[24] Practical Stages of Meditation - with Jeffrey Stevens
11:45PM Aug 23, +0000
Speakers:
Alyssa Alvarado
Jeffrey Stevens
Keywords:
meditation
reification
awareness
mind
samadhi
practice
relax
eyes
hear
meditate
reify
meditation practice
path
open
longer
andrew
guided meditation
state
cultivate
experience
So, I would like to just start out by asking if any of you have any topics or questions that you would like to have addressed or surfaced or anything like that. Is there anything you would like to talk about that includes questions, I'll do my best if the questions are out of my league. But, you know, meditation training really is a matter of experience, and then dialogue, and that's kind of the job that I've had in my life for the past 20 years is helping people through that dialogue. So if you'd like to talk about meditation, if something's come up in your practice, it doesn't have to be too personal. It even could be theoretical, most important thing is is that you have a chance to ask it tonight and maybe we can move that question along so that it becomes richer for you. So, I don't know how you all do this, but I guess you could just type it into the comments. If you want something like that, or raise your hand, I guess. I'm not a zoom person all that.
Either one works for me if you raise your hand, I'll be able to see it and I can unmute you from there, or you're welcome to type it in in the chat. Okay, Wendy suggested we start with a guided meditation, how does that sound. Well, maybe it was. Okay.
Before we start, though. Yeah, we can do a guided meditation, surely, um, i i want to talk, I mentioned this last week I was here for just a few minutes. But I want to talk a little bit about what I call the practical stages of the meditation path. The notion of stages in a meditation path is traditionally very important, but when we actually take up the practice of meditation stages can make it sound so goal oriented and it can almost seem like we need to be climbing through something in order to have a meaningful practice. And while it isn't necessary for us to be goal oriented. It is very important for us to understand that meditation, just like cultivating physical health proceeds in stages. So there are some things that you really can't do very well at the beginning, because you haven't done the preliminary practices. Now, I haven't listened to all of Andrews teachings to you, but I do think he's been talking to you a little bit about merit, give me a thumbs up if, if you've heard him talk about merit, okay. Well meditation. Some will say meditation is the art of doing nothing but that doing nothing is a different type of doing nothing than we're able to do when we begin our meditation journey. Doing nothing in this case. And I'm going to throw another word out, I'm thinking Andrew would use it because he's a wordy kind of guy. But have you used the term reification. Oh, that's good.
Doing nothing means that we no longer reify, we no longer attach significance or meaning to the appearances to our mind and consciousness. So, how is it that we get to a point where we are able to relax at that subtle, subtle level where we no longer are compelled to reify because reification isn't a decision that we're making. It's almost like a reflex. And in order to no longer reify we have to be able to withstand the impulse to reify, it's almost like if you've ever had a gag response. Maybe you're brushing your teeth and you just go a little too deep, and suddenly you're ready to gag and you don't want to. Once it starts, it's kind of hard to stop. Well, reification is like that. We want to reify everything, but as we learn how to meditate and rest our mind in subtler and subtler layers of awareness, we are able to relax through that initial knee jerk response. In order to really get to a point where we're not even picked up by that reflex. We have to have gone through the journey in the Buddhist tradition is called deonna. So have you heard of the six paramita path of the Mahayana. Now, the Bodhisattva, you've all heard of the Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva is the great meditation hero who dedicates themselves to attaining full awakening for the benefit of others and we are all capable of going on this Mahayana journey. In order to do so, we go through six degrees of character refinement and by refining our character in this way, we consolidate our mind, so that we can take this gathered consolidated mind and begin to relax it. And when it relaxes it sort of cleans out, and the six power meters or generosity, patience, things like that. But at the end of the sequence are Deanna and prayer or meditation and wisdom, and those really are the heart of the matter, meditation, in this classical sense, means that we're beginning to learn how to internalize. So typically, our attention goes toward objects in the world or passing through our mind. When the mind does that we're externalizing we're going out. Meditation teaches us to begin to reverse the flow of our mind so that it can go in. Now when it goes in, There's not really anything for it to see. So it also has to learn how to go in but not have a clear object to