So this is the last session of a four-part class that I am putting on InsideTimer.
I will post another an additional two bonus session for you but because you can stop here this is the last talk which is to help you bring your practice into the world and into your life.
So I'm going to talk to you about how you can bring this practice your practice into your life and into the world and so we've seen in part one two and three how to bring your attention inward that mindfulness is bringing a kind non-judgmental attention to our present moment and then we've also seen how to identify our emotions and how to bring a caring loving kindness to ourselves and to people around us.
So if you've been practicing between the session or even just listening to the session you will have noticed that as you sit and bring your attention inward you find some resistance and we've talked about some of the barrier.
We talked about them they called five hindrances they come in the form of desire or temptation anger or irritability doubt and pride.
This last one pride is actually the one that makes me smile inwardly because I kind of relate it to when we're playing a board game with the kids at home and you know how us as adults we have learned how to not display pride when we win fully but my two they are still six and eight they will come and do their little wriggling their bottom dance to show you that they've won and when I have a little thought when I'm meditating about how well I'm doing I have this picture of myself doing the same dance that my children are doing a mini me wriggling her bottom and I invite you to notice pride with this kind of humor because it is a kind non-judgmental way of looking at it and the more we can laugh at some of the way our mind work and the less attached to it we are and the fifth one of the hindrances we talked about is restlessness and this one is probably the hardest one to identify to overcome and accept and I like my teachers so jack cornfield recommendation which is notice when you want to get up but do not react to it three times so when you're sitting and you're just like oh I really need to do this I have this chore that is waiting for me I need to do it you start counting one restlessness and you sit back and focus on your breath or on your body and continue and then your mind wanders and there is another bout of restlessness that come oh I just this is so boring I have more important things to do and that's the second time you go to restlessness and then it was just like it was just like okay I just can't stand it anymore I need to move okay that's the third time and you can just get up and go on with your day and find another time in the day where you can sit there is two more things I'd like to add about restlessness sometimes is those thought about there is something more important for me to do and this is why setting your intention at the start of your seat is important because that reminds you how important what you're doing right now is the second is when your body is just so restless it needs to move like I've discussed and I will discuss a bit more in detail later maybe sitting meditation is in the way for you maybe try and find a walking meditation that works and would make you feel less restless in your body restlessness so those are the five hindrances and they are all normal all the feelings will appear the emotion you will see them or you won't see them or sometime you will see them once you finish sitting and it's okay some day you're sitting will feel quite peaceful other day they feel like you're just sat in the eye of the storm of thoughts and planning and emotion and revisiting situation that have happened or preparing for something that is going to happen and that's okay too meditation is just a reflection of life it doesn't have to be constantly the same way and if you want you can get into those experiences more deeply you can like we did at the start feel your breath and feel this experience in your body and do the different steps of RAIN Recognize,
Allow,
Investigate and nurture and as you continue to practice you will start identifying that you have some pattern for me initially it was a pattern of anxiety if I think just about last year for example and the fact that for the last six months of last year we had sickness bugs once or twice a month and it felt like every single month both kids would bring back something that lasted more than a week and my thought pattern when I sat down very often was what's going to happen next year very often was what's going to happen next or are they going to get better ever or what's the next illness that we're going to have or just just was clenched around the apprehension of something else being brought and an underlying anxiety and fear and panic was everywhere in my body so if you start identifying a pattern and it is one of these emotion one of these indurances that we just talked about you can work with them by first bringing attention to them exploring them trying to let them be as big as they are but if you feel you're at lost and it's just not shifting you can also work with what we call the so antidotes are opposite quality that can be cultivated yes exactly the same as you know poison and antidotes in tales so for example if your pattern is that you have a lot of temptation and desire that come up it happens to me on some weeks I go on amazon and I really want to buy a lot of different things well you look for some time where you felt no desire or contentment you don't need to do any