Meditation and the Science of Human Flourishing Workshop - Part 1

it's really wonderful to be with you today and co-sponsor this event with the turgor community what we're going to be talking about today is meditation and the science of human flourishing and with us today of course is a young gay men year Rinpoche who is with us today after his is it a four and a half year period as a wandering yogi and we're wonderful it's wonderful to have him back with us as you know he is a buddhist monk who is a master of the karma kagyu enigma sects of tibetan buddhism he also has a wonderful book called the joy of living how many of you who have read it that's why it's a best-seller and it is for a good reason from that book there has now been created a program called the joy of living which I think has three parts and so he is going to be in conversation today with Richie Davidson who is probably one of the most well known neuroscientists in the world in fact in 2006 I don't know why didn't go beyond 2006 at that time he was one of the most hundred influential people in the world I think he's about a hundred and three now so he is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin he's also the director of the affective neuroscience group there and also the founder and director of the Weissman Center and the Center for investigating healthy minds as a neurosurgeon unfortunately I deal with dealing with diseased minds but but I'm blessed to actually be able to do that work so Ricci has also been in the forefront at the forefront of this whole movement on studying how meditation and mental training affects the brain and like me he has a belief and the research bears it out that not only is compassion really at the core of who we are and defines who we are but in fact we can train individuals to potentiate their compassion and by doing so have really a profound profound effect on their lives and in fact so profound that we know that if you look at practicing these behaviors with intention it will not only change lives of others but yours profoundly and improve your physiology and also increase your longevity so I'm really blessed to be here with you today and to hear these esteemed individuals and also participate and moderate a dialogue with them a little later so without further ado the people you actually came to see dr. Davidson and Rinpoche thank you so much so thank you so much Jim and I want to begin by just expressing my gratitude to Jim's generosity doing this event on this day when it's graduation at Stanford I know was not an easy task to pull off and I'm really grateful you and your staff have been able to to enable this to occur and also all the work you've done Jim in helping to bring compassion to the mainstream of our culture and to the mainstream of science have been really such a significant part of the whole movement as you refer to it that we all aspire will be so beneficial to so many others in different sectors of the culture so we're really grateful to be here today and we're going to start by just introducing ourselves and having a little dialogue and we'll begin by just sort of situating this I'm a psychologist and a neuroscientist by training and in the very early part of my career I was motivated by a particular question which is why are some people more vulnerable to life's challenges and why are others more resilient and unable to have higher levels of well-being and how can we use strategies to help people move along a continuum toward increase well-being and that led me to the encounter with the contemplative traditions and this was many many years ago and I started as a graduate student at Harvard in the 1970s and was blessed at that time to meet a few people whose presence and demeanor really exemplified very high levels of well-being and I found out that they all had in common an interest in in a practice of meditation and so that led me to go off to India as after my second year of graduate school to see if I can uncover anything about this tradition that would make sense in the scientific arena and I came back after spending three months in Asia with a fervent aspiration to do research on meditation and related kinds of practices but it was made very clear to me by the faculty at Harvard at that time that if I wanted a successful career in science this was a terrible way to begin and so I needed to find something else and so I actually we published a few papers early on on meditation way back which are not cited at all these days but in the 1970's and early 1980s if you go back you'll find a few and then it why dormant and as I often say I became a closeted meditator and I had my own practice but really didn't say much about it publicly and it was very much in the background and then that all changed in 1992 when I first met his Holiness the Dalai Lama and His Holiness the Dalai Lama challenged me and said that you're using tools at modern neuroscience to study anxiety and depression and fear why can't those same tools be used to study virtuous qualities qualities like kindness and compassion and I didn't have a very good answer for His Holiness other than that it's hard but when we first began to study adversity in this sort of negative qualities destructive emotions that was hard to I think most scientists would agree that we've made a considerable amount of progress and so one of the things that His Holiness the Dalai Lama encouraged to do is to start studying these things and it became clear very early on that one of the best ways to start was to bring experts into the laboratory who had spent years training their mind and this brings us to me Jeremy shada mingi rinpoche was one of the very first practitioners to come into our lab and the very first time I met were impish a it was in the Dane County Airport right in Madison Wisconsin