Meditation Is The Most Maverick Act In The World

Imagine standing in a room of a thousand people. You watch your cord of connection with them. Even though you are beholden in form with other people, you have a choice to go somewhere else. We can go to a place of presence by way of our breath. Leave the headspace and imagine the power you have when you are no longer beguiled by forms.

Transcript

Happy to be here to meditate with you.

Welcome,

Welcome.

Okay,

I'm gonna start.

So Thursdays are about entering meditative stillness.

I don't know whether there's anything more delicious to me than words like that.

I was recently at a party and all these guys were asking for tips on how to score with the girls and I said that you know just like meditate.

Of course they all like left evacuated my area because they were like we don't want a girl like you.

We don't want to meditate.

I said but if you meditate and walk around with my books and Eckhart's books I mean all the women are gonna run after you and they look to me and they said no they're not.

I personally think for all you men out there the two on this horse that's the only way to get a cute girl is to meditate and to speak the language.

Okay.

So I digress.

Just words like this you know stillness and meditation means so much to me personally because they've allowed me to enter liberation and how does meditation a simple act of entering one's own breath how is this simple act in my opinion the most maverick act in the world no revolution no stand in arms no protest no vociferous vehemence can take the the an equal standing to the daring of meditation.

What do I mean by it being the most maverick act of revolution possible because when you are sitting here right I'm sitting here and looking at you correct you being representation of the form world of the world you are right now over a hundred people imagine I'm standing in front of a room full of a hundred two hundred people chances are if I did not understand spirituality that I would be connected with an umbilical cord to the whole room so if somebody on the left yawned I would register that as meaning a meaning for me if somebody looked disgruntled I would be connected to them as if it was a meaning for me if somebody protests in the audience I would take that as an indication of something meaning for me but imagine standing in a room full of 10 or 20 or 2 or a thousand people or your spouse or your child when your child is tantruming or your friend when she's accusing you of something that you swear you did not do and you're watching the cord between you and them but now you're slightly different because you've taken this course you now know you have another place that you can go even though you are beholden in form to them even though you are standing on stage and you cannot really leave the room now you're like oh I can go somewhere else I can go to a place while looking while even talking but there's another part of me that can go to another place that has nothing to do with the people in front of me with any of the form in front of me my own secret I don't want to call it escape because actually by being on the breath you're actually not an escape you're actually completely present but you understand what I'm saying it's a place hidden because it's not manifested it's not expressed if you're not literally taking out the ladder and then taking your legs and leaving the head space to enter the breath this is all done subtly quietly and energetically but imagine what power you have and the reason it's maverick is because everyone beguiled by form is thinking that you are beguiled by their form and you're watching them but guess what you're watching them but there's a huge piece of you that has gone on the elevator from your head form based attachments to a very private place within and the beauty of this private place is that although the portal seems to be the breath not even so obvious right I'm looking at you but my awareness is on the breath but I'm here too I'm looking I'm aware that I'm looking I'm aware that I'm teaching but my awareness is somewhere else my core awareness the big chunk 75% of me is on this I focus on the nostrils you can focus on the chest it doesn't matter so I'm here but I'm also here but I'm also here but I'm also here so the reason it's maverick is because I'm telling the world of form and declaring is that you don't need all of me you are not really worthy of all of me I'll give you a piece of me but I'm keeping a big part of me for the place or the state of being that is more worthy of me because although the portal to the state is this breath the state that it takes you to is your divine essence you know once you go on the breath you're not just on the breath you are you are entering the gateways of your limitless formlessness you are now communing with nature so through this subtle doorway called the breath that's it you are no longer fully present in the world of form you're declaring oops sorry not so interested oops sorry you can't define me oops sorry I'm not really that I don't care that much because I'm on my breath and the more we're on the breath we are more in the in the spaciousness of this liberated energy of complete non containment of our essence there is no container you know you look inside and you're looking for a box a container like the world of form outside of you and you're like there is no container here like do people realize that you want to scream from the stage like come with me here go inside you will enter limitless expansion unbeknownst to you here you are rigid with your pen and paper taking notes but the beauty is lying within you go within but the inability to do that keeps you trapped and I'm I'm bilycally I'm bilycally corded knotted to the world of form ah you are living an attenuated existence a threadbare of what you could be this is the most maverick declaration that you ahead of me mother father brother husband wife coach teacher spiritual master even therapist no I'll give you some allegiance if your words are truly divine and resonating with my authentic self but after a while if you are going against what I know to be true that I am divine and worthy then I'm so sorry I'm checking out because I have another place to attend and it's right here and the minute I go there I know my truth so I ask you to understand that this technique of meditation is not to become happy it's not to become wealthy sinner have control over your food oh those are the crumbs compared to the feast that is awaiting when you truly surrender to your divinity then all these things are form become relevant only when sitting next to the irrelevance your irreverence for form comes because you are now reverential to the true divinity the true game the true transcendence the true meaning of life you're gonna pay reverence to that so everything on the outside is irrelevant and you're irreverent that's freedom that's liberation this mere technique is going to take