online shopping sometime where you were at ease and you try to bring those situations and remind yourself on how it felt both in your heart and in your body I don't know for me I have the picture of being on holiday on the beach just listening to the waves coming in and out of the beach and right now watching the kids play I know that in those moments I don't need anything else I don't even want an ice cream then I just want to be in the ocean and I just want to be in the ocean and I just want to be in the ocean I don't even want an ice cream then I just need to be there my toes in the sand watching the kids playing and watching the sea going in and out find one of these experience that you can play in your mind again and when you feel this contentment then explore again this temptation desire that come up if your challenge is more around anger or aversion you will work in the same way with the practice that we've done last time which is the one of loving kindness you first open to something that is easy to love someone that easy easy to love and then you bring that picture to your mind and you just feel that warmth and then you turn that kindness and love towards yourself and once you've filled with this then you go back to your challenging challenging emotion anger or aversion if your challenge is fear then you look for a situation that evokes trust for you or a person or a time here you felt really trusting and you do the same as with the other two you bring the the situation to your mind and you feel with your body with your emotion with your mind all of how you felt in that situation if you're feeling sleepy you work to bring a lot more energy so like we were saying you can move and do walking meditation or you can start having deeper breath to bring more energy through your breath if you're having a challenge with grief you bring tenderness and one of the most frequent one is the monkey mind if your challenge is that your mind is being a monkey it's racing from one thought to another from one emotion to another from one story to another listen to this poem by Kaveri Patil There's a monkey in my mind swinging on a trapeze reaching back to the past or leaning into the future never standing still sometime I want to kill that monkey shoot it square between the eyes so I won't have to think anymore or feel the pain of worry but today I thanked her and she jumped down straight into my lap trapeze still swinging as we sat still sometime I think the monkeys are my kids and as they have shown me before they can come and sit on my lap while I meditate and be as peaceful as I am but it can be tricky to find on your own the pattern that you're having the barrier that you're experiencing and having a group or a community and a teacher to help you find these will help you practice skillfully what you can do by yourself easily is bring your practice to your daily life so I want to read you a passage from an article that Jack Cornfield wrote which is called No Part Left Out he wrote what matters in this life is simple are you free and loving are you bringing your gift to the world that so badly needs them the joyful news of the Buddha's way is that you can do so you can live with freedom and compassion in every part of your life mistakenly people associate Buddhist teachings exclusively with sitting quietly in meditation this error reflects our divided society where the body is relegated to the gym work to the office healing to the hospital enjoyment to the two weeks vacation sorry they are in America so in the UK a bit more and the sacred to weekly visits to church or temple the wholeness of awakening is the message here all aspects of our life are the precise place to find freedom and compassion from politics and parenting to meditation and education from sex and drugs to poetry and art every part of your life is sacred this very life your work your family your community is the only place for awakening in Zen this is called No Part Left Out so why I'm bringing that to you is because now is the time for you to understand and decide how when how long and what you're going to do with what you've learned in this class and I'm going to share with you some of the thought I've had over the years so for the past more than eight years I've been practicing meditation and I didn't have the same practice throughout these eight years as you can imagine eight years ago was when my first son was born he was actually six months old by that time and I started when I was pregnant with him and along those eight years it has evolved a lot but the first question I it has evolved a lot but the first question I asked myself when I started wanting to practice was when is it that I'm going to meditate so if you like the quietness of the evening you can do that or if you prefer the morning before the kids are up it might be better for you or I used to do when I was working in a corporate job I had a mid-morning meditation I would start at 6 30 in the morning and by 10 o'clock I would really need a meditation break and so I would put an hour break and meditate for 45 minutes during that now that makes me jump to the topic how long will you meditate for and me saying that I was meditating 45 minutes isn't what you need to use for you you can choose the length of time that works for you you can do 10 minutes 15 minutes and this is how long I started when I started 10 years ago but if you're short of time five minutes will do it or if you like what you've done so far and you feel like you need more you can do for 