Find Your Focus Day 4 | Vajradevi

[Music] so hello everyone again day four of uh exploring um ways of attending and associated um helpful qualities uh to to look at to investigate with awareness with mindfulness and um the background to it is this book i thought i'd bring a couple of books along this morning so this is the book peak mind dr amish and the sub title is 12 minutes a day to find your focus and be fully present when it matters most yes recordings on youtube of these morning sessions so that's one book and i thought i'd bring along my own book why not so uncontrived mindfulness it's been out a year now so um which is a very undirected it it um yeah it's a very receptive undirected way of working with awareness working with mindfulness so as usual i'll say um i'll talk for a little bit for a while and then we'll sit i'll guide us through actually this morning um two two sets and then there'll be some time to talk about your practice at the end or ask any questions so the particular topic i wanted to to look at um and what are we drawing from amishia's book is uh is a type of dukkha which is called conveniently called vuca for those of you possibly that don't know dukkha suffering or dis-ease on different levels from the physical suffering to an existential dis-ease so vuca is an acronym i think that's what you call it v-u-c-a so v is for volatile u is for uncertain c is for complex and a is for ambiguous so um i think this is a term if my memory serves me correctly i think this is a term that's used for certain types of um work this is certain types of jobs that involve a lot of complexity ambiguity volatility and uncertainty and a lot of amishia's research has focused on groups um [Music] that that have a lot of these qualities in their their working lives so she's worked a lot with the military so it's soldiers and she's also worked a lot with um with what they call in the state's first responders so paramedics the police fire fighters so jobs where there's a lot of um uncertainty a lot of danger often of of um a sense of of threat um and living at highly complex fast-changing conditions and sometimes alongside alongside periods of boredom periods of um you know waiting around my niece actually used to be a firefighter in london and that that was it she yeah there were a lot of periods in the station house just waiting you know without anything particularly to do and then suddenly it would be all go so those are are quite extreme versions if you like of um where vuca comes into operation but there are many other situations and livelihoods just through our lives that that bring about those sorts of conditions or um i think teachers uh uh have a lot of this in their lives and and um any sort of medical staff um or non-medical staff in a medical sitting often you've got people who um are anxious um and that can lead to all sorts of other mind states um so you might be a receptionist but you're still in a situation that can kick off as they say in different ways i used to work i i went from working with toddlers to working in a pupil refer furrow unit with teenagers so a unit where children had been excluded from school and that certainly had quite a few of the characteristics of vuca there was a lot of volatility and complexity uh in the backgrounds of the children um i think just having children actually whether uh they're toddlers or teenagers um you know testing boundaries and finding their own uh sense of of place in the world uh own sense of meaning in the world so so is very widespread on different levels and it's not only in the external world we don't just find it through through others or through other situations but through our own uh internal sense of of being are changing mind states um [Music] yeah reactions to uncertainty and complexity perhaps there's uncertainty in a in a relationship or complexity in family dynamics but also dealing with the volatility of our own moods and emotions and often we can we can have a desire for clarity in the midst of ambiguity and i think the whole area of of trauma i'm not going to go into it here but there's often a real sensitivity and over sensitivity to to um triggers through the the body through the biological nervous systems um yeah trigger that sort of volatility i think i think um vuca it it definitely has its positive side as well and i was thinking of of artists and the creative process um you have to be able to sort of tolerate a certain amount of not knowing where you're going if you're writing a piece of music or if unless you're mozart and it's all there in your head to start with but you know or art if you're an artist of some kind uh i think there's there's an ability to be with um uncertainty and ambiguity and probably like um a number of you i was watching the tennis yesterday afternoon and the ability of the players actually to well to be in the moment but to be with um an uncertain outcome but to just be really present to what's happening to each point that's being played i heard a little phrase this this week in relation to the tennis which was you don't play the other person you play the ball just play the ball that's what you do just um yeah so there's certainly times when um those qualities of voucher are are um we can respond to them in such a way that that a lot of um goodness can come out of them a lot of creativity or or we can meet our goals um through if you like going through that um vortex of those qualities of but often we we resist um we we suffer and we experience a lot of agitation in the mind and the body because uh we prefer certainty to um ambiguous ambiguity we prefer simplicity and calm rather than volatility and complexity so i think there's a sense that we can feel more in control and and we like