Streamed survive Nov 14, 2024
I just wish to invite you to come back into the guided meditation, but additionally be clear that you just don’t must—you’ll be able to just sit and revel in the group meditation space and do your personal sit, if you might have something you want doing higher. The one rules are that it’s silent and still. It’s not such as you’re going to rise up and dance or whatever in your meditation. Okay, so so long as you’ll be able to be quiet and still, whatever you would like within the privacy of your personal mind. After which, there’s a 3rd option, which a variety of people actually use, which is, you form of follow the guided sit until I’m going someplace that you just don’t wish to go, or you can’t go. Otherwise you’re liking what’s happening already, so just stay there. So that you stay on the bus halfway, after which get off and also you do your thing there. Okay, so is that enough freedom for you? Good. So let’s start from there, and we’re going to only do a bit of little bit of light stretching together, pre-meditation stretching. You make this work on your body, you don’t must follow what I’m doing, after all, your body best.
Okay, then just sit and breathe for a moment, nice and deep. Breathe out of your belly, whatever way it feels good. Meditation shouldn’t be a thing you do together with your mind, it’s mainly a thing you’re doing with awareness, but additionally it’s very embodied. Having your body involved really helps.
Okay, you guys know that I like alternate nostril respiration, so when you know the way to do this, go for it. For those who don’t remember, the instructions are: put your hand like this, your right arm is up, using your thumb, close your right nostril. Breathe within the left nostril, you then’re going to breathe out the opposite one. Close this side, and breathe out the best, and breathe in the best. Close it, breathe out the left. Now you ought to sit up, don’t be hunching over. That is energy work, so you would like your body to be nice and right. We’re going to do that together for like three minutes, so just settle in.
What I need you to do is, let’s just use the seed syllable and just focus at your third eye center as you’re doing this. So that you’re not only form of sitting there serious about the brand new Kate Blanchet movie or something, you might be respiration, alternating your nostrils, concentrating your energy at your third eye, while intoning the syllable. It is a nice concentration exercise, but it surely’s mainly energy balancing, and it’ll are likely to really, really decelerate the speedy mind.
We began with a left nostril in-breath, so, for balance, whenever you end, end on a left nostril out-breath. Then just breathe normally for a moment. Now we’ll just do a bit of little bit of seed syllable chanting, and we’ll just keep on with Remember how we do that, just keep chanting, and you are taking a breath at any time when you would like. You may do it at any pitch you would like, because I’m doing a pitch that’s nice for my voice, but you utilize a pitch that’s nice on your voice. Keep noticing the energy at your third eye, regardless that you’re chanting. You’re just relaxed, you’re open, and also you’re letting that energy really energize your third eye.
Good. Now, riding on the energy of the pranayama and the seed syllable, simply rest within the openness. Just allow yourself to set your entire machinery of your pondering mind aside, identical to you’re putting down an influence drill. Just unplugging it, and also you’re just going to set it on the table, and also you’re not going to make use of it right away. Unlike an influence drill, it’d sit there humming for some time. It’d still be pondering, but we’re just not going to note, we’re not going to interact with that in any respect. We’re just going to let or not it’s, and, as a substitute, where all the notice goes is just into easy presence. Just into easy openness. While you’re not within the machinery of thought, the mind could be very open, and it’s very, very, easy. It’s high res, but it surely’s easy.
So, letting yourself be very naturally, very simply, open. And, when you notice you’ve got form of a twitch, like, I just can’t stop picking up my mind. Just keep setting it back down. It’s okay, you don’t must fight with it, but, in a really relaxed, super mellow way, set it back down, and are available back to the utter simplicity and naturalness of open awareness.
Now, if that’s a bit of too formless, it’s okay to make use of the breath as a house base. You’re not specializing in the breath or attempting to follow it or something. You’re just letting or not it’s form of the anchor for this openness, something you can calmly sit with when you’re just being awake, within the skylike, relaxed, vivid, clear, fresh, open, outside of mind, completely outside of pondering.
I’m going to be quiet for some time. We’re just gonna sit and do this. And, again, every time you choose up, when you pick back up the mind, just set it back down. It’s like, sometimes when you put down your phone, you retain nervously picking it back up. Eventually, you’re like, leave that thing on the table, and just feel that breath wave, easily rising and falling by itself accord.
