Find Your Focus Day 2 | Vajradevi

of retreats but also beyond that um so i can see one or two faces from um uh retreats i led uh what two different retreats in sweden in may this year so very lovely to see you and uh people from the netherlands from germany australia so we're i'm sure i missed some out and i apologize for that but uh yeah very good to see all of you possibly from poland i don't know but put it in the in the chat in the first few minutes when you arrive if you're from somewhere perhaps that i haven't mentioned um so we're looking at um oh the other thing i was going to do is just mention the format for those of you that weren't here here yesterday or aren't regulars at their nature of mind um meditation events so generally um i'll i'll be talking maybe for about 25 minutes to start off with about an aspect of uh yeah this of what we're exploring which this week is around attention mindfulness and attention and then i'll lead us in a meditation and um there'll be some time after i talk for questions and then after we meditate some a bit more time to just say anything you'd like to say about your practice what you maybe what you noticed in the practice and we'll finish uk time will finish about 8 30. i also yesterday forgot to mention nick who's who's hosting and providing tech support so thank you very much to nick okay so yesterday i'll just maybe to say a tiny bit about what i said yesterday by way of um recap and and leading into this session this morning um so i talked a bit about dr amici zhao's research she's written this book called peak mind which is all about attention systems in the brain um it's a it's a really good book actually i do recommend uh her book it's it's not a difficult read i found it very accessible and yet it's really interesting uh about how how the brain works and also quite a lot of research that they've done um around how effective mindfulness is in helping us pay attention more so one of her systems is what she calls the flashlight or the torch so it's a narrow beam of where we direct attention to the object um for example in the mindfulness of breathing we're directing the attention to the breath and then her second system is the floodlight uh which is is broad so it's a much broader um field of attention where attention is undirected and we can notice and be aware of um whatever is in that that field uh broad field of attention so we can notice um things happening in different sense fields and we're not consciously choosing where to place the attention as we are in when we direct the attention so generally when we're directing the attention uh if that's a if the practice we're doing is prominent predominantly one of directed attention then generally we're going towards we're looking for calm tranquility uh what we call samatar or mata practice um [Music] and when we're using more undirected uh attention and and making a practice of noticing in awareness where attention is naturally going and following that then generally that is more the pr practice of of vipassana or vipassana so clear seeing or watching the mind having said that as i said yesterday often we are using both systems if you like directing the mind and undirected attention within the same practice and within our lives as well um just a simple um if if you if you look at something if we choose to look at something we're directing attention but often what happens is seeing happens and seeing is more broad and open and soft but often within that seeing there'll be something that catches the attention we have all these words around our tensions and catches the attention and and narrows the field of um from a floodlight to a flashlight just within seeing and the more active looking so that's just by way of recap a little introduction so i want to talk about three qualities of mind today and they're connected with helping us um helping our attention perhaps be a be more available to us and helping stabilize attention and uh awareness so um yeah i'm just going to go through those three qualities and say a little bit about each of them so the the first one is actually um sati or mindfulness and actually we can be aware whatever we're doing and whatever time um so i can see some of you are writing things down um [Music] some of you are looking at the screen so whatever you're doing you can simply be aware you don't have to stop what you're doing but you can just bring awareness to to it so notice what you're aware of what you're mindful of and um perhaps just reminding yourself and connecting with that in a natural way just as i'm as i'm talking whenever you remember so mindfulness is related to memory maybe i won't say very much about this amishi zhao says quite a lot about it but it is connected to memory but it's more that memory is related to mindfulness's other very strong quality which is of being present just really being present to to what's happening if we are present to an event as it happens we are much more likely to remember it at a later time um we'll be able to recall it so mindfulness isn't memory but it it helps us remember uh better through just being being present and and one of the very powerful things about amishia's research it it shows uh that i mean we could probably get have a sense of this sometimes through our own uh practice of of mindfulness but she says we're not present to a massive 50 of our lives fifty percent half of the time that we are conscious we are not present uh this is what research shows and it's across the board it's not any particular group of people um i don't know if i can't remember actually and i don't know if she actually said if meditators are any better at this one would hope so because