31-Day Meditation Challenge: Day 8

Welcome! This is the eighth 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.

The point of meditation is to obliterate the mind, which happens by focusing intensely. Certain objects of focus are more conducive to meditation than others, at first. The sense of touch and feeling the inner body is one of these "superior" focus points.

Enjoy.

Transcript

All right,

Good evening everyone.

Congratulations for surviving a week of consistent practice.

If this is the first time that you've ever committed to your meditation practice daily,

It's a memorable achievement and I hope it's sort of presented its benefits to you in some capacity.

And so we're getting into the third technique today,

Seventh day.

And so before we get into this third technique,

I just wanted to take a second and encourage you to contemplate on the first two lessons.

And so take it upon yourself for a couple seconds and reflect on what is the first lesson,

You know,

Of this 31-day challenge and what was the second lesson of this 31-day challenge.

What did it do for you?

How did it empower you?

How was it challenging?

Anything that might arise as you reflect on your work.

Couple seconds,

Not too long.

What was the first lesson?

What was the second lesson?

Okay,

And so the first lesson was stillness and posture.

And so that is,

It is paramount to the success and intensity of meditation as a process,

But more importantly an experience.

And I think it's really meaningful to highlight that that experience is mysterious to us until we start to experience it.

But that gradual approach to the moment of meditation as an experience is gradual.

It takes time to build up inside us.

It takes time for us to recognize it as it moves through us.

And so the mystery,

The confusion,

The curiosity,

The spectacle of it is very natural.

But over the course of your practice,

And that means months and years,

You'll look back and realize,

I think this is really poetic.

You look back and realize that you were experiencing it the very first time you decided to close your eyes and slow down your breath.

You just didn't know how to identify it.

But stillness and posture are paramount to the development of that relationship.

The second technique was directional breathing.

So as you breathe in,

You're trying to feel these seven directions.

As you exhale,

You're trying to feel these seven directions.

And again,

This just bolsters your sensitivity and your presence and allows you to gradually become more familiar with this fabled experience.

Okay,

So the third technique is designed to help us replace thinking and concept and analysis.

So the sort of workings of the mind replace thinking with feeling.

And so that doesn't mean emotional feeling.

We're not trying to process the emotional or psychological experience of our nature or of our lives.

We're trying to literally feel our bodies with increased sensitivity.

And so two really helpful ways of doing that is holding your breath.

So as you hold your breath,

CO2 builds inside your tissue.

And as the CO2 builds,

Your brain starts to pay attention to this change in sort of like gas or chemistry inside your blood.

And in that,

You're sort of forcing your brain mechanically to pay attention to your body.

And so we're going to work with this technique.

This technique is called Kumbhaka in Sanskrit.

Kumbhaka means,

Kumbha means vessel.

And so what you are the vessel of is vital energy.

And vital energy proves to be in a literal way carbon dioxide.

And so you hold your breath to force your brain to pay attention to your body.

That helps you feel your body.

The second technique that we're going to thread into holding our breath is chanting.

Simply said,

Singing.

And so what singing does,

Speaking does it also,

But when you sing and whenever you create sort of like a sound that comes out of your own body,

It depends on resonance.

And so as we push air out of our lungs and we move it through the collapse or tightening of the glottis,

Right,

The vocal cords,

That creates a vibration inside our throat.

It resonates into our bodies and that creates sound.

And as simple and as intuitive as it is to speak,

The mechanics of generating sound from the organism that we are is rather interesting and miraculous.

And if we can leverage that sort of like biology to help us feel our bodies,

This enables us again to replace thought and analysis with pure feeling.

And so what we're going to do today,

Again this is the first day we're introducing this technique,

We're going to inhale,

Hold our breaths,

And as we exhale we're going to chant or you can hum whatever you want.

The chant simply would be om,

Om,

Or you can hum,

Just collapse the mouth and hum through like the M sound,

Mmm,

Exhaling as you chant or exhaling as you sing.

And once you've sort of depleted your breath,

You're going to hold your breath again.

And so the ratio,

Like how much time are you spending in each section of this exercise.

When you breathe in at the beginning of our practice today,

I'd like you to just count the natural length of your inhale.

Let's say it's a seven count.

Then as you hold your breath,

Your lungs are full,

Just hold for that same amount of time.

So you inhale for seven,

You hold for seven.

As you exhale and sing or chant,

Whether it's om or just mmm,

Double the length of that initial inhale.

So if you inhale for seven,

Chant or sing for 14 counts.

And then as you hold your breath at the very end,

Do your best to hold for again for a seven count.

And so in terms of a ratio,

It would be inhale one,

Hold one,

Exhale two,

Hold one.

One more time to elaborate.

What we're attempting to do in this is learn to physically feel the details and nuances of our body.

