31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 6

Welcome! This is the sixth 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 practice, we continue exploring the dynamism of breathing. There are 6 key directions and a seventh subtle direction to breathing. Now we are studying the 7th!

Enjoy.

Transcript

Good evening everyone.

All right,

Good to see you all.

So day six of 31 days,

We're officially one-fifth of the way there.

So as always,

Take a second to congratulate yourselves.

You're slowly building a habit and as much time as it takes,

It doesn't take much time at all to really integrate a new pattern into our lives,

Which is commendable.

Okay,

So for the next two days,

We're going to continue to explore directional breathing,

Which is the second technique we are studying in this 31-day challenge.

Of course,

The first technique is simple but not easy.

It's stillness and posture.

And so before we get into the advancement of directional breathing,

I just wanted,

As usual at this point,

To discuss a few things.

One person in particular to enliven the reasons and the experience of directional breathing.

And so there's an American physicist,

Or there was an American physicist named Richard Feynman.

And for me,

What really is the most provocative and the most inspiring detail of his existence,

Of his life and of his career,

Is his relationship to mystery.

That throughout his professional career,

He worked very passionately and naturally to move against dogma.

He repelled his own,

As we all have,

His own capacity to fall into his own hype.

And he preached consistently.

And because of that,

Inspired generations to come,

The beauty of mystery,

The value of not knowing what is what.

And so I just wanted to call upon that and maybe compel you to search him on Google,

Richard Feynman,

And read a few of his quotes and enliven your thirst for mystery.

And so what is the mystery that I'm using Richard Feynman as a tool to help us sort of bite into?

And the mystery is,

What is more powerful,

The mind or the body?

What is more powerful,

Our concepts of the world or the world itself?

And that is a notable question.

And so there's a famous and archaic metaphor that has been often used to help a yogi,

A meditator understand and come to terms with this quandary.

And so the metaphor is of a chariot driver and a chariot being pulled by either ruly or unruly horses.

And so the metaphor always has five horses pulling a chariot,

The driver of the chariot and sort of an occupant of the chariot.

And the five horses represent the senses,

The reins represent the mind,

The chariot represents the body,

The chariot driver represents sentience or consciousness,

And then sort of the person being driven within the chariot but not necessarily driving the chariot.

The metaphor I'm thinking of is of Krishna himself or the avatar of the divine represents the soul or atman.

And so often the metaphor sort of helps a student understand that more than likely the five horses,

The senses run the show.

That when our eyes see a beautiful pair of shoes or a new series on Netflix or a delicious meal in the menu of a restaurant,

Our minds are compelled to reach for it.

And when we see poverty or disease or death,

Very much like the Buddha encountered when he escaped the utopia of his father's design,

We repel it.

And so a meditator is attempting as best as they can with all of their virtuosity to understand their tenacity to reach for things that are attractive and repel things that are unattractive.

And I think one of the defining qualities of a meditator is simply this questioning.

Why do I reach so passionately for what I think is enriching or beautiful or enticing or desirable?

And why exactly do I repel with such intensity that which for whatever reason I think is grotesque or uncomfortable or disagreeable?

And so that questioning sort of feeds into the spirit of Richard Feynman who really believed in honoring the mystery more than anything else.

And so here's this question.

What leads us?

Is it our mind or is it our body?

Is it our concept of the world which is what the mind represents or reality itself which is what the body represents?

And so a nice way to interact with meditation as a pursuit of perfection,

We're trying to perfect our egos,

We're trying to develop noble qualities and in that make better choices in our lives which is the truth.

But we're also trying to uncover the soul and the existential reasons for our existence which is a more notable and also mysterious point.

I think as a meditator,

It's valuable to appreciate that the body in fact leads the mind.

And again,

I'm highlighting Richard Feynman to really underline the fact that that isn't true necessarily.

It's just a momentary agreement.

For right now,

Let's consider that the body leads the mind and there's evidence for that.