you there now this is not so you're attached to it and you're going where's my liberation where's my liberation where's my liberation because the liberation comes in the understanding that there is no other place to go than the way then the place you are there is nowhere to go except being here Kabat-Zinn says in his book everywhere you go there you are meaning there is no destination the only arrival is a deeper entry into the present moment that's where the destination is am I deeply here am I fully present am I fully aware that this moment has nothing to do with the last moment this moment has nothing to do with the future moment except the energy it carries into the future moment but the form of it is gone so if your kid pissed you off ten minutes ago don't carry it now it's gone the moment is over if you were ludicrous and clumsy and and poopy and farty and burpee ten minutes ago it's not here to now let it go if you made a fool out of yourself two days ago it's not here now the moment is not here the only reason you're holding on to it is because we have the faculty of mind which is the way to get conscious but it's also the way to stay unconscious the mind is our most powerful comrade to take us to deeper wisdom truth but also the mind keeps us mired in the past so releasing the mind into wisdom truth is the is the journey of the one who wants to awaken you so the breath and meditation is not about a destination it's not about an outcome it is not about being happy in fact I one of my last goals for this course is that you become a happier person this is not a goal for me I don't care about your happiness really I care that you are deeply engaged with your happiness that you're recognizing where you've been sleeping that you dare to poke at your denial and that is not going to make you happy so I'm telling you right now it's week four you can drop out because this process of awakening the dragon of ego is going to make you miserable actually unless you look at it as a come I want to awaken and you look in horror at all your desire to be happy is going to make you miserable but that's going to be okay so this is not happy happy this is about deep deep this is about awake awake this is about real real I am becoming more real beware I am seeing my denial in these last four weeks I think something has happened and maybe that's why I'm not more and more and I'm not really happy about it because it's changing my life and my world technically I'm not happy but I'm so deliriously joyful because the truth is that I know that the cobwebs need to be cleared out and as much as I want the cobwebs to stay because everything stays in place and the furniture I'm like don't touch the furniture but the cobwebs are like okay we are like piling cobwebs just because you don't want to change the furniture I'm like no don't change the furniture I want everything to stay but the universe and wisdom doesn't work like that and then one thing broke of one of the furniture pieces in my landscape of my psyche and I'm like fix it back fix it back and then another thing broke I'm like oh fix it fix it and I did the fix it but I know when the third thing breaks that there's a message and so I stopped fixing but now like the furniture is crashing all around me and the cobwebs are like now maybe she'll clean us up so I use an analogy and it may sound very dramatic but what I'm trying to say is that this is not a comfortable process this is a rude rude awakening and if I'm saying I'm being rudely awakened I can only imagine what you're going through well well that's what you pay me for to rudely awaken you but the the power of meditation to help us engage deeply and to look in the mirror at all times is profound nothing else will call us to our own unconsciousness other than the practice of meditation it's uncomfortable it's silent it's boring it's ordinary it has no bells and whistles I won't even let you chant or count or call it something damn it all I push you to do which is not really me the Buddha is to blame it's his technique is to sit with your breath and sit with your breath and again sit with your breath and while you're sitting with your breath oh my god ten minutes fast because you forgot to sit on your breath and your mind took you like a vacuum and then you're like oh my god where have I been well ten minutes have passed so that's good but I went to Hawaii I was eating jerk chicken in Jamaica I was checking out Tom Cruise on in some magazine I was trying to unravel the plot of the movie the other day I went fully into a movie in my meditation till my body jerked in some sort of somnolence and I woke up and now half an hour had passed now would you call that meditation could I say to my own boastful ego you meditated for half an hour would you not call that meditation because you know you went to sleep or you know you went to Jamaica or you know you were lusting after some food or wine or boy or girl would that be a legitimate meditation yes everything is meditation everything is meditation because meditation is not about the outcome and not about perfection or the number of times you're on the breath meditation is about the power of taking your mind from non breath to breath this was one of the most valuable things I learned when I went for my past now that it wasn't about how long I stayed on the breath of course you know the more you become a master the more you stay but then you're just riding the wave it's effortless but what about when the unconscious is pulling you and you go no no no no no come back my love come to the breath come to the breath it's this pendulum swing that is the muscle we're trying to build it's not about going deliriously into unconscious travels and it's not about staying on the breath effortlessly because that's the task of the Zen masters and of course if you're there then you're not here with me so we're not talking about that state either we're talking about the state in between you know I'm a big fan of the state in between unconsciousness and consciousness because that's where you and I are most of us some are closer some are further it doesn't matter it's mastering the terrain of in between this that is the power and then the power of noticing the silence between the breaths so the point is not the breath and meditation teaches you even though it's saying to meditate on the breath the point is not the breath just like the point in life is not the outcome it's not the destination it's not the end period it's all the energy with which you enter the energy with which you traverse and the energy which you arrive at and the ability to let it go and start again new moment new moment new moment unconscious travel breath leave the breath stay on the breath leave the breath stay on the breath new breath new breath unconscious travel breath brother bread oh I'm on the breath but don't be attached to the breath because the minute you attach to the breath you're not on the breath on the breath on the breath,