because one of the ways of getting better at it is through mindfulness so maybe we're a little bit more than 50 um but she says it's not that we forget what's happened so it's not memory in that sense that we just forget uh but we don't actually lay down um uh the the the necessary sort of structure in the brain to remember because we haven't been present for it in the first place and it's not that we just miss in this 50 we don't just miss the the dull bits the bits were a bit disengaged or a bit boring or things are a bit repetitive um but we miss the beautiful bits we're just as likely to miss the things that we would really want to be present for and want to remember and we also miss bits when we really need to be present you know because it's dangerous not to be um you know when we're driving or um when we're walking home late at night in the dark uh yeah when we uh perhaps having an important conversation with somebody so um it's important that we're present and mindfulness can help us be be present especially when we combine these different ways of being aware and paying attention through the different qualities i'm going to go into this morning so the the quality of that awareness of of sati mindfulness is is really important and what we're looking for is for mindfulness to be working in the mind with um a sort of helpful array of qualities like mindfulness and its friends uh working together playing together and that has a quality of spaciousness openness i sort of kindly spaciousness um that's often quite sort of playful or a feeling of being at ease so often what we we have is some awareness but it's mixed not not with those uh more sort of relaxing or positive qualities but it's mixed with um what we call afflictive emotions so um those qualities of emotions or um mind states that create sort of tightness or hyper vigilance in the mind amishi yesterday i mentioned she talked about the the if you like the enemies of mindfulness are low mood stress and threat mind hyper vigilance so we need an intention to be aware often it doesn't just happen uh mindfulness doesn't just happen uh so that we need an intention that if you like um directs our attention to the present moment so the intention to be present is what directs the attention to present moment so within sati that that's really important that uh directed mind quality but on the whole sati is more related to undirected qualities so things like um receptivity so really relaxing settling back open to to what's happening we can we can notice uh a lot more from that relaxed stance from that sort of open stance we're not sort of pouncing on any particular moment that that will most likely narrow our perspective and narrow the field of attention they're able to to notice so we're open um receptive relaxed with undirected practice we don't have an agenda about uh what should be happening or what we're trying to make happen the only agenda if you like it is just being open to being aware of whatever arises from moment to moment so there's a curiosity about what might happen uh as an interest even in very sort of simple familiar aspects of experience that's perhaps an interesting how the mind and these familiar objects work together how is the mind relating to different objects and along with the relaxation of of mindfulness um it's a feeling that it's natural uh that allowing what's happening to be happening it's a naturalness meditation teacher i know says says we're relaxed but not casual and this i think is quite uh an important distinction the casualness we're not really engaged we're not really that bothered um we're not uh taking care if you like whereas uh yeah relaxation doesn't mitigate against being present just present to what's happening so we're balancing relaxation with attentiveness uh some of you will have heard me say this before the poet emily hassler has a line that i really like she says dedicate your life to the twin and warring gods of precision and wild attention dedicate your life to the twin and warring gods of precision and wild attention sorry wild abandon attention wild abandon so i really like this i think with the precision you've got you've got this attentiveness um and then the the wild abandon uh quite like thinking of mindfulness or awareness in that way it sort of goes against this sometimes the view that mindfulness is is very careful and um contained in some way actually it's really open it's really open to whatever happens so um mindfulness sati is um related more to what amishija dr zhao talks about um as the floodlight but she also talks about uh something called meta awareness what this floodlight attention gives us it leads to um us being able to notice both the contents and the processes of body and mind as as they happen as they occur um so it's a very steady but receptive stance with this this big view so for example when when uh we have a thought um about something we we know the thought when the mind is aware we know the content of the thought but we also know that we're having a thought we know that a thought is in the mind and to some degree what that feels like in the mind when we're not awake if we if we usually our focus is almost entirely on the content what we're thinking rather than that a thought is occurring in the mind and we're aware of that so that's a bit about sati probably a little bit more than i meant sensati but there you go be a little bit um say a little bit less on the next two so samadhi is the next one so samadhi is often translated as concentration but that sometimes has quite unhelpful connotations can have connotations of trying uh when we concentrate we're sort of buckling down we're trying quite hard and and