Notice what it’s like to take a seat without engaging the thought process. You’re wide awake, you’re fully present, and there’s an actual sense of openness and ease that you just’re not generating, or by some means attempting to make occur. It’s just there since you’re not picking up the thought machine. For those who are constantly re-engaging with thought, then, again, don’t fight it. Don’t get in a war with it, but what I’d recommend is, each time, at the tip of an out-breath, just let go again. Check each out-breath, oh, yep, I’m engaged, just let go, like just, ahhh. So no less than you’re not constantly engaged. It’s very interesting, when you can sit there unengaged with thought for some time, just how wealthy and beautiful open experience is. It’s not special, it’s not trippy or something, but it surely’s just this normal moment, but experienced with tremendous presence. Very nice, so let’s proceed this for some time.
Good. Now, continuing to only sit in easy presence, notice if there’s any tension within the core of your mind. Tension within the core of your mind is what keeps you grabbing onto thoughts, or grabbing onto ideas, or attempting to figure stuff out, or attempting to plan. It’s like there’s a fist within the core of your head, and it keeps grabbing on to stuff. Despite the fact that, after all, there’s no fist within the core of your head, it looks like muscle tension almost. So, when you can notice that, the thing to do is loosen up that.
Open the fist of the mind, so to talk. Let that core tension right within the very center of your brain loosen up. Just as when you were opening your hand. And also you’ll feel it attempt to grab on again, tighten down on something—which is okay—again, we’re not fighting it. That just adds more tension. As an alternative, we’re gently allowing it to open, and to seek out enough trust, and enough confidence, and self-care, to permit it to only stay relaxed.
So, it’s so much less like attempting to stay focused, it’s more like helping a baby get to sleep or something, just very soothing, very sweet, allowing it to loosen up. Not pushy or demanding, just soothing it open. Just let that thing—every time it tightens up—just let it loosen up. And, when it’s relaxed like that, it will probably’t hold on to any thoughts. They’ll be there—they’re moving through—but you’re not fixating on them, and that’s the purpose. So, loosen up the core of your mind. Sit in easy presence.
It could actually be really helpful at the tip of every out-breath, to permit that core of the mind to only dissolve entirely. The tip of every out-breath, just let it vanish, so it becomes increasingly more relaxed, increasingly more open. But notice, it’s not taking you into some form of dream, or some form of altered state. You’re actually arriving in presence increasingly more completely, coming out of the virtual world of the mind, into actual being.
Now, assuming you’re staying pretty relaxed, notice the natural openness that’s available. The experience of the room and the body, and so forth, could be very open, unbounded, tremendously spacious and wide. It’s not that you just’re making it spacious, or attempting to force it open, or something. It’s that, whenever you’re not constantly down contained in the machinery of thought, the senses are wide open in all directions. It’s easy to feel your body, easy to listen to the room around. In case your eyes are open, form of taking in the entire scene. It’s the other of that tight, crystallized sense of being form of locked-in we get from being down inside our thoughts. That is like being up on top of a mountain on a transparent day, just openness in all directions.
Now, you could have been working with verbal thoughts. There’s also visual thoughts, certainly one of which is something like, when you really put it in words, it’s an idea of, I’m inside my body, and also you keep form of flashing on the image of your body as form of a container. That’s one other thing we’re letting go of. We’re not engaging with visual pondering like that either. For those who don’t grab onto those body images, you begin to note that sense of being awake, and aware, and present, shouldn’t be by some means situated within the thermos bottle of your body. It’s more prefer it’s just an open field of awareness, a vibrating field of sensation that doesn’t really have a boundary—it’s just open. The body can begin to feel so much more like a cloud of buzzy, tingly, pixels, greater than some form of potato.
So, it’s open, spacious, and roomy. So we’re not only relaxing away from verbal pondering, we’re relaxing away from visual pondering also, which might be so much more unconscious. But, to whatever extent you’re aware that it’s happening, just let that go, and that’s when the body will just open up. Because your mind is busy putting the body in a form of box on a regular basis. While you just don’t engage with that box image, the body just feels the best way it feels by itself, which is sort of a spacious cloud of vibration.
Over and another time, releasing the fist of thought. Letting any gripping within the mind loosen up—no less than on the tip of the out-breath, just let it go. Don’t follow a train of thought over and another time. Let it go. Even the considered the body.
And there’s one other one you’ll be able to let go of, which is any sense of time. Time is only a thought, it’s an idea. So, if that concept comes up, just don’t engage it. Notice, when you don’t engage the time thought, you then’re in timelessness—which shouldn’t be some trippy, giant infinity loop or something—it’s just presence outside of time. Time is sort of a cop in your head that you just keep. It keeps checking on you on a regular basis. You may just let it go, not engage it, after which, immediately, we’re in a sort of gorgeous, easy, presence, as if we’re children again.
