Mandala Meditation

well we've got three different live streams lined up tonight for some strange reason i'm not sure exactly how that happened but it did happen so here i am uh this is the real live stream i hope anybody shows up if you have showed up that's great i'm happier here and i'm not sure why we had so much trouble uh getting the streams going but now the stream is going so hopefully everyone will show up and let me uh i'm getting all kinds of messages and so on so let's just move past that um welcome to tonight's guided meditation uh sponsored by san francisco dharma collective it is thursday evening here where i'm at and um i'm glad you all could make it as you know i always say this i love doing these videos and it is even better tonight i feel stoked i'm ready to go i'm tanned rested and ready and um i'm so glad to uh see that you're all here and for all my old sfdc buddies i miss you guys a lot i wish we were doing this in person so much so i could say hi um but i'm saying hi anyway here on uh on the tube so tonight we're gonna do something that i've been experimenting with that i think you're going to really like it's different than what we've been doing it relies on the stuff we've been doing uh you know as the basis but it we go further than that and [Music] how's the video feed doing tell me if there's any problems um it's based on the stuff we've been doing but it takes it further um so or it takes it further in a different direction and i've been experimenting with this i think it's really really cool and i think you're gonna like it um this is more of a uh classically vadriana style meditation but um heavily altered and adapted for uh let's say modern audiences i'll talk more about that at the end but um time's a wasting so let's just dive right in okay so let's begin meditating um sit in your nice meditation posture and uh i have my glasses on because i need to kind of watch what's going on here but if you have glasses you'll want to take them off and make sure your back is nice and straight settle yourself into your meditation cushion and we're going to do um the usual at this point we're going to do shamata with an object to begin and so whatever focusing technique you like to use go ahead and use that now i recommend that you do whatever gets you the most relaxed and the most alert right so focused and relaxed at the same time and while you're doing that i will as usual do a kind of like background guided meditation on body relaxation and if you want to you can meditate on the body relaxation as your shamatha with an object you can use the body relaxation as your object but whatever works for you you can do a mantra you can do a visualization you can feel the energy body you can so on and so forth so let's begin doing that um and actually i want to briefly touch in with bodhichitta so remembering that when we sit we sit with tremendous confidence confidence born in the understanding that we are all already fully awakened buddhas fully awakened to bodhisattvas it's not something that we're trying to cultivate or something that we have to somehow build through you know tremendous effort but rather our deepest nature is enlightened nature and that's already there and if you can touch that immediately you're done touch it immediately stay with it realize it so to speak um you're done you know so we always sit with tremendous confidence in our own enlightened nature of course we may have to do some excavation to get in there we may have to clear out some muck in a certain way of looking at it but in another way of looking at it it's all already perfect and fine and we are all already deeply wise perfectly enlightened buddhas filled with compassion and filled with wisdom so i want you to just kind of breathe in that confidence that clarity and feel that compassion for all beings everywhere all beings everywhere need it right now so that's our bodhichitta our setting of our intention and really coming from the right place okay now we'll start working with relaxing the body again you do whatever your focus practices and i'll just talk about relaxing the body so begin by releasing all tension and tightness in your face relaxing your scalp relaxing your forehead releasing tension in your eyebrows or your eye muscles or your eyes and feeling all the tension in your face and your mouth and your head just draining away completely leaking out into the earth disappearing being replaced by fresh bright clear relaxed open ease full release so that your scalp your forehead your eyebrows your eye muscles your eyes your cheeks your jaw [Music] your lips your mouth it's all feels deeply pleasantly open soft at ease and restful good next tune into your neck and throat and shoulders your trapezius muscles and so on both in front and in back on the sides and allow any tension in your throat your neck your shoulders to just drain away drain away down into the earth to release and relax and let go and leaving only bright alert clear crisp clean energy that is tremendously smooth and at ease and open and relaxed and just feel that relaxation tune into that relaxation in your face your head your shoulders your neck that whole area just feels so open and at ease and restful and just right the goldilocks zone of relaxation good next allow your hands your fingers your wrists your forearms your elbows your upper arms all areas of your arms and hands to release and relax and let go completely all tension draining away all tightness draining away so that your arms become limp like wet noodles tremendously restful and at ease relaxed open soft pleasant and again you allow that to kind of soak in [Music] so that now your arms and your shoulders and your neck and your head are all relaxed and that large area of relaxation in the body is beginning to impact your whole body your whole