I think in either I was trying to remember either the late of fall of 2001 or spring of 2000 Allah Oh in Dharamsala yes in at the mind and life midnight media it's 2009 2:19 night that was 1995 by 2000 detecting destructive emotions mm yeah I was mm yeah mm and then Rinpoche came to our lab in 2001 or 2002 and that really was the beginning and the paper the scientific paper that was the first scientific paper on our studies of long-term practitioners was published in 2004 and one of the co-authors of that paper was mature Ricard probably many of you have heard of mentee Ricard he is a Tibetan Buddhist monk French by nationality and he's been a Buddhist monk since 1967 but met Hugh also has a PhD in molecular biology he worked with Francois Jacobi at the Pasteur Institute Francois Jacoby was a Nobel laureate and so mature came to the table with really remarkable credentials and the paper that we wrote in 2004 had met Hugh as a co-author and there were eight long-term meditation practitioners that were featured in that paper whose data were featured and mingi Rinpoche was one of those eight practitioners and we started with these very long-term practitioners to see if our measures the tools that we had available to us can actually see a difference because if we didn't see a difference with very long-term practitioners it was probably not going to be fruitful to study people at the early stages of practice and sure enough not only did we see a difference but we saw a difference that was dramatic and I'll say something more about that as we go along today and so that was really the beginning of this new era in contemplative neuroscience or contemplative science and one of the primary motivations for doing this work is that in Western culture today science occupies a privileged position and a lot of sectors of our culture demand evidence before they are willing to embrace certain practices we know that medicine is becoming more evidence-based we know that education is becoming more evidence-based and so the accrual of scientific data that is showing us how these simple contemplative practices can help to change the the mind the brain the body in ways that promote our well-being has I think really been helpful in bringing this to wider sectors of the culture and certainly I think Jim and I share a conviction that having centers like c-care on major university campuses is helpful in calling attention to the importance of this work and enabling it to penetrate into multiple sectors of our culture and and so Rinpoche and I have begun a dialogue in collaboration around these issues that began early on and one of the things that has been so meaningful to me about rim pouchees work is that in addition to being a buddhist teacher rinpoche has also taken some of the key elements in his tradition and have made them extraordinarily accessible in a program that is a secular program that jim mentioned that was articulated in his book the joy of living and people often ask me who have not been associated with this what's a book I should read about meditation and the first recommendation I always give them is the joy of living so if if you have not had much contact with this and want a great introduction it really is extraordinarily accessible and also brings in some of the scientific research and this joy of living program I think has the potential of a very wide reach because it is secular it can be done by anyone with any religious conviction or individuals who have no religious conviction and so I have been extremely interested in that and one of my aspirations in the near future is to begin to do research with the joy of living program in a way that has been done for example with mindfulness based stress reduction which has also been I think a helpful addition to the armament area of mindfulness based interventions that have been used in a wide variety of settings so just a little bit about the structure for today Rinpoche is now going to say a few words of introduction and then we're going to go back and forth and Rinpoche is going to start with some more direct experience so that we can all really start from a common ground with a little taste of the practices that come from this tradition and then he will talk about some practices that are focused on on basic awareness and which is central to all forms of meditation and then I'll talk a little bit about the scientific research that is associated with these kinds of practices and that will sort of be most of the morning and we'll also have time for questions and answers as we're going along and then after lunch Rinpoche will begin by talking about basic goodness and about kindness and compassion in introducing us again to some really simple practices that can be helpful in recognizing those qualities which are present in all of us really from the start and then I'll talk a little bit about the research scientific research in that area and again we'll have plenty of time for interaction with with all of you then we'll take a little break and then Jim will then join us for a dialogue and questions and answers for the remainder of the afternoon so that's kind of the blueprint for the day and I think it'll really be a nourishing day I'm certainly really looking forward to it very very much and looking forward to hearing from all of you I'm sure there'll be lots of juicy questions so with that I will turn it over to Rinpoche thank you good morning and thank you for coming here and thank you for gems and c-care wonderful Center and thank you for all who helped you possible to have this event so first I would like to has written mention about this background so I will mention a little bit about how I interest meditation and science so maybe I would like to give you some exercise for your arm so therefore I will begin to ask a question