When we activate our sympathetic nervous system,

When we stress ourselves out with breathing or when our environment stresses ourselves out,

We literally think different sorts of thoughts.

We think more negative thoughts.

We think through the lens of fear.

We think through the lens of doubt.

And when we're in more complacent or tranquil or beautiful or entertaining situations,

Our parasympathetic nervous system is activated and we literally think more positive thoughts.

And this is because of the body or in terms of the metaphor,

Because of the horses,

The senses and the chariot.

The chariot is pulling us in the direction of positivity or negativity.

So we can utilize the fact that we are pulled and swayed by our bodies by manipulating our breath.

And this feeds into the second lesson of this 31-day challenge which is directional breathing.

And so yesterday,

Only yesterday,

24 hours ago,

We dissected and hopefully sort of exercised the fact that when we breathe,

Our lungs and our diaphragm help us expand and deflate into six directions.

And so just to sort of refresh us,

Refresh our memories.

When we inhale,

And you're breathing now obviously,

Take a second to feel it.

As you inhale,

Your torso and abdomen,

Your belly,

Inflate forwards and backwards.

And so you thicken from front to back,

But you also widen from left to right.

And so your love handles and the sides of your ribs grow from left to right.

And then the fifth and sixth direction is that as you breathe in,

Because of the physiology of your diaphragm,

You grow taller,

Right?

The spine lengthens as the lungs inflate into the abdomen,

Which creates some sort of structure which compels your spine to lengthen.

So just take a second to feel that.

And then as you exhale,

The opposite is true,

Right?

So the torso recedes from front to back,

It thins from left to right,

And what naturally happens is you sort of slump from top to bottom.

And so the detail in terms of the exhale is that as you exhale,

Even though it's natural for the spine to flex and the torso to collapse,

What you should attempt to manage is the continual lengthening of the spine.

So as you exhale,

You want to stay tall.

And so today,

I wanted to add one more direction to these six directions.

As you inhale,

The energy and the internal physiology of your body,

Your anatomy,

Runs down.

And as you exhale,

The experience and the internal physiology of your body runs up.

And so the yogis,

Ancient meditators,

Sort of appreciated and dissected this internal direction.

The inhale has one,

The exhale has the other.

And they labeled it.

The inhale is avaroha or avaro.

And then the exhale is aroha or aro.

And so as we inhale,

You know,

You're breathing now,

So we're warming up into these ideas.

As you inhale,

The internal physiology and the experience runs down,

Meaning that as you pull the air in from the atmosphere,

From the space around you,

It runs down your sinuses into your windpipe.

It breaks out into your lungs.

All the while,

Your diaphragm is contracting down.

And that puts pressure and builds sensation in the belly.

And if you're very sensitive and breathe fully,

Your pelvic floor,

So the muscles between your genitals and your anus,

Which is the pelvic floor,

Your pelvic floor starts to dilate or stretch open,

Right,

As pressure builds through the stomach and the intestines.

And so all of that has the pattern of running down.

And that's avaro.

And then as you exhale and you push or vacate the breath out of your body,

The pelvic floor relaxes,

Right.

The diaphragm,

Which is underneath the rib cage,

Relaxes up towards the spine or up towards the heart and lungs,

Which means that your stomach,

Your intestines and your abdomen settles back into its normal place.

The diaphragm again,

You know,

Sort of recounting,

Lifts up and towards the heart.

The lungs contract and lift up towards the heart.

And then the breath,

The pattern of the breath,

Obviously rises out of the lungs,

Up through the windpipe,

Through the sinus cavity in your face,

And then out the nose.

And so it's so valuable to appreciate this physiologically.

The six directions of every breath in and out,

Inflating and deflating.

And then the specific downward movement of the inhale and the upward movement of the exhale.

And so just to highlight sort of the meditative mind,

Western physics,

Modern people,

Take a second to appreciate this,

Believe that matter is supreme over mind.