again often the attention is um a bit a bit narrowed but in a slightly forceful way so um lama tillman who's another uh teacher in the tibetan tradition he he says don't translate samadhi as concentration it is deep relaxation and steadiness of mind so i like this i like this that we relax into uh mindfulness and we relax through relaxation uh we relax into this steadiness and stability of mind so going back to the directed and undirected practice and different ways of using attention in directed practice we direct attention uh repeatedly towards uh an object it could be the breath but it could be um the body can be a person in the mind imaginary person in the mind or quality um in the matter marvel practice so when we direct the attention repeatedly towards something in the right sort of way then we have the type of samadhi or that becomes one pointedness and there's a change of consciousness when the mind becomes absorbed and one-pointed and often very positive qualities feelings of bliss expansiveness uh in the in the mind um pleasure in the body there's a strong stability of attention um with a particular object and this can feel very powerful it's quite a powerful mind and this is uh probably the path within tree right now that we're that we're most used to in terms of the path to what we call diana diana or jana with bit of different um changes in consciousness as we get more and more absorbed so that's directed practice undirected practice as a different type of samadhi and there's a different aim for the practice yesterday i was talking about how the ideas in the mind inform what happens in practice so it's helpful to be quite conscious of where the idea or the aim is is different in practice uh so the sati patana sutas says says the aim in this undirected practice is that we establish mindfulness to the extent necessary for bear knowing and continuous mindfulness bear knowing of what's happening and a continuity of attention and continuity of mindfulness so this doesn't uh need such strong uh um stability or or concentration because we're not practicing with a single focus um where the attention is on one object and the aim is not to enter ghana though sometimes sometimes that happens um and that's fine um but the the aim is to just have a broad open stable awareness and this readies the mind for insight so by being able to see the really broad canvas of experience and to stay with that and notice what's happening within that uh we allow the mind to we we can see the mind um making uh making its own connections i'll probably say more about that later but just staying with with the samadhi or the concentration if you like this the different type of concentration we have here is is called momentary concentration so moment to moment uh we have a moment of stability in the uh mind that's aware and then another one and then another one and we're not sort of in a way increasing that stability through one particular object but lots and lots of different of a sound a sight body sensation some sort of mental state or mind movement so we build a stability of awareness through changing objects and the implication of this is that we grow mindfulness and stability of mind irrespective of the object and and no particular object of experience is any better than any other so we're seeking a broad stability of attention and awareness so that's a little bit about samadhi so the third quality um clearly knowing is one translation um but but there's a couple of different translations a couple of different connotations um so clearly knowing what's happening as it's happening and and this is often uh used as a compound term together um with with sati says sati sampra janya mindful and clearly knowing it's it's a phrase that you come up a lot in um [Music] in in the early buddhist texts and this relates to um amishi zhao's third attention system um [Music] she she calls it that a number of different things are then the most fun is the juggler the juggler or the ceo uh so the sort of um another meditation teacher i know called the manager in charge or the executive function of of the mind um so what this function does i found this has a very direct correlation with with uh this this with some virginia um this third attention function align aligns us with our goals um and our values so with what's important to us um and ideally the juggler the the this third attention system should direct our flashlight should direct our attention to what is important to us [Music] it should put our attention where it needs to be uh to help us further those goals and and values so in in meditation it would be what would help us stay aware of what our aim is what our intention is in the practice uh help us stay sort of on on topic and more present um but you know the same applies when we're when we're driving when we're doing an exam giving giving someone our attention so how how bante describes this quality of san pragenya is we we know what we're doing and we know how what we're doing relates to our overall spiritual goals and purpose so it's a very direct um correlation between what uh amishi jar is saying about this third attention system and the quality of san francis so i'll just say that again we know what we're doing and we know how it relates to our overall spiritual goals and purpose so this is uh the the one other aspect of san francisco clear comprehension of purpose clearly knowing our purpose so that this this quality can be a real support to um realizing our our goals our spiritual goals and our i feel like our worldly goals as well but particularly in relation to um goals and values of yeah helping us grow so i sometimes think about this as a rudder a spiritual