[195] Meditation and Mindfulness Practice with Dr Joe Parent
6:58PM Feb 25, 2025
Speakers:
Joe Parent
Keywords:
meditation practice
falling asleep
Dream Yoga
throat chakra
relaxation response
lucid dreaming
hypnagogic imagery
posture techniques
mindfulness
awareness
compassion practice
breathing techniques
physical techniques
mindfulness awareness
posture adjustment
I think we can get started. I'd like to invite if people have I see familiar, familiar faces and names. I know Tim. I know you don't have audio or video, and how do we know you're Tim hawk. Like anybody can put any name on there. See, I can, I can be Tim hawk. Also, see that's, that's what's challenging. Then, see now, who's who. Anyway, I'm just, I'm just playing till we get everybody here.
All right, so I'm going to mute everybody and not have you unmute until later. And go to a speaker view, and there's no one else waiting in the waiting room. So I think we can, we can get started. Oh, there's myRA. I spoke too soon. You know what I'd like to do in case anybody else shows up. Does anybody have any question from previous sessions or questions that's come up, that has come up in your meditation, that you wanted to ask? And maybe we can work on it a little bit in the practice. So think about that. If you have something in mind that you'd like to ask or something, you know, if you've done my sessions before, one of the practices you'd like to go a little deeper into, we can customize this. I don't know if anybody seen that movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where the teacher goes. Anybody? Anybody? And then just keeps talking. I
uh, Patrick. Now, Patrick, you I take it. You don't have audio or video either. What meditation do you recommend for falling back to sleep after? You know, at first I said after walking in the middle of the night, but you mean waking. You said, waking in the middle of the night, okay, so falling back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night. There are a few different things. One of the ones that I've taught has to do with setting up a vibration in the you may know, in the Dream Yoga practice, you visualize the syllable, ah, in the throat chakra, or throat center, and you visualize A red flower with ah. Kind of the flowers horizontal and eyes like vertical, like you'd read it if you were looking at your throat. And
what I sometimes have people do is visualize that and then make the sound as you breathe out, breathe in, and then go ah. Now if you're particularly tense, it's going to come out as ah. And then as you relax, it's like ah.
Ah, then it gets just like a vibration, until it's inaudible. And usually for many people, they get to sleep before they even get all the way down to that deeper level. But that's something that you can do now, if you're concerned about falling asleep, that keeps you awake. So it's important to develop a strong conviction that meditating is the equivalent of two thirds to three quarters of the time of sleep. When I was doing the long retreats and we would meditate eight to eight. 10 to 12 hours during the day. If you got five or six hours sleep at night, it was plenty, because basically, if you're you got eight hours of meditation, and it's like getting another four or five hours of sleep. So I think that it's important to have that so you're not worried about whether you're going to fall asleep again or not. And then you can actually do that practice, I just said. And if you're practicing lucid dreaming, you can do that and watch for what's called hypnagogic imagery, images that come up and go, Oh, dreams are happening cool, and you relax with that and and do some of the dream practice. Now I was recently with a Chinese medicine healer kind of person, and what he said was, if you curl your tongue now I please. I'm not a medical doctor, and I don't want you choking on your own tongue. But what he said was, if you curl your tongue back so that you're touching where the soft palate starts, if you, if you, if you put your tip of your tongue by your teeth, just move it back along the hard palate, you find a place where the soft palate starts. And he said, Just rest. Your tongue there. And it's very triggers a relaxation response. So that's something that I recently learned. And you know the idea of a some kind of mantra is not that dissimilar to counting sheep, just watching them go by. But the most important thing is not to worry about whether you get to sleep or not. And do your meditation. If you do a you can also do a sinking into the bed. Meditation like, as you breathe out the ah, feel like all your weight is sinking down, like all your weight moves to the side of the body that's against the mattress. Breathe out, sink down. I'm getting sleepy, so clearly, it works. Okay? You've taught us a movement where we raise our sternum ever so slightly, right? Is there another movement or technique similar to this? I find that this movement connects my heart and brain, which then quiets my mind and deepest my meditation. Good. Linda, that's great. The idea is that that it it opens a little bit, but I don't have any other particular posture techniques. The only thing is, in the tradition, it says, when you take that posture and kind of click into it. What it says is half of the meditation is accomplished clicking into that posture. So the idea is to put a little effort into getting it set up and then relaxing into it. Now, what sometimes happens while you're practicing your mindfulness practice, if your mind starts to wander into a series of thoughts, what often happens is that your posture degrades, like you start thinking about something in the and you wake up and you're like, Oh, I'm not. I'm not in New York. I am here, okay? And at that point, reinvigorate your posture and click back into it, and then drop into the breathing to this that's something to do during the during the session, when your mind wanders off into it, into a daydream. Are there any other movements? Particularly,