so related with meditation first or science first this one you want to hear meditation raise your hands good idea I'm not scientist so if you ask me first sign scientist then I will say just a little bit in an finish so for meditation I can talk a lot okay for the meditation so the meditation I was born in Nepal right middle of Himalaya Mountains and actually my village is the next to at highest mountain in the world on a slope so nice Valley special the morning sunrise touch to the Galatians mountain and calm down you know when I was young I stay outside of my my home and looking at a mountain like that so wonderful and we have wonderful Valley the village so wonderful and I have wonderful family great nice father mother and grandfather and grand mother very nice everything is fantastic so there is a good news but there's a bad news the bad news is I have panic attacks don't know why although I have wonderful family one I born in wonderful environment but panic attacks follow me as rock shadow and I was looking for some solution what should I do how to get rid of this panic and I try many different things I play with my children you know we use a bow and arrow and make us mud mud bridge and sand castle make small cave with the war wall you know it doesn't help and when I look at my my father and my grandpa sometime they meditate they feel so nice calm peaceful when they meditate they're just like mounted so nice then I thought maybe I should ask some teaching from them but I was very shy because I'm young and maybe they were nodding they don't want to give me because I'm too young so first I discussed with my mom so should I ask true my father give me some meditation teaching mom's a great good idea and asked my father and my father was very happy and taught me some meditation technique I tried to meditate but when I meditate quite okay sometimes you know but I'm lazy you know I like the idea of meditation but I don't know the practice of meditation when I tried to meditate I thought mmm today I did long time look at my watch it's only for three minutes I thought 15 minutes you know so but idea is very nice it it somehow it helps me my father said don't look this out we all look our mind chasing out and looking happiness out there so cannot find from making sin Castle cannot find from shooting arrow mind space turn mind face inward and find real happiness within me and don't fight with the panic that's a very important advice from my father well normally what I do is what I call yes sir and heck it out two things yes sir panic so in my village sometime in the winter this stone and then lot of snow and ween coming from north to the south and I was very afraid and I stand up and pull the pill pillar you know - against to the north side and my mother said what are you doing I said rain is coming and my mother was a laughing you know we laugh in Tibetan sometime no problem it doesn't mean mean no but anyway then when I was hell yeah sorry for not finish it so yes sir listen to panic and whatever message coming from panic believe that terrible I have a lot of fear about going into car fear of you know fire walk forward yeah in the Apollo every month there's a new year kind of like sellable celebration you know and so this yes sir and then another one here get out meaning fight with the panic panic or panic fear or panic resist panic try to get it open it my father said don't do this you know so when I meditate and let go try to accept try to learn how to live with the panic face and but the lazy you know sometimes lazy is more problem don't panic then when I was 11 years old I went to Sarah Bling monastery the shrivelling monastery is that that men seed monastery of my guru by Sarah Tyson true beauty he recently came to three weeks ago came here in Stanford so I moved to shrivelling monastery and I was there and then there will be three years you took going to start I thought I'm lazy you know I should cut a tree retreat so then I can be more delicious so I went to three attitude the first year my panic are worse because lazy still follow me even in the three-year retreat you know so then finally I thought wow I still have more than two years to go so do you want to spend less of your free to like this way or really want to apply and I decide to really face my panic stay in my room for continued without join group Rea we have everyday morning group practice together I didn't go stay alone really and after three days it later my pendant was gone but it's not just today's effort actually I've been meditating from for five days before that result from for five day for five days for five years but what I found is for me the meditations really helped me and and also because of meditation my panic become one of the my best friend and my best teacher I learn a lot of from my panic so now I'm very grateful that I have this panic attacks when I was yeah so that helped me and change my life and really happy so therefore I how I connected meditation through the panic and my teacher one of the best teachers my panic so just finish about how I came to meditation and maybe I went a little bit about how I interested in science in our monastery we have study Buddhist philosophy so we have to investigate try to see the nature of reality use many logic and use many examples experiments not with a lab different way to exam no we don't have the different data but more like thought experiment right so then I came to 1998 I came to USA first time so then I met many scientists when I was young around 10 and in you know the Francisco Varela yes and you have your friend right yes and he came to Nepal received teaching from my father and that time I was really interested in solar system galaxies stars very small there's a big part of big galaxies and that this galaxies maybe who knows another