31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 3

Welcome! This is the third 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. In this lesson, we're practicing and discussing STILLNESS & POSTURE, again. Each lesson will be spread over 3 days.

Enjoy.

Transcript

Alright,

Good evening everyone.

Nice to see you all.

Cool,

So day three of this 31-day challenge after today will be one-tenth of the way to accomplishing this goal.

So again,

Kudos to you,

All of you for participating and joining so consistently.

So I wanted to open up with this idea of the value of a teacher and I think the protocol in which a teacher should sort of move forward in any given lesson.

We can go back to the adage of teaching someone how to fish or giving them a fish for one day.

The role of the teacher is fundamentally to disappear and I hope that by the end of this month,

My presence,

My guidance,

All of that,

By the end I hope becomes unnecessary because you know how to do this on your own.

And so because every lesson is sort of extended over the course of three days,

Those three days will be sort of micro representations of that role to disappear.

Simply meaning that today I'm going to talk a little bit less than I did yesterday so my impact will be diminished and tomorrow when we get into stillness and posturing,

I'm essentially going to say nothing at all and force you to rely upon yourself to make it through the wilderness of this technique or whatever technique we're exploring in that moment.

And so the role of the teacher is to disappear and in that the student has the opportunity to stand up.

Great,

So with that said,

Let's get into this idea of stillness and posturing but discuss it under the context of the Buddha.

And so if you haven't heard of the Buddha or really sort of like studied his story,

The Buddha was a prince born under prophecy and the prophecy was that he was going to either be a great ruler or a great spiritual leader.

And his father,

A king or a nobleman,

Wished that his son would follow in his footsteps and promised that he would do everything he possibly could to ensure that the young Buddha would become a great ruler.

And so Buddha's father protected him against the realities of the world and showered him in indulgences and wealth and privilege and pleasure.

So much so that the fable goes until Buddha was a young man,

He never experienced any degree of suffering,

Any degree of sorrow,

Any sense of lack,

Any bit of pain.

He was sort of more miraculously sheltered from this worldly truth.

But eventually one day arises and he walks out of the protection of his father's utopia and sees a sick man,

Desperately sick.

And the Buddha is shocked and confused and it triggers him.

And he asks his chariot driver what is this and the chariot driver says this is illness Buddha and Buddha never seen it before is stunned.

So then Buddha goes out the next day and what he sees is an elderly person and Buddha has been sheltered from the suffering of getting older.

Same scenario unfolds.

The Buddha asks his chariot driver what is this.

This is age Buddha.

All people will be touched by age and Buddha again is shocked.

The next day arises and the Buddha sees a corpse.

The Buddha's never seen anything dead before.

What is this?

This is death.

None can escape death.

Not your father,

Not you.

The Buddha again,

The veil is lifted and he is stunned.

On the fourth day the Buddha exits the sanctuary of his father's design and sees a monk praying.

He asks the monk what exactly is he doing and the monk says he is learning to escape the effects and the sort of grip of suffering.

And in that moment the spiritual path of the Buddha is sparked and the Buddha sneaks out the following day leaving his wife,

Leaving his child,

Leaving the potential legacy of being a great ruler and chooses on his own to resolve the question of human suffering.

And so what this means is that whether you know it or not,

Whether the idea of suffering is an important part of your life or essentially meaningless because it doesn't present itself to you in any significant way,

The heart of spirituality is acknowledging that the human condition as we've discussed is clustered around dissatisfaction.

And once we appreciate that truth,

Which is the first noble truth of the Buddha,

A spiritualist aims to unravel that seemingly inescapable dimension of our lives.

And so the four noble truths of the Buddha are that we must admit there is suffering in our lives.

Anything from dissatisfaction to grief.

The Buddhists also include happiness and joy as suffering because happiness and joy inevitably end and in that the sweetness is sort of replaced with bitterness every single time.

And so the Buddhists are rather fanatical with this idea of suffering being truth.

The second noble truth is that there is a cause to suffering and this is the Buddha's great discovery and fundamentally that cause is desire and within that rejection.

We want what we want and we reach for what we want,

Especially when we don't have it and anything else that is outside of our preferences we adamantly and actively reject.

And so this tendency to push back the world and reach too intensely to other parts of the world creates imbalance in us and perpetuates our own suffering or stress.

So this is the second noble truth,

The cause of suffering.

The third noble truth is miraculous once you've acknowledged the first,

Once you acknowledge that suffering seems to be inescapable.

The third noble truth is that suffering can be dissolved and then the fourth noble truth is the process in which someone dissolves the imminence of this suffering.