New breath,

New breath,

New breath,

Unconsciousness calling,

I'm staying on the breath,

Not right now,

Breath,

Breath,

Leave,

Come back,

Breath,

Breath.

This is the muscle,

This is the muscle,

But imagine your freedom when your spouse is raging at you or your friend is alcoholic and depressed and in some big drama that she believes is real and you used to believe was real and your child is defiant and not putting on his pajamas and used to believe that was the end of the world but now you're like breath,

Breath,

Breath and you're there but you're on the breath,

On the breath,

On the breath,

On the breath.

You cannot be touched by too much form when you're on the breath.

The other day my daughter you know she sleeps between 12 and 2 so I'm not on my breath but thankfully I meditate at that time so I could hear her annoying me and feel her annoying me and I'm watching annoying,

I'm annoyed,

I'm annoyed,

I'm annoyed.

You know there's no patience after 12 o'clock at night and she's putting on her cream and asking me some stupid questions and I'm meditating,

Don't you see me meditating and I'm watching annoying thoughts,

Annoying thoughts but the 75% is on the breath,

On the breath and I said to myself just stay on that breath,

Don't open your mouth,

Just stay on the breath,

Try it,

It's your biggest ally.

Nobody even an annoying teenager at one o'clock at night talking about some rubbish when she should be sleeping you can stay on the breath.

The other day someone said to me they were in a divorce mediation and the CPS worker was arguing and the husband was raging and she said she stayed on the breath and she stayed on the breath.

This is the biggest act of liberation.

Are we ready to stay on the breath?

Let's do it.

I'm gonna try to guide you and we're gonna do it for I don't even know how long.

You don't need to attach to the time,

Many of you get attached to the time and attached to the form and everything is meditation and everything is the longest meditation.

You know one minute on the breath is a deeper,

Longer,

Truer meditation than one hour half on the breath.

Who is to say what is more powerful?

One minute of pure experience and then you mucked it up with pure unconsciousness?

Who's to say that one moment of pure consciousness cannot have the power to burn through so many karmic cycles of ignorance?

I believe in the power of one,

You know that.

One breath,

One moment of consciousness,

One moment of piercing wisdom,

One moment of truth.

Yeah and then I can follow it with abysmal lies but I'm like I had one moment.