rudder on a boat that's helping us sort of point in the right direction and and and it's we're constantly sort of adjusting as where where we need to is this in line is what i'm doing in line with my overall spiritual goals and values um or not and maybe there's there's room for a little bit of adjustment through that noticing um that perhaps we've gone off a bit a bit of course yeah so we want where we put our attention to be guided by what's most important to us what's most of most value to us and banti says he says um [Music] says without sanprajanya we lapse into spiritual unconsciousness this doesn't sound very nice does it i i i and it's it's interesting if we put that together with that perhaps that 50 percent of the time not being present um [Music] it's not maybe it's perhaps not just an occasional lapse into spiritual consciousness um yeah but if we're if we're not present maybe it's quite a bit more of the time than that maybe i'll leave it there for now um just be before we sit let's have a few minutes just for any um questions clarifications um so if you have something you'd like to say or to ask maybe put up an electronic hand if you manage that if not you can always put something in the chat just give it a couple of minutes if you don't have a question you can or even if you do you just connect back with uh being present connect back with tuning into how you are in body and mind okay no questions that's fine so let's um let's sit [Music] so if you'd like to to set yourself up to uh sit in a comfortable way i love that on zoom it just gives us so many options in terms of re really how what would support awareness what posture would support awareness and um we got access to some um comfortable options of often than uh yeah the two or three we have available in a shrine room so um in in this practice i'm going to be working with directed and undirected attention and using an okay summer did you mean i'll get to that maybe later somewhat because we're sort of in the meditation now um so directed and undirected practice working together um and working with an anchor and i i um [Music] have taken up this practice of a friend of mine mokshaka who some of you might know leads at times when we're on retreat together so there are various different ways to work with an anchor and uh in this particular context the anchor is not um it's quite a flexible anchor we're keeping the attention in one place but just for the purpose of being able to open up to whatever else is happening so that's the context it's not that the the anchor is there for us to to stick solidly to we can we can use a anchor in different places [Music] the anchor i'm going to use in this particular practice is the thumbs touching so i'll yeah just you can have your thumbs rest your thumbs in your lap make make sure your hands are supported and so that you're not trying to hold your hands up and have the thumbs just touching and place a small amount of attention on that anchor we want to have a small amount but to be doing it very consistently so you definitely don't want all your attention on the anchor we want the attention to be able to move and notice other things while still aware of the thumbs touching as yesterday if you like you can have your eyes open or your eyes closed and the aim is to have as broad a sphere of attention as possible plus the anchor plus the thumbs touching so bring attention to the body more generally notice where the attention goes within the sphere of the body and bring some attention to the sensations through the thumbs touching notice it's different sensations connected with this touch sensations pressure tingling heat vibration and as well as the places where there's contact between the thumbs you might also know the opposite sides of the thumbs sensation is not exclusive to contact it's a very light attention just to the point of knowing that the thumbs are touching and the aim is to make their thumbs that level of knowing fairly continuous not through concentration but from a continuity of purpose continuity of attending to the sensations and awareness of the sensations we can be curious bring that quality of curiosity to which thumb is touching which can you know both thumbs at the same time and you don't need to answer these questions but just let the questions open the mind to being curious about what's happening and now while maintaining a degree of attention on the thumbs also become aware of sounds spread your attention between sound in general and attention on the contact of the thumbs touching and you can be quite playful with this zoom out to the periphery of sounds and zoom back into the tiny sensations of contact or simultaneously noticing sounds and the thumbs touching and remembering that within the sound sphere there may well be silence too okay it's very helpful to see how much you notice you can allow your attention to move in the direction of sounds or the direction of sensation of the thumbs touching keeping the attention very very light just enough the purpose of continuity now let the awareness settle back towards the thumbs and let your attention take in the whole sphere of body sensations so you're simultaneously knowing body sensations while also knowing the specific sensations of the thumbs touching and as you let the mind move between the general area of body sensations and the sensations of the thumbs it's looking for some continuity weaving in and out of all the different sensations the body and if the mind wanders don't need to bring it back to the thumbs but simply include them in a whole sphere of sensations of experience if your eyes are open at this point you can include the visual field noticing the