And that process is reduced to living well,

Being good,

Collecting wisdom over the course of your lives and meditating,

Looking inside yourself,

Which I imagine we're all doing in one way or the other.

So with that,

This is sort of Buddhism in a nutshell.

As we get into our practice today,

As we commit to stillness and strong posture,

I just want to come to two agreements with you all.

The first agreement is that stillness is an innocent action.

It's not bad.

It's not wrong.

And if we can really commit to this idea that stillness is innocent,

Whether it's for five minutes or 30 minutes,

The impact of a stressed out mind,

The reality of the suffering that does arise,

Again,

Impatience,

Boredom,

Confusion,

Aggravation,

Anxiety,

Because you've admitted that stillness is in itself innocent,

The proclivity to project suffering onto an innocent behavior,

An innocent moment,

Will force you to acknowledge that even when things are okay,

The tendency of the mind is to generate stress,

Or what the Buddhists and yogis call dukkha,

Suffering,

Or dark sort of energy.

So that's the first agreement.

The second agreement is that balance is good.

Balance is necessary in all domains of life.

And if we look at our lives,

What we seem to do in all moments,

Unless we're sleeping,

Is reach for what we want,

And we try to escape what we don't want.

We're always in action to grasp or repel.

And so the great balancing act compared to this tendency of grasping and repelling is inaction,

Non-doing,

Unbeing,

Which is embodied most literally through stillness and steady breath.

So again,

One last time,

These are the two agreements.

Stillness is innocent,

And the balance is good.

Cool.

So let's get into this today.

Comfortable seated position.

I've gotten a couple questions about feet going numb.

The solution to that is simple.

Place more cushioning underneath your hips to elevate your hips.

That'll put less pressure on your joints.

And if that doesn't prove to be helpful,

Just take the time to sit in a chair or on a couch and bypassing that physical stress is going to make your process and your practice so much easier and more enjoyable.

But regardless,

That's your choice.

So let's get into these positions,

Either cross-legged or in a chair,

And let's build our posture.

So as always,

The techniques,

The physical efforts,

And the physical instructions are more meaningful and more significant than anything I have to say,

Any of the philosophies,

Any of the stories.

Tilt your hips forward and feel as you adjust your hips,

You pull them into an anterior tilt,

The spine lengthens vertically.

And so what you're discovering is that the posture,

The shape of your torso is determined by its foundation,

Which is your pelvis.

And what that means is to maintain a tall spine,

To sit well,

Has less to do with your back and more to do with your hips.

Now if you're sitting cross-legged on the floor,

Rest your wrists on your knees and straighten your arms completely so there's zero bend in the elbows.

Spread your fingers wide and rotate your palms up into the sky.

If you're seated in a chair or on the couch,

Rest your hands on your knees,

But again straighten your arms.

Once the arms are straightened,

Flip your palms up to the sky and rest your knuckles or the back of your hand on your knees.

Everyone spread your fingers wide.

Now take a second to feel both of your hands,

All 10 fingers.

And a little nuance here,

Before I instructed you to feel your hands and fingers,

The hands and the fingers themselves were more numb,

Less real to you.

But now after that instruction,

Now that you're focusing on them,

You feel them more intensely and in a sense they are more real to you.

And so what we pay attention to becomes our reality.

Bring a random finger to each thumb.

These are called mudras,

Hand gestures that signify consciousness,

Signify intentionality.

You're not just sitting,

You're doing something here.

Imagine you have a little grain of sand between your fingers and your thumbs.

Now drag your shoulder blades down your back,

Feel your chest broaden.

And as the chest broadens,

There's this surge of emotional confidence and mental alertness.

Shut your jaw,

Press your tongue into the back of your two front teeth,

And then tuck your chin in ever so slightly to decompress the base of your skull.

Let's make our way back down to our hips one last time.

Tilt your hips slightly further forward.

Again from there,

Feel the torso lengthen.

Now spend one minute here,

Committing to this posture.

And if you feel compelled to,

Sit in a way that provokes even more strength,

Even more courage,

Even more confidence,

Whatever that is to you.

And as you either maintain this shape or reorganize your shape to provoke this confidence and this power,

Commit to this.

This is how I will sit for the remainder of my meditation today.

So notice that it feels good,

Even if it's subtle,

It feels good,

It's empowering to control yourself.

It proves to you second to second that you are autonomous,

You are conscious and in command of what you are.

But at the same time,

This shape and holding this shape creates a little bit of stress,

A little bit of doubt,

A little bit of confusion.

