Being Present with Awareness of Breathing

it says i'm live i'm going to trust it hello sentient beings welcome to uh this meditation guided meditation and meditation class presented this uh thursday evening via the auspices of the san francisco dharma collective so thank you to the san francisco dharma collective for sponsoring me to be here tonight with all of you lovely sentient beings uh and with all the people who are watching this asynchronous asynchronously at some other time perhaps 10 000 years in the future this is what we were doing way back when oh future beings uh welcome tonight everybody i hope you're having a just a wonderful experience of life uh this is the one that you get at least this time around so engage or to do it all up a card engage uh i'm not quite bald enough to do that right um let's just dive right in as usual and begin meditating so what i want you to do is get in your meditation posture like i'm doing right now you can hear this squeaky chair get in your meditation posture feel your lower back curving in see on the watch watch what happens right here when i curve my lower back see how the whole the whole back goes straight and the chest goes out that's what's happening when your spine is doing the right thing so if your lower back is slumped your whole body slumps your lower back is in the whole thing goes upward so sit with your lower back curved in get your whole body stretching upward and allow your shoulders to rotate down and back in a very relaxed very wonderful way hands in your lap i like to do it like this but you can just kind of do it like this this whatever this is kind of traditional or you can put them on your knees like that if you want to get all yogurt about it you can do it like this on your knees flat or like this on your thighs flat but not up sitting there with them up like they do in the stock photography um never do that and then your chin is tucked just a little bit okay so the back of your neck is open the top of your head feels like it's suspended from a cord that is up on the ceiling it's attached to the ceiling so your whole your head is like suspended in this incredibly pleasant manner so we've got our posture right and remember this posture is leveraging the body-mind principle right body and mind are one system it's not we're not in descartes land here where there's this disembodied thing and then there's the body and who knows what the connection between them is according to descartes it's like the pineal gland or whatever but this is medicine from 500 years ago instead what we know is that body and mind are one system right one unit not separate so when the body becomes still the mind becomes still when the breath becomes slow and even and still the mind becomes slower and more even and stiller right we we work with different ends of the system to gain the effects that we would like and so by the same principle leveraging the same principle when the body is both upright alert and at the same time very relaxed it helps us to get the mind in the same state and that is the state that we want for meditation the mind is alert and relaxed so getting your body correct to begin with really really helps so we've got our body alert and relaxed and um this will this in a way primes the pump for meditation alert relaxation now as you know i'm going to guide you through some relaxation right now i don't really guide the alertness part but the point that's really crucial to remember whenever you hear me doing these guided meditations especially the guided meditation with relaxation is that you are to remain very alert this is not about going to sleep this is not about getting drowsy your mind should be very bright very clear very crisp very on in terms of awakeness okay and while at the same time the body is incredibly relaxed this is also the reason the body mind principle is also one of the many reasons that i often when i'm in the same space as the people we're meditating together with i'm always telling them to sit still so i haven't said that very much in a long time and i want you to know that it gives me great pleasure this evening to say if you possibly can sit for the entire meditation without moving a muscle except for the breathing muscle and maybe you know swallowing or whatever but try to remain very very still because i'm running the computer and stuff i may move a little bit but i will remain largely still also why again the body mind principle if the body is still the mind becomes very still the stiller the body the stiller the mind right so that's how we work that there's other reasons for remaining still and again if for whatever reason you can't do that that's okay just do it as much as is comfortable but the whole idea of what we would call strong determination sitting meaning i'm gonna sit without moving the muscle that idea is a very good idea if you can do it so we are sitting in our alert relaxed posture feeling alert and relaxed already and now we're going to do um what in traditional buddhism and and what i do in many of these meditations is called arousing bodhichitta right we're going to pump up the feeling of bodhichitta however you know in a modern western psychological sense what we're doing here is entering a positive and confident mind state so we don't necessarily have