consciousness and it's allowing you to just kind of drop right now into a very very deep and restful place that's tremendously still that's tremendously clear and that's also bright and [Music] alert feels really good feels really really just right and you notice that your whole being just is more at ease and that allows the tension in your upper torso and upper back to begin to drain away it's draining way into the earth draining away and leaving only this wonderful release this wonderful bright clear relaxed energy in your upper torso feels so good and is such a peaceful and easeful sensation giving you that feeling of just kind of alert relaxation that is so beautiful so let's just be with the upper body the arms the neck the head shoulders all being tremendously relaxed good now notice any tension in the belly region or the pelvic region whether in front or in back or on the sides or inside that whole lower abdomen area releasing tension all tension just draining away draining away draining away leaving your body in a state of bright clear alert awake restful relaxed open pleasantness and as you notice this relaxed easeful openness even more clearly it just coaxes your entire mind your entire being to just now drop even more deeply into a very very restful very alert very clear space where you feel good and you feel relaxed and your mind is very very sharp very clear very bright wide awake and the body and mind very open and relaxed and feeling good like this you notice that your heart softens and you can begin to feel some gratitude and some sense of softness and like melted meltiness in the heart region just kindness and notice how good that feels and just be with that for a moment good and next what i'd like you to do is allow all tension to drain from your hips your thighs your knees your shins your calves your ankles your feet your toes any tension in the legs and feet just drains away into the earth any tension left anywhere in the body just drains away into the earth now leaving your entire body in an optimal state of well-being and clarity and uplifted awakeness and a sense of ease and openness and relaxation i want you to just sit with this open bright awake relaxed place as you continue your show to with an object practice and i'll do this with you for a few more minutes before we move on okay good now we'll switch we'll let go of the intentional focus we'll switch to shamatha without an object so we let go of having any focus object whatsoever and the essential instruction for this part of the meditation is relax the core of your mind you just feel the core of your mind releasing just as your body has released just as we let go of tension in the body we let go of tension in the core of the mind this means that if you start to feel the mind grabbing on to any thought we just relax the mind away from that the thought can continue but we're not paying any attention to it at all if you feel the mind grabbing on to some other kind of meditation object like the body or external sound or whatever again that's a kind of tension in the core of the mind we relax the core of the mind allow those things to continue they can go on their merry way but the mind remains relaxed and open and you're just resting the mind in its own awareness without intentionally tensing up around anything if you notice that tension in the core of the mind happening simply relax now for some people this starts to feel like a kind of struggle and of course as soon as you're struggling you've got a lot of tension in the core of your mind so if it feels like a struggle at all drop the struggle if it feels like you're doing something that's causing tension just drop that we want to have this tremendous relaxation in the mind where you're not grabbing onto anything and just resting okay so let's continue with that for a while here one of the metaphors i use for this is it's like if you were laying in bed not under the covers on top of the covers and near the bed your phone you heard the phone ding there was a notification and you started to kind of like jump up to get it and then you remember oh just lay back down and each time you feel yourself getting up to answer a ding just lay back down and you notice it might feel like a struggle to not get up because you have such a habit of getting up but of course just laying there itself is not a struggle at all right it's the opposite of struggle it's just laying there so each time you feel the mind starting to grab onto something it's like sitting up nope just drop back down just lay there but we're not going to sleep we're staying wide awake clear bright alert just very very relaxed the mind opens like a flower and is just resting in its own awareness without efforting at all it's very pleasant you you if you find your mind getting caught up in anything at all just relax and let go of it and come back to just dwelling in openness just open awareness not focused on anything in particular this allows you to let go of the habit of fixation in the mind the habit of tensing up your mind and grabbing on to every single thought that goes by and starting to wrestle with it and making everything into a problem [Music] and trying to solve problems what if right now just during this meditation there's nothing to solve there's nothing to plan there's nothing to change there's nothing to do and you just drop all that and let the core of your mind relax and be open and if that's difficult that's just showing you how strong the habit of grabbing on is so just have compassion for yourself and your mind and allow it to relax give it some time off from grabbing on and wrestling with problems and instead allow it to rest in this natural easy bright clear open spaciousness we're not trying to stop thinking but neither are we engaging in thinking at all if thinking's there we're