part of business and I asked some questions to him Francisco Varela and he told me something about galaxies and also he told me live about the brain what he said the brain feels everything a brain itself doesn't have feeling it's true it's true right you know song yes ok so there was very stuck in my mind in 1998 I came to USA so I tried to meet many scientists and a lot of discussion and many of my friends bought me a lot of videos Stephen Hawking like physics and and I that time I heard a little bit about your research a little bit and then 92,000 we have discussion in Dharamsala this so what I for me is there's a lot of parallel between neuroscience physics with my meditation view and experience so what we call in our mind and body is light together support and support each other so in the body we have prana Bindu Nadi and there's different levels of that is really fascinating to see in the brain how this neurons or neurotransmitters he will tell you all this later and how they connect each other how they make gossipin do run sometimes or we can make it positive group of neurons flexible right so Plus this class yeah so I heard of that many years before neuroscientist doesn't believe there right now believe so in our meditation meditation tradition everybody has what we call basic goodness and everybody has wisdom capability love compassion everybody's has skills so the basic nature of all of us is wonderful so you all are wonderful people and each of you has unique different skills different capabilities different wisdoms so I went through mountain for foreign Javier's so I met many people in the mountain so first time I try to make fire you know just boil on hot water it took me two hours and then I I get some kind of life you know I see a lot of galaxies maybe fire and stars I can need use a telescope they just come and around me Sun and Moon and one day I met the local person and he come to me and he said oh I will help you to how to make fire and he used one small stick no fire just come and he asked me where you from why you come here I said oh I you know man and many years I meditate now I wanted to retreat different places one during retreat something like that he said wow you're so knowledgeable you are so an experienced experienced shuttle guy so I'm stupid I don't know anything I'm dumb said I said no I think you're also unique and he's gone and next day he come back with a lot you know Oregon bunch of wood dry woods very heavy I cannot move but he's just true to him you know come when you put down almost literally shaking very nice dry wood and I was so happy so and he said I do you need any help nothing much you can get from me I'm kind of like you know hold all my life I'm looking out the house I know nothing I told him no no you are very special what do you do he said looking up a cow she's making she and he give me some Chi around like this very thick and he I asked him how to make it's a lot of process to make this cheese I told him maybe one way I have a lot of experience with the Buddhist philosophy in meditation but another way I don't know how to make fire you know yester you come and I was gay before that I was to try to make fire for to boil one hot water to me for two hours and after that I drink it's full of smoke you know the water so you just make like one boom fire and you know how to make cheese I don't know how to make cheese and you look after house I don't know how to do up a house so you are unique and one way you're very special and you have a lot of wisdom and knowledge experience which is I don't have so you said yeah that's true it's happy so anyway we all like that so most important is we have to recognize we have to believe ourselves sometime you don't know we ignore so if you have 10 qualities within us maybe one of them is negative nine of them is positive but we don't look nine positive one we only look one negative one and exaggerate sometime you know and when they with this exaggerated than in the brain I think in there's neurons you know gossip in the front they took each other oh yeah panic yes yes I agree I was manic yeah there's nobody's yes sir check it out it's kind of a political group you know so small and they make a bigger big bigger but we can make healthy wisdom community neuron group right so to recognize your goodness basic goodness so we all have this potential we all have our natures good the matter is we have to recognize doesn't mean we have or we don't have we once we recognize look like it's become like activation you have sim card in a sim card and need activate right activate sim card yeah yeah so our nature is like sim card but the recognition the wisdom is like activate the sim card so you have to activate yourself you and your to nature have to make link by by wisdom so therefore because it really lot of benefit by dialog with signs and bitter meditation and it really helped me also for understand these things when I have dialogue with science kind of a different perspective thank you so what are you do so now Rinpoche maybe we can transition and you can start by teaching us a little bit about basic awareness and how meditation can help us recognize this basic awareness that is a quality that we also all possess just like basic goodness yeah very good so basically awareness so awareness is with us all the time maybe what do you think again how many of you think you have awareness rescue him okay and how many of you think you don't have awareness raise your hand okay so both of you are correct so you will pass why those of you team you have awareness yes you have awareness you know you have awareness right this one you raise your hand and those of you say I think I don't have a Venice that means you have a Venice you are aware that I don't have awareness so that is the awareness so when is with