The more enchanted and enticed and willing we are to feel the immediate experience of our bodies,

The less likely it is that we will be thinking about our identity and thinking about our lives.

And so that absence of self-analysis in a very literal way is nirvana.

And the more time per day,

Per week that we spend literally not processing ourselves or our lives,

The more this state of liberation,

This state of non-self or what Buddhists coin as no mind,

This state of no mind becomes more prevalent within our psyche.

And that becomes a perfect counterbalance to the stress that naturally arises as we attempt to live our lives more successfully.

And that's the struggle,

Just sort of like a heart to heart.

The struggle of our existence,

And we all struggle in some way,

Admitting that is the first noble truth or the first noble step of Buddhism and all spirituality,

That struggle hinges on the passions that we hold for ourselves and our own sort of successful existence.

And so even though it seems counterintuitive to denounce the passion we have over ourselves,

It proves beneficial to the overall well-being of our experience or our storyline.

And so it's all about no self,

And that literally arises more powerfully when we learn to feel versus think.

And so this technique will help you feel versus think.

Cool.

So let's get into this.

Again,

Day seven upon us,

One week done,

Excellent job.

Third lesson.

And so these are two techniques entwined into one.

The first is a breath technique called kumbhaka.

Kumbha means vessel.

You are collecting vital energy.

And the second is chanting.

And so within a few breaths,

Build your posture and experience and commit to your stillness.

Long posture.

Build and then commit to your stillness in a matter of moments.

And so the speed in which you can design and then commit to your practice suggests fluency and capability.

Now right away,

Feel the consequence of just sitting still and sitting upright.

So there's a few things to pay attention to.

It's not enough just to move through the wilderness of your meditation practice.

My goal for this journey,

This month-long trial,

Is that you understand what's going on as you move through this wilderness.

So notice a sense of wakefulness and alertness.

And it comes with anxiety.

It comes with a little stress.

What's more important is the aliveness.

And so feel that.

That aliveness is your sympathetic nervous system.

It's a stress response.

But all stress isn't negative.

Stillness generates stress.

Think about when you're startled and you freeze for a moment.

And your posture generates stress.

Think about a dog barking at a neighbor walking too close to the fence.

Their hair stands on end.

They're posturing to confront the threat.

And sitting up in this way provokes that same instinct within the body.

But it's manifesting as aliveness.

And that's useful.

Now start to slow down your breath.

Think about these seven directions.

Breathing slowly and into the belly empowers peace.

Again,

It's not enough to follow blindly with these instructions.

You must become fluent.

You must become fluent with their signals and what they represent.

And so you're awake,

You're alert,

Maybe a little anxious,

But you're also calmed and tranquilized.

The last detail to appreciate as you focus on the experience of your body versus your environment is that you are internalizing.

You're looking away from the world.

You're looking away from what can be said is the outside.

And you're taking some time out of your evening to commit to investigating what can be said to be the inside.

And where the outside is populated with others,

It is complicated and collective.

The inside is only you.

It's personal.

And because of that,

Sacred.

Slow down the breath again.

Now the goal of this practice,

The finish line,

Is the obliteration of thought.

That for moments or for hours,

Whatever we choose,

We can turn off our psyche.

And in the absence of thought,

In the absence of analysis,

We experience both ourselves and reality in a unique and inexplicable openness and acceptance.

Anything that is unknowable to anyone that does not take the initiative to practice.

This inexplicable openness and embrace is spirit.

And so you are learning to define spirit among many other objectives as you practice,

As you sit still,

As you breathe.

So consider that.

And so the way to obliterate the mind is by learning to feel.

And holding your breath helps you feel,

Chanting and singing intentionally helps you feel.

As you breathe in,

Start to count the natural length of your inhale,

However long it takes.

So let's take about three breaths in our privacy.

Every time you breathe in,

Count.

And notice that the counting itself is focusing and centering.

And so you have this baseline length,

Whatever it is,

Five seconds,

Seven seconds,

Ten seconds,

Fifteen seconds.

And so this is the exercise.

Exhale for that baseline.

Hold your breath for that same baseline.

Double the length of your exhale while humming or chanting om,

Singing.

And then again,

Hold your breath for the baseline.

And so for the next two minutes,

Not so long,

Practice this and get used to the mechanics,

The choreography of the exercise.

Inhale the baseline,

Hold the baseline,

Chant om or just hum through an M sound,

Mmm,

For double the length,

And then again,

Hold your breath for the same baseline.

If there's a sense of asphyxiation,

A sense of suffocation at the end,

Do your best to survive it.

But notice as the body suffocates,

You haven't inhaled,

You haven't pulled an oxygen in a little while,

You become deeply sensitive to feeling and deeply present.

Blamed.

Increase your willingness to feel.

Physically feel the body.

And in that,

Divert your energy away from thinking.

So we spoke about this yesterday,

But in that moment of choice where you choose to feel overanalyzed,

What you have to sacrifice in some existential way is yourself.