completely not engaging with it we're not paying any attention to it at all good now we're going to begin doing a vadriana style visualization practice so this does take some effort i want you to begin this practice by visualizing a golden disc in front of you it can be very small or very large kind of closer or further away whatever seems right to you but visualize a beautiful luminous golden disc almost like a full moon when it's first rising sometimes on the horizon it's still a little yellow or maybe a beautiful beautiful golden light coming through a round window [Music] but it's luminous and it's golden i want you to see this circular golden luminous light in your mind's eye in front of you if you're not good at visualization that's fine we're going to add some other features here that will make it easier for you and also [Music] richer but for now just imagine this golden circle in front of you and in this golden luminous bright clear disk now you see all your spiritual guides and these can be you know [Music] tremendously powerful spiritual teachers it could be buddha or moses or christ or whoever whatever goddesses whatever powerful spiritual beings are guiding you so see them clearly in front of you now and notice this feeling that's coming from them of wisdom and of inspiration and of guidance this sense of guidance and even compassion and really feel that energy coming from this golden disk in front of you now take that in notice it very very very powerfully it could be green tara it could be avalokitesvara it could be krishna or shiva or kali chandima really inspires you as a spiritual being and who you feel is guiding you so see that now very very clearly feel that wonderful sense of wisdom and clarity and inspiration good now just let that stay there and then on your right directly to your right so 90 degrees imagine a beautiful luminous ruby red disk a bright beautiful fierce sharp red disk you can see that red light almost like a the disc of a very late sunset when the sun is right on the horizon and it's red and bright and clear you see that now it doesn't matter if you see it uh perfectly or if it's stable or anything like that just do the best you can with this it's fine you'll still get the benefit of this by even attempting it and now within this red disc this luminous ruby red light i want you to see or imagine seeing all your protectors those who have been there for you [Music] who have been your guardians and helpers and i want you to see them clearly and really feel that kind of fierce protective energy that's there for you really notice that sense of being held and kept safe and that's the sharpness of this red energy it's really keeping you safe and helping you so just tune into that now see these guardian beings these can be people in your life animals in your life or spiritual beings spiritual teachers whatever good now again let's leave these fierce protectors in place on your right and let's go to the left side where you see a luminous emerald green disk on your left side it's beautiful absolutely attractive deep luscious green light circular light that you see very very clearly and you feel a wonderful energy from this light so see that as clearly as you can and in this green light are all your friends and loved ones and family and animal companions and just all the beings who are on the journey with you this is the love and of course some of these beings may have showed up in other uh parts of the mandala as well but that's okay they're also here in the green disk and i want you to feel that sense of uh being loved that sense of friendship and belonging that deep sense of connectedness and um just the beautiful energy of friendship and those we are with in our journey and really take that in try to see your loved ones and friends and family as clearly as you can in this green this pleasant green energy this pleasant green light of love and kindness and friendship good now behind you is a blue disc visualize a [Music] sapphire blue disc tremendously deep rich blue light and see that as clearly as you can behind you and just let that blue light beam into you from behind it's not about getting it right it's not about having us the stablest vision you can that's knife nice if it's there but as long as you just imagine a blue light there that's enough and then what i want you to see in this blue light are the ancestors the dead those who have gone before you and who are on the other side i want you to see um these dead friends dead ancestors uh dead beings all the way back to the beginning of time behind you in this blue light and i want you to feel a tremendous sense of good will coming from them a tremendous sense of support and being held and a kind of sense that we are the the breaking edge of a wave that has traveled all the way from beginningless time to this very moment so just feel that support and energy and good will coming from the ancestors the dead those who have gone beyond good now i want you to see above you a beautiful soft disk of light it's not glaring it's whitish but it has a tinge of purple or pink in it and it's very clear and very pleasant it's not like a glaring light a beautiful soft purple pink white light and you don't see any particular beings in this light you just feel the energy of blessing of grace and of healing and of balancing and of sanity and of beauty pouring down from this light above this untangles all the knots and smooths out all the wrinkles and allows everything to feel tremendously well the body feels well the mind feels well the emotions feel well the spirit feels well and i want you to see now this purple pink white light above beaming down this blessing light and the blue light of the ancestors supporting you behind feel that support feel that good will feel the love of friends and family the green light