space you're sitting in as you're feeling the expansion and contraction in breath and out breath wherever your eyes are looking to soften your gaze what your eyes rest in that direction but instead of looking at something you're really just seeing the space that you're sitting in.
If your mind wanders off into a daydream into a series of thoughts, you realize that you're no longer connected to your breathing connected to your posture. Here in the present moment. Just smile because the mind does want to make a little mental note wandering or thinking which is code for I was often thoughts. Now I'm back and return to awareness of your posture and feeling and feeling empty. You might hear a sound sight might come to mind and go that's not a problem. That's part of the of what's happening in the space that you're sitting in. It's only if your mind gets taken away and you get lost in thoughts. And you wake up out of that daydream. You need to consciously return to awareness of posture and breathing. Do that for a few Minutes.
First start just your posture. Now open your eyes fully open and open just slightly downward. more open to the space the whole space of the room in front of you and around you. Whatever is out in front of you, whatever space you're in what we're up to that space, open up your peripheral vision above and below to each side.
You can soften your gaze so that you're not looking at something but seeing the space that you're sitting in any movement that's happening in the space is just happening within that space. The sound you hear is happening within that space. feelings you have are happening within that space thoughts arising arising within that space.
Nick again, a series of thoughts takes you away into a daydream when you realize it you can make that little mental note wandering or thinking as code for I was often thoughts. I've woken up so in a daydream I'm already back to tune back into the breathing. And in this case, we're going out less centralized. mainly focus on the breath going out and as the same in the same way that the breast breath dissolves and mixes with the atmosphere. Let your awareness open to the space. Just rest in that openness. As the breath comes in by itself, your body breathes itself in. You'll notice it but you don't have to follow it. Go out with the out breath open to the space rest. Gap out open rest do that for a couple of minutes.
Richard is straight ahead to the horizon
peripheral vision open your hearing sounds as far away as you can hear. Notice sounds near and far lower than saw. high pitched in low. Notice colors shapes, shades of light and dark. Newhall wholesale division
this physical sensations
in your body to expanding and contracting on your skin, the air on the skin your hands and face.
cloth on the skin.
Cool air coming in the nostrils warm air going out internal sensations like your heartbeat pulse
okay your awareness imagine that it extends beyond what you can see out into space in all directions to the sky and beyond.
Mobile your awareness extends out infinitely encompassing the whole universe. westermo Infinite openness
you can either leave your eyes open or closed and we're going to imagine legend now in front of you. One or more of your loved ones. People you care most about
sort of your family as a pet it can it can be an animal to beings that you care the most about that you so want to be happy. Imagine as you breathe out from your heart of loving kindness you're radiating cool, light of kindness to them makes them feel happy. Peace, contented safe
imagine as you breathe in now you're able to take away from all their suffering and causes of suffering mental anguish, physical suffering. Fear and painful negative emotions. Imagine that you can read those in encompass them in your tender heart of compassion. dissolve them and radiate out that cool Moon loads of kindness resent taking away their suffering without sending happiness.
Now include yourself and the suffering you're going through. As you breathe in, imagine that you're absorbing that in your tender heart of self compassion. Really is forgiveness kindness to yourself?
More expand that circle of kindness and compassion to everyone you've ever met. Your positive, negative or neutral relationships with them. They all share the same wishes you do as your loved ones to wish to have happiness and causes of happiness to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Imagine that your huge open heart of compassion can absorb all that suffering and transform it dissolve it and radiate out. Limitless light loving kindness and happiness
if you have people that you've had a hard time with, like give rise to negative emotions in yourself. absorb those as you're absorbing. There's really an art to both of you. Peace, acceptance, patience, kindness
as best you can expand it to all beings because of all the pain and suffering in the world, these are these negative emotions of hatred, fear and greed. Breathe in and absorb all that negativity. contain it in the heart of compassion, compassionate and transformable. To loving kindness and acceptance. Peace
notice how good it feels to imagine that you can free the world to liberate the whole world from suffering fill the whole world with peace and happiness
as you breathe out sin that feeling of joy liberating the world. Share that with all beings
as you share that joy with all beings equanimity the equality of all beings freedom from attachment and aversion and ignorance
resting at a community
fades let your imagination fade prisons lower your gaze, tune back into your body and your breathing. Simply here simply present.
We find that when we practice and include the benefit of others, or practices, that much more powerful, it's so limited, it's just for ourselves. So it's good whenever you practice to start your session with that what's called Pure aspiration. In other words, selfless aspiration, that I'm going to do this practice not just for me, so that I can be of benefit to others more benefit to others. And when we finished the practice, we re instate that intention and and dedicate whatever benefit came from that practice. So you can either repeat after me or put it in your own words. The practice I've just done give benefit to others as well as myself and if you're feeling particularly generous or wanting to cultivate that generosity, it's good to say me the practice I have just done. You have even more benefit others and to myself
so thank you for your practice. It's wonderful to practice together. Even though it's on Zoom, we're connected and if you have any questions or comments please feel free to unmute yourself. I think you can do that. If If not you can raise your hand and I'll unmute you or Alyssa will unmute you feel free to jump in.