to feel in control when vuca isn't isn't present but to some extent i think it's it's it's always there uh i think uh one of the at least an aspect of vuca is is change is impermanence which is in the nature of our world and the nature of the mind and we can't stop that and um we wouldn't want to stop that life would be pretty weird if we did and because the change is not always in the direction that we want it to go in that that's when resistance comes in and we suffer so what can we do to help us with this type of dukkha this type of of this ease from resisting what's what's happening and i think milder versions of of uh you know it's it's i've referred to and and amish's research looks at quite strong aspects but the milder versions are when uh internally there's unsettledness or there's a bit of agitation in the body and mind or restlessness or even boredom actually because boredom has this tinge of aversion it's like oh i don't want this and so by its nature there's a wanting something else something more enjoyable something more pleasant so i'm going to go through a few points that i think can help work with the vuca type of dukkha if you like help us surf the waves [Music] of uncertainty and complexity and all those things just help us navigate that territory more frequently so the first thing and then i i realized this morning uh they're not in they're not in really in particular uh any particular order but the first thing is to recognize what's happening um actually just before i get into the three points we have to recognize oh there's some agitation in the mind um there's oh there's boredom boredom is happening and then there's different things that we can do so so the first thing is um to uplift the mind in quite a small way um we can do quite small things that make a quite a big difference to the mind so often when we get caught uh by dukkha or flattened by a big wave of vuca the mind becomes less resourced and less resilient so less it's like the the dukkha um makes us less able to cope with the effects of that dukkha we get caught by stress low mood and threat mind those are the three things that amishi shah refers to that's what happens in the mind and that increases unhelpful thoughts about the difficulty or about the mind states themselves so uh the the glacier the kilisa that become more they gather in the mind like clouds of afflictive emotions so when we realize that that's happening we can direct the mind so we use directed attention towards a simple resource and that might be something like going for a short walk in in nature or sitting in your garden if you have a garden for um 20 minutes it might be um i was thinking something that i don't do very often but i know resources me when i do is get my flute out of the cupboard and just have a have a little play um or it could be a short resourcing practice um yeah some that i've found over the years i've been drawing them from different places and circumstances but one that i particularly like is by rick hansen who's a longtime meditator but he's also i think he's a neuroscientist and a psychologist he's ridiculously uh well-trained uh his regards to the mind and he has um he uses the metaphor of a garden garden well garden analogy i think he he says in practice we're either in the garden um and that would be where we're with a more receptive undirected um practice undirected mindfulness we're in the garden or we're we're digging weeds in the garden so this is when we're working with difficulty investigating and aware of difficulty of some sort so yeah vuca would be right in there and the third thing is uh all we're planting flowers planting seeds that will grow into flowers so we're uplifting the mind bringing in beauty kindness pleasure and uh rick hansen may mainly focuses on the third one he his exercises help us um plant flowers in the mind and grow resilience through that through having more positivity in the mind grow resilience and grow resources and so he does this so that the mind is better able to be with whatever's happening sometimes if if we're just in a little bit of a downward spiral it's much harder to you know meet what's happening so he uses the the flashlight this directed attention um and i thought maybe we could just do this little practice before we get into um the meditation we'll just do this practice maybe it takes three minutes and we've got three little stages so i'll just describe it and as i describe it you can you can do it so it's called grow the good and the first stage is simply connecting with uh something that conveys calm strength to you might be an image in the mind if i think of a tree a big tree it gives off a sort of calm strength so i connect with that that feeling of that image and just take in taking the feeling living strength of tree and the second stage is called okay now so often with whatever is happening with us in this moment if we are simply with the moment things are okay now it's possible to be with what's happening it may not be pleasant or what you want to be happening but in this moment just being okay with things right now with yourself right now and then the third stage final stage is called flow of love so this involves really just just casting partly casting your mind to too little memories so the flow of love is what happens whenever there is connection on any level between you and someone else or some other being so it may be a tiny exchange in a shop as you purchase something it may be a simple kindness from a neighbor or you to a neighbor it may be a casual but warm connected exchange with someone that you live with or a friend and it may be uh feeling connected and the feeling the flow of love between you and the most important people in your lives and at a