on the left and feel the protective guardian energy the sharp red energy really giving you a lot of protection and a different kind of support on your right continuing to see all these energies very clearly and the golden energy of guidance and inspiration and wisdom from the golden yellow disc with the spiritual beings in front and see all these with you now feel all these with you now [Music] all at once as clearly as possible and just feel the well-being that comes with this mandala of support and love and wisdom and blessing protection and guidance and on an in-breath i want you to breathe in the blue disc and all the ancestors and [Music] beings within it into yourself and on another in-breath breathe in the golden disk of wisdom and clarity and guidance with all the spiritual beings into yourself and feel that and then on another in-breath breathe in the red light of the protectors and the guardians and take that in and feel that and on another in-breath breathe in the green light of friends and loves and family and feel all that connection and belonging and caring and then on another in-breath breathe in this purple pink white light all of these lights gathering in the heart shining bright together as a kind of perfectly clear light a radiant brilliant clear light of awareness and love and allow all the visualizations to drop away all the feelings and thoughts to drop away everything to drop away but simply vast spacious awareness perfectly bright awake empty compassionate and just rest in that resting in auspicious awareness with perfect clear light [Music] good now let's end the meditation noticing how good that feels allowing yourself to [Music] begin to re-engage with the room around you maybe look left and right and up and down just kind of orienting a little bit to the world around you the room around you and slowly allowing yourself to move and stretch maybe wiggling your fingers and toes maybe taking a sip of water as we end uh the meditation so this kind of mandala meditation is a tremendously powerful and helpful and it's also very traditional in in a way in many many cultures uh however certainly in tantrism or in buddhist tantra otherwise known as vajrayana this kind of mandala meditation is very common they do it a lot because it works it's a beautiful way to meditate and has a lot of good effects um if we were doing it in the traditional badriana fashion um we would use uh basically what boils down to bodhisattva images or buddhist deity images in each of these locations and we would use mantras of those deities and so on in each of those locations and if you like that i mean there's more than enough of that available you can find a lot of that out there however for many of us these particular sorts of images might not resonate that deeply you know we maybe for many of us we have not um grown up with these bodhisattva or deity images the buddha images and so um it's it can feel a little like it doesn't land quite as much for some people other people i like it you know but um and it's nice because it's traditional and it has mantras that go with it it's powerful but i think that doing it this way with um in more of a looser format allowing you to fill in whoever you want in that typifies these energies for you i think that can land for us a little more deeply and a little more organically it's kind of more indigenous to our own nature right because it's coming from our own experience with uh beings we care about and beings we know so that it's a little more um uh bespoke you know it's a little more individualized and you can feel that i think so this is a very interesting and powerful way to do this um and you may have noticed that you know doing the visualizations has a strong shamatha aspect right you can get very very concentrated and it also has an aspect of something that we might call you know meta or you know brahmavahara or in shenzhen language we call it focus on positive it's a little little it's not limited to just the brahmavajara emotions there's other positive emotions in there and you may notice that as you are invoking these energies or visualizing these beings or these feelings you know after a while it starts to feel really good you know and you feel the support and the love and the kindness and the inspiration and guidance and all that and so this is a very great meditation for um not only uh getting real concentrated getting real clear but also kind of um getting your entire being in a good place you know kind of being filled with confidence clarity good energy and so on that's a kind of you know this is tantrus and consciousness is about transmutation you know so we're taking what might normal normally be our feelings of you know sort of like chaos and problems all around us and transmuting that into a feeling of beauty and kindness and support and uh um love all around us right so it's this transmutation and that's just a really cool thing to do also because we are concerned with um wisdom and part of wisdom is emptiness the clarity of emptiness we start out in vast spacious awareness empty awareness and when we're done we end again with just bright clear awareness totally empty right and you may have seen that um when for example um tibetan buddhist monks will make a mandala out of sand and they take like two weeks or you know a long time to make it and it's incredibly beautiful and then after it's done they will ritually just someone will take their hand usually it's like the dalai lama or whatever takes his hand and just just destroys the mandala and of course the idea isn't oh we're wrecking this the idea is the wisdom it's the clarity of the emptiness of all of this and letting it just fall apart uh it's very beautiful powerful way to meditate so if you like doing that of course you can do this meditation anytime you want you can