Thank you for the practice. The public a tremendous stretch like in an awareness stretch
I do have trouble with the compassion practices and what was I don't feel like I'm touching where I'm supposed to be or or you know.
Understood. That's good. Well, so start with that and say okay, so I'm going to breathe in this feeling of not getting it right. And breathe in this breathe out to myself. This It's okay. However, I'm doing it I'm doing it. And it's okay because it's all about the motivation. You know, there's a story of this monk who was going around, he was traveling in Tibet and he met this yogi who was practicing this powerful practice and it was it's called Roderick Elia practice Killa Killa is a dagger. And it can it can cut through obstacles. So the guy was but the guy was pronouncing good chili chilla kill the killer and the monk said, and you're doing it wrong. It's it's not Chile, Chile. It's Killa Killa. And he goes, Oh, I didn't know that. You mean it won't work if I do this? And he pointed at the river and the water stopped for a moment and the monk said, Oh, you see, it's more about the intention. And if you're at the heart of compassion, you're doing it right. Even if it's feeling the tenderness and the pain of others and wanting to relieve them of that, you're doing it right. If it's wanting to share and give your happiness to them. You're doing it right. Okay.
Yeah, I didn't feel like I was. I mean things were popping. Up in the right direction in some ways. Just just, I guess just the challenge make. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's that that that works for me. Thank you.
Start leading yourself, start with yourself. Do that and then imagine how many other people feel like they're not getting it right. I promise you many, many, many. If you did a survey of the group here, I'm gonna guess more than 50% would say yeah, yeah, I have that feeling. We all have had that feeling. Am I doing it right? And, and be kind to yourself first, and then say, Hey, I that's something I can that other people connect with me? I hope that they feel the confidence. And I'm going to take away their lack of gummies. I'm going to send them confidence and guess what, as you're sending them confidence you're getting confidence. Okay, thank you.
Tim had a question about the three year retreat. Yes, I did a three retreat. I didn't do it in the same sessions that Andrew did, but it was essentially the same practice of periods of time. In a monastery. And he said it was the deepest and most profound experience of his life. I'm very happy for him. I attended it Do I agree? Yes, I agree that it was the deepest and most profound experience of his life.
I don't tend to quantify it that way. But it was important, very important experience in my life. Yes.
I want you to notice, when we're really we're and this is good for you, Lloyd. When you're really working at the meditation, trying to get it right. And then the gong sounds to end you know, and you go, Oh, shoot. That's what my teacher calls really good meditation. Right then because you stop trying so hard. And you're just being
the other thing I wanted to mention, I went through at the end a sequence and it's a traditional sequence of what are called the Four immeasurable minds the minds of loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. So it starts with may all beings, including ourselves, have happiness and the causes of happiness in all beings. be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all beings enjoy the dwell and have the experience of the great joy beyond conventional happiness and suffering. And may all beings dwell in the equanimity free from attachment aversion and ignorance. So that's why did the practice in that order
may I also say I appreciate the the the body tuning also, I just just had brought that up a few weeks ago when you did something similar, but did just did. I really need that? I super appreciate that.
Back in the body. Yep. You're very welcome. Do you ever do alternate nostril breathing exercises or other breathers from Barry Highbury? 2001 A Space Odyssey. Do you ever do alternate nostril breathing exercises or other breathing exercises to free up energy? Or create prana? I you know, I don't know about creating prana I thought prana was the energy of breath or wind. So I don't know anything about creating it, freeing it up there are yogic exercises to unblock it. There are certain areas of our psyche, our minds, which are negative emotions, and also aspects of the body that correspond to those that I've understood that to be the case. I've heard that taught that way. And and we did the cleansing breaths at the start of practice in in many different practice programs and I do some in mourning as part of a practice. So it is often done but it's important to have instruction in that and I know Andrew has done that sometimes. And sometimes it's alternating you breathe in through one nostril and read out to the other and then switch. Sometimes it's in and out through one and then in and then out through another and in and out through both. So there's a variety of these practices. But I haven't been doing these in these programs. It's something that I think Andrew does do some of his sessions. And so I'll think about whether I'm going to do that in a subsequent session, but thank you for the suggestion. And various pictures 2001 A Space Odyssey which isn't an interesting when that came out. I think it was like the 70s Or is it the 70s they thought by 2001 that we'd be taking spaceships to Jupiter or something like that. I think we're a little behind the curve.
68 Thank you, Barry. All right. Yeah, we're we're way behind the curve. Well, thank you, everybody. I just enjoy being with you so much through this, these zoom programs. And you know, it's unfortunate how limited our in person contact became during the pandemic. But you know, in the who's knows what's good and what's bad category look at what we've been able to connect across time and space. So it's great. So thank you all very, very much. love having you here. Please come Thursday morning if your schedule allows, and if not, I'll see you in two weeks right here. Same that chat time, same bat channel. Thank you, Joe. Thank you Dr. Joe.