I do teach one practice that's kind of an on the go meditation. Now you know there's walking meditation, which you're basically doing the same thing, except instead of being with the breath, you're being with the feeling of the movement and placement of your. Legs, movement of your legs and placement of your feet. And in the Zen tradition, it's very formal. And you you put, you make your camera which hand I think it's. You put your left hand into a fist against your navel, and then cover it with your right hand, like that, with your thumb on top. Correct me if I'm wrong, if it's the other way around, but this is what feels familiar. And then your elbows are out, and you're in upright posture, and you feel your pace. Now, in some traditions, it's very formal. Step, step, step. I that, but the way I was taught that was kind of artificial. And so the idea is to walk as if you're taking a very leisurely evening stroll after a full dinner. You're not in a hurry to get anywhere. You're just being with the movement of your body through space. So that's one physical technique. The other thing that I teach is there's two kinds of working with your hands. Me, I think if you don't see me, I'm just one of the little boxes. Go to your upper right view and hit speaker view. I don't know that I can pin myself on that to make it but, but so you can see now, one of them is, is kind of simple, and let's, let's do it together. Okay, so don't, we don't have to go through all the steps of the posture. This is just, and this is something you can do with your hands in your lap, but I'm just going to show you here this way, okay, rather than in my lap. Okay, so you take if you're I do it right handed. I'm right handed. If you're left handed, you could do it the other way, but you you wrap your right hand over your left thumb, your left hand is palm down your left thumb, and grip it, not too tight, not too loose, like you're giving it a nice little hug, like you would hug somebody and breathe in and extra slowly out. Do it through your nose, just through your nose, if you can, if some comes out through your mouth, on the out breath, fine, but breathe in through your nose, out through your your nose and a little mouth is okay. Okay, so let's do it. And then we're going to, we're going to cover our hug our index finger, then hug our middle finger, hug the ring finger and little finger, and then do the other hand. Okay, so let's do that together, slowly, regular in breath, slowly out in breath, slowly out in breath, slowly out in, slowly out in, slowly. Let's switch hands, in and slowly out, slowly out in,
slowly out in,
in and slowly, Patrick, I I suppose you could do this with your hands. If you're lying in bed, you could on your if you're on your sleep on your back. You could do this with your hands on your stomach. Okay, now the other one is a little more complicated and really occupies your mind, because you're going to watch your finger move along your hand. You're going to feel the mood use how you use your muscles to move your your hand. So this time, you're going to have your left hand with your palm facing you, about chest height. Okay, you're going to have your index finger pointing away from you. And so this is going to involve also how it feels in your fingers. And the this part of your finger, where the there would be webbing is very sensitive. And you're going to watch yourself do this, and you're going to work with your breathing. So it really is very occupying Okay, so you're gonna point your index finger away from you, and you're gonna pull it against your wrist right the second, second section of your finger, right after the first knuckle, okay. And again, in on the regular, regular speed, and out a little extra slowly, so you're gonna go up along the outside, slowly back along the inside of your pinky, up along the outside of the ring Finger, slowly down, up along middle finger, slowly down up along the index finger, slowly down to the thumb joint, up along side of your thumb, and then along the outside to your wrist, and reverse up along the thumb, slowly out up along the index Finger, slowly out up along the ring finger, slowly
out that was middle finger, ring finger,
and Slowly finger,
so you can go on to the other hand if you want, but I wanted to check with you. Did you notice? Did you have a lot of extraneous thoughts during that time? Probably not, because it's pretty occupying going through all that stuff. The second is, many P I don't know many people on the way back around here, they drop into a little deeper relaxation. They're going along. They're going along. Oh, interesting. And finish it in a deeper relaxation. So check that out. And those are practices that you can do anytime. Take a take a take a time out, and just do a little of that practice on the go. So that's all I could think of. As far as other physical techniques, Linda, I hope that's helpful. Okay, Myra, good. I hope your husband feels better. She's going to have to go back to the rehab center, so I'm glad you could come for part of the session. Okay? So now let's go through our regular sequence of settling and centering mindfulness, awareness and compassion practice. And again, it's ideal if you aren't looking directly into your screen so you can turn it so that you're looking when you open your eyes, you're going to be looking out. So let's start with our eyes closed, and let's work on our posture here. Okay, let's, I like to ring this Gong. It has a long lasting sound. So kind of as the gong fades, let yourself kind of settle into your body.