certain point it doesn't matter whether we're giving or receiving uh there's a such a mutuality if you like in in that sense of flow sometimes we're receiving sometimes we're giving often happening at the same time through connection connection allows a sense of love to flow better okay so maybe let's start to let that practice go but let it notice where it's perhaps created some uplift or infused some slightly more sort of resourced or resilient um attitude or feeling in in the mind to relax the body and i'll i'm gonna move on and talk about the the second and third things that we can do in relation to the kind of duka so the second one i'm going to say very little about um but really it's it's the most obvious one for most of us who already know the um [Music] already know the the metabolic practice and perhaps other brahmavihara practices so self-meta self-compassion we're going to do a compassion practice a bit later so i'm not going to say much more about that except i'm going to mention some of you will be very very familiar with um this little story i'm about to tell you now um but one one of the favorite ways that i think of talking about um [Music] being able to face uh dukkha with with kindness with openness is a little story about when david attenborough met the gorillas so i'm guessing that many of you will have seen this little clip on youtube i actually watched it last night um i watched it again to see if i uh in the retelling of it if i was sort of missing bits out so it's it's um basically when he he goes to rwanda i'd forgotten i knew it was africa but it's actually it's rwanda and um they they think that they might be able to get a little bit of footage where he's um you know the the gorillas are in the background and he's talking to the camera um [Music] in the end it doesn't quite work out like that you know he's he's crept up he's crept up he's sort of mimicked the gorillas so that they accept him um but they start playing with him they start engaging with him and at one point pulling off his shoes so he's sort of grimacing but he's also got this big grin on his face because he's uh his shoes are just being pulled off i'm guessing without their laces being undone so not particularly comfortable experience but he's in this situation that's potentially very dangerous uh very uncertain uh very volatile um and yet he's he's embracing it actually and he has got this massive grin on his face potentially it could all go very very wrong very quickly but he's he's right there with uh it's been a dream of his for a very long time to be able to to be in this sort of contact with gorillas you know they're playing with his hair and trying to pick fleas off non-existent fleas off him and um cuddling him basically it's a very lovely clip i recommend it but it's a particular sort of attitude towards um yeah yeah well towards what could be our big and scary um mind states i suppose we've got gorillas yeah but we've got the our mind states are also quite big and scary at times and um it's pointing to a way of being a way of being with those sorts of states this takes me on actually to another um or the third um yeah way of it's an attitude really i think it's an attitude of mind and it's another quality of mindfulness of what the buddha called right mindfulness and it's a quality called it's well the english is free from desires and discontent in regard to the world and in regard to the world apparently means the world of the senses um so it's a particular attitude in the mind rather than the the mind being completely free of all sorts of desires and discontents which is another way of talking about the glaciers craving and aversion and the hindrances so it's about when we can meet um [Music] our experience whatever that experience is with this quality uh of free from desires and discontent the suffering is reduced so we see if there's something in uh something in our experience that accepts what's happening so acceptance is the key to this quality so we're willing to say this is how it is right now um can i be with this how would it be to just be a bit more open to this and and in doing that we let go of struggle we let go of resistance resisting what's what's there and the mind opens to the opposite of uh discontent which is contentment so there's an ease with what's happening uh rather than a resistance so i think it's quite a practice to to be open to being with uh what's unpleasant or unwanted um [Music] whether that's a mind state or it might be um might be a physical pain or some sort of difficulty but being open to this is how it is right now often uh i think that we might try and think ourselves out of um a difficulty but often that difficulty at root is an unpleasant feeling the feeling of resistance is quite unpleasant and i remember hearing a little phrase you you can't think yourself out of an unpleasant feeling or a difficult feeling um but if you can be with it if you can accept that this is what is happening right now uh it makes things a lot easier because it is so natural to try and think yourself out of um a difficult situation or a difficult feeling but actually just being with it just accepting that it's there is quite revolutionary really quite counter-intuitive and we're not saying with that acceptance that this is the end of the story um or even that this is okay but in this moment it's okay it's okay that it's here right now uh it's okay that sadness is here that anger is here or boredom is here or rumination and those things are so much easier to be with without the struggle without the um resistance so with acceptance um with that freedom from desire and discontent even a momentary freedom um we can see that uh and this is really significant we can see that our