to use any of the buddhist language if you like the buddhist language about bodhichitta insert that now but i'll just show you that we can do the same thing in a modern western context by simply understanding again that according to the kind of buddhist meditation we're doing you're already fully awakened sort of underneath your thinking mind underneath the emotions and the thoughts there is a perfectly enlightened awakened already existing buddha okay and so i just want you to tune in right now to the sense of confidence in meditation [Music] a buddha would have think about how perfectly confident and imagine right now in your own self that feeling of perfect confidence you really know how to do this and you're very very good at it and bring up that state of confidence right now and then furthermore i want you to bring up the sense of wisdom think about how wise that already existing buddha really is how wise is the buddha is the definition of wise right so bring up a sense of wisdom right now that doesn't mean it's any particular information it's uh the wisdom mind being present the feeling of wisdom present now and then furthermore a sense of tremendous clarity right the buddha is very clear so we're confident we feel wisdom and we feel this sense of clarity so bringing those attributes into mind right now finally the fourth one is compassion for all beings compassion for oneself compassion for animals compassion on for humans compassion for the planet and all the beings of the planet and all the beings of all the other planets right so bring up this sense of confident wisdom clarity and compassion and just feel that for a moment okay this is again this is rousing body browsing means you're already awakened already enlightened buddha mind right and since that's already here we can just say it in our own kind of straightforward way saying feel confident feel the clarity feel the wisdom and feel the compassion and just notice that state as you sit in your alert relaxed posture so just let's be quiet for like two minutes just noticing this state of bodhichitta the awakened heart mind the awakened mind the awakened heart good so now with that wisest clearest kindest self really in the foreground that's true sense of confidence and compassion let's begin doing our concentration practice otherwise known as shamatha with an object tonight we will do the full body breathing since that's the best for most people not everyone you can do your traditional tibetan staring at a rock that's on the table or whatever in front of you if you'd like whatever object is both clear and stable we're kind of borrowing stability from this external object in this case it's not external it's the sense of breathing so on the in-breath you're feeling the breath coming in feeling the breath coming in feel it go down down down down down feel the expansion of the chest feel the expansion of the belly until the bottom of the in-breath and then breathing out feel the belly contracting the ribcage retracting and the air going out your trachea and the out the end of your nose so on the in-breath you can say to yourself breathing in breathing in breathing in breathing in breathing in or even more slowly breathing in breathing in breathing in and then on the out breath breathing out breathing out breathing out breathing out and remembering to feel these four areas the nose the windpipe the chest and the belly okay nose windpipe chest belly on the in-breath belly chest windpipe nose on the out breath right so feeling that breath coming in feeling that breath going out and for this section of the meditation uh breathing as long as you can meaning the longest in breath that's comfortable the longest out breath that's comfortable that's really good okay but remember it must be comfortable don't push it in anyway we're not we don't want there to be any strain so let's continue breathing in and feeling at least those four parts and then breathing out feeling at least those four parts if you feel more stuff in between there like different areas of the belly different areas in the chest that's great too more is better so we want you to feel this full body breathing and really allow it to grab your tension that's the point allowing it to grab your attention so let's do that for a little while here now i want you to not only feel the air moving in on the in-breath but imagine you are breathing in awakeness breathing in energy breathing in a kind of clarity and brightness in the mind and then breathing out you're breathing out all tension all discomfort leaving only relaxation and awakeness so on the in-breath breathing and awake bright clearness clarity on the out breath breathing out any tension any discomfort draining way draining away all discomfort so you're left both relaxed and alert just like your body right it's alert it's upright it's attentive and it's relaxed so we're leveraging that body mind principle getting both body and mind alert and relaxed now as usual i'll guide a little uh relaxation here as you're doing it you can just listen to that in the background first thing i want you to do is relax your forehead and scalp just allowing that to drain away any tension your forehead becomes very relaxed eyebrows release and relax and let go the little muscles around your eyes the muscles