Instantaneous Extraordinary Meditation

In one moment, through careful guidance, you can recognize the most pivotal moment of your life. By becoming familiar with this moment, you will be able to take control of your mind and change the course of your life.

Transcript

We can teach ourselves much through the direct personal experiences of meditation.

And that's what this guided meditation is about today,

Learning through personal experience,

Which makes the teachings that we hear real a part of us.

With a little instruction,

We can realize profound truths that previously might have sounded like a fairy tale,

Something that took place in a distant land far away.

So to begin this meditation instruction today,

I'd like to talk about the one thing that gets us into trouble,

Our fatal flaw.

It's not something big and evil and monolithic.

It's about a moment,

And on this moment is based all our happiness or misery,

Joy or anxiety.

It's really very exciting to explore this with you because it's something very real and tangible that you can experience right now and do something about.

To say a little bit more about this moment,

It's taught in Buddhist teachings that the way we can eliminate suffering and attain peace and enlightenment is only through the recognition of this moment.

It's not something that's theoretical or a fantasy,

But it is very real,

Just as the experience of picking a piece of fruit off a tree.

We see a pear,

We reach our hand out to it and pull the pear off the branch of the tree.

It's as real as that experience.

In this meditation instruction,

We are going to explore this very pivotal moment,

And this experience can have a very strong effect on us,

On our life.

Let's go through the steps now and make it real.

There are four steps,

And you have to understand completely each of these steps for this meditation to be successful.

Do not leave anything out.

You have to be really available,

And otherwise,

Please just leave it aside for now and come back when you really feel that you are 100% available to it.

Step one,

Posture.

We're going to set up the five essential points of posture.

We're going to just do them without getting into the meaning of any of it.

If you are already an experienced meditator,

Then you will be familiar with most of it.

Although we're going to tighten things up quite a bit.

You should be seated on a meditation seat,

And if you sit in a chair,

Then you are seated on the chair.

Let's begin.

I hope this doesn't sound scary or anything like that.

It's all just a very precise instruction.

Your legs are crossed comfortably in front of you,

Or your feet are flat on the floor if sitting in a chair.

Cross your ankles,

Or go into half lotus,

Or maybe some of you can do full lotus.

Doesn't matter.

The knees should be the same height.

The posture means everything,

And the first point of the posture is the legs.

Point two of the posture,

Straighten your back.

To do this,

Press your hands strongly down on your thighs near the groin,

And see if you can't make your elbows straight,

So that you're really stretching and uplifting the back.

Press down more,

Press down more.

Your back is very straight.

Hold it there a moment.

Now,

Point three is to slowly place your hands down on your thighs,

Somewhere behind the knees,

With the palms down.

The back relaxes a little and remains straight like an arrow.

Your shoulders are outstretched.

Point four.

Now let's deal with the head.

It is upright,

As if a string was gently pulling you up from the crown of the head,

And here you press down slightly on the Adam's apple,

Forming a kind of hook at the throat.

It's just natural.

You don't want to be looking up and away.

Point five,

The gaze.

Your eyes are slightly open and gazing downwards about two meters or yards in front of you,

Not looking right or left,

A soft gaze,

Not fixed on any visual.

The gaze here is very important in this meditation instruction.

Eyes open,

Soft gaze.

Now let's hold this posture together with each point perfectly maintained.

The legs crossed,

Back straight,

Hands down on thighs,

Pressing slightly down on the Adam's apple.

Gaze two meters down in front.

Let's just feel the body in this posture,

Staying with it a moment.

Okay,

So that's the first step,

Posture.

Let's move on to the next.

Step two,

Now do not move.

Freeze.

Don't move a muscle.

Don't move the eyes.

Not the slightest movement,

Except for movement connected with the breathing.

Although the stomach and chest may be moving slightly with the breath,

That's okay.

Let your breath be natural.

Don't focus on the breath.

Don't move the body in the slightest.

Don't move your eyes.

It's as if you are sitting in frozen space.

There is no outer movement.

Hold that.

Keep it.

Don't move.

Step three,

Within that complete non-movement of the body,

You hold.

Now you begin to feel inner movement,

Inner energy.

Do not move the body.

Something moves,

Like wind almost.

Feel that movement in the very moment that it happens.

Or you can say,

Look at that movement in the very moment that it happens.

Now hold still.

Do not move the body.

That inner movement,

It's a nervous twitch that happens,

An impulse.

Feel that.

It's at the level of the nervous system.

Hold still.

Something moves.

You feel it as it moves.

You can do this because of your perfect posture and not moving the outer body.

You are becoming very sensitive.

Step four,

Let it all go.

Relax.

Move.

Don't hang on to anything.

Drop the whole thing.

Relax the body.

Stretch if you like.

Let it all go.

There's nothing more to do.

There's nothing to hang on to.

There is nothing to improve.

Okay,

Now that we've done it once,

Let's go through it again with less words.

Posture.

Hold the posture.

Perfect posture.

Legs,

Hands,

Gaze,

Throat,

Straight back.

Now don't move completely still.

Something stirs inside.

Feeling that in the very moment it comes up,

A nervous twitch.

Now let it all go.

Move the body.

Now let's do one more time,

Even more brief this time.

Posture.

Hold the posture.

Hold completely still.

Something inside moves.

Feel that in the very moment that it comes up.

Let it all go.

Practice this sometimes with your meditation practice,

With your normal practice.

This meditation can teach us about the most critical and important point of our existence.

Usually at that moment when the nervous twitch happens,

We move.

We react to it.

It's all very automatic.

Then we act.

Then we give birth to something new.

And all of that is just out of habit.

But holding in stillness and seeing directly this moment of arising,

This instant of energy,

Which is just energy,

Neutral,

Bright,

Powerful,

Then we don't lose our moment and our mind and scatter ourselves with the inner wind moving out.

We maintain ourselves right within that moment and become strong,

Brilliant,

Peaceful.

We are enlightened on the spot.

When you practice this,

At first you may not catch the nervous twitch,

That movement of energy,

The inner wind.

Then with practice you might recognize it for a moment.

Then with more practice you may be able to stay with those successive moments,

Unmoving the body.

Then these moments can become even more stable.

In any case,

Don't hold on to anything.

Let it all go.

See if you can practice this at least a moment.

And this moment will have a profound effect on the course of your life.

Also,

The awareness we can develop from this will help us in working with strong and difficult emotions like anger.

That's because we begin to see the source of the energy of anger.

It all begins in that very first moment,

That nervous twitch,

Which you now know how to work with.

If you do this practice,

You are very fortunate,

Because it is the beginning of taking control of your life.

One more thing.

You might think,

Why don't we all get this,

If it's so simple?

And the answer is that it's because it's so close to us,

So simple,

We don't get it.

So it's up to each of us to remember this profound truth of meditation and put it into practice with these four steps.

Thank you.

And I'm sure you will have lots of questions about this,

And I will be very happy to answer your questions.

Reviews

I came across this when I was doing an indoor cycle so will redo this later. What about bodily pain and tension which I have in shoulders and upper back. Is this part of the twitch? I look forward to practising 💚

A provocative variation on familiar techniques. Not for absolute beginners to meditation, but totally clear as an introduction to the concept.

Bears repeat listening —in fact, regular repetition is an important part of this particular process.

Lama Brian rocks! I enjoy every meditation session he puts together. Lama, are these sessions based on Tibetan Buddhism?

Thank you this is extremely helpful. ❤️

Thank you for shifting the awareness to such important movement.

Unique addition to my daily meditation line up- thank you!

Grateful for this!!! Thank you!

Simple, powerful, centering

1st time of many! I get the twitch In the early stage of nearly every meditation I do. I never gave it a thought. And now I can’t stop thinking about it. I look forward to continued exploration and understanding. Thank you!

Thank you for this. I'm not certain I completely understand the twitch. When the next heartbeat started I feel a shift, is this it?

I'm beginning to understand. Thank you, namaste.

That was phenomenal 👌 thank you so much for this guided release

Is the moment shifted the same as feeling the heart beat ?

Thank you for this careful practice. I was not aware of the inner wind as I followed the first listening to your guidance. So, just practice and wait until I understand?

Thank you 🙏🏼 This has taught me something new and I have been meditating for a long time now. Please could I ask, how long would you recommend following the steps, is it building up how many times? Thank you

Very grateful, thank you.