visual field and the contact with the thumbs letting the eyes be quite relaxed and soft if you're doing this so just present to the thumbs touching [Music] and either the visual field or the body sensations and now while maintaining contact awareness of the thumbs give a slight preference to noticing mental activity [Music] thinking mental images even allowing yourself to follow a train of thought while maintaining a degree noticing sensations in the thumbs so and again if the mind wanders including the sensations of the thumbs and whatever else is happening and for the rest of the sit that's another 10 minutes just let your attention go to whichever sense field it likes while keeping some attention on the contact of the thumbs just a little bit let the mind go where it wants completely undirected one moment a sound the next sensation with the continuity noticing [Music] contact very light contact between the thumbs awareness in the round different sensations with the stability the thumbs touching and if the mind feels buoyant it feels interested you can let the anchor go the anchor has done its job and there's some stability in the mind so foreign c c c c foreign [Music] mix [Music] you [Music] [Music] okay we have a raised hand i just just just say something just before um paul so what i'd like first of all is um we can get to questions in a few minutes but what i'd really like to do is just to hear um [Music] uh something about how what you noticed in the practice it might have raised a question and that's fine but if if we could sort of stick with the practice to start with so um maybe paul if you're if what you want to say is about that you could unmute um yeah great yeah it was some right digging the ground to create a sort of bed on which in which things could sort of grow it was really extremely uh evocative like putting real sort of fertile ground on which to for something to appear great really yeah yeah yeah and and was that the combination do you think of the the the the anchor and the breath yeah yeah yeah yeah lovely thank you laura good morning good morning i think i was noticing um particularly your own thoughts and so sometimes which were quite spacious and didn't have a lot of thinking and then um [Music] i suppose just the crystallizing of thoughts or maybe that's too hard but the forming of thoughts out of something quite loose sometimes of them dissipating again um but uh and narrative well there was sort of a kind of narrative or a story that wasn't terribly engaging then i could uh you know my attention was also with the thumbs and more widely and then sometimes i would get um a thought that needed a bit more thinking out so i remembered something you'd said and i wanted to remember it better and um at that point where i went to think something out then i had yeah then it was gone there was no it was kind of like i just had to step into another place right right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah engaging a different part of yeah yeah really quite quite separate yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah great good and and how did how did it feel when all this was going on what was the sort of feeling in the mind or the body relaxed and um three i think open yeah great at the very beginning i kind of was caught in a dragged my mind back it was going in a thought drag it back back and stop that really quickly and stop dragging the mind yeah yeah sometimes that's uh i think it's when um moksha when i heard him lead through this practice when he says you know don't bring don't try and bring the mind back to the ankle or to thumbs but to include it um just inclu just just re-include that contact with the anchor and it just has a very different feel for me than than dragging or even bringing the mind back it's um yes i just open open up a little bit more and they're there that contact with the dances is known yeah it's great thank you amy hello davey thank you so much um i thought that was um such a skilled uh lead through i was so impressed yesterday i actually had to sleep because i was so sleepy um i just felt like you you you grounded us with that finger which i'd never really understood why those fingers were touching but now i see the point and the poignancy in that and that seemed to steady the whole base of the mind and then with the sounds it brought me out into something much more spacious and i s my thoughts were very much i'm so sleepy i'm going to nod off i'm feeling very dull so a lot of doubt but then i thought no no she's going to she knows what she's doing she's going to take you she's going to lead you somewhere because she knows what she's doing and then i put my complete confidence in you and just listen to your voice and the doubt disappeared and i just kept going back to that finger and the sounds and then broadening out and then amazingly the sleepy dullness sort of uh started to dissipate and and the clarity arose or sort of came about from that so yeah thank you so much thank you thank you yeah i think that that sense of um allowing you sort of allow the sleepiness to be there by by that sort of confidence in in in me your confidence in in the practice that sort of yeah that allowed that not not to you didn't get into any sort of adversarial relationship with the the sleepiness or the dullness it's like okay so now we'll just stay with this we'll just stay with this and we'll see what happens yeah that's that's really we and then we're not sort of setting ourselves against whatever else is what's actually happening but we're willing to sort of be with it and let's see where this goes yeah yeah it's a lot about um just confidence i think sort of that overrides that