31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 22

Welcome! This is the twenty-second lesson to a 31-Day Meditation Challenge recently recorded in July of 2020 entitled "Seek and Find Within." The audio recording is divided into an opening discourse and a guided meditation.

SAMSARA INTRO; samsara is the cyclical pattern of the cosmos, the suffering of lacking self-awareness, and the pattern of repetition inside the mind. When life's looping tendency is observed all we have do is appreciate it as it manifests in the world and ourselves.

Enjoy.

Transcript

Alright,

Good evening everybody.

Cool,

So day 22,

Three weeks in.

We're getting into the seventh lesson of this one month program and the seventh lesson orbits this concept of Samsara.

So Samsara is a huge idea within Buddhism and within sort of yogic and Hindu beliefs.

Samsara literally translates into the concept of cycles.

And the value of appreciating Samsara as a concept involves a deeper idea within what we're attempting to do as individuals.

Fundamentally what we're attempting to do by meditating is come to terms with reality.

The deeper hope in this is that when we can come to terms with reality,

We can experience a deeper level of peace than we are accustomed to.

One of the details involved in experiencing this deeper level of serenity is appreciating that life is cyclical.

And so Samsara,

The word,

Has sort of two meanings.

The literal translation of the word is cycles and the word was derived from the observations of ancient meditators looking at life and realizing that the movement of day and night was cyclical.

The patterns of constellations as they orbited across the sky was cyclical.

That the movement of the seasons was cyclical.

And this cyclical nature even sort of expressed the movements of emotions that we would touch happiness and then we would touch sorrow.

We would touch a state of energy or enthusiasm and then we would touch a state of depression.

And so this is what the literal word means,

Samsara,

Cycles.

But as the philosophies of yoga and Buddhism in particular evolved,

The word Samsara,

Cycles,

Began to represent suffering.

And so the bridge that connects cycles to suffering is really this acknowledgement of unconsciousness that when we are unaware of our cycles,

When we are unaware of the cycles of nature,

We tend to suffer as individuals.

And this is a really powerful observation to consider.

When we are unaware of our own patterns and our habits and our instincts start to command us over our own autonomy,

Our own conscious choice,

We begin to experience depression.

We feel the dissolve of free will and in this our sense of peace,

Our sense of control starts to dissipate and in that we feel sorrow,

We feel depression.

And this pulls us all the way back to the first definition of meditation I offered you which was nirod.

And nirod is restraint.

And before we can control anything,

Usually we have to understand what it is we're attempting to control.

What we're attempting to control is our cycles,

Is our samsara.

And so what we're going to get into today is the observation of cyclical patterns within our practice.

And there's sort of an upside to this.

The main pattern we're going to attempt to observe today is this back and forth between enthusiasm and disinterest within our own practice.

And I've been getting quite a few emails about sort of the boiling over of disinterest with sitting still,

The increased sense of urgency to open our eyes or to fidget or to adjust or to simply end the practice.

And this is a very common sort of emotional response to the intense restraint that you're imposing onto yourself.

And so the beauty of cyclical nature,

The beauty of samsara is if we simplify it into positive and negative,

If we rotate from a positive state of mind or a positive relationship and eventually we embrace the fact that we're going to touch a negative state of mind or experience a negative relationship to any phenomenon or any experience,

What samsara also suggests is that eventually because of the nature of reality,

The cyclical nature of reality,

We will again enter,

Not through our own will or our own effort,

But we will again effort because of nature a positive relationship to this experience.

And so that's what we're going to observe today.

What this means for our practice is that if you just sit down and tolerate your resistance,

Tolerate your rejection,

Tolerate your boredom,

Eventually you will become inspired to meditate again all by yourself.

You will become enthused to maintain stillness.

You will become sort of committed to the process.

And to feel that that inspiration resurrects itself all by itself is a really illuminating moment and attaching this to samsara will extend that illumination,

Extend that insight into so many other dimensions of life,

Which is a bonus.