our happiness isn't dependent upon something unpleasant stopping or going away and our happiness isn't dependent upon something pleasant or enjoyable happening and staying so there's a temporary sort of liberation from dependence on on nice things happening or pleasant things happening and we can see that actually the mind uh can be actually quite happy uh can be content can be um not identifying with this unpleasant mood or unpleasant happening that's going on and it can really increase our faith and increase our confidence that actually we can beat with difficulty um but but not sort of join in if you like the mind doesn't have to join in we can be with with painful events without being overwhelmed and so we learn not to be afraid of our own minds and and the things the the things that go on within them and i think this is this really helps us manage and able to to surf that wave of uh booker of uncertainty and volatility and those other qualities and mindfulness is a real friend i think to us this is the quality remember acceptance equality of right mindfulness so mindfulness with these really big difficult gorilla type mind states mindfulness is a friend that allows and enables us to be with what's happening it's still it's not pleasant and we're not pretending it's pleasant but we can we can be with it from a mind that's actually um the qualities of awareness are very different to the qualities of whatever guerrilla mindset is going on so there's something in the qualities of awareness in the mind that are resourcing the mind while other stuff is happening okay so i'm going to leave it there um maybe like other mornings that just have time to see if there's a question or two um if not we'll go straight into the practice but just if if you want to if you have a question about this and i know that this is a it's a it's a very big area um then just put up your electronic hand i like saying that put up your yellow electronic hand okay then all right well if you make yourself comfortable we'll do uh two practices but we'll go straight from from one into another they work quite well together and the first one will be more directed and the second one will go into a more undirected open practice i may not say i may not lead right through that but just start us off so the first practice is actually from um [Music] someone called kristen neff who is um yeah she's been very influential in the um [Music] um what's it called mindfulness and self-compassion uh more secular movement so using mindfulness but with self-compassion so we're going to do a practice called the compassion break [Music] so the compassion break is a very simple practice in three short stages and it'll probably take us about 10 minutes and before any of the stages we just allow ourselves to settle and relax come to whatever's happening in the present moment we come to rest in mindfulness moment by moment and then in the first stage of the practice let your mind go towards something in your life currently that causes you some uneasiness [Music] some difficulty some pain you may not have a choice about this but be aware perhaps not to choose something that you you know is likely to overwhelm the mind at the moment as i say you may not have a choice it may just be something that's very very uh uppermost in your mind so you bring it to mind and you really recognize that this is this is tough this is difficult and it hurts perhaps the words are different it feels bad or stressful some type of suffering this is dukkha really recognizing and acknowledging this can often give a little bit of space around it there's some sort of validation of your experience through naming it recognizing it and then in the second stage you recognize that this suffering this experience is part of being human it's not a mistake it's part of their human condition and this is the insight this is the recognition of the universality of of dukkha of difficulty sadness difficulty suffering this is part of living everyone's life contains or will at some point contain and remembering that when we struggle with my difficulty suffering that others too would likely struggle in the same circumstances so we're not alone and this stucker is quite often how it feels how it feels to be alive look a part of life and so in the third stage we remind ourselves that actually this dukkha is an opportunity to remember self-compassion to treat ourselves kindness acceptance perhaps thinking about how we would respond to a friend in the same situation you might think what what words would you offer or perhaps not words but actions or gestures touch or you might say to yourself what would i most like to hear what would i most like to say to myself at this moment and for the rest of my life so and now we're going to move on to the second practice so the difficulty may well still be there some degree of compassion mindfulness also there and just allow the attention to expand the undirected and let the mind notice what else is happening through the field of the mind don't need to go looking for things but by relaxing the attention relaxing the awareness just opening to include other sensations connecting with the body perhaps a few moments where you notice the breath or sounds or sites if the eyes are open and feel free to if your eyes have been closed and you'd like to open them then do that you might also notice thinking happening notice feeling how the mind feels feeling in the body now perhaps noticing any feelings of uplift in the mind not looking to generate them but noticing ones that are already present perhaps a contentment to simply sit or perhaps patience or ease with whatever's happening a relaxation from [Music] it's not enough something else should be happening see if it's