that control the eyes and the eyelids and so on all that relaxes feeling all the tension draining away [Music] allowing your eyes to become tremendously relaxed your mouth and lips releasing and letting go your cheeks relaxing any fixed tension in your face any fixed expression completely releasing completely letting go and your jaw becoming unclenched and now feel in your scalp your forehead your eyes your cheeks your mouth your jaw feel that relaxation and feel even your lips actually becoming just a little bit fatter as because the blood is moving into your lip region as you relax so you'll feel just this teeny tiny like one percent five percent increase in the volume of your lips because all those tight muscles around your mouth relaxed so feel that it's a really interesting sensation that's a kind of the pasta thing you notice after a while these little tiny things that happen when you relax and then moving right along allow your neck muscles to release and relax and let go all tension draining out of your neck all tension draining out of your throat your throat muscles releasing and relaxing and letting go that's the secret to meditation teacher voice right is that the voice box is really really really relaxed so it's not up in here it's not all tight it's really relaxed and we can all hear that relaxation in someone else's voice and we like it so having your vocal cords released is the secret sauce for being a meditation teacher so do that now you can practice and then allow your shoulders to release and relax and let go so feeling your neck your throat your shoulders all tension draining away draining away draining away draining away and feeling how the neck and throat and shoulders feel so good right now and in fact the scalp the forehead the eyebrows the eyes the face the cheeks the lips the mouth the jaw the neck the throat the shoulders even the arms and hands all still releasing and letting go releasing and letting go your arms and hands becoming as limp as wet rags your hands again because of the relaxation your hands becoming just a little bit warmer can feel warmth in your fingers warmth in your extremities and notice how good that feels because the fingers are relaxed and the arms are relaxed and the shoulders and throat and neck are relaxed in the face and head is relaxed and because of the leveraging of the mind-body principle you can't help it you just notice that the mind the whole system begins to relax much more deeply now it's almost as if you shifted down you dropped into a much much deeper state of relaxation and awakeness clarity and release anybody can just take a nap and get relaxation and unconsciousness or relaxation and muddiness but we're looking for something much more interesting relaxation and alertness together so again on the in-breath you're breathing in that alertness that awakens that clarity like a bright light and on the out breath you're releasing all tension releasing all tension and releasing all tension so that it's very deep relaxation and then next noticing that the upper chest and upper back and all the muscles of the upper chest and upper back and the whole ribcage just are releasing and relaxing and letting go all tension draining away all discomfort draining out replaced with a sense of lightness and upliftedness and tremendous relaxation and ease feels very very pleasant notice how good that feels you may also notice the raw ecstasy of breathing breathing feels really good when you're doing it these long deep relaxed breaths it's just incredibly pleasant thing to do all day long we're ignoring our breathing we're just having it go on in the background but when we pay attention to it it's an immediate direct source of pleasure all right breathing feels good so continuing to breathe in awakeness and breathe out tension so that we're alert and relaxed allow your diaphragm to release if you know how to do that allow your belly to relax your belly to let go your belly to become open and soft your back muscles in the back there in the kidney region relaxing and opening and the muscle muscles of the pelvic area relaxing all tension draining away all tension leaving the body all discomfort leaving the body leaving only alert pleasant relaxation and notice now how so much of the body is relaxed and open the mind is so still and bright that it's effortless it's just an intention nothing more and yet you can't help it you drop down now into a much deeper state of relaxation and clarity relaxation and wakefulness and openness and you notice now your hips releasing [Music] and your upper legs relaxing and letting go and your knees relaxing and your calves releasing and your feet opening and letting go relaxing and opening relaxing and getting brighter and clearer and now notice that the whole body from the top of the head the face the neck the shoulders the arms and hands the chest the belly the back pelvic region the legs and feet the whole body is relaxed the whole body is feeling at ease and the whole system feels alert and bright in a very pleasant way very awake and again because this stills the mind into this tremendous lucid limpid clarity it's absolutely easy and effortless to just drop down to an even deeper much deeper more profound state of alert relaxation and you notice that your breath is getting