Nomadic Practice | Jan 3 2024 Mindful Q&A W/ Wendy #16

In this sixteenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we chat about what it’s like maintaining a consistent formal (international) mediation practice in/given sometimes significantly fluctuating and uncertain conditions. We also touch on some everyday meditative techniques possible outside of more formal sitting practice including various types of laying down, standing, and walking meditations as well as mindfulness of seeing (and looking). We emphasize how helpful it is sometimes, especially in certain conditions and circumstances, to change the view and relationship to our challenges. Safety, retreat, gender are a few more topics amongst others we weave, or stray into

Transcript

Welcome to this,

What is this?

Is this the,

I've even lost count of the numbers,

But you can look,

But this is our monthly meditation Q&A.

And today's topic,

Nomadic meditation.

Here I am in my car again,

In the wintertime in Missouri,

And I forgot my headphones,

So I've got these janky headphones,

For those of you can see,

And they're yellowed on the top,

So they're clean in the ear though,

That's what matters.

And so this is what it's like meditating on the run,

I guess,

I don't know if that's not the right way to put it,

But what I'd like to do today is explore what it's like to meditate in a lot of different places,

Amongst maybe a lot of different lifestyles,

Living in various places too.

I mean,

I haven't been a nomad for,

Well,

I wouldn't even be a full nomad at all,

But I wanna jump in here and just,

And talk about what it's like,

Not to just be settled in one place and meditate all kinds of different situations and things like this,

And I'll go mostly from experience.

Wendy,

How would you jump in and enter this topic?

You know,

There is an idea,

A,

You have to be,

So first up,

M.

Reid,

Hello.

Oh,

Yeah,

Hello M.

Reid,

I know the,

Well,

Not in person,

But I know of M.

Reid,

Yes,

Hello M.

Second,

I'm calling from Gubbi Gubbi country in Queensland,

So my respects to elders past,

Present,

And emerging.

Time for actually the quality of the care that Aboriginal people have had for 65,

000 year country,

So I wanna recognize that and acknowledge.

And that is a people that have actually moved around a lot,

So they started up in Northern Queensland,

Which is on the East Coast,

And then in 10,

000 years,

They went and across the whole country,

And it's not a small country,

So it's about the same size as Europe or the same size as the US,

The mainland,

Not including Alaska.

So that's how big it is,

And it took them 10,

000 years to go that distance.

And the thing that I think is really good is about moving and being in transition,

And maybe you go somewhere and you settle,

Or maybe you go somewhere and you go another place and you go another place.

And every place is different.

So I've,

And because I've been in a couple,

I've lived in a couple of different cultures,

The culture that I've been in has influenced my practice and also how much at home I am also influences my practice,

The weather influence my practice,

The physical environment,

All sorts of different things influence my practice.

So technically,

I might even listen to a Dharma talk,

Yeah,

A Dharma talk,

And hear it in one country,

In one context,

Go somewhere,

Maybe where the person comes from,

And I go,

Oh,

That's what they meant.

Or I might hear it in one context and several times and then come back home,

Wherever home is.

For instance,

I spent time in Europe quite a bit,

So now I'm back in Australia,

And go,

Oh,

I hear that so differently here.

So that's what I would say.

It reminds me a little bit of this next thing I'm gonna say,

But I wanted to focus quite a bit on just practical things.

Hopefully,

I don't bore people too much on the ins and outs of that kind of like to talk about.

But this reminds me of just traveling in general too,

Because I don't know if anybody else has noticed this,

But maybe look for this,

The kind of state of conscious when traveling,

At least for some people,

It tends to like,

I don't know,

Be unconscious,

Maybe that's too watered down or calm.

But even more interesting than that,

It's almost like when we travel,

Then we come back to where we're living,

And things are a little bit different after that trip,

Right,

At least for a couple days,

Like as we settle back into our regular space of where we live,

To me,

I don't know how to describe it,

But the perception seems a little bit different from the stable kind of perception that's there.

We're just going about a retreat and things like this.

So I don't know how to explain that effect,

But I do find it quite fascinating how that is.

Okay,

So I wanna take this if I can to just practicalities.

Okay,

So when traveling in a plane,

How do you meditate on a plane?

You know,

And I've done this before,

A lot of it's timing,

Right?

If you're on a short trip,

You might not have as much time.

One airline,

Like I did,

SAS,

They come around like every,

Oh,

So often with Ian Coffey.