possible to simply allow what's happening just to be there going even further appreciating whatever is there whatever's there that helps us to grow awareness remembering that we can grow and strengthen mindfulness from any object through any of the senses including the mindsets if you find that there's a persistent pain or difficulty the body or the mind can be helpful not to focus too directly on it but include noticing how you're relating to what's happening whether you're okay with it being there there's some acceptance or you might notice some resistance some aversion so noticing what that's like and acceptance that at the moment there's aversion in the mind that's the relationship to what's happening not a problem if it's helpful and you find that you're getting lost or caught different thoughts then you can use an anchor perhaps the thumbs touching force your sitting bones or sounds around you just choosing one aspect of your experience and having a very very light attention in that area helping keep some continuity of awareness continuing to relax and settle back relaxing into awareness noticing where attention goes when it's undirected and allowing awareness to accompany it and we'll do this for another 10 minutes or so uh you so so [Music] [Music] so we have some time 10 minutes or so for anyone and i suggest maybe um we first of all hear from people who haven't spoken before but any any thing you'd like to say about what you noticed in your practice any questions that arose from the practice or from what i was saying before about vuca duka so just hope you can raise your hand shanti shantida yeah yes thank you um i just wanted to share that um when you were talking about vucker and when you went into the those small practices we did uh to begin with it felt like you'd put you put so very helpful words on exactly what i think i have been up to for 53 days now with my loss of my son and and it was very comforting because i have been experiencing by practice what you now described in words and that and that made made it so meaningful so um so yes i'm i'm i'm in the midst of something that's the most difficult thing in my entire life was i'm 62 now i never been through anything this difficult before and and and it was very comforting to have those words to to go together with my experience so i just wanted to thank you for that and share that thank you for sharing it with us yeah yeah when when we find the the way to be able to hold an experience i think it's it's it's such an incredible gift actually to just even in moments to have the time when when we're holding something rather than yeah it being completely overwhelming you know in a what feels like a very destructive way but yeah yeah thank you anyone else have a comment or a question celia yes hi thank you so much um for this um i had a question you mentioned that sometimes luca could come out in sort of creative acts so it's a positive thing but i wondered if there was if you had any thoughts on sort of dealing with the other way around so using creativity in moments of vuca to try and combat it or to build resilience i mean you mentioned yourself playing the flute and maybe that's one example of yeah coming at it with creativity yeah interesting um i don't i don't see why not because in a way with creativity you've got um a lot of positivity i suppose you've you've got a um it's it's an opening out towards um experience i guess i i yeah i think my experience is probably that it does make a difference with certain types of of dukkha maybe the more sort of agitated um restlessness some sometimes it it is helpful to do just to do something so maybe just um i i don't know playing with color or something i think that can be really really helpful i guess that's partly where we we've got our art therapies and music therapies and things that that do um yeah yeah and in that way there is a calming um yeah yeah yeah okay kashanandi um yes firstly i'd like to thank kishan deeda um not not the right name um for sharing so movingly and poignantly um i myself are fresh in a storm uh i broke my ankle and tore my calf yesterday and i got home late from a e last night i live with and care for my 102 year old mum and i i can't walk without hopping i can't carry anything so i can't in any way cope with my current situation and uh those two invitations to bring compassion firstly was so helpful allowed me to to cry [Music] and then to open up and realize that i needed to open my eyes my eyes closed led to overwhelm with what i have to put in place but opening my eyes um i looked out on what's normally a very quiet dead neighborhood i look over a graveyard and it was alive um i've been watching gravity defying squirrels and seeing them getting on with their life and being very much in the moment um i'm not sure what uh is going to be ahead now for me but being in the moment is is a very large part obviously i've got a lot of things to sort out but this is not quite now the right time to to problem solve that really very helpful thank you great great yeah it sounds like you've in in within those practices you really found ways of resourcing resourcing the mind i think particularly that being being present with what was happening um you know externally that but it nourished an internal sense didn't it that being with the graveyard and seeing the squirrels yeah yeah great good luck good luck yeah stefan in the beginning when you introduced how to deal with this was there um was there a structure i remember you started with recognize and then went into uplift yeah were there some more points there i might have missed something although okay okay so um so i had uh maybe the structure wasn't completely clear so the yeah recognition in a way was outside of the