much much much smaller now not big deep in breaths and big deep out breaths but as the clarity increases as the alertness and relaxation increase the breath is becoming very small or at least smaller and smoother and [Music] just right very comfortable now let awareness become panoramic letting go of the narrower focus on the breath and instead hearing all the sounds around you feeling or noticing all the space around allowing awareness to stay very panoramic if it begins to contract around a thought and you notice that contraction just relax back into panoramic remember that panoramic takes no effort awareness is already fast open effortless the effort is to constrict down onto a thought or constrict down onto an emotion we call that a tension right so if you notice that happening just relax come back to this wide wide wide open effortless panoramic 360 awareness and notice that the mind begins to settle into this panoramic awareness with no tightness in it there's no tension of any kind it's alert relaxed awareness with no [Music] object it's tensing onto doesn't matter how much thinking is happening don't tense down and pay attention to it simply stay panoramic stay vast stay relaxed and the thoughts will come and go without you paying any particular attention at all it's brightness clarity and relaxation in the mind stays wide open stays totally unperturbed by anything notice that you're not exactly meditating on anything right now you're meditating but there's no concentration object at all and yet you can become tremendously concentrated in this wide open completely relaxed state paradoxically when we're doing this to become distracted means to pay attention to something because as soon as you're paying attention to any particular thing lost this wide open state so anytime you start paying attention to something in particular that's that tightness of mind drop the ball relax come back to this wide open panoramic awareness so each time the mind tenses up and begins to pay attention to something [Music] relax open remembering that vast spacious clear open released relaxed vivid clear bright awareness is the natural state of the mind it's just open and alert open and awake notice this very interesting sense of being concentrated that kind of still clear bright mind of concentration but not concentrated on any particular thing rather wide open it's a very very pleasant state remember the name of this state shamatha without an object it's shamatha so shamatha means peaceful calm pleasant abiding peaceful sitting there but it's got that pleasant quality if there's any struggle in this that's just not going to work can't struggle if it's struggling go back and do keep doing the breath part if you're trying to figure out if you're doing it right that's a kind of paying attention so cut that out because the minute you ask that you're definitely not doing it right just go back to smooth fast panoramic effortless awareness not tightening down on anything fully awakened buddhas are already adapts after meditation some part of you deep down knows how to do this perfectly well this is child's play just allow that wisdom to guide you now relax and open relax and alert remember any involvement with thinking is a kind of attention you're tightening down when you do that so just don't pay attention to it come back to panoramic awareness some people make the mistake of trying on purpose to spread the attention with effort but panoramic awareness is already panoramic does not need to be spread or doesn't need any help it's like trying to spread the sky or something it's already there just relax you'll be okay nothing bad will happen you're nice and alert just let the awareness be very very very naturally open naturally broad naturally everywhere equally now we're going to do something very very simple allow awareness to be everywhere at once tremendously panoramic vast spacious noticing that awareness is aware right it's not just aware of the periphery it's not aware of just the skin of the balloon it's aware of everything inside the balloon right so with this vast spacious awareness this panoramic awareness equally in all directions and just notice now [Music] you are breathing again just feel the breath but don't point any attention at the breath just let the awareness of the breath be an awareness awareness is aware right and you notice you're aware of your breath so i want you now to be present with the awareness of the breath this is completely different than what we started out doing where we were focusing attention on the breath right this is very very different panoramic awareness is aware it's present with awareness of the breath this really takes no effort at all or very very little effort one percent effort awareness aware of breathing or we could say being present with the effortless awareness of breathing notice that this effortless awareness has no center it's not coming from any direction it requires zero effort and it's already aware why because it's awareness it's nature is clarity its essence is emptiness and it's continuous it's always on if this is hard you can go back to just concentrating on the breath like we did at the beginning but this is not that this is something very different this is being present with awareness of the bread isn't that