Because all we really do is think about ourselves.

And so there's a little bit of trust involved in that decision.

And so what are you exactly trying to feel?

Focus on the chant as you exhale,

You hum or you om.

Feel the vibration,

The resonance,

The buzz of a voice echoing inside your chest.

Notice how that more than likely the mind immediately projects questions.

What is this?

Why am I doing this?

What is the utility of feeling this vibration?

Don't get pulled into the trap.

Just feel.

Feel that vibration as you chant the om or om.

And then as you hold your breath and CO2 builds inside your blood,

Try to find a similar vibration.

A bit more subtle,

A bit faster,

But vibration.

And so what you're attempting to feel and in terms of yogic philosophy,

Yoga as meditation,

Is known as both nad,

Which is sound.

You're feeling sound.

Even as CO2 builds in your bloodstream,

That tingling is sound.

But you're also feeling spanda.

And spanda is the universal sort of ever-present pulsation of existence.

Whether that pulse is birth to death,

Whether that pulse is sunrise to sunset,

Whether that pulse is the blipping of neurons in your brain,

Or the inhale and the exhale that fundamentally builds our lives.

Everything moves to a rhythm and on and off,

A yes and no,

And up and down.

And you're feeling that.

And so the yogis worship these vibratory sensations as spanda,

As universal rhythms.

And so what I'd like you to pay attention to now,

You're still working with this exercise,

Is that these vibrations feel good,

Especially the chanting,

The humming.

And that's why people sing when they're happy.

And if you look closely,

Even when you're suffocating,

That tingling and buzzing of asphyxiation is enlivening.

And in the same way that someone can appreciate the heat of a spicy dish,

You can appreciate the tingle or the buzz of this asphyxiation.

So notice that it feels good,

The hum and the buzz of CO2 building up in your blood.

You you you Okay,

End the technique.

Just breathe normally.

Hold your stillness.

Manage your posture.

And in a gentle way,

Breathe into the seven directions.

But at the same time,

Do your best to abandon the idea that you're doing anything at all.

Allow yourself just to sit down quietly,

Present to your experience,

Present to your moment,

Present to yourself.

And so where at first there was rigidity,

You're learning something new.

Now there's flexibility.

And if you can appreciate this,

If you can wrap your mind around this now,

You're giving yourself such a head start on the understanding of what meditation is.

Meditation at first is something.

It's something different.

It's a way,

A path.

But at the end,

Meditation becomes nothing.

And the whole scheme of it proves to be more illusory,

More a figment of the mind than anything else.

What that means is you're just sitting down.

But because we're so desperate for meaning and purpose and instruction and order,

Before we can learn how to just sit down and take that seriously,

We have to build it up into a process.

So take about three more breaths.

Again,

Seven directions,

Stillness,

Presence,

Posture.

But you're just sitting down and that's valuable.

Okay,

Bring your hands to heart center.

Relax your shoulder blades down your back and increase your sincerity.

Meaning take the time to appreciate your humanity.

There is happiness and there is sorrow.

There is security and there is insecurity.

Within you there is righteousness,

But there is also arrogance and wrongdoing within this moment but also over the course of our story.

So meditation leads us to the myth of perfect balance,

Equanimity,

And hinges on the extinguishing of self which comes through focus.

So just appreciate again that through your stillness you are looking into yourself,

Looking away from the rest of your day,

Looking away from the rest of the world in the hope of touching something unique.

Now lift your thumb knuckles to third eye center.

Notice if there is a resistance,

An embarrassment,

A sense that this is strange or unnecessary.

That's just the mind projecting preferences into an innocent action.

But now feel your thumb knuckles pressing into the skin of your forehead.

This is what it's about.

Learn to feel the way a chef learns to taste,

The way a musician learns to hear,

The way a photographer learns to see.

Learn to feel the pressure of the left thumb knuckle versus the right thumb knuckle,

The temperature,

The texture.

And as you attempt to grip your awareness into this little point of sensation,

Notice that it is difficult but simultaneously intuitive.

This is the skill set.

It's pure focus.

Yogis call this dharana.

Slow down the breath.

And if you're really sensitive,

That little burst of nerve sensation,

Skin pressing into skin,

It's also vibratory.

It tingles and it buzzes.

And if you're open-minded enough,

As simple as it is,

The touch of your thumb knuckles against your forehead also feels good.

It's also euphoric.

Let's take one more breath in,

One more breath out.

Release your wrists back to your knees.

Very quickly build your posture again.

And with your next breath in,

Open your eyes,

Repeating,

I'm no longer meditating.

That's over.

Feel that transition.

Feel difference,

Like day and night.

Reviews

Another good lesson and practice. My 'om' was really vibrating and time totally flew by with very little wandering mind. Thank you again. ☮️💖🙏