structure it's just something that's just really um whatever the circumstances whatever just to recognize what's happening so uplift was one of the just one of the things that we can use to um be with yeah be be with uh or or work with it but within that point i mentioned a short practice that had three um aspects to it so rick hansen's practice of of grow the good cup no grow the grid so that's the title calm strength okay now and flow of love so that was a practice within uh that was a type of uplift practice uk if you like and then after that i talked about using um compassion self-compassion that was the second point matter or compassion and then the third one was this aspect of of mindfulness which is to do with acceptance to do with the mind that's able to or the awareness that's able to be free from wanting and not wanting so we can really accept what's happening does that make the structure any clearer yes yes okay yeah good thank you thank you yeah anyone else anything about your practice anything that you noticed or any other questions does it i was curious whether vuca felt like um a helpful um [Music] way of talking about experience if you like of this particular yeah it's um i thought it summed up quite a lot of points you know this through those yeah that yeah went volatile well everybody knows how it is to feel volatile or be in a volatile situation or an uncertain situation um dealing with complexity akash and andy your situation there's a lot of complexity in there isn't it there and um yeah and ambiguity so unclarity um which our world is very complex actually just living in the world we're dealing with complexity ambiguity prasada bhatti what you're still yeah that's it yes yes can you you can hear me now yes thank you um uh with regard to vucker uh i i heard the um interview with amishi and um been trying to get my head around vucker more um kind of bringing it more closer to my experience in a kind of construct to in a constructive way and i think today there was this turning point where it became its value became more alive for me um in a a positive way okay so it makes sense it was that another dimension came to it um through the way you talked about it petra davey so it wasn't so much um [Music] ah yes this aspect of dukkha which feels can feel overwhelming or disempowering um or i could be a victim of but it's somehow bringing them side by side dukkha and vucker in the context of what you've been doing here um it shone a light on which helped me much more appreciate a challenge i suppose and see a very positive value in accepting oh this is the way it is and that really touched touched me so it wasn't the heaviness of the vucker or um the struggle but something else came through it so i really appreciated that thank you yeah i'm just as you were talking i was wondering i was thinking oh um is it is i wonder if it's to do with the the sort of implicit right view lens that the that um yeah looking at um i suppose right right view is always willing to sort of see see things as they are see things as they are right now and um yeah yeah thank you yeah yeah great and somehow making one's piece with that that is how that is how life is yeah yeah and sort of opening up to that um and not feel not going into the resistance resistance to it or seeing it as a problem yes yeah yeah even the worst sort of fears and happenings yes yes yes was saying really the worst thing that can happen but that can be yeah it's it's possible to be in a relationship with it that's not yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so thank you that that's really incredibly valuable great thank you okay we're almost at the end unless there's anyone else with ah anything to add okay good well um yeah i'm enjoying these sessions really enjoying these sessions so it's lovely to see you all here and last one tomorrow and um oh yeah ian's ian wrote a comment so let's maybe yeah so this was to do it i'm just going to check this out to do with self-compassion yeah okay so he says am i alone in finding it difficult to find self-compassion when in the midst of uncertainty and volatility gorillas are sometimes too scary to approach absolutely absolutely they are and i think we we have to really respect really respect that [Music] and maybe what maybe that's when the the um the respect has a certain sort of acceptance in it as well accepting um that actually this is this at the moment is too much this is so so really acknowledging that to oneself and that in itself is a kind of self-compassion uh to think actually this you know what this this is as far as i can go with this this is as much and i'm really struggling acknowledging the struggle and um [Music] yeah if possible being able to be with that struggle with some degree of of uh maybe kindness is even too active sometimes but just a willingness to be with it um yeah with with whatever degree of resistance is there um yeah okay so tomorrow um uh looking a bit at thinking and amishija says a lot about mind wandering mind thinking and thinking and thinking and so we'll we'll look a little bit at that and do a couple of meditations um coming into relationship with my thoughts thoughts and thinking so i hope to see some of you then oh and thank you to nick as always for for hosting doing a really great job and answering the questions in the chat as well uh yeah okay see you then thank you vegemi thank you thank you have a lovely day great session thank you thank you bye thank you take care everyone yeah yeah all recorded up on youtube on youtube catch up yeah okay okay

Channel: Adhisthana Triratna

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Id: e5j9uzvBs_A

Length: 87min 9sec (5229 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 07 2022