perceive. Well, that non object is called awareness. So we're learning to internalize our mind, so that we can just be aware. And when we're able to be aware. We cultivate the ability to continually be aware during a meditation session. And when we can do that Stapley that state is called Samadhi. Have you heard the term Samadhi. Samadhi means meditative flow, that's the way I like to translate it. Traditionally, it means meditative equilibrium. It's an unwavering state of mind that it just, it is doing exactly what it wants to do, and nothing can pull it away. It isn't something that we just click into, it's something that we cultivate, by learning to internalize more and more and more we're finally able to just be, that's step one completed step two is that we take that just being, and we sustain it, and we take it through a training sequence where we're able to sustain just being longer and longer and longer, and the way that I measure it when I work with people is first that's about a minute and a half, then it's about seven minutes, then it's about 25 minutes, and then it's several hours. And at that point where you're able to just be for an hour or more, you're almost certainly doing that by the power of Samadhi. Samadhi is where you meet yourself. Samadhi is the door that you've opened for wisdom, or realization to come through. So I know that when. What's so reification is totally is a totally unconscious process, not a totally unconscious process Tim not totally, but for the most part with us,
we're not aware of it. The key here is that when it isn't totally unconscious, then you are engendering dangerous habits, because you're choosing to you're choosing you could choose otherwise but you're choosing to give existence to something which doesn't have that level of existence. So reification generally at our stage of the, well, I shouldn't even say that for most of what we do reification is just a response we don't intend to do it, but we could if we knew, otherwise we could, we can reify something that we already know isn't true, but we just need something to chew on. So we end up getting upset or fixate fixated on something even though we, in our heart, no it's not true, that would be a level of reification. Anyway, I know, Andrew has talked to you I'm guessing he has about the difference between lucid dreaming and Dream Yoga. Has he so lucid dreaming is something that we can all access, and I think I shared with you last week, we can all access it, except for me. I'm not particularly skilled and outweigh, but the notion, the notion of lucid dreaming is that we're learning to locate and stay within an aspect of our consciousness that doesn't move. Things are projected from within that state of consciousness, and we can see them, but they don't move us, and I'm not the person to talk about how this operates in dreams, but one can recover lucidity within their dream. And part of that has to do with recognizing that the appearances within the dream, are just appearances, they don't have any significance. One is then resting in that ground of awareness in Sanskrit that's called the Alia virginiana or the ground basis of consciousness in daily meditation, that's the ground basis of consciousness that we call Samadhi. Samadhi is when we're lucidly living, I mean it's like lucid, what's the state what do we call it. We're not dreaming or awake lucid wakefulness. Now that sounds meditative, we're lucid, and we're going through our day and we're seeing things, almost as if they were dreamlike when we're lucid dreaming. It's the same thing only our body is immobile in bed. Dream Yoga is the practice of taking that stability and beginning to probe to see what its meaning is, and as we talked about just moments ago, in regular meditation, we stabilize the mind until it enters Samadhi and from within Samadhi, we begin to pro and look for the nature of reality. So, in both of these systems whether you're sleeping or whether you're awake, you're trying to do the same thing, you're going through a practical stage which stabilizes and simplifies the experience of being, and then within that, we're probing to understand the nature of it. So, if we do a. Thank you. Oh, sorry, I'm just now seeing some of these things. Perhaps, any suggestions, I have about meditation or spiritual practices. They're both very good ideas. So my, my suggestion would be, if you're thinking about engaging in a meditation practice. I would move forward in that it's really important that you understand the realities of a meditation practice meditation isn't something that you do for a while to see how it works out. It just isn't meditation is something that you do for the rest of your life. It's like eating and drinking, you don't try, water and see how it goes, you know like put a YouTube video of I hydrated for 30 days and this is what I learned while I don't know what 40 days would be like but probably no more videos coming. So, the guided meditation that I think we could engage, is just to do the meditation that you probably are already doing and I'm guessing that most of us are learning how to just relax into the feeling of our body and being present now.