Remember, this shouldn’t be some form of idea to assume, that is the other of that. We’re just letting go of imagining anything, without combating that, because constantly relaxing isn’t a struggle. You may must remember again and again to loosen up, but it surely’s still calming, and soothing, to only, ah, ah. So, it’s not a fight. Don’t get in any form of fight. Returning over and another time to easy, open, presence, which takes no doing of any kind. It’s what’s there on a regular basis whenever you’re not doing.
Superb. Now let’s experiment with letting go of a good deeper thought, a rather more fundamental one: I’m doing this. That’s just an idea, but a really persistent one. I’m doing this. It’s not something to go find and fight with. Again, just notice if you might have the sensation, I’m doing this, you then just loosen up that, and just come back to sitting in easy presence, outside of time, outside of the mind, outside of the solidity of the body. Spacious, open, relaxed, wide awake, vivid, clear, fresh, easy. Spacious, open, ease.
Okay, excellent. Now only for a moment, without using your pondering process in any respect, search for who’s even present. Who’s it that’s present? Don’t give it some thought, it’s not that form of a solution. It’s a looking. Who’s it that’s present? Just find it. Notice, you’ll be able to’t actually find anything but presence. There’s not a who, there may be just presence, just spacious, clear, open, freshness.
Good. Let’s do three long together, just radiating the sound of this clear, open, presence. Nice and loud.
Feel the energy of those radiating out within the boundless, timeless halls of awakeness, vivid and clear.
Okay, excellent.
So, the interesting thing here is that we’re not attempting to cultivate some form of special awakeness. It’s something you’ll be able to do with altered states, but that’s not crucial. Even those altered states are still just simply a mirrored image of what’s all the time there. What’s all the time there may be this straightforward, wide awake, wide open, boundless clarity, simplicity, brightness, that’s actually kind and loving as well. It’s all the time there, it’s all the time there. What happens is we just have learned to concentrate on something else.
So, we’re spending a variety of time specializing in body sensations, or the thought of the body, I’m my body, and I’m within the body. We’re specializing in that. Even that might be a bit of too embodied and present for most individuals as of late. We’re more specializing in my Twitter feed and a bunch of ideas and algorithms for acing job interviews or something. You’re just so into this virtual world within the mind—which is positive, I mean that’s a robust thing to make use of, it’s a useful gizmo, but we’re form of glommed onto it in a neurotic, fixated, way. You’ll have noticed after I said loosen up the fist of thought, or let the core of your mind loosen up, that it just kept doing that. Not for everybody, but for plenty of people, that may just keep grabbing. That’s what I mean. It’s a habit of being focused on that, like that’s what’s really happening is that form of mental experience.
Again, nothing improper with mental experience, but isn’t it odd that you just’re totally glommed onto it. One among the difficulties of being just stuck on it like that’s that you just don’t notice this other thing, the principal thing, which is that this tremendous clear, open, awake, presence inside, which this experience of the mind is just this tiny virtuality. I’m sure all of us have had the experience of being somewhere like Yellowstone National Park, and also you or certainly one of your folks is stuck on their phone, reading some social media. There’s this great word in Hungarian—I’ll pronounce it improper, egérszínház, which suggests mouse theater.
You’re stuck in your mouse theater, and here’s this whole world happening. Someone’s just missing your entire experience because they’re stuck of their mouse theater. That’s just such an obvious version of this, however the non-obvious version is that the remaining of us are doing the identical rattling thing, just within the mouse theater in your head. Just stuck onto whatever loops are happening. Again, all of which is positive, it’s just funny, since you don’t have to try this. That’s only a alternative, and after some time, it’s almost more of a habit. And perhaps after some time, much more of an addiction.
It’s that little thing, I just prefer to look at the mouse theater in my head all day. That’s the one thing in any respect—it’s that easy—keeping you from experiencing vast halls of freedom, and love, and presence, that are there immediately whenever you aren’t focused on that. Immediately. It’s there the entire time, you’re just not being attentive to it.
One among my principal teachers used to say, you’ve got this giant banquet being prepared for you day-after-day. This gorgeous, sumptuous banquet, and you simply forget to eat it—each day—since you don’t notice that it’s there. The food is on the table, dig in, and also you’re identical to, I’m busy with the mouse theater. You’re just not engaging.
That may be form of sad on some level, but it surely’s a lot worse than that, since the virtual world is largely just awful, right? And I don’t mean the Web, but I mean, you’re contained in the thoughts. It’s just about a terrible place to be, right? It’s just tight, and judgy, and fixated on every kind of pain and suffering. And yet we’re selecting, on purpose, to attach with it constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly—who knows why? Simply because we aren’t normally trained to not do this.