Take your seat, feel your sit bones pressing the weight equal on your sit bones, your spine upright, not tilted forward or back, left or right, but not rigid. Just hold there for a second, and let's work with our our lower extremities. So if you're on a cushion, you probably have your legs crossed in front of you already, if you're in a chair, set your feet so they're about hip width apart, and the distance from you is so that your shins are vertical, perpendicular to the to the floor, and have your feet and your knees about hip width. Part. Now the thing is, if you have a low chair or long legs, if your knees are higher than your hips, you want them to be, ideally, a little lower than your hips. So just slide your feet across each other so you cross at the ankles and let your knees widen out, and they should be below your below your hips, that way. Now back to your torso. Your spine is upright, and feel like it extends not just to the to the height of your shoulders, but up your neck and up the back of the top of your back of your head up to the top, so that the back of your head is vertical, not tilted down, not tilted back, and not and and it's a vertical extension of your spine, not sticking out. So your chin, instead of sticking out or tilted down or up, comes in naturally. When the back of your head straightens up, your chin comes in naturally. When our heads tilted down, we get sleepy when it's tilted up, we get spaced out. When it's leaning forward, we want to get somewhere, and we there's we're not going anywhere for the next little while. You You know, someone asked me, how soon they get you get benefits from this meditation? I said, you get an instant benefit. Because the 40 minutes that we're here doing this practice, we're not out there causing trouble for ourselves and other people. Instant benefit, so we're not going anywhere. Feel that uprightness of your spine and extending up your neck on the back of your head, and as Linda was talking about that center point of your sternum, feel like it, lift it slightly up and forward, just the tiniest bit. It opens up your chest. It opens up your heart, your shoulders come back naturally. You might feel a little tiny pinch in your between your shoulder blades, but now your shoulders are even with your ears. Let I mean on a line up and down with your ears and let your upper arms extend straight down from there, bend your arms at the elbow and have your forearms extend along your thighs, palm down with with hands, palm down. And so now you're not reaching forward or pulling back. Your upper arms are just hanging straight down your lower lower arms, forearms and hands extending along your thighs, palm down. Your chin is in that position that happens naturally when the back of your neck is straight up, relax your jaw without letting your mouth hang open so that your lips are either just lightly touching or slightly parted. You can let your tongue rest in your mouth naturally or or if you'd like, you can let the tip of your tongue rest just behind your front teeth on the hard upper palate, and it said that this reduces the flow of saliva a bit. Now, if you do have some saliva and you need to swallow, go ahead and swallow. If you have a sharp pain, move. If you have an ache or an itch that's just preoccupying your mind, just before you move, before you just rush into reacting, choose your response, which is, I'm going to sit with this for a while, or I've tried to sit with this for A while. It's occupying my mind, I'm going to address it. I'm going to move or scratch the itch. I'm going to adjust my posture or scratch the itch, and at that point, just move in a mindful way and return to your posture. I'm
now we have a little bit of tension holding our spine upright. Our Chest opened up, the back of our neck extending upward, but let's let everything else soften around that scalp, eyes, cheeks, ears, jaw, neck and shoulders. We are. We've what we think is our resting position for our shoulders, usually they're tensed a little bit without pushing them down. Just take an out breath and let the shoulders drop. Wow.
Chest, other than the tension to hold it slightly up and open and upper back and rib cage all around. Breathe out, let the tension melt. Lower Back, stomach and deep belly. Breathe out, let the tension melt. Sometimes we clench our deep belly and pelvic region. Breathe out, let go upper arms, forearms and hands, hips and thighs, breathe out, let the tension melt and flow down and out of you, thighs, knees, calves, ankles and feet. Breathe out, let the tension flow. Feel the weight of your sit bones on your seat. Breathe out and sink down. Breathe out and sink down. Really, don't perch on your seat. Let it hold you, sink down into it breathe out and sink down. Feel that grounded, feeling solid like imagine you're sinking into the earth, part way into the earth, so that you're part of the earth. Hmm? But your spine is upright and your majestic, like a mountain.
Body like a mountain.
Rest your awareness deep in your core, feel the depth, front to back, as well as the width, side to side.
Your diaphragm is pushing down to bring air in, pushing up to send air out, but what it feels like is that your deep core is filling as you breathe in, and emptying As you breathe out, expanding and contracting, filling and emptying.
Now do your best to let your body do the breathing. Just be an observer. Just notice how you're the rhythm of your body breathing, sometimes long or short, sometimes deeper, shallow. Doesn't matter.