wild it's a completely different thing and notice that you can do it with a whole body breathing like we did so you know feeling the breath in the whole body but if you felt like it you could even do stuff like just being present with awareness of the breath in the chest or something or the nose or something but again notice you're not focusing it's just awareness is aware of that spot while remaining panoramic so let's just sit and be present with awareness of breathing now don't let yourself start concentrating don't get caught in thought stay with awareness being wide wide wide panoramic vast and just present with the breath not concentrating on the breath no attention at all no tightness just being present with awareness of breathing uh it's easy to get distracted meaning get involved in something get tense tighten up but just relax come back to panoramic and then be present with awareness of breathing do ah good now let go of that as we end the meditation good work bodhisattvas i think that's just a tremendously fun and interesting thing to notice that you are already aware that you can be aware of things without paying attention to them and that doesn't even sound like it makes sense in normal english but of course you just had the experience of doing it so it makes perfect sense in special meditation english so now feel free to move hopefully you didn't move a muscle the entire time except maybe your breathing muscles um feel free to move and stretch you can wiggle your fingers and toes you can look left and right up and down orienting yourself and just generally re-emerging in the form realm having a delicious drink of water just like breathing which feels great clear cold water also tastes amazing [Music] as you may notice okay so that was nice um [Music] it's really important to understand this difference between being aware which is already there the fact that experience is happening the fact that in quotes the lights are on in the room of your mind that's awareness right or what we would call consciousness same thing um i don't tend to use the word consciousness that much just because it's got a whole bunch of kind of new age baggage attached to it i tend to use awareness but i think of them as meaning the same thing um but awareness is already on it's already there you don't make yourself more aware somehow but attention is when you you know tighten down you gather the awareness on something and you make a me over here looking at a thing over there it's a spatial subject object relationship thing you do with your mind that's attention and whenever we're doing shaman without an object the idea is to let go of any attention and just allow awareness to be aware now the thing that's had that happens there that's so interesting and so powerful is the minute you attempt and it's funny that i would even use that word but the minute you attempt to just allow awareness to be aware which is what it already is and what it's already doing without any effort on your part what happens for most people is tense back up paying attention to something usually a thought and so what does that tell us the fact that there's this already open already clear already bright already effortless awareness already happening and when i say just relax with that we'll tighten up on a thought tighten up on a feeling get involved in stuff try to pay attention to something what does that tell us about the general condition of our mind it tells us that we're fixated and driven right in other words you've got an addiction you've got a habit of wanting to think or wanting to tighten and it's just a habit it's not some kind of permanent trait if it were then god help us all you know that would be bad but it's not a permanent trait it's just a habit it's a habit of tension it's a it's pure neuroticism right an erotic habit thinking itself is fine thinking is awesome thinking you know is one of the most beautiful things about the human mind there's nothing wrong with thinking however we do not want to be addicted fixated or kind of like helplessly continuously involved in thinking that's neurotic fixation it's like we um can't let go we can't let go and that's why you know for the show without an object portion i named it dropping the ball because the idea is we're so used to hanging onto our ball we gotta have our ball we don't feel comfortable without hanging onto our ball and i'm like i want you to just drop the balls it will be okay you could drop you could always pick it back up it's not going anywhere so you know it's like we're neurotically we're afraid to let go of our thinking or afraid to let go of attention many of us and so the idea is you just keep practicing let go does anything bad happen no let go does anything bad happen now sometimes for some people let go oh some bad feelings come up but they're not about letting go they're just because you're not neurotically fixated on something for once and some unprocessed emotion comes up you process it and then you can let go so this is one of the main reasons people can't let go is that they're not dealing you're not dealing with your feelings humans and guess what you've got to deal with your feelings if you don't deal with it then um the first moment you try to relax they'll come rushing back this is why people have trouble