Cool.

So let's get into this today.

Comfortable seated position.

Awesome.

And as usual,

Right off the bat,

Stillness,

Posture,

Very slow,

Stable diaphragmatic breathing.

So you're breathing into the belly.

And then working to first acknowledge the thought process,

Your opinions,

Your emotional state,

The ways in which you are describing the immediate moment to yourself.

And upon acknowledging that thought process,

Work to push the thought process back.

And so there's this immediate change when you hold your body in this rigid stillness,

When you command your breath to slow down,

And when you acknowledge the thought process and push it back by feeling the body versus contemplating the body.

All of these of course are very subtle mechanisms of our day-to-day existence that you're becoming particularly mindful of.

But again,

Take a second to notice that when you command these basic experiences,

Something changes.

And what that change is,

Again,

Is the internalization of awareness,

Which is the purest definition of meditation,

Instead of looking outside,

You're looking inside.

And that is meaningful.

Perceived.

Meditation is rumored to lead the individual to a profoundly unique experience that is generated from within.

That experience equates to supreme peace,

Abundant empathy,

Expansive understanding,

Truth,

Divinity,

And virtue.

This process of restraining our motor functions,

Commanding our impulses to fidget,

Slowing down the breath,

And working to feel with increased sensitivity our bodies,

Fulfills our thirst for something more.

And so for the next few minutes I just want you to appreciate that you yourself are intrigued with this promise.

And that this curiosity defines you as a meditator.

That your thirst for experience,

Which all human beings have,

Has led you to investigate yourself.

Slow down the breath.

Consider that.

Deeply breath.

.

Now in the same way an explorer would navigate the ocean or navigate the forest or navigate the jungles,

A meditator learns to navigate the psyche.

In one fundamental pattern of not just the psyche,

But reality as a psychological experience is its cyclical nature.

That it orbits duality.

In one moment we're happy and in the next we're sad.

In one moment we're enthused and in the next we're depressed.

This moment might last 24 hours.

These moments might last years or decades.

But the cyclical nature of reality has been observed through generations.

And so one of the main struggles of meditation is maintaining the enthusiasm to stay still.

Maintaining the enthusiasm to slow down our breaths and maintaining the enthusiasm to feel overthink.

When we appreciate samsara as a truth,

A psychological truth,

It enables us to relax and to appreciate that when we are impatient,

Disinterested,

Dissatisfied with our practice,

All we have to do is wait and eventually enthusiasm,

Interest,

And curiosity will reemerge on its own.

So for the next 10 minutes,

Manage your stillness,

Keep the breath steady,

Deep and slow,

And do your best to feel your body versus think about the experience of your life or your practice.

But when disinterest emerges,

Impatience,

Confusion,

Distraction,

Label that as one half of the samsara cycle,

Stay committed to your restraint,

And when enthusiasm reemerges,

Let that validate the fact that you are orbiting duality.

You are slowly moving around.

And in that you have to do nothing.

The term one last time is samsara.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

A key principle in Buddhism and yoga.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

One underlying motivation behind a meditator's will to sit down and be still consistently and regularly is to not just discover the core of what they are but to understand their ability and inability to control their world and themselves.

And through this process of discovering self and in that discovering what we have control over and what is beyond our control,

The ancient meditators discovered S-A-M-S-A-R-A.

Life is built on a ring.

The ancient metaphor is a wheel.

And all we do is orbit its circumference like the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun.

And the more intensely we can appreciate this fact,

The greater degrees of peace and understanding we have in relationship to our emotional movements.

And so you're using the specific example of inspiration or rejection of meditation to prove to you that S-A-M-S-A-R-A is real.

And the key point is that when you're in this space of disinterest,

Impatience,

Confusion,

And boredom,

All by itself,

Inspiration,

Interest,

And excitement re-emerges from within you.

And that all you have to do is wait,

Survive the negative,

And positivity will eventually re-emerge.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Slow down the breath.