Tonight, as we do that, let's pay attention to what goes on in our experience, when we're meditating, that we can recognize as a pattern, something that usually goes on when we're meditating, and when we're done meditating, we can use that time to contrast it. If meditation is really aiming us towards a simple experience of being which doesn't reify or attached to things than anything other than that is an indication of where we can grow and develop in our practice. Now it doesn't mean that our practice isn't a good practice if things are coming up. But if things are coming up and we're attaching to them or trying to push them away or trying to change them somehow. That's not the state of just being. It's interesting to see how much we have to train ourselves just to be simply. So is that something that we can do. How many of you are doing a meditation where you are primarily just settling into a simple state of being. And those of you who aren't Are you fine, are you following your breath with an intention to stay on the breath is that what's going on. What other practices are people doing, if it's not what I just said,
you use guided meditations. What kind of guided meditations. So hum, I'm not sure what that is is that from Tera Vaada tradition. Which one of you is John. Okay, John is that from Tera Vaada tradition or a Buddhist tradition of some kind. Vedic, okay. All right. Zen practice CO on practice with the teacher. Yeah, that's great. Okay, Tomlin Mehta, the pasta na. Great. Let's all try and everybody can do this no matter what else we've been trained in all meditation traditions are going to agree at one point and that point is to just be in the simplest way possible. The only thing that we want to make sure that we are is aware. Everything else can just go. Awareness is like space, things can move through it without sullying it in any way. So, for our meditation right now, let's just do, let's say 15 minutes of just being. Okay, that really is a hard one to beat the focus on each chakra and the space. Okay.
There was one question that kind of got lost in the chat that said that last week Andrew mentioned the three types of illusions. It was asking if you could elaborate, they know if you wanted to address that before we go on to the 15 minutes but just wanted to let you know that that was up there also.
Okay, um, the only thing about that is, I wouldn't know which three he's referring to. There's probably a context. If anyone here happens to be him and wants to suggest what those were. I'm all ears. Things are solid, separate and lasting.
Oh, sure.
It would test Callahan, are you saying that's what the three levels of illusion are.
Okay,
well I can surely speak to that. Last weekend we mentioned the three types of illusion. Well, that things are okay. Okay, here's a young man calling in from afar illusory body, I see. I see. Well I'm gonna have to just suggest that you wait until Andrews back and then ask him more about that, um, that that's some rich stuff right there, but I don't think you want my, my insight. So um, when our mind wanders, if we're meditating, and we have an intention to say just be, or maybe it's just to follow a mantra or just visualize the chakras that some of you are doing, when our mind wanders, it wanders, because we have been seduced by something which isn't actually, there is the reality that seduces us, is an illusion. There might be an appearance of mind but there isn't actually a thing they're calling us. So when we don't understand the way illusion becomes real. We tend to let our mind drift towards things that aren't real as if they are real well. Okay, was okay, yeah. Okay, someone's using, I don't know who Craig Hamilton is but I'm ALAN WALLACE I do know. So we're just going to find a way to be comfortable, and I'm going to ask those of you who can to keep your eyes open. And those of you who can't, that's fine too. But what we want to do is we want to relax, everything, everything, except our awareness. Just imagine that awareness is a hook, and everything is falling off except for our meditation, our meditation isn't the hook of awareness and there's nothing else there. You're, you feel your body, you may see thoughts come and go, that the only thing you're trying to be is aware, simplify. So let's do this for a few minutes and then see how that goes. And then we'll try it again. Is that okay. All right. Usually I have a gong, but uh, I guess it's in the other room. Just be. For those of you who are sitting, sit with an upright posture, and let your body hang off your bones. You don't want to slouch. You want to maintain awareness. If you're laying down, just try to have a clean and clear experience of the physicality of your structure, no thoughts about it just the feelings. Just relax. Thoughts come up. No need to push them away. Let them go where they will, but be so relaxed that they, they can't pick you up. Like trying to reach into water and grab it. You are just awareness, and the thought can't grab you.
You can ask yourself, What am I right now. Look to see if there's anything that you have gathered together as yourself. And then, just relax and let it go. See what happens then when you relax, you will naturally feel what is actually here. If your eyes are open, you'll see your ears will hear. Your body will be tangible and accessible to you, but only as a stream of moments. Only as the experience of now. When you relax. You meet now. Now bonus is the convergence of awareness and experience without reification nowness is experience and awareness. Without reification or grasping. If you find that you've become distracted, either by following a thought or becoming drowsy. The very moment that you recognize that you've become distracted that distraction has ended, because awareness has returned. One of the secret skills or subtle skills of the meditator is to know how to relax. At the moment, that awareness returns.
