31-Day Meditation Challenge: Last Day

This final lesson is simple! Sit for as long as you can while focusing on whatever it is you choose to focus on. Now, the practice is yours to create and understand. In the end, stillness and silence is the process.

Transcript

All right,

Good evening everybody.

Last day of the challenge,

July all over.

Good stuff,

You know,

I hope you're I hope you're proud of yourselves for committing,

You know,

Adding this to your already full routines.

Not really gonna talk about anything today.

This is like an important day,

You know,

In the sense of the challenge but it's also just another day of practice and I guess my big hope for you is that you take whatever resonated from this last month and you push it forward so that your your regular meditation practice is,

You know,

More enticing.

There's two ways of sort of developing developing your ability to meditate and in that sort of harvesting the consequences and one is regularity,

Right?

Meditating consistently,

You know,

Every day,

Every other day,

A few times a week,

A couple times a week but the most profound experiences I've had in meditation actually have come through intensity and so that means meditating for really long periods of time within a single day or committing extreme amounts of time,

Hours in practice,

Within a week or within a few days and so that's what we're gonna sort of tap into today and so this is what's gonna happen today.

I'm not gonna guide you at all.

You're gonna just sit and do your thing as you know,

You know,

Or you know,

As you choose to create your thing or practice but the the only guidelines are this.

If we fall back to the concept of Samsara,

Life is dualistic,

Right?

At least the human mind perceives life is dualistic meaning we see things as good and we see things as bad.

We compare experiences and phenomenon against what we believe are their opposites or something close to their opposites and this is a fundamental pattern in which in which we perceive the world and our meditation practice is no different and so when you sit today in this unguided class,

In this unguided meditation,

I want you to pay attention to only one thing and that is that for a period of time you are enthused,

Right?

You're excited about meditating and this is sort of like half of the dualistic cycle and you're doing your thing,

You're focusing on subtle sensations,

You're contemplating time and space and self,

You're contemplating gratitude,

You're contemplating the soul,

Whatever it might be but then all of a sudden out of nowhere you don't want to meditate anymore.

You have better things to do,

Right?

Desire emerges and in that dissatisfaction emerges and that might be sort of like a 5% dissatisfaction or it might explode into like a 70% dissatisfaction and you're about to stop or you're this close to opening your eyes and ending your practice and so when it crosses that threshold into like a 70%,

80% dissatisfaction,

You're in the deep end,

The deep end of disinterest.

I want you to consider that as one cycle,

Right?

You went through the optimistic and now you're deep in the pessimistic and so the struggle will be to maintain your your sense of commitment and survive that dissatisfaction and what you'll find is you'll make your way back around into enthusiasm,

Into interest again.

All by itself enthusiasm will reemerge and so I want you to make three laps.

I want you to feel satisfied,

Feel curious,

Be into your practice and then super duper dissatisfied.

You want to stop,

You want to open your eyes and then back into satisfaction.

Okay,

I'm into this again and then back into dissatisfaction and one more time back into satisfaction which is always nice and then survive that last round of dissatisfaction and end on a high note.

Take three,

Four,

Five breaths in that final lap in satisfaction and then end your practice.

And so what I'm gonna do is I'm going to wait until every one of you is done with your practice.

That might be 20 minutes,

That might be 90 minutes,

That might be two hours.

Whatever it is I'm gonna like sort of watch watch over you all and in that you know feel supported.

I'm with you in this but in terms of pushing your practice forward and continuing this this sort of regularity,

Whatever time it is that you practiced for you know however long these three and a half laps through duality or samsara take you,

20 minutes,

45 minutes,

Two hours.

From today on cut that time in half and let that be your baseline.

So if you meditate,

If you do this for 40 minutes and meditate regularly for 20 minutes.

If you do this for an hour,

Meditate regularly for 30 minutes,

So on and so forth.

And I think this is a really appropriate sort of span of time or chunk of time to commit to your practice on a daily level.

Cool and that's really it.

Alrighty everyone so take what you've learned forget what hasn't stuck with you it does not matter.

Take a second before you close your eyes open your eyes and look at everyone on the screen.

Alright they've been in this journey on this journey with you.

Excellent everyone is acknowledged.

Alright eyes are closed.

Just to sort of you know initiate your final practice with a little bit of humor.

I saw a meme I was reading a meme and it's like some people think we should wear masks some people think we shouldn't wear masks but we can all agree that consciousness was a mistake.

So I thought that was funny.

Consciousness is a burden if we don't know how to use it and fundamentally that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to extend a little bit of control and understanding into this consciousness thing.

So last thing that's it.

Pause fine eyes closed.

The time is now.

You know the time.

5.

06 West Coast 8.

06 East Coast or somewhere in between.

Three and a half rounds of Samsara.

Three and a half laps.

I'm into this I'm not into this I'm into this I'm not into this I'm into this I'm not into this.

Take three breaths in that final zone of optimism.

And the way we have always ended hands to heart center.

Lift your thumb knuckles to third eye center.

Hold your breath that whole thing.

Open your eyes see what time it is.

Cut that in half and that is your that is your meditation time.

Okay and you're already off.

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