Meaning that what is physical,

What we agree is real,

Is more true than our subjective experience of it.

And so random example that's just coming to my mind right now.

If I,

You know,

Sort of stick my hand into a fire,

What is real is that I am damaging my tissue.

But if for whatever insane reason I believe that sticking my hand in fire is enriching and stabilizing and beautiful,

Most people,

Right,

Sort of accustomed to the mentality of the modern era,

We believe that matter takes precedence over the subjective experience of the mind.

Most people would agree that me sticking my hand into fire is wrong and detrimental.

And while you might sort of cater the fact that I personally and subjectively believe that it is enriching and beneficial,

We would all agree that it is wrong and damaging.

And so the yogic mind and the ancient mind is very different.

The yogic mind and the ancient mind believes that the mind,

Our subjective experience of reality is at least equivalent to the physical and material sort of patterns of our existence,

Which means that the ideas we associate to phenomena are just as real as the phenomena themselves.

So let's go back to inhaling downward movement,

Exhaling upward movement.

Inhaling avaroha,

Downward movement.

Exhaling aroha or aro,

Upward movement.

The yogis appreciated that as we inhaled and breath or life descended into our bodies,

They appreciated that as the upper life breath.

And this is sort of what it's translated as,

Where consciousness,

Which resides in heaven,

Comes down into the flesh.

And so this is what avaroha means.

And so when a yogi takes the time to inhale,

Every time they inhale,

They are thinking avaroha and they are appreciating the miracle of their existence.

They're appreciating the fact that consciousness is eternal,

That as you breathe in,

You enliven your body,

Literally with oxygen and sort of the gaseous nutrition that permits us to live for another couple minutes,

And in that we get to live our lives,

Which is the gift of existence.

As we exhale,

Aroha,

Which means the ascending breath,

Which is the nether life breath,

It's the last action we all will take in our lives,

Right?

We'll exhale our last breath and then we'll die.

The yogis appreciated that consciousness will return to heaven and leave for a moment,

Yogis believe in reincarnation,

Will leave for a moment the illusion,

The play,

And the game of maya.

Maya meaning the ephemeral,

Physical,

Ever-changing drama of existence.

So every breath in,

Consciousness descends into matter.

Every breath out,

Consciousness ascends back to heaven.

And so because they believe,

Yogis,

And I would imagine most archaic people,

The significance of mind and matter,

The significance of ideas and what we would agree of as reality was more balanced.

A breath in was not just a breath in.

A breath in was consciousness descending into the body every time you inhale.

And every time you exhale,

It was not just an exhale,

It was consciousness ascending back to heaven in some degree.

And so what I want to work on today to amplify this second technique of directional breathing is as modern people,

We appreciate the physical experience most.

Just feel that as you breathe in,

The physiology and the sensation,

The pattern of the experience runs from your face down into your pelvic floor and your abdomen.

And as you exhale,

The pattern of the physical experience,

Which you can feel,

Runs from the abdomen.

Maybe you can feel the pelvic floor.

It runs from the base of your body up and out of your face.

And if you take the time to really think about it,

That's up to you as a practitioner.

Every inhale is avaroha,

The descent of consciousness,

And every exhale is aroha,

Or the ascent or ascending of consciousness.

Cool.

So ideas and practice.

And again,

As modern people,

And we are all modern people,

So that means we are by day birth swayed to believe that the physical is more real,

More significant than the subjective or the theoretical.

Focus on the physical sensations.

And by focusing on the physical sensations,

Really feel the patterns of as you inhale,

The breath runs down,

And as you exhale,

The breath runs up.

Your mind will focus more.

And in that,

The experience of meditation,

Right?

Meditation is both a practice and an experience.

The experience of meditation will become more obvious to you.

All right.

Very well.

Let's get into this comfortable seated position.

And as quickly as you can,

Build your posture.