do it a much shorter version you know we we spent about half hour doing the mandala part and you know you could certainly do the same meditation in four or five minutes if you kind of wanted a quick version of it and also you can uh do it in other ways do it graphically like actually draw it or paint it as a mandala so you know a square with a circle and you could put the circles the discs in with their colors and so on you know actually paint it or draw it and you can write it in something that's really interesting is noticing in a psychological way if you're using this uh practice maybe outside of meditation or after the meditation noticing what's missing you know maybe you felt a lot of support from certain quarters but over in this one quarter there was nobody there you know that's important information and you know uh it's telling you a part of your life that feels incomplete or feels like it's not supporting right now and so imagining that energy there and then thinking about what beings could help fill that in even if they're spiritual beings or uh historical beings or even you know imaginary beings uh placing someone there to help fill out that part of the mandala for now it's very interesting both spiritually and psychologically and on a lot of other levels so um so let's look at what questions are coming up for you guys now um yeah so the first question is there's nobody in the gold and yellow disk okay well maybe for you currently you don't have a real sense of a deity or a sense of a buddha or a sense of a um a spiritual being who's really guiding you and helping you and so that's interesting right that's good information and so you might want to start or not but you might want to start a process of seeing what that is for you what what authentically comes up as your own sense of a guiding spiritual being right that can be just such a fascinating um inner exploration and it doesn't have to be just one it's not like oh i just gotta land on i don't know you know i've just gotta land on the virgin mary is like the one and that's my only thing no i mean maybe it is the virgin mary but maybe there's some other stuff in there too who knows right so that's uh that's good information and it's it's almost like a kind of inquiry practice that's being suggested there um clear glow is saying that it was powerful and it felt like the visualizations were happening on their own yep that's really cool isn't it when that happens i love that um [Music] eli was feeling a lot of pt or you know um positive uplifting sort of kundalini or body buzzy body energy yeah whenever we get nice and focused uh we can and especially focused with a heart open can start to feel a lot of pt right it's very pleasant and it often is connected with the breath with the breath um thank you for your comments i clearly you've done this before with the the buddha family mandala so that's fun i'm certainly basing this on those kind of visualizations uh noah is saying this was the first time i was really able to connect with these visualizations in an emotional way by moving away from the traditional bodhisattva imagery yeah that's what i mean you know if you like the bodhisatt bodhisattva imagery great go for it it's cool it's already there right but there can be a way that it just feels for many people disconnected it's just some something transplanted that doesn't feel quite right so that's why just going with your own internally generated imagery can often be a little feels a little deeper right it feels a little more connected um definitely eli it helps with uh is saying eli saying that it's incredible medicine for lockdown induced sense of separation yeah um all of us are in lockdown as i'm always complaining about at the beginning of every one of these sessions it's like well here i am again doing this alone in a room but of course i'm not alone in a room i'm alone in a room talking with all of you live or not live later if you're watching this later on this video and so there is also a sense of connectedness but still sort of the animal body are kind of uh sort of just the monkey level of being a human being just feels this room as quiet and empty right besides me in it and that animalness really wants a sense of interconnection wants the sense of being with others and so on and even bringing that up in imagination is healing for it it really helps right it's a funny thing it's a beautiful powerful thing about human beings is we can imagine something that's not there something unreal and then we because of that imagination because of that story we get an emotion that is real that is there so you know this is the basis of all books all tv all stories of any kind right it's we've got a thing happening in our imagination but the emotions that come up are there they're not imaginary emotions and so just feeling that sense of interconnectedness of the beings in our sort of like uh inner family or whatever that can really bring a really nice sense of community of interconnected interconnectedness of sangha of compassion yeah um let's see part of me is holding on to this idea i'm just making it up um yeah you are just making it up and that's cool um as i'm saying if you ever enjoy tv or movies those are all just made up and yet you have nice emotions from those you know if you ever get a good feeling from hearing a song that song was just made up it's just imaginary you know somebody thought it up in their head and you get good feelings from that so the fact that the mandala that you're seeing is made up is not a problem you know it's actually in a way traditionally we would say it makes it stronger right because uh bringing these things up in the mind uh using the subtle energy of the mind uh to invoke these energies is actually really powerful and transformative so in a way the fact that you're making it up