Then there's other airlines that are really,

You know,

Hands off.

So usually on an airplane,

It's pretty easy because you can sit there.

I mean,

I can even cross my legs and take my shoes off and cross my legs.

I'm pretty flexible,

I can do that.

And set a timer on the phone.

You can put headphones in even,

And have Insight Timer or whatever,

The regular timer app,

And just ding and ding so you don't lose track of time.

You can do it like that.

And most people won't bother you if you have a headphone.

It's just,

Oh,

There are blindfold on in the plane.

Sometimes you can't do that,

Though.

And one thing I've found helps,

Or sometimes you meditate in a space and it's just not having the same effect that you need or want.

And so there's kind of an experiment I offer people,

Not when you're driving,

Though,

Is listen to a Dhamma talk,

Or especially a guided meditation without formally meditating,

With your eyes open and kind of pretending you're around,

And see the effect it has on the mind and body when doing that.

So it's really interesting.

So I won't say much about it,

I'll let you explore it for yourself.

So I think I'm just gonna start with,

And then time zone,

Adjusting for time zones with meditation.

If you're trying to keep a consistent meditation practice,

I mean,

If you want to,

It can only be three in and out breaths,

Conscious in and out breaths.

But I'll start with a plane because I've talked enough here,

And then I'll go into other mode than places where we might be when we're traveling or just staying.

Wendy,

What's your experience on meditating on airplanes,

Or have you done it?

I have never done that.

You know,

I'm in Australia,

So we do long haul.

So a short flight for us is five hours.

I mean,

We travel domestically,

And that might be an hour.

But if we are traveling abroad,

The shortest time it can be is probably,

I think,

Two hours,

That's New Zealand.

But it depends if that's from Sydney,

Maybe,

To Auckland,

That might be the shortest.

But that's the absolute shortest,

And that's shorter than it is to get to the other side of the country.

So I'm in Queensland.

For me to get to Perth,

That's five hours.

So that's that.

For us,

I think,

You know,

In England,

When I was there,

I would have to say,

Thailand is just halfway to get to Australia,

Because that's our halfway point to sort of just have a bit of a break.

So I have never meditated.

It's 12 hours,

You know,

Eight to 12 hours for each leg.

You know,

By the time you get on,

You check in the movies,

Because I like to check out all the movies,

Eat your meals,

And they always,

You know,

Because it's Australia,

It sort of might be dinner,

Lunch,

Breakfast.

So I,

And actually,

To be honest,

I've started taking a sedative before I fly,

Just because I get my,

I find I'm so jangled from security.

I find it really helpful to,

I take hops,

It's available in the supermarket.

It can be addictive,

So heads up on that.

If you have that tendency,

Don't do that.

But I just want to get to the others least pain as possible.

So that's definitely where I am.

Well,

That's no judgment here.

Maybe this,

The other stuff might bore you,

But train is kind of similar.

The domestic trains in the United States are not the grist,

You know what I mean?

And so,

But they're big seats.

And so it's similar type of thing on a train.

So you don't have to worry.

Now in a car,

Of course,

Not when you're driving,

That goes without saying,

Hopefully it doesn't need that.

I have gone on trips like with my buddy in Colorado.

And at night,

I sat in the passenger seat and he was driving and I could sit on the seat.

I mean,

It's not quite the same thing.

And it's definitely an experience of sensation,

Extra sensations of the body formally meant.

But other times,

I will time it where the people that I'm with,

We could pull off and find a park too.

And with nobody around or really nobody's gonna say anything.

You just wanna sit in the car seat.

Gone to state parks too,

Where I like to sit in the woods.

And so every once in a while,

If the weather permitting,

The people I'm with do it,

I will sit in woods on the ground for a short time.

Now I also sat in a park nearby my house and that's,

It's quite pleasant if there's no insects around.

And as long as people are minding their own business,

It's like that,

You know.

Okay,

So outside the modes of travel,

We have places like,

You know,

Your hotel.

Okay,

So this is a really easy one for me.

I sit with,

Usually I take the pillows.

They usually have like four pillows in a hotel.

We'll take one or two and double them up and take the top machines or whatever off the bed.

I mean,

Top sheets or blankets or comforter or what they in Europe.

Put that on the floor,

Double that up and there's my Zafu in Utah and there we go.

You know,

If who's ever with you when they're sleeping or some people even go in the bathrooms,

Like Tina Rasmussen,

Who's book,

Practicing the Jhanas,

I just found a YouTube channel.