Hips tilt forward,

Spine is very,

Very tall,

As tall as you can imagine.

Your wrists are resting on your knees.

Lift your palms up to the sky.

Arms are as straight as possible.

Bring a random finger to each thumb.

And today,

Straighten the remaining fingers.

And so this is just a tool to hold you accountable to your stillness.

If by the end of the practice,

You discover that your fingers have curled or sort of wilted,

Means you lost track of your body,

Which means you lost presence.

And that's valuable information.

But for right now,

The fingers are straight.

Shut your jaw,

Tuck your chin in slightly,

Decompress the base of your skull.

And as you assume your posture,

Simultaneously occupy stillness.

You're essentially committing.

I'm not going to move from here on out.

We only have about 10 minutes right now.

Okay,

As you inhale,

Feel the six directions of directional breathing.

As you breathe in,

Your torso,

Belly and chest inflates front to back,

Left to right,

And from top to bottom.

And so your length,

Your vertical,

Is empowered through your breathing.

Just focus on the inhale.

So meditation is an experience.

The experience arises when we stop thinking.

The way we stop thinking is by committing to feeling,

Literally feeling our bodies.

Stillness helps us feel our bodies,

Despite the anxiety it provokes.

But breath,

Breath really helps us feel our bodies.

And it also calms us down.

So again,

As you inhale,

Feel and optimize these six directions,

Forwards and backwards,

Left and right,

Up and down.

Every breath in.

And as you exhale,

Feel that your torso,

Both your belly and your rib cage,

Recede from front to back.

You narrow from left to right,

But stay tall,

Where naturally you would shrink in the spine,

Your posture would collapse as you exhale.

Because you're meditating,

Stay vertical.

We're only going to spend about two minutes here.

These are the six directions.

We are refreshing our physical experience of yesterday's class.

Two minutes here.

And so as modern people,

All of us,

We are raised in the mentality.

We are raised in the ethos.

We believe.

We believe mind holds precedence or matter holds precedent over mind.

The external,

The physical,

The verifiable is more real than the internal,

The subjective and the personal.

That's not right or wrong.

Who knows what it is?

Who knows what is true and untrue?

But because of that position,

Because of that inherited perspective,

We can use our bodies to empower our practice.

As you inhale,

Feel physically that the breath and the anatomy runs downwardly.

The breath runs into your nose,

Then into your sinus cavity,

Down the windpipe,

Moves into the lungs.

The diaphragm contracts down into the belly as you're breathing in.

Puts pressure into your stomach area.

Maybe you can feel your pelvic floor between genitals and anus stretch.

And as you exhale,

The opposite is true.

In reverse motion,

The pelvic floor relaxes,

The belly recedes,

The lungs deflate and the breath moves up from the chest through the throat,

Out the face and through the nose.

So spend a couple minutes feeling this direction.

Inhale runs down,

Exhale runs up.

All the while feeling the expansion and deflation of the breath in and the breath out.

Now just a footnote.

Notice the more sensitive you become to the dynamics and details of your breathing,

The more control you have over breathing.

So feeling details corresponds in a positive way to control.

Education is neurode,

It is restraint,

It is control.

The more control you have over your breath,

The more empowered your sense of self,

Which is existentially gratifying.

We want control,

At least over our own being.

So control your breath,

Slow it down and feel it.

The six directions of every inhale and exhale,

Inflating and deflating,

Forwards and backwards,

Left and right,

Up and down.

As you exhale,

This is technical,

As you exhale,

Stay tall.

Now as you breathe in,

Feel the downward movement of your inhale,

Let's appreciate the symbolism which ancient people believed was as real as the reality.

As you inhale,

Consciousness descends into flesh,

Permitting conscious life.

If you never took another inhale,

You would have only moments to exist.

And so the idea of Agha Roja is real.

Every breath in,

Your consciousness is resurrected into existence.

Try to feel that.