doubt yeah yeah right thank you there's uh those songs um what i sing all right tay jin andrew and i um do a retreat together every year and and sometimes i think i write about it in my book he talks about there's this song that says just let go and go where no mind goes and uh what you're saying has that flavor to me it's like oh you just let go and you see what happens see what happens yes listen it's interesting because i i i i would occasionally my computer's very very close so i would occasionally just open my eyes slightly the fact that you were sitting there with your eyes open um just reminded me no no she's there go go continue continue continue yeah because you didn't have your eyes closed so you were very present good lucy and dorothy hi it's lucy um yes so thank you very much the last time i did this was on a retreat with you when moksha khan was leading it and i got a lot of panic focusing just on my thumbs and so when you said that's what we're going to do i had this kind of welling up of of panic but actually doing it um was really different this time which was really interesting how different it was and i think the thing that um the thing that was interesting to me was can you actually be aware of the two things at the same time so the thumbs and what else you is is in your awareness because it's arising or are you moving between the two or am i should i say moving between the two and i think i went in with a kind of assumption kind of book learning that uh you can't be aware of two things at the same time but gradually over the meditation it felt much more flexible than that somehow it's hard right so i think kind of theoretically you probably because it's moment-to-moment awareness of a thing you probably can't be aware of them both at the same time but it didn't quite feel like that so that was what was really interesting and i didn't feel any of the panic it was a really strong and continuous the thumb touching really helped with continuity of awareness actually great great yeah i i think it's fantastic when when a question arises like that and we don't you know either go with the assumption of the book learning that we know what it is or um but we just stay open to the question and it allows interest and curiosity in the practice and and they're so valuable so valuable to have those those qualities we don't necessarily need to know but we can really is it is it rilka or goethe who talks about enjoying the questions or loving the questions uh yeah just as a way to um engage engage with the practice and the experience oh yeah great yeah nick good morning can you hear me okay yes i've never done this speaking in front of lots of people yeah yeah um yeah i was um what i really noticed today was very unexpected but uh around halfway i don't quite know sort of deep into practice i suddenly felt um sensations of heat but i've had heat feelings before but this just had a really different quality and it was like embarrassment like i suddenly thought i was going really really red um and then i sort of it was very unpleasant um slightly itchy and um and all i could feel was the flavor of it was around shame so then then i kind of went into a thought mode of um looking for what the shame was about investigating with my cognitive and thinking oh no no i mustn't do that just stay with the body but actually i just couldn't i just thought what is this about and it took me into this sort of inquiry um and then i started thinking about kindness to my mind like kindness in befriending my mind but that was definitely thought a thought of trying to hold the hot feeling so i'm not sure i should have stayed with the kind of hot feelings of embarrassment or because i'm here on my own there's nothing to worry about but um or whether i whether an investigation is helpful or not i don't know so just that happened today which is quite unusual actually yeah great okay it to keep consistent with the with the the nature of the practice or an open practice um or even a directed practice actually probably you wouldn't necess you wouldn't um try and think about it if you're obviously aware enough to have to to have thoughts around that do you do that or not so there's some sense of a choice i'd say if possible if you can just just notice more and more about the experience that's happening so there's the which you and it sounds like you've described quite a bit so you notice the heat and then this sense of embarrassment or shame um knowing knowing them as sensations or feelings or um thoughts is really helpful just in terms of um [Music] we're not looking to we're not looking to work out what's happening and we're not looking to um get caught and identified with what's happening um so noticing things oh oh the feeling of embarrassment or feeling of shame or sensations of heat just to help keep um this distinction i don't know if you're here yesterday this distinction about being aware of something rather than involved yeah with it and so just knowing what it oh this this this is a this is a feeling a feeling of feeling in the mind what's that like and then bringing that curiosity and there'd probably be other things and thumbs and the thumb so in a way not not losing touch with the anchor and there's this that that helps keep um it helps keep some stability and some sort of um breath as well yeah yeah thank you dude hi um yeah i was really interested by the instruction that you gave um i'm just gonna i was interested by that instruction that you said it's so you know have thoughts and follow them because i've never i don't think i've ever been asked to do that before you know usually it's like just allow the thought to go past you know in the blue sky and