It's okay tomorrow I'll have two,

Then I'll have three but I'm not counting and I'm not building.

So there is no perfection,

There's no time.

When I sit to meditate I don't put a stopwatch,

I don't know when I start,

I don't know when I end because I'm about flow.

If meditation is going to take me into time and competition and stress and critique why am I meditating?

I should just go to sleep,

Drink some wine,

That'll take me out of my critique mind.

So meditation is about anti-judgment,

Anti-form,

Anti-occupancy in the future,

Anti-occupancy in the past.

It just is what it is.

Okay so sit how you want but be aware of your movements,

Be aware of your sitting.

There's no perfection in sitting.

I sit with my palms up,

Sometimes I sit like this.

I don't put pressure on the form,

The form is irrelevant to me.

Sit how you want,

Lie down,

Close your eyes and drink tea while you're meditating.

It's all form.

The awareness needs to be here and now.

Awareness that I'm here,

Sitting here,

Alive,

Talking to you right now,

What could be better?

Awareness that my breath is here too and the 360 awareness of the clock ticking and if something bothered me to embrace that in the as-is,

Nothing is outside of the experience right?

On Tuesday we talked about everything being part of it.

No resistance.

Meditation teaches us to accept all of it as is,

No changing.

You go away to a conflicted rageful place in your mind,

You bring yourself back slowly.

Non-judgmental detachment okay?

So wherever you are is perfect.

Enter yourself,

Let's close our eyes so you're not distracted by me and my shenanigans.

Close your eyes,

Allow yourself to close your eyes.

Even though you can meditate with your eyes open in the beginning,

It's a declaration to the world of form.

I'm checking out,

I'm going to myself,

I'm going home,

I'm going to to my own spirit,

I'm entering my own breath,

I want to feel my own feelings,

I want to figure out my own beat.

I'm checking out of your beat,

Your opinion,

Magazines and form,

I'm going into me.

So closing eyes is a declaration.

Close your eyes,

Close your eyes.

Relax into your being.

And gently when you're ready,

Take all that mental energy gently and direct it like you know like you would kind of gently usher a toddler to the breath,

To the breath coming in and out of your nostrils if you want and then you can feel the breath and then you feel the form of the breath or the breath entering and leaving your chest area and that's all there is to the greatest portal to awakening.

That's it,

You're doing it,

You're in the portal.

Go for it.

On the breath,

Watching monkey mind and then coming back to the breath,

On the breath.

Come home to yourself.

Feel whatever you're feeling,

Watching the feeling.

If you're sad,

Okay,

Just a word,

Just a feeling.

You're chaotic,

Okay,

Just a word,

Just a feeling.

Stay on the breath,

Stay on the breath.

Connect,

Connect to the breath.

Don't imagine the whole world meditating with you.

This is not about being in your mind.

Right now it's just you that exists in this world.

Stay on the breath.

The mind will chitta,

Chatta,

Chitta,

Chatta,

Smile at it,

Monkey mind.

Come back to the breath,

The most delicious place to be,

On the breath,

No mind.

Central awareness on the breath,

Peripheral awareness of all senses.

I can hear the sounds of the night,

I can hear the clock ticking.

You must hear everything.

Nothing should be excluded.

It's full awareness.

Feel your body sitting where it's sitting,

Tactile awareness.

Feel your taste buds,

Your saliva.

Feel all of you,

Aware of all of you,

But central awareness on the breath.