She talked to bathrooms.

So any experience in Airbnbs and hotels or?

I'm,

I,

You know,

I am not that kind of meditator.

I meditate at home,

I meditate on a tree and I see Emery is in Sydney.

So nice to have another Sydney in and now I want to go,

Oh,

I wonder where,

But don't divulge anything private.

So don't do that.

But I'm like super curious and a little bit distracted with that.

I,

I think I,

I like to feel that the place I'm safe.

So one of the things that I would do if I were meditating is one of the things that I would do is I,

I,

If I were in a place like the forest or wherever,

I would actually keep my eyes open and meditate with my eyes open,

Just because I,

I don't know a space.

And if I feel there's no one around,

I might not feel so safe.

So that might be a difference between a safe space for women and a safe space for men,

Because I think there's a gender thing on that one.

So yeah,

Maybe that's why I,

I tend not to meditate in public places because I'm actually always looking around to see if it's a safe space and on retreat,

I know it's safe and at home,

I know it's safe.

So that's what I do.

This is a big one for guys to really understand.

And my,

My partner talks a lot about this too,

That,

And by the way,

She talks about the long hauls to Australia and she usually has gone through from Europe to Dubai for,

You know,

For layover and then Australia for the time she's gone down there.

But for females,

I mean,

When she really laid it out graphically about how much safety is involved about,

You know,

Even just crossing the other side of the street when certain males are coming,

You know,

Always having to worry about,

You know,

Their own safety,

You know,

If they're going to have to be in certain,

You know,

The situations and on and on and on.

So,

I mean,

It sucks.

I mean,

Come on guys,

Dudes,

You know,

Dude,

Bros,

You know,

Be kind,

Be a gentleman.

It's,

Would you want to,

Would you want to have to be in the same shoes?

You know,

It's,

It's,

I don't know what else to say really about this,

But yeah,

I mean,

And even in a forest,

I did a show in the past about Mediature being in and of nature,

But some people just don't feel safe in nature to begin with whether there's nobody around at all.

Some people just have a huge sigh of relief when they get,

You know,

Because they feel more supported and less pressurized by men's designs and more ideas and deadlines and yada,

Yada.

So I think most people will know right away whether the space,

Whether they meditate,

They find safety,

Ease and wellbeing more in city situations,

Indoor buildings,

Or they feel that way in nature.

Now I'm a mix of both because it depends on the conditions in nature.

If there's too many insects,

Obviously,

If it's too muddy or wet or too hot,

Of course that's the obvious thing,

Right?

But sometimes people get frightened in nature too.

I think there's some suttas and stuff that says if one has past actions,

Certain past actions,

I don't know that they just might be more frightened in general nature.

Another thing is might be worried about having enough food or,

You know,

Not having enough water or things like this,

But then it could be the opposite for cities and towns like every is interrupting me,

You know,

There's too noisy,

Yada,

Yada.

So we know all these types of conditions and overall we don't want to spend too many,

I feel anyway,

We don't want to spend too much time trying to get all the external constraints right.

I mean,

There's so much we can do to where we get the external conditions as possible.

But if all I'm doing is kind of micromanaging my obsessive compulsive about it,

Or I don't know about certain things and everything has to be perfect before I can meditate,

That defeats the whole point for me.

One of the points of meditation is being okay with how they are,

Right?

Or training to be in things how they are and what do I do that?

How do I see this?

How do I perceive this situation that I'm in?

How do I respond to it?

How am I?

What's my relationship to the environment that I'm in,

That I'm meeting?

Another one,

Wendy and I did a show about holiday celebrations.

So how are we,

If we're around our fleet or in an environment where we're living,

Where we have roommates or other things like that?

Do we have a space where we can go where we'll be uninterrupted for a period of time?

Or do we just need to be okay with whatever space we can find wherever we're at that we can meditate on?

So I think I threw enough out here for Wendy to come.

So just a heads up,

Emery has said,

Listening to you talk,

Josh,

Sounds like a life in meditation,

A meditative life.

Nice.

It really is.

Just real quick to comment on that.

It's been 10 years,

Two hours a day years.

And at a certain point,

A lot of times it's like a walking meditation.

Compared to where I was like two years ago,

I was in a semi-meditate all the time,

But I'd still do a formal practice.

And it is,

You know,

It's a big part of my day.

It's a habit.