Sometimes when we see that we've been distracted and awareness returns. It startles us, and we have shame or disappointment or frustration. But that just kicks the mind up into more complexity. When awareness returns, we can cultivate a welcoming relaxation. No need to look to find what has distracted us.
Just be
and see what happens. Okay, let's pause that meditation. Is there a way that we can have people speak. Can we unmute and then let people. Yeah, absolutely. Whatever you want to do.
Okay, well,
I'd like to hear anything that you have to say either about the practice that we're doing, maybe how it fits in with the practice that you are accustomed to, or what your experience was. I'm gonna say this again, maybe you all know this already. All the meditation traditions that exist right now. All the real ones, the ones that really do solidly get the results are very old. All of them involve you having experience with instructions that you got from someone presumably someone that you like and trust. And then you working on those, and then bringing your experience to that person or a person like them. It's great if we can have more than one teacher, so long as they are part of the same system, because all these meditation, traditions, they're not the same. They don't lead to the same thing necessarily or if they do, they might do it by extremely different routes. Sometimes we find ourselves doing a meditation, just because that's what we found when we were looking, and it might be, not the right path for us at all. I went on a number of paths, quite spent quite a few years doing meditation practices that really didn't help me out that much. And a little later on I, I did encounter, good solid instruction. The what I learned, and what I see my colleagues and friends and even my teachers who talk about their journey. It's always a matter of sharing your path with someone asking questions trying things out. It's a type of spiritual friendship that really enriches our path, it can become so isolating to do these practices, especially in a world like this where everybody thinks you're a nutcase if you're doing these practices I mean, in the case of like someone like me the right but, you know. So, how is your practice.
If anybody would like to share if you, there should be an option to raise your hand up here we go, Let's see, let me unmute you. Does that work. Yeah, I think. It sure did. Awesome, yeah.
I guess one thing that I noticed, going back and listening to some of Andrews meditations. And this one too, is that previously I never really tried to meditate with my eyes open, and I'm just noticing how much harder it is. Because you're just thinking about, like, do I look down, do I look forward, Like, my contacts just like drying out. In my eyes, like what is happening. It is like just like a different level. And I'm so used to just being able to close my eyes and kind of like be blissed out for a while. Oh ha like open my eyes and all of a sudden I'm like whoa.
Absolutely. You know there are just these two traditions where your eyes are either open or they're close and I think I don't know, I started out with my eyes closed, probably most people do when your eyes are closed. Typically, not always, and someone can correct me, but I'm just going to go ahead and give my educated statement here, when you're meditating with instructions that tell you to close your eyes, your meditation practice is focused on a manifestation of the body or mind. It could be a visualization that could be stabilizing your mind on the breath. That could be a mantra. That's the mind, nothing wrong with that type of meditation, when your eyes are open, you're not meditating with the mind, you're learning to meditate with awareness, which is beyond the mind awareness can experience anything at all. Just like space, things can move through space. Bombs can go off in space and nothing harms space. So when you're moving into that dimension of awareness and I guess I should say, enlightenment or realization, doesn't happen in the mind. It happens in awareness. So we meditate with the mind doing mantras and visualizations or just following the breath to prepare the mind to get out of the way so that awareness can surface. And by staying in awareness, awareness can recognize itself. And that's where we have insight, also called the power center. Now, or have a passion. Now of upasana or a passion that can be triggered through movements of the mind, we can look to see where the self is, or we can look to see where things arise ABIDE and dissolve those are traditional exercises here. But if you just have a simple path. And you can do so much with just a simple path. Part of Your path is probably going to be working with your mind, probably the eyes either down or closed in your paint you're tracking the movement of your breath, or you're staying on a mantra, you're staying on a visualization. Those are building health and strength into the mind, which is really important, because when you want to let all that go and just rest in awareness. The more fitness you have, the better. But when the eyes open, you're able to sort of harvest energy to stay awake. So they serve different purposes but it's really a good thing to have both of those strategies. One of the teachers that I think Andrew works with and that I certainly work with soap near MPJ. He doesn't want anyone to you want to hold everyone, open your eyes open you over there, open your eyes, and a lot of these people come after having meditated for 20 years have their eyes closed, he doesn't care. And he just wants people, especially people in this crazy time. He wants them to shift into meditating with awareness, because that's where so much healing will take place. I myself do both. I meditate on the mind, try to stabilize it. Try to purify it, try to raise a mind of loving kindness, all that stuff is within the mind. And then when I feel healthy wholesome ready to go. That's when I open the eyes and I just be that that's really where the path moves forward by a quantum leap. It's so good to have a path that you understand, and one that you enjoy where it's not always the same thing, but it's also not so many things that you have to have a checklist while your meditation cushion. But lies I wish you the best keeping your eyes open.