you all the time actually the only issue is whether you recognize or not as I mentioned before right so sometimes we not recognized sometimes we recognized so what is the awareness awareness meaning that the cognition the consciousness who experience who knows knows what you dream knows your experience test awareness that's all very simple and this awareness is very pure very genuine and it is always with us just like sunlight nice right in California and many people like sunlight know not only in California many places I think and awareness it's just like pristine water it's always calm the nature but another example awareness is just like space or so special but we have thought and emotions is the thought and emotions are cloud in the space awareness just like space then it's like water and thought the emotion is like wave or the water so when we meditate what we have to do we don't have to do anything we just recognize our own awareness and let thought emotion come and stay and let go so welcome welcome welcome to come welcome to stay welcome to go so when I was when when when I was young I have one colleague one month and later he's become eczema and then he went to America USA and he was in New York and his job is yellow cab driver and I knew your yellow cab so when I was in New York he asked me to come you know he said hi I know many place in New York maybe I will show you so if you have time please come into my taxi and one day I found time I go with him many hours and he showed me this place right and I asked him how about your feeling being yellow cab driver and you know when you're in the monastery and now he is different and he said and and I asked him must be very difficult you know because there's so many people come to your your car or taxi and he said yeah so many people come and I asked him how are they good or not so well some are very disturbing some talk a lot someday said bad words someday I'll do each other some better calm and quiet and some is really very helpful and very nice give some advices so many people and I asked how you handle you know so many people like this he said I don't care what I case I want to help them to lead their distant destination so whatever they talk it's okay they come and go and come and go but for him he just leave them and guide them the final destination so just like that thought any emotion is just a like passenger maybe you are the taxi so welcome of course and welcome to come welcome to stay in your car and welcome to go right so you don't have to do anything so for example how panic why penny is become so sustainable right another word so sustainable sustainable sustainable stable instead of wood why Penix become stable and survive two things yes sir and take it out and these two things like when you drive the car there's a break in oil two things right pray an oil without brake without oil you cannot drive so just like that so once you accept let it be let it go oh and they can come and go the cloud doesn't change space isn't it Stone Horror King Thai boom okay just like today blue sky with sun shining okay it doesn't change space just like that awareness it's like space let them come okay so now we are going to practice together so do you want to practice okay so you can please touch your feet to the ground and keep your spine straight and breathing normally please close your eyes you can put your hand on your knees on your lap join together on your lap so now first bring your awareness into your body mind and body together and chalets your body just relax don't relax 200% it's just 100 percent allows even you cannot relax that's okay allowed allow that you cannot relax that means you're relaxing there's a gravity within your body feel the gravity relax your head face neck a shoulder arm back stahma like and feed and whatever sensations within your body just be aware of it and let it be let it go pleasant sensation unpleasant sensation or feelings pleasant feelings unpleasant feelings whatever they're in your body just be aware of it and let it be let it go there's awareness in your body from head to feet that's the awareness of the body awareness the body is just like space and whatever sensations thoughts emotions pain of pleasure feeling our light whether the clouds within the space let your awareness comma date all these feelings in your body in your mind just be aware of it that's all don't try to block negative thought and feelings turn try to try to look for peace spacious feelings whatever is okay just be aware and awareness always awareness is always free and always present everything is allowed pain tightness tire bottom sleepiness okay as long as if you know these feelings as long as you've you be aware of these feelings you are fine so be free be yourself you are totally in control you don't have to be pretend anyone or anybody be yourself they don't know you don't wander you don't want to act like anyone or anything maybe you will forget you are here now you forget your body that's okay you're going to come back again my body and you totally forget you are in the Macdonald having hamburger there's okay come back in mind and body together for a few seconds three seconds four seconds five seconds that's okay short time many times let go of the past let go of the future be here now with your body and totally relax now please bring your awareness on your breath gentle awareness gently be aware of your breath bring in breathing in breathing out breathing in breathing out nah need strong focus but if you automatically concentrate very clear on your breath okay but most of the time when you'll be aware of your breath at the same time you can see images thoughts feelings they come by pass by behind the breath just ok no problem as long as if you you are not your breath you are ok you are still in