Why am I doing this?

Do I really have to do this?

Do I like this?

And so these thoughts are sparking up because you're stressing your nerves.

Your thoughts are being determined by an unconscious conversation within your body.

And this is exactly the stress that the Buddhists discuss.

This is dukkha.

It's a mosquito in your ear.

But if we spend a little time every day sitting in this sensation,

Adapting to it,

Recognizing it,

And befriending it,

In time we learn how to overcome it.

Now if dukkha,

If stress,

If impatience,

If boredom,

If confusion becomes too overwhelming,

If there's any pain in your body,

Pressure in your hips,

Itchiness on the skin,

Numbness in the legs becomes too irritating,

Slow down your breath.

A slow breath is the protocol to give yourself some time,

Some space to remember being still is innocent.

It's not bad.

It's not wrong.

It's nothing worth resisting.

But despite that agreement,

A part of you will try to resist it.

And if you can acknowledge that part of you that tries to resist this innocent action,

That might help you appreciate the Buddha's first noble truth.

Even when I'm just sitting down,

I create problems.

Some part of me breaks the world into good and bad.

Let's initiate our practice formally together.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Breathe into your belly and then into your lungs.

Slow breath out.

Awesome.

Two more times together.

Deep breath in to the belly and then the lungs.

It feels good.

Slow breath out.

Last time.

Inhale,

Belly then lungs.

Slow breath out.

So you're on your own for about 10 minutes.

Stillness is innocent and meditation is a great balancing act.

You're on your own for about 10 minutes.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Let's take a deep breath out.

Let's take a deep breath in.

Slow down the breath.

Notice how the breath has this tendency to quicken and speed up,

Especially when you stop paying attention to it.

This is evidence that our body,

Our physiology,

Is designed to be a little more anxious than peaceful.

But the second you choose to slow it down,

You are gifted with an increase in awareness,

An increase in presence,

And an increase in tranquility.

So again,

Slow down the breath.

This is the foundation of a meditative practice.

When the breath is calm,

The body is relaxed.

And until that point,

We can't really interact with the mind the way we need to.

So I'd like you to notice how insatiable the mind is.

It's always comparing,

Always thinking,

Escaping into the past,

Running into fantasies,

Comparing this moment to what it could be,

Looking into the future,

Worrying,

Hoping.

And through all of this mental activity,

The moment itself slips away.

We're in ceaseless action.

And within that actioning,

There is desire for that which we don't have,

And there is rejection for what's occurring right now.

Try to sense that.

As subtle as it is,

That is the suffering,

The stress,

The dukkha.

And notice how that sort of thinking interferes with your ability to embrace just sitting down and being still fully.

It keeps the potential of a perfect moment at bay.

And so in the same way that yesterday we realized that stillness isn't passive,

It's a physical expression of exceptional self-control,

A second-to-second resurrecting of willpower.

At this point,

As you appreciate the complexity and dynamism of the mind,

I hope you appreciate how dynamic meditation actually is.

It's this incessant movement that meditators attempt to paralyze and restrain.

And it's only until we take the time to commit to true stillness that we feel the gravity and the depth of this internal fluctuation.

We do not yet have the muscle or the strength or the dexterity to command the mind in the way that yogis and meditators insist,

But that's the practice.

So you have three more minutes here.

Recognize that you're still holding stillness.

You're still sitting well.

And because you're controlling yourself,

That's enriching.

Slow down your breath to appreciate your power.

And from time to time,

Think,

Stillness is innocent and balance is good.

Through meditation,

What you're balancing is the compulsion to act,

To grasp,

To reject.

Akis.

Dragon is an endlessHH ready moment you can try day in and day out.

.

I can appreciate,

Unbeknownst to you,

The breath quickened.

That's the proclivity of the physical body to become a little anxious.

The same goes for a fast mind.

A fast mind is a sick mind.

A fast body provokes a fast mind.

You're about to end your practice.

So just repeat in your head,

I'm about to stop meditating.

I'm about to release my self-control.

I'm about to let go of narrowed.

My mind's going to turn back on.

Let's take one more breath in.

One more breath out.

Appreciate any sense of peace you've created for yourself.

And with your next inhale,

Open your eyes and just repeat,

I am no longer meditating.

And in that,

Take a second to acknowledge where you just were,

What you were just doing,

And that it is different.

It's different than where you are now.

Reviews

Great

A very welcoming new approach to my meditation practice. Thank you!

Really good running through these lessons, hearing new methods and Darmha. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