Thank you. This is such good advice.
Ah, well it's advice that was given to me I'm just passing it on plastics, that's my advice. Who's next
week. Can you hear us. Yes I
can hear you. Oh, well, I want to say thank you, Jeffrey, I really enjoyed that as one. I have years of meditating with my eyes closed. Uh huh. Until I came across Andrew about a year ago, and I love meditating with my eyes open. Oh, how did you so it wasn't that hard for you. Hmm, to make the switch stuff. Well what happens for me is things start to turn into Light. On the outside, so I could still sort of see what I'm looking at but it becomes a. I don't want to say fog because it doesn't feel like Lord Yeah,
he does worry. You know, you make me realize that I, I should say, to lies right before you but I'll just say it anyway, when your eyes are open. You are not looking, you're not gathering information with your eyes and that's the learning curve. Your eyes are simply passive recipients of light in the point where your eyes, stop doing this, and they start doing this, and then eventually they do this. Those are big transitions in your path. So that could take a few months, but when it happens, you will know why people meditate with their eyes open. I didn't even say that but I should have anyway back to you, Wendy,
about it. I made you say that, or he said that, but what happens is my hearing is almost the opposite, everything becomes crisp and clear and I hear things from many blocks away. I hear my husband and the other part of the house. If I have, have a repeating pattern it's. I wish my husband would be more quiet. But then I'm like, no, no, that's good, that, that in a sense is keeping me present, you know, because then I got. That's it, you know, sound,
sound that surely says one moment that you never see the past, you never can hear the future, when you're tracking your sensory experience, your eyes are open your ears are open your body's there, maybe you can smell something. You better not have anything in your mouth, though, so you're not taking anything, but you are only experiencing one fleeting moment. Sit with your senses. But when your mind kicks up, you experience this illusion that we call time time exists within the mind that that's where time is past, present and future, our conceptual reference that miss the mark of nowness awareness doesn't see time awareness experiences. Now notice, but awareness can experience to the senses. That's why we have all of our senses open in these traditions, because we're just, we're fat happy babies sucking on the nipple of numbness.
Well, it feels like the sound goes through me like I'm not sound, it's almost as synesthesia, it becomes a physical thing that goes through my body and makes me feel non solid, but it's, it's the opposite of the visual which sort of blurs into nothing, right. I think that will.