meditation breathing in breathing out breathing in breathing out and you're breathing just natural breath if you are shallow breath let it be shallow breath if you are having deep breath let it be deep breath just completely natural now please we're going to do a little bit deep breathing so when you bring in little bit D and then let go from your mouth like not now later so let go Andres your mind without breath few seconds and bring in two breathing tres tres your mind space in between breath out breath and breathing normally so now we're going to practice this first three times together then follow whatever you speed or whatever you're up to you okay breathe in brain let go and rest your mind with our breath challenge brain now choose your own when you break out let go of everything let go the past future press completely let go and rest your mind without breath and brain now we are going to do this a meditation with open eyes now please slowly open your eyes bring in oh okay now finish so how was it so there are three meditation techniques one mind and body together second just be aware of your breath gentle awareness third resting your mind with out-breath so normally we want to produce this you don't need to follow the step by step just if you want only practice with out-breath or so Kay just your breath also okay or body and mind together both of it or step by step also k o under it around what's okay anything's okay so maybe open for questions sure and the the first practice that rinpoche taught us is actually online in the on the turgor org website it's called body space awareness and so you can have Rinpoche guide you anytime by going to the website and checking out that guided practice so if you have any question follow come behind this to Mike right I think yeah so you can line up how can I can you hear me alright so I think earlier you mentioned something that is very important to me that first thing is that you mentioned that the human brain is different like structurally we are all a little bit different which others in a way that we comprehend the world and in a way that we understand the world like for example some people are more sensitive to emotion and some people are not as sensitive motion well what kind of emotion sergeant since it is sensitive that I understand the proper and necessary structural different now the second thing that you mentioned is that there is something called a basic goodness there which is common to all human beings so now it would take those two together it is that basic goodness is something more fundamental than the structure of the brain itself it is it's true in the sense that it is something like a fundamental probative of consciousness so the question is how do we best set up propositions givers I'll be actually talking some about how science has approached this topic of basic goodness and share with you what I consider some of the really important insights from modern science that are I think persuading me and other scientists that there really is such a thing as innate basic goodness so we'll talk about that in a little while but I think that there there is growing evidence that suggests that and I think that it's also the case that the evidence for that is interestingly not restricted just to humans there are a number of other species that have been studied that show similar kinds of innate basic goodness in terms of how that's connected to the brain is a very interesting question I think the the one of the ways that I think about it is that it's not as if the negative qualities aren't there also but if you give a person a preference a choice if you ask them to make a choice between what may be good and what may be selfish or aggressive consistently you'll find that individuals actually choose the good so it those kinds of observations convinced us that there must be something in the brain which is programming if you will this kind of innate basic goodness but we'll we'll talk more about that a little later in the day thank you thank you yes thank you I'm curious the exercise that we just did how different is that from what you learn from your father my father yes so I would think this is some sort of distillation of many teachings or it's secular and I'm just wondering when you were a child and asked your father you know - all right help is how different is it from well a big difference just like earth and sky difference I'm teaching you to the basic baby baby stuff and my father no I'm just kidding oh hey listen awareness what I learned from my father is awareness awareness like space panic whatever are just like loud so there's the main message so how to practice this we need to produce step by step so this is step one and now first we have to bring our mind into our body in Tibet what we call month and you learn them all let your body on the cushion let your mind in the body so when you begin to practice so bring your mind with your body and then connect with awareness there's many different practiced how to connect with awareness second method is bring your out awareness video breath gentle awareness and thought emotion come go doesn't matter just let taxi-driver let passenger to come whatever right his goal is just registered to destination so be aware of your breath and this is kind of a practice how to be aware of your breath and sometimes you need rest without any particular object so just with out break not like I'm going to arrest now let go good person no need to do that because no race is also okay right cannot rest accept cannot rest whatever but just gentle it so if you learn this slowly even you can use your panic s object of your meditation you can be aware of panic and panic is like in the sky normally what we see is only me and panic but actually panic is within the space within the sky so awareness