You alert attend aware you watch those thoughts so many it's okay come back to the breath you you lean into your discomfort do not seek to leave or release your discomfort lean into it by leaning into your breath nothing is happening to you you're just sitting in silence you can do this on your breath you you you you you just when you think that you can't sit anymore we're gonna sit some more on the breath nowhere to go but be on the breath you may want to get up do your chores this is a waste of time why isn't you teaching anything it's all BS it's just your inability to commune with your breath your avoidance of it let it go let go of everything of form you owe it to yourself to spend time on your breath and this is the time back on the breath we're gonna lean in more on the breath you you you you when you're ready you'll open your eyes many times people think that the transition from mindfulness or meditation to the real world is jarring like they need time and they need more silence and people to behave themselves to come into the real world the reason for that is because we want perhaps really meditating we were in some cozy little fantasy of silence basking in some dream world not really here now because when you're here and now you just effortlessly open your eyes and enter the here and now you because you were always here you didn't have to be lulled from a certain fantasy place so I can tell when I have been fake meditating because when I open my eyes I want more time but when I'm really meditating I just open my eyes and I'm in the new moment and I'm ready to go without holding on I'm just ready to go alert alert awake awake I wasn't sleeping but when I'm sleeping meditation that I don't want to wake up I don't want to come into the here and now ah because I was really in some other place so the indication of being able to seamlessly enter the next moment is the indication that the past moment was fully awake so the next moment would be fully awake and when you are detached from there being temporality and longevity you're like a new moment and now new moment so now if my daughter was to come in and disturb us I'd be like oh that's the new moment now I'm there go there but the story and the resistance would be why is she here why is she disturbing me how could she disturb me what will they think form but through meditation you're like oh now we're here I know it was sunny two minutes ago now it's raining I know you didn't expect your computer to break down it's broken down I know you didn't think your husband would cheat on you cheating on you I know you thought you'd grow old with this person not gonna happen I know you thought your kid wasn't doing drugs doing drugs that you're just in the new reality here we are but I thought oh that was your story oh but I you weren't you're living in the past but now what will happen that you're living in the future just enter the now and step by step by being in the present being in the present life would reveal itself to you so I'm gonna leave you with some words you what is within will be without what is inside will be outside we do not cause events or people to act the way they do but we do cause the way we see perceive and react to them we do not cause life to be unpredictable or temporal but we do cause our inability to understand that life is and our inability to flow with it therein we do not cause our children to be who it is they are necessarily but we do cause the way we create stories in our mind around who it is they are the cause of our reality is always in our mind for no matter what we have the first say we have the middle say we have the last say we get to choose we get to decide we get to believe we get to react or not we have the power we get to keep our power we get the power to give away our power so do you dare to own your mind and to create the meaning to things and people come from us all meaning is ascribed from us from constructions we believe are real the things or people aren't saying believe this we are saying we have chosen to believe do you realize that all emerges from your mind and your mind is untapped unrealized and unexamined so in the same vein you can change your belief switch it turn it lose it the power to believe or not is yours yes you are truly this breeds truly a game of form to create your own reality you are the artist extraordinary painted sculpted molded dare meditation allows the way of space nothing will allow you more inner liberation than the experience of your inner expansion the experience of so much space inside you and then when you understand that you are space and that this form is so ephemeral and then you understand that what is the outside space is exactly what's the inside space because the breath is the connector therefore you you're one space this is all revealed through the practice of meditation the maverick act of sitting in stillness of declaring to the world that you are taking a time out daring to rebel against the mainstream and say no more needing nothing you shout out in silence I'm enough right now I am whole right now the moment is as is just knowing you have a place to go a private place a hidden jewel of infinite possibilities where no one can trample knowing this is liberating where you can take when you can take that elevator from the confines of your condition narrow rigid mind down to the deepest knowing of your unknowing spaciousness you enter the depth of oceanic possibility verdant lush ever replenishing your longings for Hermes or Hawaii exotic exquisite expensive or esoteric for delicious decadent or distracting start to slowly fade from scream too loud to noise to whisper as your dependencies on the outside fade your fear that you are attenuating withers as well for as you release the outer the inner invites you into its womb of the infinite every moment of every moment of awareness on the breath breathe in breathing out without mind or thought it is here in these moments that the true meaning of choice and freedom and space is realized and the realization dawns that these concepts cannot really be taught or even learned or even plainly understood they can only be realized so this is about your awakening about you entering your own realization of your essential self your wisdom mind your wisdom space your eternal energetic continuity with all that is energy you're just a continuity of energy you're not a continuity of time because time is man-made you're a continuity of all that is already eternal that is what you are so thank you for joining me I will sit in stillness and I'll keep on the breath and you can leave as you leave or stay I will stay for another five minutes on the breath on the breath my eyes will be open this time but I'm on the breath and cheating because only 5% of me is really here in the form and 95% of me is on the breath on the breath you you you you you you you don't engage in for