And so the mind and stuff orient just doing this every day.

And so some situations are more challenging,

But the mind just figures it out and finds a place and a time to do it.

I feel very lazy and incompetent.

I just go,

Yeah,

I'm only like at my place or on retreat.

I don't meditate anywhere else.

There was a retreat that I did see,

Which was in the Snowy Mountains in Australia,

Which is part of the Great Dividing Range on the East Coast.

And I have always wanted to be at Mount Kosciuszko or wherever during the summer.

I always wanted to do.

And now I moved to Queensland and I saw there was a retreat there,

Or it was COVID and I wanted to go.

And then I moved up here.

So it's quite a lot much further away.

So it's an extra thousand kilometers from Sydney,

Which is where I was.

And on top of that,

I have chronic tendinitis and bursitis.

So I couldn't even walk it.

I could barely walk five minutes now.

And so there is a,

I would love to have done that.

But then I think maybe that has flown and maybe I will never do it.

So I am going to be leading a one day class,

I hope,

About an hour from here,

Which will be at an organic farm.

And I'm really hoping that I'll be able to do it and do a walking meditation in that,

Just to see what it's like.

Because walking meditation is great for being in real,

You know,

Daily life.

So what are we like when we walk?

Not to go super slowly,

But just to notice,

Where do we hold our body?

What have we got going on for us when we walk?

And all that,

You know,

That part.

And I,

You know,

I think like a lot of people on meditation retreats,

When it comes to walking meditation,

Most people just never.

I've heard this confession from many,

Many teachers,

Where they go,

Oh,

I just go to my room and I go to sleep.

But often I'll meditate in there,

But I go,

Oh,

Maybe I need to do walking meditation.

But I do think that there is,

Just going back to that thing,

I was actually thinking about when I was living in England and it was,

I felt so out of sorts and so,

I was trying so hard just to keep myself from going down some,

From not going down some horrible vortex of unhappiness,

That I just did my best to keep it all together.

And now I look at that and I felt quite dulled in my practice,

In many ways.

So,

But,

But so,

Yeah,

I,

That's how it is.

And then back home.

So I would be really curious for you to hear you,

Josh,

How do you experience meditating in Denmark,

Even in your fiance's house,

Which is where you live,

And meditating at home,

Maybe in your parents' house,

And meditating when you think back to how it was when you were meditating in your own home.

And just as a heads up,

M Reid has said,

Yeah,

Big fan of walk meditation,

So.

There's so much here,

Wendy,

So I want to go over,

I hope you get to go on that retreat.

I mean,

I almost want to start a fundraiser.

I mean,

That's,

You guys,

Let's encourage and support.

I will,

If there's anything where you feel incompetent,

The only thing that I think there's incompetence is,

And this is a really good point.

You hear me brag,

Almost brag or humble brag about all this stuff,

Right?

Or,

You know,

Oh,

I'm so elevated,

I do all this stuff.

This is a really good point,

Because this is a,

This common tendency,

There's no shame or blame in doing this,

Because it's natural tendency to compare ourselves to others,

Right?

But usually it's a setup for discipline,

Either that,

Then I feel like,

Oh,

I'm so elevated over someone else,

Or I'm not good enough,

Or even if I'm like,

Okay,

I'm just as good as that guy,

Or I'm just as good as,

You know,

That even that,

You know,

Even that is like,

Well,

Wait a second,

We have all these vast,

Different richness in who we are and complexity,

You know?

And so one of the ways I found out of that is comparing it to ourselves.

But even that,

Me telling Wendy not to compare is still kind of a comparison,

So I'd like,

How do I even tell people about that,

You know,

So when they don't ask for it,

But I wanna say,

No matter where you're at,

No matter what your level of practice,

Dedication or lack thereof,

It's,

You don't need all that,

You know,

You don't need,

You know,

As long as you're putting in the effort every once in a while,

I think,

You know,

And like,

Now this goes to the next part about walking meditation,

It's really important.

So I've just talked about formal sitting meditation,

And this is where I,

Yeah,

Most people think that's all meditation is about,

But it's not,

There's four main postures,

Right?

And the other ones are walking and standing and lying down.

And so walking is a great way,

I mean,

The Buddha,

From what I understand,

He highly advocated that,

Because you have to travel,

Speaking about nomadic meditation,

Before all these fancy vehicles and things like that,

You know,

And people couldn't have horses,

They walked from places.