I think that eventually, you know, our ears are always on, we can't close our ears like we can close our eyes, so our nostrils probably has something to do with, well obviously with survival right. But when your eyes, relax, and they begin to move into themselves. You will be, you will see everything at once. Your eyes will just see everything at once but they won't move your eyes don't move to see everything at once, it's the same way that your ears don't just hear what's directly over there, they also hear what might be up there. And the eyes will do that too but the eyes are, they're so mixed up with the movement of our mind, that they take more training, but I do know what you mean by the sound just feels like it's just, where is it sound is a wave, so it is passing through your body. Anyway, I really enjoyed that. Thank you very much. You're very welcome. Thank you for your questions and your comments, someone said, Thanks, Geoffrey. What path, or practice has worked the best for you. How often or long do you think we should meditate. Okay, tim sorry, my glasses. These are not the best ones for reading tiny print, because I'm getting old. I'm the path of practice, that we're doing here tonight is a style that comes from the Mahayana traditions but most particularly, there are two traditions in the Tibetan system, they're very, they're kind of similar to Soto Zen, but they're called Maha Mudra, and Zog Chen. Maha Mudra is a little more practical, because there are steps to it, Zog Chen is like a final snapping into awareness. And so, if I could. Well, if I were able, I would just practice Zouk Chen, but I'm not really able I need Zog Jen, but my main teacher, I'm sorry, I need Mahamudra, so Mahamudra is the practice that I do, now you asked, how often or long do you think we should meditate I think you should meditate every day. And I think that the sweet spot for someone who is starting meditation is 25 minutes. The first few minutes of a meditation session is you getting into your posture, informing your intention. And if you want to be able to move beyond the mind and contact awareness and stay there, your intention. Traditionally, well first of all your intention, needs to be something that's strong and somewhat wholesome so it can endure, and the traditional intention that people cultivate is, may I rest in awareness so that I can bring benefit to others, and you just form that intention, and then you let it go. No more thinking about that intention you plunge into a simple state of being. And you just practice, relaxing when your mind gets tangled up and it's ready to go. You notice it and you relax, then the mind gets tangled up it's ready to go, you notice it, and relax, then maybe the mind gets tangled up and it does go, but eventually, you notice it, and then you just relax. And it's those little moments where you realize that the mind has taken you away, and you don't freak out about it you just relax. That's what's going to move the needle forward, your practice is going to become more and more juicy, with the appearance of awareness. And when you rest in awareness your nervous system is just relaxing, it just, it would get anything. If you could just rest in awareness because all your knots your internal knots and everything will just begin to unwind. So that's what I that's what I think. Okay. There's someone with a raise hand. Yeah, Kimba. Sorry if they get unmuted. But see, there we go.
Hi, can you hear me. Yeah, yeah. Hi, my name is Kimberly and by the way it's not coming from really, yeah. Um, so, I don't, I asked the question before but I got kicked out of zoom and I had to restart my computer everything so I'm not sure if you answered, but I'll just phrase it. And because it kind of matches, also with one of the comments that you made in the meditation that nowness is awareness and experience coming converging without the reification and grasping, I loved it was awesome. So, I'm kind of also looking at as awareness as expansion. And that reification is the contraction. Is that kind of synonyms, you can use.
Well awareness itself awareness itself wouldn't have movement, but as we begin to familiarize ourselves with awareness. Very often you'll hear meditation teachers talk about the feeling of expanding out. Now that's still taking place in the mind. But that is the sort of thing, when we are. We grow up in the neighborhood called the mind, and we hear about this experience called awareness, but we haven't probably had much experience with that. It sounds right, but it, we try to use our mind to understand, awareness, and this is an interesting thing. Mind cannot see awareness. Ever. The mind cannot see awareness, awareness can be aware of the mind, though, so it's a one way mirror. So when, before we have experienced awareness. We have only experienced the mind and we have ideas of what awareness is and we don't usually know that those are just ideas, those are in the mind. So teachers who try to help us will come up with various methods to pop us out of our mind, and one of the popular ways and they're all good and you know that I'm sure there are an infinite number of ways to do it because it really isn't that hard. We don't have to create awareness we have awareness we are awareness. So we have to pop the mind, and then we rest in this simple state. Many teachers will talk about expansion. Being a gateway into awareness, and then when you get into awareness when you experience it. It can feel to vast and then just like you said, Kimberly, you contract back into the mind.
And would that be contraction into form into reification like stop creating forms and associating with them.
I would say that the. If you're in awareness, and you are not able to understand, oh, this is awareness which, you know you wouldn't be thinking that way but awareness knows itself, but it doesn't know itself until you've been there, again and again and you sort of know that it's safe to do that. After many sessions and you know you've committed to awareness training. A day will come where awareness cognizes itself it's like it wakes up, and it goes, Ah, awareness, but again it doesn't say that. Before that, we don't know that that open space is safe. So as we begin to realize that we're in a place that we're not familiar with. We can slam back into the sense of me. That's reification, and from that we can centralize on thought forms or physical feelings and, you know, not physical feelings exactly because those are kind of neutral, but we can contract back into a vision of what we are a conceptual mind created identity. But yeah, go from being vast to being incredibly small, and that makes us feel safe. But yeah,
so I think that kind of hooks onto the path of illusion last time I was talking to Andrew and he was it mentioned that there's in Buddhism three types of delusion, I missed the first two types, but I've got the last type which is the perfect illusion. Um, do you know.