bigger than panic so but don't trial with panic directly from the beginning or any other emotion hatred fear I mean anxiety depression or whatever so basically some message yeah thank you I'm a lazy lazy meditator and I just was curious when you just described being a lousy meditator and having the three days if I understood you correctly what made that difference what was it about those three days oh yeah two days I come really calm down because I try to practice for many years for five years for my father try to let go and accept my panic and then within three days I really kind of like okay now but before what I did is except let penny calm but actually you are not coming to be better you know I'm going to exit you that then I can get rid of you hello accepting get out okay better you're coming go okay are you still there you know I'm doing like that so then in the end I still accept okay maybe I cannot change my panic it's okay penny can change of course but it will not change okay I'm going to live I'm going to learn how to live it and you'll accept that really helps me and somehow the three days they may be the silencer the constancy said you didn't go with the regular group of people you did it all by yourself it was a turning point for you and somebody maybe okay thank you thank you in po che my question is I practice a visualization meditation mm-hmm is it good to switch between breathing different types of meditation or is it better to stay with one ah which one you feel more connect normally I don't know yet I don't know yet and if you look up the point I'm sorry lip to lip up coin you guys haven't been anonymous okay when you visualize if you continue to the visualize don't be too tight just like be aware of your breath aware of your body so as long as if you not forget your breath Todd can income so can you think up your room now clear how clear your room pretty clear look at everything so now we're going to meditate video room for a few seconds okay don't move digitizing your room cannot think cannot not allow to have any other thought Josh your room okay how was it hard so why second is hard because we say I have to this is meditation cannot Ingo not another thing anything else have to focus clear become hard so when you visualize relax just like same as you when you be aware of your breath same not don't become more don't thing about Apple okay now for a few seconds anything else but Apple can nothing anything else only Apple two seconds only Apple no no no no forget knowable sorry not allowed a thing of ever okay you can think of anything else except Apple so knowable don't forget that you cannot enjoy your Apple okay how is it easy difficult difficult hard so send thought emotion you cannot block so you don't have to blow let them come let them go but don't forget your breath so when you visualize very well you wear whatever you want to visualize you can visualize but thought comment goes thank you you're talking earlier about how everybody has the space to connect goodness yeah and that learning to recognize that is very important yes so my question is like I understand to some degree how I can within myself recognize that goodness and I'm wondering if you have any advice for those around me how I can help guide them to recognize that as well okay I mean if you feel like you're recognized you can share your experience not like pushing not like teaching sense but whatever you are your personal story a personal experience maybe you can help maybe you cannot help but try your best but don't hide on the result your mind don't be too tight on the result so flexible what we call balance try your best but your mind don't fix on the result because everything's impermanence something some days it woke sometimes doesn't work say except that also last one right yeah maybe the last question we'll have time for more questions later then we'll take a little break and then we'll start again so thank you for being here rubbishing I'm in Reading Rainbow painting mm-hmm your father talks about being in the non thought state with awareness mm-hmm not going on thought non conceptual awareness no in conception awareness you can have talked to in the Venice yeah so if I'm engaged in my thoughts can i still be in the awareness can you can watch your thought so what we call if you watch your thought then it has become like watching the river so if you can if you see the river that means you are out of River if you fall into the river carry by river you cannot see River so if you see thought that means just about and thought come and go come and go just like your breath breath come oh come and your awareness can maintain with your breath so why not be thought you can maintain your awareness we thought to come and go and comment but sometimes thought disappear just like no able ever comes opposite did thought I need thought what cannot come there's also get this gap stay with the gap not also okay so awareness never change but thought come and go is change so when I look at the thought I noticed that it dissolves yeah stay with the results and then after few seconds another thought pop up and then watch it may go also and we do the same thing with our emotions and our panic and can concur but stoney emotion is not so easy first so you have to press train with the breathing or with the body or with another object first so then you will have capability to to be aware of strong emotion sometimes easy to loss okay thank you so will Thank You ricochet will take a 20-minute break and come back at 5:00 to 11:00 we'll start promptly at 11:00 so thank you very much you you

Channel: CCARE at Stanford University

Views: 124,622

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Id: fjFZEBM08w4

Length: 77min 26sec (4646 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2016