It's like you're relaxing at the beach on a calm day, watching the water gently come up the sand, and then back down into the ocean, coming up and back down. Just enjoy being relaxing with that rhythm for a little bit and
As the going fades, let your eyes open gently about halfway, so that you're aware of the space that your body's sitting in, reconnect with your posture rather than looking at something particular yourself in your gaze, so that you're looking at the space that your body is sitting in, rather than some object at the end of the field of vision, you
now we have awareness of space, awareness of the feeling of filling and emptying deep in our core as the breath goes in And out, awareness of our posture in the space we let your mind be open to whatever you're experiencing. There's no right or wrong, good or bad. Sometimes the mind wanders. Sometimes you notice sounds, bodily sensations
If your mind wanders, as we as we talked about, when you realize you're in you were in a daydream. You're already back.
Just make a note I was someplace else. Now I'm back in whatever wording you want to use.
We're letting our minds be open to whatever experience arises, like the sky. It isn't moved by clouds going across it, birds flying across it, planes flying across it. It's not even moved by the sun and the moon, body like a mountain, breath like the ocean, mind like The sky. We'll do that For a Few Minutes. You
If you need to refresh your posture, move a little bit. That's fine.
That was the close placement of mindfulness of breathing and body. And now we're going to open to awareness of environment, mindful awareness. So we're going to use our breath, but more to go out with it, to open our minds the environment. So take your posture again. Let your eyes be naturally open your natural gaze is going to be slightly below the horizon. Soften that gaze. Open up your peripheral vision, side to side, top to bottom, again, not looking at something, but we're just looking in the same direction with a soft gaze, aware of the space.
Breath goes out, open up and relax your mind. Breath goes out, open up and relax into spaciousness. Breath goes out, open to see what happens and
objects of perception produce appearances in your mind.
Notice the colors shapes and shades of light and dark.
That's all light coming from the objects of perception, creating appearances in your mind.
Notice if labels arise along with those appearances,
sounds are objects of perception that send vibrations, that create appearances in your mind, like the sound of the gall My voice high or low pitch near far loud or soft.
Notice the appearance of sounds in your mind.
Notice if labels arise with those hands you
notice your bodily sensations, aches, itches, cloth on your skin, how your weight presses into your seat feed into the. Floor, air on the skin of your hands and face.
Hungry, thirsty, your body is the object of perception, sending nerve impulses that create appearances in Your Mind.
Notice if labels arise with those feelings and
you probably aren't tasting anything at this point, anything particular, but There may be some smells in the room, incense, flowers,
if there is, notice how quickly labels come up. What is that smell? Oh, it's that. It's just object, objects of perception you're experiencing through your nose that create appearances in your mind. Do
and finally thoughts. Just watch the next thought that appears it's generated by your mind and experienced by your mind as an appearance in your mind you
I notice thoughts as they appear seemingly out of Nowhere, dwell for a moment and disappear seemingly into nowhere.
Notice, if like and dislike arises along with the thoughts and
I can relax. Your investigation, return to the body and the breathing. And for our compassion practice, you can either have your eyes open or closed. If you find it helpful, you can put your hand palm down over your heart center. This the center of your chest at heart level, whatever is most comfortable for you,
feel the warmth of your heart is a natural warmth.
That warmth is the expression of kindness and compassion. Kindness means wishing that others be happy. Compassion is wishing that others be free from suffering.
And when I say others, let's, let's change that, wishing that all beings could be happy and all beings could be free from suffering that includes ourselves. So as you breathe in wish that all beings could be free of suffering, mental and physical
imagine as you breathe in, all that's getting drawn out of all beings, yourself and others,
just pulled out of them as you breathe in and as you breathe out, imagine that the warmth of your heart is filling them with kindness so they experience well Being in body and mind, peace, health, happiness, security for freedom from all those kinds of suffering and a positive sense of well being. Send that out with each out breath to yourself and others and
I think of someone you know and the pain they're going through as you breathe in wish that they could be free from that pain, and everyone else who feels the same kind of pain could be free from that,
think of what makes you happy that and as you breathe out, wish that all beings could share in that happiness. Send that happiness to all beings, whether it's comfort, ease, Joy security.
And finally, we go a little deeper, and that is the cause of so much suffering in the world. Some people would say all suffering is a deep ignorance that proliferates as hatred, intolerance, greed, lust for power, envy and jealousy, pride, desperation.
And intolerance. Wish that we and all beings could be free of all those, especially the root ignorance and because it's not ignoring how interconnected we all are.