falling asleep falling asleep should be the easiest thing in the world it's just relaxing when you're tired and then you fall asleep but we're neurotically stamping down tamping down tightening down on our emotions so we don't feel them because feeling emotions is bad and some of those emotions hurt and i don't want to hurt so i'm going to stay distracted stay distracted stay distracted and then the minute i try to go to sleep i relax my mind i'm not distracted all the emotion comes out and then i can't sleep so you've got to deal with your feelings once you've dealt with your feelings you can not only go to sleep but you can also do this meditation you let go of attention you open the mind and you won't get this big upwelling of emotion unprocessed emotion i mean that can be somewhat uncomfortable instead it will just be open now you may still neurotically fixate just out of habit but all you do is relax and open nothing bad happens and then you tighten back up out of habit and then you relax and open again and then you tighten back up out of habit but over time it stays open longer and longer i always say it's like having a rolled up map in a tube a paper map that's rolled up in a tube take that map out of the tube it's been in there for years it's like your granddad's map and you roll unroll that map on the big map table and you're looking at it and then you pick up your hand to go get something and the map rolls back up it's been in that tube so long it's just used to tightening up into that roll and so you spread the map open and then take your hands off the roof rolls back up but let's say you have map weights there used to be actual objects called map weights they're you know just nice beautiful brass objects and so you unroll your map you put the map weights on each corner and you just leave it there and if you left it there long enough when you took the map plates off it would just stay open right effortlessly it would just know how to relax right because nothing bad happens so we're just practicing relaxing practicing opening relaxing you just gotta overcome that fear and it says a lot about our us and our society that there is that fear i remember we used to have this uh you know little tiny bit of land up in the woods in the upper part of lower michigan that's different than the lower part of upper michigan and um we had this little plot of land like my family it doesn't have any money but we had this little tiny plot in the woods and it was like a lot of michigan because of the geology of michigan it used to be under a glacier and glacier the glacier had pushed a tremendous amount of sand and gravel all the way from canada and the upper peninsula of michigan down under the lower peninsula had all this gravel inside this glacier and the glacier was like two miles thick right and then when the glacier receded it dropped all that gravel and a lot of water so you have all these lakes all these little streams you know minnesota wisconsin michigan it's all lakes right even of course the great lakes those are all the remnants of the basin that this giant glacier the basins that this giant glacier carved out but also the land up there uh is sand it's just sand like hundreds of feet deep because the sand and gravel was dumped by the glacier and so i used we had this land up there there's lots of trees scrub oaks and a lot of um poison ivy and poison oak and a lot of ferns because it's very wet and i used to go up there with my dog my beagle ben a girl beagle named ben and we would run around and play and basically just goof off in the woods for a weekend here and there and it was great and one time i was exploring with ben and we were we walked down this long long long long trail like a kind of a two-track car trail in the woods and then we split off and went just off into the woods further and further and further and then we came to the edge of this little like the sand uh and and the underbrush and the ferns dropped off and there was this little creek cutting through the sand and and on the other side was this big um stand of like shrubbery and come to find out later i didn't realize it at the time but all that shrubbery was a clump of nettles six feet high just solid nettles which if you've never went brush stomping through a giant clump of nettles i can assure you it's an experience you will not forget but i wanted to cross that creek and so for me it was just a matter of basically jumping from kind of the ledge over the creek onto the other side land in the in the in the soft sand and i look back and there's ben and she comes down she comes down the you know the kind of like steep bank and is stuck on the edge of the creek and she doesn't want to cross the water which by the way was perfectly clear absolutely crystal beauty freezing cold water probably like a foot deep i mean it was not maybe two feet at the most it was not a deep body of water and it was baby like a yard two yards wide it was very very tiny but she was afraid of it and um and she kept whining and crying and whining and crying crying and i could have picked her up but i thought okay let's see what happens here so i'm like come on come on ben come on over whining and crying and then she'd get her front paws in the water and then uh it's cold dude i just didn't like it and i