Yeah, someone asked this, maybe it was you, I'm not sure who, um, it seems that Andrew is referring to the illusory body practice which is, yeah. And so illusory body practice is something that I don't, I don't want to talk about it because you don't want to hear that from me, Andrew is a real practitioner of that. I can tell you that all of these systems will have, um structures for things that are very coarse and confused, things which are no longer confused but the course appearances are still present. And then, and then a state where even the course. Appearances are gone to and you just see what is truly there. And would that be like the state of smaghi that you were talking about Samadhi is a little more pedestrian than that I mean Samadhi is very powerful, but when it comes to affecting your perception. Samadhi has to be something that you're able to sustain more or less, whenever you want it. So Samadhi is the state in which transformation really takes place you could sort of say that like if you want to cook bread, you're going to make bread, You're going to get all the ingredients together, mix them in a bowl and knead the dough and then you've got dough and you put it in the bread pan in the oven should be on at that point right it's 375 degrees, or whatever it is, and you take the loaf and your walk over to the oven. And what happens if you put it by the oven, nothing. If you have to put it in the oven. Great, so you put it in the oven and you close the door and you count to 10 and then you open the oven you take the dough out again. Is that going to cook the bread. No, you have to leave it in for however long 45 minutes, and then all the transformations take place. Samadhi is the pre heated oven, and our meditation practice is getting us to the point where we can enter Samadhi and sustain it again and again, day after day and that's cooking the bread. That's where changes take place. That's where our old habits no longer can find anything to cling to so they begin to disintegrate and literally go. They might appear a little bit here and there but for the most part, we are transforming ourselves when we're in that type of Samadhi. And it's not that hard. It just has to be done. And would the worst habit be is the reification of things. Oh, one more time Kimberly, sorry, would the worst habit be the reification of things. Yeah, the root habit that causes all this is the reification the worst case of that is to reify, and then to act through confusion. So like the very worst would be to reify, and then to harm another person. So yeah, the root of it all is reification once you're, once you've reified which here let me reify for a second. All right, I'm reifying and man I could get myself into a lot of trouble right now so let me. Okay, reification is the root problem, and you know this is what In Buddhism we call it, ego clinging ego clinging, is the root of all the other stuff. If you're not reifying or ego clinging, you're not going to try to manipulate others, you're not going to try to manage the world so that you come out ahead. That's a product of reification, we live in a world that is a product of reification right. We don't live in a world that is a product of people just resting their beings in a simple state just, you know, maybe here on this platform we are, which is why it's so great when practitioners can come together for the most part, people are in very complex states of mind and they don't even know that there are simple states of mind. They don't even know it. We didn't learn this in school reification we when's the first time any of us heard this term for you all. I bet it was like Andrew something right. I mean my parents didn't say Jeffrey. Gotta be careful that reification didn't say that. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Kimberly, someone asked. I remember we explored appearances and their relation to reality. Oh, oh okay that was I don't know that was for me. Um,
someone's asked for my contact Jeffrey stevens.org, just go to Jeffrey stevens.org That's my contact JFFREY STV NS dot o RG, or you can go to my YouTube channel which doesn't have a lot but Jeffrey the meditator. So you can contact me through my email.
Does anybody else have any other questions for Mr Stevens before we end, I don't see any hand raised. Okay. Looks like everybody's saying thank you. I know that we all really appreciate you taking time out of your night to be here with us tonight.
My pleasure, thank you for having me. And absolutely, good luck in your practice. Maybe I'll pop in from time to time and listen to what the other teachers here are saying I hope that everything I said, is useful in the context of what goes on here Andrew didn't didn't tell me what I mean I think he, he knows me well enough to trust me, but there are a lot of ways that we can present meditation and I wanted to make sure that I was talking about the most important things, without getting too particular so that you have to do it this way or that way because real meditation doesn't require that. So I'm very best to you all.
Thank you so much everybody for being patient with me tonight I really appreciate it.
Yes, thank you, this is your first night too. It is celebrate with a sandwich.
All right, I'll go ahead and in the carpet, thank you so much again for being here tonight and I hope everybody has a great night. Good night everybody.