Agha Roja,

Roja means blossom or to bud.

Agha Roja represents a branch of a tree that is sagging because it is carrying so much ripe fruit.

As you inhale,

The weight of your consciousness pulls the spirit down into the body,

Like a branch of a tree that is heavy with ripe fruit.

Beautiful stuff.

Just focus on your inhales.

Agha Roja,

As you exhale,

Agha Roja,

Roja means to bud.

The prefix,

A means to negate budding,

Which means death.

The absence of birth,

The absence of growth.

This exhale is the last action all mortal creatures will perform.

And as yogis meditate,

They appreciate the exhale as that epic effort.

Every exhale is the practice of the curtain call.

And it runs up,

Up the body.

Okay,

So you have the representation,

The philosophy of the breath in and out and its directions,

But more importantly as modern people,

You have the physical instruction.

Seven directions as you inhale,

Seven directions as you exhale.

Let's take three more hyper mindful breaths,

Purely focusing on the physical.

Feel the five horses and the chariot.

Feel the seven directions as you breathe in.

Forwards,

Backwards,

Left,

Right,

Up and down.

Then the internal experience runs down.

As you exhale,

Forwards,

Backwards,

Left,

Right,

Up and down,

Right,

You stay vertical.

The internal experience runs up.

Three more breaths.

Slow it down.

Slow it down even more.

Notice that you can overcome anxiety,

Overcome impatience,

Hyper slow breath.

Last one.

Okay,

Closing ritual.

Bring your hands to heart center.

Relax your shoulder blades.

Let's sort of pull ourselves back to the first practice almost a week ago at this point.

So your hands are pressing into one another in front of your chest,

Something like a prayer.

To prove your sentience,

Your consciousness,

Which means that you have control over what you are,

What you feel,

What you think.

Increase your sincerity.

Feel more.

Be more open,

More connected,

At will.

It's an interesting exercise.

To appreciate meditation fully,

We have to appreciate that we all suffer,

We all doubt,

We all fear.

The quote of the Buddha is that all creatures love life and all creatures fear death.

Not just death of the body,

But death of experiences,

Death of satisfaction,

Death of relationships,

Death of opportunities,

Death of chapters.

So this is what generates our suffering.

Admit that.

I suffer.

The second is to appreciate that we don't know ourselves fully.

There's a mystery to our being,

Which is beautiful,

But it's also antagonizing.

And by the end of our lives,

All of us hope to know ourselves fully.

So you want to appreciate that mystery and your relationship to that mystery.

Breathe slowly,

Seven directions.

Again proving your sentience,

Your consciousness,

Increase sincerity.

Sincerely feel that I do not know myself,

But I want to.

The last idea to appreciate is that these answers and these resolutions exist inside us,

Not outside us.

And through this practice,

Through feeling the seven directions of breathing in and out,

You are pulled more powerfully into your own being.

You can't share this state of mind.

You can't share this experience.

And for this reason,

Meditation is sacred.

But hopefully you feel,

I am certainly within myself.

I have internalized my awareness,

Which is the key definition of this practice.

Take one more inhale,

Feel the seven directions.

One more exhale,

Feel the seven directions.

As you exhale,

The nether life breath,

The breath of death.

Release your wrist back to your knees,

Nice tall spine.

And with the next inhale,

Open your eyes and just repeat in the mind,

I am no longer meditating.

The second our eyes open,

Our presence dissolves,

Our awareness is externalized,

Our minds are fragmented.

And you can feel that.

That's not necessarily wrong.

But appreciating the difference between an internalized and externalized mind,

Between a meditative mind and a waking mind,

Which yogis call Jagrat,

It informs us of the quality of both.

I'm no longer meditating,

But I was meditating.

Reviews

Very good. Appreciate the definitions and thorough explainations and of course the practice itself. Great for beginners but also very helpful for more practiced meditators. Thank you. ☮️💖🙏