In truth we’re normally trained do this. So, it’s not only that you just’re missing the banquet, it’s like, you’re eating glass and barbed wire, on purpose. And so, it is advisable to not do this. Possibly. It’s funny, because if I invite people to not do this, they’ll fight, and fight, and fight, to do it—and me, too, for a very long time. But there’s this image that I learned somewhere in India that’s just an excellent intense image, that was very compelling, and that’s, being stuck on that’s like being a dog—it is a terrible image, I’m sorry, it’s a horrible image—a dog that’s eating broken glass and thinks it’s so delicious, since it tastes like blood. It’s identical to, oh. That’s what that engagement with this thing—that is just painful—is like. We predict we want it, and that it’s necessary, and we must. No, it’s just hurting you.
So, I invite you to start to extinguish that habit, extinguish that training, extinguish that super tense fist within the core of your head that you just’re doing on a regular basis. Don’t fight it, because that’s just one other super tense fist. Just keep relaxing that thing, because when you’re not making it tight on purpose on a regular basis, it’ll loosen up. It would loosen up, because naturally it’s open, naturally it’s present, naturally it’s wide awake. It’s not even that tough, it’s just that we now have a protracted habit of not relaxing it.
You realize, when you’ve kept a muscle tense for a very long time, sometimes it just desires to stay tense, and desires some very gentle, very kind, very compassionate soothing—form of coaxing—to open back up. And which may even at first be a bit of painful, since it’s not used to range of motion. So that you’ve got to be really gentle about it. For those who attempt to jam it open, that just hurts. And again, simply to be clear, there’s nothing improper with pondering. That’s perfectly obvious, that we want to try this. That’s very powerful, helpful, useful as a tool that we use, but not as something that we stuck inside. Imagine your automotive, really useful to have, but imagine when you then thought, I’m my automotive, and you simply never get out. You imagine that you just’re by some means skin welded to the seat. Then you definitely just can’t get out now, it’s a jail. You simply begin to suffer. So that is an invite to acknowledge that you just’re already freed from that. You aren’t stuck in it.
Questioner 1: Is freshness of appearances a results of not being distracted the best way you were talking about, and the extraordinary presence?
Michael: That’s a part of it. You’re not distracted, so that you’re taking in additional, but it surely’s more that the considered a thing is kind of different than the thing. For most individuals, more often than not, we’re stuck within the considered a thing, even when we’re present with it. Right away, I mean, if it’s there within the room with us, still more of our experience is our idea in regards to the thing. It’s only a tag cloud of concepts about this thing, and that’s really dead, and dull, and repetitive, and uninteresting. Whereas, the actual embodied sensory experience of that thing could be very alive, and really vibrant, and juicy, and vivid. And so, in other words, it’s being stuck within the pondering part that form of deadens our whole world.
Questioner 1: After which, how was it experienced? I feel perhaps one results of that may be having latest insights, since it’s being seen as a fresh thing this time, somewhat than that thing. The opposite is enjoyment, since it’s juicy, such as you say. Is that the way it’s experienced?
Michael: Yeah, although the insights come, but, again a variety of times those aren’t a train of thought, you simply start having these But on top of that, just the plain enjoyment of experience, the enjoyment of other people, the enjoyment of animal beings, the enjoyment of our world, goes way way way way way up.
Questioner 1: After which, to maximise the freshness, or the moments of freshness, is it like glimpses of freshness? That, meaning, the trail to experiencing it increasingly more, is in glimpses and like increasing the frequency of experiencing that way?
Michael: That’s actually a great strategy to do it. One other way is to spend time doing meditation like this. You do an hour of this, after which, no less than for some time afterwards, you’re less within the dead machinery of thought, and more in presence. So, by meditating, you get increasingly more acclimated. And, yeah, doing the glimpses is a great way in, although I’ll say that, over time, those glimpses get longer and longer. We begin to, because that’s what’s really there, so to talk. The remainder is just the veils coming in between us and it.
Questioner 1: Thanks.
Michael: Superb. Other stuff, reports, things coming up, questions?
Questioner 2: Hello. The last couple of sits I’ve had in here, I’ve had a variety of gross dullness and sleepiness.
Michael: Are you getting enough sleep?