you know the clouds go by and um yeah so we'll just wonder what that was about yeah you know yeah um so we do a lot of thinking um we you know we're and often i thought we we're caught in our thoughts so we become um yeah we're going to be looking into thoughts quite a bit more later in the week but we yeah we get we get caught by them um we become engaged with the content of what we're thinking rather than simply knowing that our thinking is happening thoughts are happening um so that instruction is really just pointing to that it is possible to be aware of of thoughts and even uh the linkage of thought one thought to another as a thoughts might might unfold i wouldn't suggest that you do a lot of it but just occasionally it is um it can be really helpful just to notice uh thoughts as they happen and have that different relationship to them we are not really um involved and and caught in the content but able to observe a thought happening as it's happening um and see what happens it might be you know um that's that it doesn't um [Music] continue you know that thought ends and you see the ending of a thought and then there's a space or it might be that you can see a few thoughts in succession so it's just really it's it's another area of um exploration of of a aspect of our mind that we usually just we're thinking from rather than um being aware of our thoughts that help well i mean what happened for me was that you know i was given the instruction that i was allowed to follow my thoughts i just got more and more into thinking okay okay yeah yeah yeah it's really following in awareness which is a little bit of an art yeah yeah yeah so yeah i wasn't i didn't find that very peaceful yeah and the rest of it was it was fine you know and unfamiliar i suppose yeah okay good okay summer um you had a question as well didn't you let's open it up if there are any other questions about the material okay um yeah no it was just that the at the beginning before we went into meditation there was this funny little moment where you'd been talking about spiritual unconsciousness yeah and and in that last bit i heard you say there there are moments where you slip into spiritual consciousness and i don't know if that's what you said but it sounded like they'd been a slip in in what you were actually intending to say and i i just found it quite fascinating whether or not it was mine or yours i don't know yeah yeah so it was just an example of what you've been talking about yeah yeah it's quite possible i said spiritual consciousness um but what i was really i made just made a connection on the spot myself i think between what banti says about spiritual we're not aware of our continuity of purpose and purpose in relation to our values then we lapse into spiritual unconsciousness and i suppose what was happening in my mind was was going back to thinking about this 50 percent of the time we're not present to our lives and and just thinking well does that mean that 50 of the time we're not acting with continuity of purpose and not acting with our uh in line with our values because we're don't do the two equate does not being if we're not present to our lives does that mean that we are um spiritually unconscious and not acting in line with our values i don't necessarily think it does but i think at the time it was just me sort of making a connection um on the spot out loud yeah yeah um thank you yeah and um as far as the practice when um [Music] uh yeah it was really it was really fascinating and i've done the practicing with the anchor of the thumbs together before but i felt it was much more light this time and i wasn't and i really took in what you said as it not being you know the main focus but it's part of holding you and that's what i really felt it was like it was like that foundation in a way it was that there was a sense of something that every now and then i just kind of check and it's like oh yeah very gently i can feel the thumbs are still still together they're still there um and then later on in the meditation what i really noticed um i had quite a lot of different sensations and sounds and things all happening and what felt like at the same time and then and then close to the end of the meditation when you said that you weren't going to leave for the next 10 minutes i noticed i started nodding but they were they were they were those those sort of very small ones where i caught them very quickly and i and i and that is my biggest work to to is is the losing consciousness of just going okay i've missed that missed that point of that stage or something but i actually counted them um so they were so kind of quick i was just like okay got it and then i went one and i was i was counting them and i got up to nine but it was it really felt it really felt like um something very positive and it and it feels like it's it's just it feels like something has changed within within me it was like that my heart center um something something has just opened and spread more um i've been experiencing a lot of very intense emotion um a lot of releasing of tears and grief um on a wider scale and um it just feels like something something has opened more in me something a bigger container um so i'm just feeling really really grateful for that yeah thank you yeah it is really like that you um you kept awareness of sleepiness and sleep in the sun and mindfulness can definitely um coexist if you like you can be aware of that and through doing that and through your interest in it um kept you from completely going into the yeah yeah what you said about the the curiosity yeah yeah that's that that really helped so much so it's like oh okay that's interesting oh i'm going again