kept coaxing her and i kept coaxing her and finally she it was deep enough you know it wasn't that small it was deep enough that she dove in and dog paddled across and got out and shot on the other side and shook off and then she ran around with me she was super happy i petted her and we went and ran through a clump of nettles and had a great day it was like a a wonderful day but i feel like in this is what it's like to teach uh this dropping the ball practice because it's like i'm going come on come on it'll be okay you just gotta jump in and and you know everyone's like oh but you start to do it and then no i gotta hold on to the ball no i've got hole down to the ball no i i'm tightening or i've got to do it right am i doing it right which is just another kind of tightening and my job is like no come on in just jump in it's okay come on come on you know and eventually people jump in and it's cold and it's bright but it's also kind of amazing and then you get out and you shake off and and it's a blast right so it's just a matter of oh all that is to say nothing bad will happen you're just afraid and you might not even know you're afraid but that grabbing on again and grabbing on to thinking and grabbing on to am i doing it right and and then grabbing on to trying to do it right and then grabbing on to checking grabbing it that's all just fear it's all just fear just drop it it's okay you eventually you'll relax and you realize that the 900 000 other times you relaxed in this meditation nothing bad happened you know maybe every once in a while you have some unprocessed emotions so you relax and you feel some difficult feelings so what it's just some difficult emotion you sit with it you're kind to yourself you allow it to arise and then it's gone you processed it and then you can go back in but that's not something bad happening that's just something human happening those are emotions emotions are good right we we have emotions that's what human beings are and that's animals too even cute little beagles have emotions they get scared too so all of that you're just afraid and it's like i promise you if you do this enough relax and open relax and open and not be afraid anymore and you will notice that you're in the cold clear bright clean delicious water right and it's amazing and on the other side we can run and play so with that i'm going to turn my attention so to speak over to the q a if you have questions put them in the chat window let's see what the questions are so sean is asking i listen to a sam harris podcast he does little sitting practice not very much sitting practice he prefers doing non-dual practice throughout the day is that sufficient to cut through greed hatred and delusion well find out try it if you're already good enough at non-dual practice to just do it all day long then it might be sufficient to cut through greed hatred and delusion if it's if you're not good enough at it yet if it's still uh too hard to access as you're walking around then do more sitting practice but i'll say this what's wrong with sitting practice you know it's very nice to sit and relax and the only reason that you would want to do little of it is either you're too busy and if you're too busy then you should think about being less busy or that it's sort of you don't really like it it's hard and if it's hard then just do more of it until it becomes easy okay and once you do more of it till it becomes easy then you'll be able to do it as you walk around so um i could say a lot about your question actually but i'm going to not do that and move on to the next one guido laubender asks during relaxation i realized a dramatic shift in my mind away from my limited ego thinking and feelings to a kind of brighter and more natural infinite state really grateful for that thank you thank you that's awesome i'm glad you had that experience sorry katie we're already in the q a um nice dog emoji mika patrick says i would love to hear strategies on processing those emotions when they come up um you know the best strategy is to just feel them you know that's all emotions are so feeling and um if if it's just a let's say normal level of emotion then we just be you know how we uh we're being with the presence of breathing be with the be with the presence of awareness i mean we were being with the presence of the awareness of breathing uh you can be with the presence of the awareness of emotions uh and if again if it's just even intense but just normal emotion that will be enough if on the other hand you're having like a traumatic reaction um then go do some therapy and process those okay and then those strategies are all the normal stuff for trauma you know google trauma therapies there's a list of them stuff like somatic experiencing stuff like amdr there's a whole list and you do that outside of meditation clear that up come back to meditation and you will find that um emotions come up but they're not quite as ultra uh disturbing right you just feel some feelings and keep going emotions are not our enemy emotions are our friends right okay chris says i choose to relax and open because blank um you tell me um i choose to relax and open because that's what's really there is relaxed openness it's more like why would i choose to be tight and closed maybe sometimes that's appropriate