Questioner 2: Yeah, I’m getting seven, yeah okay I could get eight perhaps, but still it’s a variety of dullness. I do know there’s a bunch of body stuff you’ll be able to do. I used to be doing tiny little wiggles. I’d form of take the 2 images of my eyes and zoom them back together, or I actually have a variety of little fiddles I can do this seem to actually help, like sit up. I do know there’s a variety of body stuff, but it surely looks like even with all that stuff, I just get to being on the very fringe of not being sleepy, but nothing like cool ever really goes to occur in the course of the sit. It’s form of like fighting for the entire time. So, is there every other stuff, like ways to focus, or different kinds of techniques, or like energy stuff you would be doing that may be interesting?
Michael: It’s easy. It’s your mind that’s dull. That’s why I asked when you got enough sleep. For those who got enough sleep, your body is fresh and awake. So, your mind is dull. And so long as you’re still engaging the mind, you’re dull. But when you step outside of the mind, the mind will likely be a dull object, but you’re in wide openness, and wide awake place. That’s advanced. It’s hard to do, but it surely’s easy to acknowledge, oh, it’s my mind, that’s dull . My awakeness is wide awake. It’s all the time wide awake.
Questioner 2: I’ve had the thing where the body goes to sleep and also you’re by some means…
Michael: It’s easy, just recognize that the dullness shouldn’t be who you might be. It’s just the mind goes to dullness. Okay, let it do this, and just watch it clearly.
Questioner 2: Okay, thanks.
Michael: It’s just that easy. Provided that, you’re doing all the opposite physical stuff, that’s form of the subsequent, and also you understood what I meant.
Questioner 2: Yeah, I feel so, yeah.
Questioner 3: Hello. Somewhat related, as I can watch my thoughts, I can set them aside, and go into openness. I can feel, it almost looks like it’s happening the opposite side, and I can feel the background noise of my mind going into dream space, beginning to tell stories that should not thoughts, but feel like thoughts. But it surely’s more on the dream side, it’s not quite sleepiness or dullness, but it surely seems related. It’s like falling over on the opposite side of a headstand.
Michael: Are you sure you’re wide awake?
Questioner 3: Yes.
Michael: Then don’t worry about it. One among the ways to envision is that if there’s suddenly a sound, do you [jerk]? For those who do, you then’re not wide awake, you were falling asleep. But, if it’s identical to bang, [no reaction], you then’re positive. The hypnagogic stuff is definitely happening in your mind on a regular basis, and whenever you’re meditating outside the mind, you’re wide awake, your mind will go into all that crazy stuff like that, and it doesn’t matter. It just is awake, so just let it do this. It’s actually tremendously healing on your mind to try this. It’s just being natural for once, as a substitute of being some form of machine that just went into being natural. Just don’t get caught up in any of that. It’s actually very healing. You’ll notice it feels real good. Now, after all, it feels real good to go to sleep, too, so that is a special form of feeling good. It’s that the mind is free, okay?
Questioner 3: Great, thanks.
Questioner 4: Sometimes it looks like the best way into relaxing that grasping muscle is less knowingness, and it’s less engaged. So it’s like, when you have a look at a hammer on a table, you don’t think I’m gonna pick that up, or when you are, as a substitute of driving, you’re a passenger, and also you see a road sign, you’re not interpreting it, you’re just form of floating through it. It could actually feel dull, it will probably feel less engaged, weak, but it surely’s really calming.
Michael: It’s really calming, but notice that that’s still form of an idea of the mind there. That the mind is by some means dull. The awakeness is absolutely awake. Are you seeing that hammer clearly? Are you seeing the roadside clearly? Or are you going into some form of checked-out dullness? Checked-out dullness is a mind state, so that you’re still inside your pondering. Because whenever you’re not contained in the pondering, it won’t be checked out. It’ll be fresh and clear, in order that’s a symptom.
Questioner 4: I actually have to seek out one other way in then, because that may slow the thoughts.
Michael: Sure, so will going to sleep. That slows your thoughts right down, doesn’t it? So you wish a special way in, okay?
Questioner 4: Okay, yeah, thanks.
Questioner 5: Just adding on to the conversation. I can do long meditations within the morning, but that is like my first time trying meditation at night. I used to be coming straight from work, so I feel perhaps when it comes to your mind being dull, I noticed that. I’m trying to seek out routines that help me come here, and make me feel like I can fully be present. I attempt to take a nap, but I still feel like I used to be going backwards and forwards between being present and form of dreaming a bit of bit. It’s after the meditation I feel like throughout the meditation I’d make myself feel guilty for not being present.
Michael: That actually helps. [laughter]
Questioner 5: But I noticed that right away, I feel really good, and I feel really present. It also really helped whenever you said your mind is being free. and my mind does be happy right away.
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