And walking meditation is one I'm challenged at,

You know,

Because I sometimes feel like,

Oh,

I have to walk now,

Because I'm longer.

It's so ridiculous,

But it is a really good one.

And I'll just mention a few styles that I like,

The Shifu out at Mid-America Buddhist Association,

He has the most unique one I've never seen,

It's like a Tai Chi walk,

I almost have to show it to describe it,

But all the weight is on the back leg.

The,

Then the one leg moves forward,

And the kind of the ball of the foot touches down and touches the ground,

And then when it's there,

Then all of a sudden,

All the weight shifts from the back leg to then that leg,

And then that's the back leg,

While the other foot is then now slightly touching down on the ground.

And then once that's stable,

Then it switches.

So anyway,

It's like gliding,

Gliding.

But then the other style is this,

Maybe it's the Mahasi style,

It's where you lifting and placing,

Lifting and placing.

And so I find that really helpful when you really want to slow down and to see the inner mechanics of how we walk,

Although it's completely artificial,

It shows how much we're missing and how much more we can take in and notice,

Dream about.

You know,

John Suchito,

Another teacher that I like,

I like his,

He's just,

It's a natural movement.

And so you're going from the hips,

Right?

And it's like you're walking in water,

Some of the things he talks about.

And then you're also aware of your entire body eventually,

And then what's beyond your body,

But it always comes to the center of the body.

And you don't have to walk any way special,

Just notice that there's a body when you're walking.

I mean,

This isn't giving here,

But there's a book called,

And it's free,

It's called A Moving Balance that he wrote just about walking.

And the other one I like is just noticing the sensations in your foot and your feet.

How do your feet feel when you're moving?

That's a great to do too.

So that way,

It always keeps your eyes open when you're walking.

Don't walk around with your eyes closed unless you wanna hit something and have people and ask what you're doing.

So now Wendy's question here,

And I wanna ask Wendy to,

But I'll answer a question before I forget,

Tendinitis,

Wendy,

I didn't know this.

If you're open to talking about this,

In five minutes of walking,

Okay,

I'm very fascinated now at how you use that in your practice,

Well,

Just everyday life in general.

But as far as Denmark goes,

You know,

There are key differences.

It's basically based on space and people,

Right?

So there's only so much space in her apartment.

And so I have my own little corner there,

But then there's certain times when we're working.

So a lot of it is time management.

So we're not on top of each other.

Sometimes you just meditate.

You know,

Everything's going about your day later.

Other times I like it more quiet.

So it is this constant like flow and because it's not the same as when I was living on my own,

I could do anything I wanted when I was on my own,

Right?

Pretty much,

Unless the neighbor was acting up and I had to go see what was going on with that.

But yeah,

I mean,

So that's the thing.

It's not,

And this goes to larger dynamics that I'm learning as well.

So it's not just the same when I'm by myself.

In my folks' house,

It's a mixture of all these things.

Sometimes in a room that I'll be by myself entirely,

You know,

Kind of secluded.

Sometimes I'll hear the walls because it's really close to the kitchen or something.

Other times I'm in with my fiance,

You know,

Sometimes I'll wake up and do that before she's awake.

Sometimes we're both awake.

Sometimes she's hanging out.

Sometimes things need to be sorted with what's going on around there.

So it's just constant flux and dynamic and it's not as steady and stable,

But if there's a strong resolve and a habit,

Then it's,

For me,

It'll happen regardless.

And so the things like Insight Timer help keep it on track and support and track things too.

Yeah,

Once it's a habit,

Then it's really,

For me,

It's fairly easy to do,

But I know not everybody's.

Okay,

So Wendy,

Tendinitis,

What's going on with that?

Ah,

Yeah,

So that was,

You know,

Talking about mindfulness of the body,

Not.

So during the pandemic,

I couldn't get to the gym or I was very limited in what,

You know,

At home.

And the only thing we were allowed to do was,

Because I was in one of the,

So Australia was locked down in a lot of places and certainly Sydney was.

And so I,

The only reason you could go out and in many places you could only go out for an hour,

It was to do exercise.

So that was it,

Exercise and shopping.

I think that was grocery shopping,

That.

So that was all you were allowed to do.

And so I thought,

Well,

I'll do the couch to 5K.

And I think I might even have mentioned it where I went for a run and I did it,

It's a particular program and it was really good.

I got quite good.

And then I thought,

Okay,

Well,

I'll keep going.