45 minutes like I do every day you can split it you can do five minutes several times a day you can do 15 minutes twice a day or more really you make it work as you want nowadays I find that I need a meditation in the morning and one in the afternoon before picking up the kids and if I can I also meditate before bed but this is me and you are you so choose what works for you now where so if you're meditating from home choose a place in your home where you feel comfortable I'm saying that because I realized for myself that when I was doing it it was important that I wouldn't do it I wouldn't do it every day in the Macy playroom of the kid I used to do it in my bedroom because it was the only place clear cleared from toys and then I started setting up the playroom as a playroom office and so he had all of my meditation things but the few days where I meditated surrounded by playmobil lego pokemon toys all over me I have to say that it was quite difficult for my mind to feel peace and relief especially at the start of my practice nowadays I take it all as part of the practice but I would say find a place when you start where it enable it to become a pleasurable experience not a reminder that there is something to clean or tidy or fix when I was at work and working from an office I had to admit that I started also practicing in the toilet cubicles it wasn't the best place to practice but it felt like it was the most private we had an open office where all the meeting room were glass big glass windows so I didn't feel like I wanted all eyes on me if I booked a room and tried to meditate in there this since then opened like a calming room where you can go and meditate I have also found that one of the best place to meditate was in the car not the best place again from the setting and environment but just because that was a very convenient place and so when I didn't have time to meditate during my working day I would meditate in the car not while driving but I would meditate before leaving my workplace on the way to pick up the kids or just a few streets away from the child minder before picking them up and you can do it so what are you going to do during this time I'm very aware that I've shared with you a few practice so far already and like I meant they are the seeds for your garden it depends what you need to plant for that day that week that month what you want to achieve for that period so you can choose to just follow your breath I think especially when I was doing five or ten minutes just following the breath and catching my attention when it went off and gently coming back to the breath was sufficient to calm my body my energy and my mind you might prefer resting your attention on your body like we've done and for some of you the breath won't be a skillful way so you can do the same focusing on your body on your hands on your feet on your seat bones or you can do a really quick body scan actually from head to toes or toe to head you might like just being open to whichever experience come up emotion sensation thought and just watching them without getting attached to them so you start with your breath or your body and then whichever experience come up you let it play and you name it and you accept it you don't run away with it you just observe it like a cloud in the sun as it appears and disappears and then you go back to your breath or your body or you can practice love and kindness or compassion systematically so this is what I did what I did last year when we had this bout of illnesses for six months I just spent most of my meditation practicing love and kindness I needed it I wanted to have less angers anger towards the situation and I would practice love and kindness because my intention for that period was to have less anger so try to remember the intention that you had when you decided to listen to that class was it because you wanted to be calmer you wanted to connect better with your child your child or maybe your intention listening to this class has shifted and you have a new one identify which practice helped you the most out of this class and bring it into your life like most meditation teacher I am advising you to practice meditation daily yes and it's not because I'm a guru but because I believe in the neuroscience many research have proven that to change our habits we need to frequently repeat the new activity so Dan Siegel has this great saying to summarize the research where attention goes neural firing flows and neural connection grows if you want to be able to use the calming emotional awareness non-judgmental quality in difficult time you need to practice in this calmer moment even if it doesn't feel very calm so now I'm sending you back into the world to find what it is that worked for you which are the seeds that we have planted here together that you want to water I'm leaving you with this piece from Thich Nhat Hanh your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seed seeds of joy,
Peace,
Mindfulness,
Understanding and love seeds of craving,
Anger,
Fear,
Hate and forgetfulness these wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there sleeping in the soil of your mind the quality of your life depends on the seeds you water if you plant tomato seeds in your gardens tomatoes will grow just so if you water a seed of peace in your mind peace will grow when the seeds of happiness in you are watered you will become happy when the seed of anger in you is watered you will become angry the seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong
