Don't Compete | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

Atisha lays down the discipline for higher aesthetics of life by emphasizing not to always be in competition with everything around you. Otherwise, you are only living in a fight or flight mode. There is no love, compassion, harmony, peace. The experience of life remains dependent on winning or losing. Give yourself a few moments in daily life to drop the competition and see what all it unfolds for you.

Transcript

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily morning live meditation session with me,

Dhyanser.

Self-quality in meditation is a path to self-knowledge,

To knowing oneself and this knowledge can be divided into three.

The known,

What you already know,

The unknown which is not yet known but at some point will become the known,

Will come as knowledge to you and the third,

The most important,

The unknowable.

If you see this as an iceberg,

Above the surface is the known which you know yourself already.

Meditation and spirituality gives you a fresh set of eyes,

Awareness to reflect on what you already know as well.

Then the ice that is below the water,

The unknown,

Meditation and spirituality helps you to discover yourself what is underneath the water,

What you have not yet discovered about yourself,

What has not yet unfolded about yourself.

To know that meditation and spirituality becomes the path of awareness of knowing that.

And the ocean itself,

The unknowable,

That part of life which is the most significant part is unknowable,

No matter what we do,

No matter how we try,

No matter how we approach.

There is something about life which is unknowable.

We only have to learn to be with it,

We only have to learn to be in it,

We only have to learn to recognize it and be it.

Meditation and spirituality is a path to self-knowledge,

Knowing the known,

The unknown and being with the unknowable.

These 30 minutes every day with me in these spiritual discourses and silent meditations will take you one step closer to knowing once again the known,

The unknown and being with the unknowable.

Currently,

We are discussing 7 points of mind training by Atisha.

It is a practice from Tibetan Buddhism called Lojong and we are on point number 6 which is all about disciplining the mind and setting a discipline in not just the practice of meditation but also in the daily life.

Yesterday,

We covered a long set of don'ts that Atisha brought,

How we are interacting with others,

How we are having this conception and perception of the other which is the one to be fought,

Which is the one to be protected from,

Which is the one,

The source of all misery.

And we saw that this other is just a mental construct.

One striking aspect of these sutras from Atisha which struck me was,

Atisha says,

Don't try to be the fastest.

Which means don't try to compete.

Which is somewhat strange,

Atisha is saying don't try to compete whereas when we see life everywhere the way it is,

It's all competition.

From the beginning of our life to us coming into the world,

We describe that as a million sperms competing for one egg and somebody,

Some sperm is coming out as the winner of that competition.

Then we compete in our education,

Then we compete on the field,

Then we compete in our business life,

Then we compete everywhere we just are made to compete.

And Atisha is saying don't be competitive.

What is Atisha trying to say?

He is not taking the competition out of you,

But he is putting that competitive spirit,

That competition in the right place.

Meaning if it's a question of survival,

If it's a question of fight or flight,

You need to compete.

There is no question about that.

But we are constantly living this fight or flight mode and we don't recognize,

We don't realize that this is becoming our nature.

We are constantly in this fight or flight mode and we impose this view on every aspect of life.

Wherever it is not even needed,

We impose this competition,

We are competing with every person around,

With even our family members,

We are even competing with ourselves.

That much competition has went into our foundations of how we operate.

So we have to put competition,

The competitiveness into its right place,

Which is in the marketplace and in the fight or flight mode.

And not always bring this into our aspects of life because Atisha here is talking about the aesthetics of life.

He is talking about something higher.

Remember the teaching is of love and compassion and not of survival.

So he is talking one level above,

Which is the aesthetics of life,

Which is how you can enjoy life,

How you can be in harmony naturally with life,

How you can share love and compassion with everyone.

So he is putting competition in its right place and saying don't compete with every person.

Don't try to make a winning and losing out of every situation.

Don't try to make that game out of every situation where the only pleasure is winning and the only pain is the loss.

Then you are constantly also in this rut of trying to win and trying not to lose.

And in this process of winning and losing and the struggle of maintaining yourself as a winner or not allowing yourself to be the loser,

There is this constant stress that you are undergoing.

Ask all the top athletes,

Top CEOs,

Top performers anywhere how much weight,

How much stress,

How much of this anxiety they carry in them to be the winners,

To always come out of the competition as the winner.

They can never rest,

They can never come out of the fight and flight mode.

By doing that they are missing a huge portion of the experience of what is possible in life.

So Aatish was saying don't compete always,

Don't always try to be the fastest.

Three vampire brothers,

They were getting strong,

They were getting adults and they were competing with each other who is the strongest.

They were sitting on top of a hill,

So they said let's show,

Demonstrate our strength.

The first vampire brother,

He took off,

He went with a speed of 100 km per hour,

He came back after 5 minutes,

All blood on his face.

The other two brothers asked what happened,

The vampire said look do you see that mansion over there.

The brother said yes,

He said I went there,

Sucked the blood out of all the family members in these 5 minutes,

They are all finished,

All dead.

Everyone was impressed,

The two brothers said wow,

In 5 minutes he could kill the entire family,

Suck the blood of everyone and he is back with a speed of 100 km per hour.

The second brother said wait,

Let me show you something better.

He took off with 150 km per hour and came back in 10 minutes.

The two brothers said ok,

What happened,

He said do you see far distant that village,

I went there and I killed everyone,

Look at the blood all over me,

This blood is from the entire village,

I killed everyone and I came back within 10 minutes by killing all these people and being the fastest here.

The third vampire brother said wait for it,

He took off with 200 km per hour,

In 5 seconds he came back,

He was all bloody on the face,

On the whole body.

The rest of the two brothers said what happened,

He said do you see the big tree over there,

The brother said yes,

He said I did not.

In this madness of competition,

We don't see sometimes what's in front of us and especially in life,

When we are always in this competitive mode,

When we are always in this fight or flight mode,

We don't see,

We are not aware,

We are not having our eyes open.

Competition is that chance,

That process to allow ourselves to step out of the fight or flight mode,

To take a step back from this everlasting competition that we have put for ourselves and take few moments of resting in non-comparitiveness in a state which is in harmony with everyone,

Which is not trying to win others,

Which is not trying to lose.

With that,

Let us step into silence,

Starting with a small breathing exercise which allows us to come out of this fight or flight mode.

Remember I said we are also somewhat in competition with ourselves.

If there would be a way to demonstrate what's happening with our own energies,

We will see that our energies are also somewhat put in a state of competition because we are so much in disharmony.

So the first thing we could do for today's meditation is to put our energies back in balance,

Back in harmony.

The breathing technique is very simple.

We will first of all close our right nostril and take a few breaths with the left nostril.

Then we will close our left nostril,

Take a few breaths from the right nostril and then let go of our hand and just allow our breath to settle and come into a balance where you are breathing not just from one nostril but from both the nostrils.

There is an intricate science of the energy channels,

Why breathing from both nostrils,

What does it mean by breathing from one nostril.

I'll explain that in detail when we will go through yoga and the series on yoga or Kundalini yoga or Tantra but for now let's get into the practice.

Please close your eyes,

Sit in a posture that is comfortable for you.

With your back upright,

Head straight and with your right hand close your right nostril and take a few breaths from only the left nostril.

Let's take a few breaths from the left nostril.

Let's take a few breaths from the left nostril.

Put your right hand back.

Wait for your breathing to restore from the right nostril.

Now raise your left hand and close your left nostril and only breathe from the right nostril.

Let's take a few breaths from the left nostril.

Let go of your left hand.

Allow your breath to restore also from the left nostril.

Bring your awareness to the tip of your nose in the middle of both nostrils.

And as you breathe in and out,

Keep your awareness in the middle of both nostrils close to the tip of your nose.

Let go of your left nostril.

As you hold your awareness at the tip of your nose,

Allow the breath to flow equally from both nostrils.

Let go of your left nostril.

Draw all your attention from everywhere and put it at the tip of your nose.

Let go of your left nostril.

Slowly your breath opens up and flows equally from both nostrils.

Notice a sense of balance,

A sense of harmony,

Silence arising as you hold your awareness at the tip of your nose and allow the breath to flow in from both nostrils.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of your left nostril.

Lift your awareness in front of your closed eyes,

Awareness in front of both of your closed eyes and gently hold it there while maintaining stillness,

Silence and awareness.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of all focus,

All effort.

Simply stay silent and aware for the next minutes.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of your left nostril.

Let go of your left nostril.

If you wish to stay longer in this meditative silence,

Keep your eyes closed.

Let go of this awareness in this silent moment or very gently and slowly you may open your eyes maintaining the stillness,

The awareness,

The centeredness and the silence.

Taking this to your daily life,

Just for today,

Observe yourself in situations where you don't need to compete.

Check that in yourself that you are not in the fight of light mode all throughout your day.

Just for one day make this observation a priority that you are not competing all the time,

Giving yourself few moments of non-competitive attitude,

Of rest,

Of being in harmony with yourself and with everyone around.

I'll see you tomorrow at 7 am Central European Time.

Namaste.

Reviews

Great meditation!

A very warm Thank You 💙🙏💙

I am grateful for this, and the previous lojong trainings. Thank you for the breathing technique in this lesson.