And I noticed that I didn't warm up well.

And I thought,

Oh,

I've got these trainers and they're okay,

But I didn't want to spend $300 for buying,

You know,

A pair of trainers.

And so,

And then I noticed that I found myself walking like a duck.

I get out of bed and I just be like flat and be like,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun,

Dun.

And then I was going,

That's so weird.

And then I looked it up and they said,

This is a tendinitis.

And I thought,

Ah,

Well,

I'll stop.

But then we moved house and we moved up here and I went to the gym.

I went to a gym and they're like,

Push,

Push,

Push.

And it was too much on my body.

And then I also took up some,

And we moved house.

So I did a lot of carrying,

Which means that the feet were really,

And I didn't know what was going on.

I didn't know what the exercises were.

I'd try some,

But then it would hurt anyway.

So,

And then we got in the lawn here and it's a bit of a gradient.

And so I was,

I wanted to stretch out my legs,

But the problem with my calves,

The problem with that was that I was pushing the lawnmower up.

And so I just really,

I was lucky that it didn't tear.

So tendinitis is the Achilles heel,

Which is at the back there.

But then there's bursitis,

The GP the other day said that it's some sort of sack of fluid and that is now inflamed.

So I've just been,

I've had to stop pretty much all walking.

I've had,

I have to ask my partner to put away my bicycle if I'm too tired.

I have to,

Cause I do cycle,

But I'm not allowed to cycle kind of like that with my foot going up and down.

I have to cycle with it basically on my tippy toes.

So,

And I don't cycle a huge amount cause I don't know what it's like around where you live.

Copenhagen is really good for bicycle paths,

But I don't know,

You don't live in Copenhagen.

So I don't know what it's like there.

Well,

I mean,

It's a huge bicycle in general,

Right?

So yes,

Of course,

Copenhagen,

It's about an hour outside of Copenhagen and there's pretty much bike trails there.

People ride on the streets anyway too.

I would say way more per populace.

Well,

Obviously the United States,

That's without saying.

So at least some cities in the United States,

They start putting bike paths on some of the streets,

But for the most part,

Small towns in Midwest,

They're next to them.

Everything's so spread out,

You know?

So I would really,

I guess Wendy means more cities.

So I'm out of the big cities right now.

St.

Louis,

Yeah.

Columbia,

The college towns,

I think the college towns are way better in general.

Yeah.

And just so Emery,

She's in Sydney and,

Or he's in Sydney.

So they've actually got some amazing bicycle paths,

But this conversation isn't about bicycle paths.

This,

I just know because I have that transport advocacy.

So I'm really keen on that.

But basically I can't mow the lawn.

I can walk a little bit.

I have exercises.

So one of the reasons I was late,

Because it's about lunchtime now,

Is I wanted to do my exercises that I need to do before coming on air,

Because I have to do them three times a day.

And I thought,

I've got,

It takes two and a half minutes.

So I thought,

Quick,

Get.

So that was one of the things that,

No,

Bye,

Bye.

So,

But it does really make you stop.

And yeah,

I gained weight,

Which was really unexpected and unpleasant.

And I live with pain,

Chronic pain.

And it's an interesting,

I can see how you get to,

You know,

You're late,

You're 60s or whatever.

I'm not in my.

And then you suddenly gain weight because you fall over,

You have an injury.

And then you have to rethink everything that you do about how you move.

It's quite amazing.

So,

And since we're talking about transition and moving and all those sorts of things and pain management,

Because a lot of meditation is pain management and being mindful about you recognising your limitations and going,

I can't do this.

I need to change what I'm doing.

So I think it is,

It does change your practice because your mind,

It is saddening to not feel you can do things like the dishes.

Sometimes it's like,

I'm too tired to do the dishes.

I'm too tired to cook.

I'm too tired to chop.

And it does make it difficult.

And there is a mindfulness practice about loss in all that.

And so maybe that's not quite what we were going to talk about,

But I guess it's talking about where was I,

Where were you in one place,

Which is fit,

Healthy,

Active.

And then something small happens.

It's so small,

It's just like two little pieces on the back of my feet.

And then I've got a whole new world that I have to have to rethink everything that I do and do a lot of mindfulness of body practice.

So what you're describing is the walking meditation.

I'm never going to do that,

But I couldn't even stand for long.

I couldn't do standing meditation,

But there are in the training that I'm doing about mindful of the Tara Brach two-year teacher training,

They say you can actually just,

They do a lot of mindful movement practices.