but what we want to notice is that we're oftentimes habitually in a state of being tight and closed just because it's a habit or because we're scared but it's not really necessary it's not necessary that often sometimes it's necessary last night christina and i my wife and i were going to bed and we hear about out and out in outside and i'm like i thought that was uh fireworks and christina's like i think it's gunfire and uh we look outside and there's one cop car and then there's eight car cop cars and there's 16 cop cars so some and in fact a lady had gotten shot um and was rushed to the hospital meaning sometimes being afraid is really important there are things to be afraid of i'm not saying that we should you know go traipsing around with no fear of anything all the time um having people shot right outside your window is fear producing i can assure you you know it's also sadder than hell and a commentary on poverty in our society um and the ubiquity of firearms so it's not like even fear is bad and wrong and always the wrong thing emotions are our friends but in terms of sitting still in your meditation you can feel relaxed and open and nothing bad will happen so that's what i want to point out okay so now we're going to shift gears and i want to talk about um the fact that these meditations are brought to you by san francisco dharma collective my favorite derma collective and perhaps the only dharma collective on earth we could just call it uh the san francis we could call it the planet earth derma collective uh and remember that the san francisco dharma collective sponsors i'm having trouble shifting gears as you've probably noticed i'm working on it though working on it san francisco dharma collective uh sponsors these guided meditations they take donations from you and then they split them with me to do these so if you are uh out of a job right now or don't really have that much money we offer you these guided meditations with a completely open heart free of charge please take the guided meditation and run with it if on the other hand you're feeling an overabundance of gratitude and combined with this is a venn diagram over abundance of gratitude the other part of the diagram is over abundance of cash and you feel like sharing that the san francisco dharma collective and me then please donate at the link that katie has conveniently posted in the chat window right now um as you may have noticed i'm here every thursday night doing this um and there's like a hundred of these meditations so go back and watch them over and over again i'm teaching these techniques over and over again teaching you how to do this there is a lot of them and so you can just watch those and these are all free given with an open heart from me and san francisco derma collective um and yet it's very helpful to myself and san francisco derma collective if you have some extra wealth a wealth of um [Music] financial support we could use some of that financial support so i ask you to share that with us if you can uh in terms of upcoming programs we're gonna as katie is putting in the chat window we're going to have death sangha this saturday december 12th i think it's at seven o'clock um california time that song is a special program i put on usually once a month but sometimes every other month where we uh we do this on the san francisco dharma collective zoom channel so you sign up on eventbrite it's not just a live youtube thing if you want to see what it's like there's a couple of youtube recordings of it but honestly it goes better when we close it in a zoom and kind of see all the space because death song is intense it's meditating on death it's meditating on mortality it's meditating on the fact that people get shot right outside your window um it's intense and so honestly if you're feeling traumatized if you're feeling triggered don't come to death talk you don't need it right now but it's very traditional in in buddhist meditation and really in all uh reflect reflective religious traditions to reflect on the importance the ever presence the reality of death so we're gonna do that for a couple hours this saturday now death sangha is more like a ritual it's a little more um weird i love death sangha i hope to see you there so but remember you got to sign up in eventbrite and then come to the sfdc zoom channel it won't be here on youtube okay um [Music] i have to say i always say it but i mean it i love doing this thank you for coming tonight it's so great to see you or whenever you're watching this thanks for watching this i really appreciate it please leave your comments and questions in the comment box on youtube i tend to at least like them i read them all if there's specific types of questions and it's possible to write it out in the space i will tend to answer them so even if you're watching this months and months from the time it's recorded feel free to leave a comment i would really like that otherwise i'll see you at deathsanga on saturday night or next week same time same place see you soon bye everybody thanks

Channel: Michael Taft

Views: 2,570

Keywords: meditation, mindfulness, vipassana, relaxation, buddhism, dharma, nondual, mahayana, vajrayana, zen, dzogchen

Id: kNbMr-wlN9k

Length: 89min 8sec (5348 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020