and rather than that oh no falling asleep again you know yeah that's it yeah good thank you thank you right well it's time for us to go i saw gabby seems to have gone she was is it gabby there was there were two names that i can just remember gabby anyway if you're still there gabby hang on and um we could maybe have a little chat um at the end but we're gonna formally end the session now just um because it is half past eight very good to see you all and uh yeah hope to see um hope see you tomorrow yeah thank you that was lovely thanks very much thank you thank you very much [Music] thank you bye-bye thank you so much [Music] thank you thank you very much for another beautiful practice lovely there you are i was looking for you um it's actually jessica on gabley's computer um i had um i've got a couple of questions and ones sort of maybe more trivial but um i am i had a little bit of a problem with the anchor in that i think it's easier to feel something if it's changing than if it's in the kind of stable state it becomes a little bit sort of bland and very subtle but that did remind me of trying to follow the breath sometimes when it's very subtle and part of me if i'm not careful will get a bit frustrated with um you know because i'm like where is it um and so katie i had to do like little tiny movements yeah to to to find it again but the bigger kind of question is um i think um whether i think that whichever approach that i'm taking to the meditation i will it will quite often get me into deionic states and i kind of go with that so i haven't really explored the full stage of mindfulness very much um and i've also noticed that occasionally when i am in that sort of nice relaxed broad kind of uh awareness if i do have thoughts i will quite often get very interesting insights into them quite creative and i try not to follow it but it it is quite helpful to my life sometimes some of the kind of ideas or little steers that i get yeah yeah and so i suppose i'm asking but i'm asked yeah i'm just asking for feedback about that but also about whether you think i should try and follow the one-pointedness because i j you know i just go with with my nice blissful feelings most often yeah yeah so it's not one pointedness that takes you to the blisters it kind of does it does either route that i go yeah takes me there yes yeah okay so if you are in the more open i mean if you're if you find that the mind is is going to johnny in a way you've got you've got a choice you you can you can sort of let it go there um or you can if you want to stay with the more um be part of that type practice uh what might be a little bit more helpful to do is to um to clearly know to to clearly know and um recognize what is happening um because it it's i think for a lot a lot i would say a lot of us but i don't really include myself in this this area very much um but but when when there's a lot of when there's bliss when there's um in a way we can we can we can be in it and stop noticing it stop really noting uh what what are what else is happening here okay so there's sensations in the body um there's a there's a feeling in the mind and you can really feel that but you're also aware that it's feeling uh or or whatever or because the feeling is peacefulness or the feeling is expansiveness so i think a certain sort of um not heavy labeling but a a just a really clear knowing of what is happening and the subtleties around what is happening can lend it a more sort of insightful quality to it rather than always going down that that's that route which if you have a um you know which is obviously quite accessible for you so sort of the clear knowing aspect of it um yeah yeah and i suppose if i set my intention at the beginning because i wouldn't want to lose my fear would be because that nourishes me yeah i wouldn't want to lose that ability but um on some days i can decide to go one route and on another another but the insight that you're talking about will probably be helpful either on either yeah yeah well and and gianna can be a good you know is it it's the way that we talk about cultivating insight in tree runner often is through experience of the genres and then settling at a fairly sort of low level of jhana and then reflecting so that's all doing a um practice or um more sort of um what are they called uh i guess reflective practices more reflective practices so and this so this is a way that's not really using reflection is a bit more sort of around the conceptual mind but this is more using direct experience and um if we get too if yeah one pointedness doesn't allow us to see the big picture it doesn't allow us to see conditionality sort of working its way through you know probably in my life i'm a big picture person and a bit of point in this you know in general yeah okay see how you get on if you're able to come through the week just just maybe exploring and and seeing um yeah with that sense of clearly knowing a little bit yeah no thank you i'll definitely um i'll definitely try that and thank you so much because i think because i'm not an audit member i've never heard the person that explained as you did today and it added such a clarity because it always seems like it's a bit mysterious whatever people are talking about when they talk about that yeah yeah good good thank you yeah and thank you for the extra time i really appreciate it all right have a lovely day yes you too we'll see you in the week yeah okay i'm gonna go enjoy my breakfast yeah have a good day everyone

Channel: Adhisthana Triratna

Views: 462

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Id: ogKDMJ16ubg

Length: 95min 19sec (5719 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2022