makes it stronger not weaker um what should be happening with attention when resting in open awareness feels like it's impossible to rest without attending to something uh it is possible um it's what's happening with um um attention see though even the way you ask the question ashby and you're saying what should be happening with attention when resting is open awareness and the what should be happening is there's no attention at all you know awareness is just awareness but attention is narrowing it's that tightening it's that grabbing on right that's attention and in this uh um without an object part of the meditation we're not tensing the mind at anything so in one way of saying it there is no attention there is only awareness and another way of saying it you could say attention is spread absolutely evenly across all of awareness but of course then that's not intention it's just awareness so um yeah and if it feels like it must keep tensing onto something uh attending to something specific then that's but it was like what i was saying that's the measure of the fixation and drivenness in the mind so that's what we're relaxing um um someone is saying the concept of truth feels like it should go into the golden disk great uh that's that's what you want in that desk go for it um any tips on navigating the balance between developing detail versus attending to the emotions uh both are important one is thought one is feeling getting both thought and feeling uh clearer stronger they're both good i would say if i had to choose between one or the other i would go for the feeling first and then develop the detail and in fact if you had really trouble making visualization happen or getting into the detail don't worry about it just get the feeling is open awareness a kind of focus on the feeling of aliveness or being or just presence i mean again it's not focusing really on anything because focus is attention but if you had to give it a word i would say just be present it's total presence without privileging or giving special treatment to any part of awareness okay all right um that's it for the questions and now we're going to switch gears and move to the begging for money part of the video um so remember that these uh guided meditations are sponsored by san francisco dharma collective and san francisco dharma collective is supported by you we love the spirit of generosity and as i'm always saying you can be generous with your heart you can be generous with your time you can be generous with your attention you can be generous with kindness uh please be generous in some way or any way right generosity is one of the qualities of buddhahood and practicing generosity is awesome and there's many many many many many many ways to practice generosity and if you feel generous and at the same time happen to have spare piles of cash sitting around please feel free to get generous with some of that money and [Music] donate it as donna as freely given a gift from your heart to san francisco dharma collective and if you can't that's great you know as i'm always saying i love doing these san francisco dharma collectives loves presenting many many many different teachers we are super happy with the fact that we can present these free to the world you know these videos are just up here they're completely free uh you are welcome to watch them for free and if you feel like you want to help support us to do that then please feel free to um to donate okay and um [Music] it's always the case that you are a hundred percent uh you are a hundred percent welcome to just always be here free of charge we're absolutely committed to welcoming all kinds of people um regardless of whatever else anyone might say or think about anybody we welcome everybody um and we've always done that in person whoever walks through the door they're part of the sangha whoever comes and joins us online they're part of the sangha right we're 100 inclusive in every possible way and so please feel that generosity of the openness uh come join us katie is come join us for some of these other events coming up that katie is putting in the chat window we've got this new class that's focused on the teachings of rob verbaea rob is of course now passed away or as we say in death sangha he is dead very recently he died unfortunately and so there's going to be a class that's working with his amazing teachings i love his teaching he was brilliant so that's coming up at sfdc this halloween if you've got nothing else to do on halloween and we know you don't because hey kovid there's no place to go we're doing a special three hour death sangha uh on halloween for sfdc um that will not be on youtube that'll be on the sfdc zoom channel it's a little more intimate a little more um contained and of course of course death sangha is something we've been doing for well over a year now it's super intense uh be forewarned that it will be intense and maybe a little bit um terrifying and so on but it's a good uh meditation so i'm definitely looking forward to that um please if you are watching this uh anytime after the live stream please feel free to leave questions and comments in the comment window on the on the youtube and um and let's just do a minute of meditation right now before we end for the evening so let's sit together quietly for just a minute all right so let's let go of that now thank you everybody for uh joining me here uh it's so nice to uh even see your comments thank you so much i can't wait to see you in person again one of these days and uh be well okay have a good evening bye-bye hey kelly horiah hey dude nice nice to see your even your name in there long time no see bro

Channel: Michael Taft

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Id: yri5D9Xnuqw

Length: 88min 54sec (5334 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020