It's not ignoring how things actually. Are trying to superimpose how we'd like them to be because of our needs, seeming needs,
and imagine as you breathe out instead of that ignorance and poisonous energies that you're Sending out, understanding and tolerance, wisdom, Caring, love, kindness, generosity, acceptance and
as the Gong fades, let go of your what you're imagining. Just come back to here and now. Eyes open, where the space that you're sitting in, wherever Your body and your posture, feeling your body, breathing you
And traditionally, we close with an aspiration, and that is twofold. One is, throughout whatever I do, may I carry the this mindfulness, awareness and compassion, kindness and compassion with me throughout the day and night, mindful and kind. And the other is that we dedicate whatever we do, not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of others. That's ultimately why we're doing this. So you can repeat after me or put in your own words. May the practice we've just done be of benefit to others as well as ourselves. If you want to be really generous, you can send me the practice I've just done. You have even more benefit to others than to myself.
And the idea is to carry these practices through in our everyday lives, and notice when the these self centered thoughts and emotions come up. We were studying this morning with a group that I was I practice with called the called compassion for Ukraine. We 8am every morning, 8am Pacific Time, every morning. And we were, one of the examples that one teacher gave was we say that we wish other beings to be happy. But when you get on a plane and you walk through first class, are you happy for them? Are you going, Oh, I am so happy that these people have these comfortable seats. I wish that they had this kind of happiness throughout their whole lives. That's kind of the point of view that we're encouraged to take, but it's challenging, as opposed to so I wish I had a seat like this. I'm going back into the cattle car. Resentment, envy, always, always, just poison our own minds, then they don't do us any good, and certainly don't do anybody else any good. So it was I enjoyed. I enjoyed that that one gave me pause. Went, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Not that happy for all of them. When I go go through first class, back to my seat, I. So any comments or questions, it's the top of the hour, but I'll stay on for a few minutes more.
You know, one of the, one of the things I told in the group, a little story about the time from the time of the Buddha, there was a gathering of all Bucha and all the monks and his monks and nuns, and one of the wealthy patrons was hosting this luncheon for more than 100 people. And just paid for the whole thing. And as was sort of traditional, I think it was a tradition at the time, one of the monks went up to the Buddha and said, So who in this gathering has the most merit from this event, and everybody fully expected. The Buddhist say, Oh, thank you, patron, you have the most merit for giving lunch to paying for lunch for everybody your gen great generosity. Because generosity is produces a lot of merit, a lot of benefit, karmic benefit. But the Buddha said, See that little old woman down there? She's the one who gets them as the most merit from this. They said, why? He said, because she was totally rejoicing. She was so happy that the patron was going to get all this merit for making these this, this generous donation isn't that cool. So I love that story. I'm going to let everybody unmute here. Unmute yourself so you don't have to raise your hand. Just chime right in if you have a question, and if you are, if you can't unmute, you can put something in the chat.
And thank you for your thanks in the chat, I got more benefit. I probably got more benefit than you. So I dedicate it back to you.
Anyone else have something wanted to share their experience.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you a couple of, I don't know if you'd call them jokes, but humorous tidbits. Here one is, if you know what the term Bodhisattva means wisdom being, it's someone who dedicates themselves to working for the benefit of others, and they take a vow that although beings are numberless, I vow to free them all from suffering, from this realm of suffering called samsara, and enter into nirvana. So these were the last two Bodhisattvas. They have successfully gotten all other beings out of some sarnish and Nirvana, and there's just the two of them left, and one says, After you, and the other one says, no, no, after you. That. And that goes on for a while. So the other one was told by this great teacher named Anam Anam tubden, if I said that right. He's based in Richmond, California, and he likes to tell these stories. Now this is one that people usually attribute to, including the Dalai Lama. So we'll, we'll say the Dalai Lama went up to a hot dog vendor and, and does anybody know what he said to the hot dog vendor? Come on. I know you've heard this one before. Make me one with everything. There you go, exactly. Thank you, Joey, make me one with everything. I heard the bagel version. Okay, right? And a pizza version, a pizza version, but let's stick with the hot dog vendor for now, and the hot dog vendor, you know. Miles, and loads up a hot dog with all this chili, with all the stuff, and gives it to the Dalai Lama, and he pays him, and the Dalai Lama says, What about my change? And you know what the hot dog vendor says, change comes from within, within. So those are, those are my stories for today. Thank you so much, and we'll it. Oh, you know what, I'm going to post this again, because if people came on to the the program after I put this in the chat, they wouldn't have seen it. So I'm going to invite you again to my next program, which is on a different zoom, on my own zoom, and that is on Thursday, March 6. So hope I'll see you there. And I think my next one, I'm sure my next one for I'm going to New Zealand to study with zongsar, kinsir Rinpoche, and I'll be back at the end of March. So March 31 is my next one for here on the on the nightclub. So hopefully see you next Thursday, if not, be safe and think of others till then. Bye, bye, you.