Remember what you're doing.

You are meditating.

Meditation in so many ways becomes this living metaphor for the dynamic experience of our lives.

Again,

The term is S-A-M-S-A-R-A,

The cyclical nature of reality.

The take-home lesson is that if we can just survive the negative,

Survive our suffering,

Survive our doubt,

Survive our pain,

Survive our confusion on its own,

Not because we did or didn't do anything,

On its own,

Positivity,

Understanding,

Hope,

And inspiration will re-emerge in the same way that the day,

The dawn,

Always comes.

That the next breath in always comes.

And so technically what this allows us to do within the effort of our practice,

Physical and psychological,

Is it allows us to let go of the steering wheel.

All we have to do is sit back and let the experience of our body,

Its sensations,

And our mind's interpretations move through the wheel.

One more minute here.

Let's take some perfect breaths.

Steady,

Complete,

Into the belly,

And slow.

Do your best to feel instead of think.

Do your best to experience without narration.

Challenges,

Growth,

Spring,

Asus,

Alcindru and Attri.

Now twice as slowly,

Three times as slowly as you usually move.

Bring your hands to heart center.

Again,

Two times,

Three times as slowly as you usually move.

And in that there's mindfulness,

There's presence,

There's sensitivity.

These are the hallmarks of a meditative mind,

Just by moving slowly.

Deepen your breath and moving forward from yesterday's practice,

Listen to your room,

Listen to your environment and appreciate it as the world.

And that in this moment it's only you,

The marble of individuality and the world itself.

It's a one-on-one moment with existence.

And then in this moment of intimacy,

Both you and the world,

In Sanskrit,

Atman,

The soul and Brahman reality are both tethered to the wheel.

Both orbit duality.

Both move from birth to death.

Both shift from openness to closing,

From enthusiasm to depression,

From happiness to sorrow.

And so in this first lesson of samsara,

You're learning to appreciate this wheel or this cyclical nature.

Realizing that it's inescapable.

And now bring your thumb knuckles to third eye center,

This familiar closing ritual.

So what does samsara orbit?

What does this wheel rotate around?

It rotates around truth.

It rotates around the deep self.

Pure awareness,

Pure consciousness.

Your emotions rise and fall around consciousness.

Your circumstances come and go around consciousness.

One is the internalization of our awareness and the discovery of pure awareness.

When we learn to occupy that as individuals,

We become fully realized people.

That is the dogma.

That is the adventure.

And so take a few breaths,

Focusing on your thumbs,

Pressing into the skin of your forehead.

And considering all of these ideas,

Consciousness as the center,

And all experience dancing around in a circle,

Orbiting this consciousness.

That circular dance is samsara,

And when we are unaware of it,

It generates suffering.

Slow down the breath.

Take a full exhale.

Hold the breath with nothing in your lungs.

Release your wrists to your knees.

You're collecting CO2 intentionally.

Keep holding the breath,

Nice tall spine.

When you must inhale,

Breathe through the nose and again hold the breath.

Keep holding.

So if you can survive your discomfort,

Your fear as you hold your breath,

The nature of samsara suggests you will at least for a moment recover enthusiasm,

Faith,

And comfort.

When you need to breathe normally,

Do so.

Whether you're holding your breath,

Lungs full of air,

Or breathing normally at this point,

Repeat the word samsara.

Consider the cyclical nature of your life and appreciate that as inevitable.

Because you've collected some CO2,

Because your mind is more present to the immediate experience of your body,

That idea,

The repetition of that word should hit you more intensely.

Samsara.

With your next breath in,

Open your eyes and try to maintain that meditative state.

Repeat in the mind,

I'm still meditating.

I'm still aware of the cyclical nature of my own existence,

My own patterns.

I can feel the relationship between my own cyclical nature and the movement of stars and planets,

The dance of seasons.

And in that,

The idea of unity,

The idea of oneness and similarity becomes more real.

Open the breath.

Samsara.