So,

You know,

Stretching your hands and things like that.

And there are lots of things that you can do to change your state of mind very quickly that don't require you to,

It's a different form of meditation because it's meditation on the go,

Which I love because I love to have meditation things that I can give people to instantly calm down so they instantly feel better.

And they don't have to think I need to do something big,

Fancy,

I need to have a clear mind.

So over to you.

These are really important too,

Because when I talk to people about that aren't so serious in meditation like I am,

Which is very,

You know,

There's very few people like that unless they're,

You know,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada.

It's always,

Oh,

I should be doing this.

I should be doing this.

I need to do this.

I,

You know,

I really,

I know I need to do,

I just need to,

Okay.

So,

But Wendy,

When you talk about that,

Can I ask real briefly,

How long has that been going on?

When did this,

Did it start around COVID is when you started training for the couch to fight,

Right?

And it started,

It started around that time,

Right?

Or was it before?

It started during COVID,

Probably what it's now,

It's sort of 20,

Maybe three years ago.

And I kept thinking,

Oh,

I'll rest it and it'll go away and it felt better.

But then I do something and it got worse.

And so it was not something which was so acute that I was like,

Okay,

I'm just going to lie in bed and I need to put this out.

It was like a lot of uncomfortable body things,

Which you do it and then you rest and it goes away.

Except it was never really quite going away,

But it was a way enough for me to go,

It'll get better.

Because a lot of things you move them and then it gets better.

Yeah,

So it's several years now.

It's wild and so of course,

A big part of mission practice,

Maybe not informal,

Is our relationship to what's going on,

Right?

And yeah,

You hear so many stories and I'm sure we talked about it,

Like people who identify with being athletes and then some injury comes along and they can't,

I mean,

Their whole reason almost for living goes away now and they can't do their sport or their thing and they don't know what to do anymore.

You talk about people with serious injuries where they're bedridden,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

All of a sudden and then they're just,

They don't know what to do,

They can't do really anything and then now they're faced to be with themselves in a way that would never choose otherwise too.

I mean,

Even the lockdowns themselves,

It was what they say,

The retreat that nobody asked for,

You know,

Mentioned before.

And so what comes to mind to this is,

Yeah,

Like Wendy was saying,

What kind of practices and perceptions and relating to things that are beyond our control that are helpful.

And the one thing that comes to mind is,

Practical thing is three breath highway,

Take the thing,

You know,

Speaking about driving or riding a bike out there,

You know,

Being present for full breaths,

You know,

You wanna get on that highway,

Well,

Get on the three breath highway,

You know.

So yeah,

This notion of relating and changing one's habits and styles too,

You know.

So the other thing that came up was Qigong.

So there's a lot of mindful movements and Qigong is a really popular one too,

Quite a big one for a long time.

Physical therapy,

I mean,

That's the classic Western thing,

If someone hurts themselves physically,

Went to physical therapy with a trainer or two.

I know Qigong is these Chi movements,

I was doing a lot of things with Denny for a long time and another teacher on Insight Timer found it very helpful.

So,

And even for walking meditation,

Now let's talk about standing or even a substitute for walking meditation,

I've heard some people do and I miss this one,

Is just shifting your weight or at least starting off.

So we could do the whole practice shift from the right to the left,

Because a lot of our walking is really just the body shifting sides,

You know,

And rebalancing.

So that's a great one to do if you don't have enough walking space either is to compensate for walking practice.

Standing meditation,

I really like too,

Because it's masculine.

I can stand,

Get this like an upwelling of energy and make sure your knees aren't bent.

Because we do this,

You know,

We're standing in a line of the store,

Right?

We're standing and so it is a formal practice or,

I don't know,

I don't know if you teach people standing meditation,

I'd be interested in hearing about that.

And then I think with this whole notion of injury and recovery and movement and training and doing things differently,

I think we also want to talk about lying down meditation for multiple posture.

And this one is not taught as much about,

But before we go into that,

I guess if you have anything to say about standing or anything like that,

Standing meditation.

So I did lead a standing meditation,

It was an online class.

And I just said,

Okay,

So stand up and everyone could do that because they were still attached so that was fine.

And then I just said,

Okay,

So just stand and notice.

So I did stand and just notice how much the body moves when it's not even going anywhere.

Just,

You could feel a shifting in the musculature and everything was just slightly in the body's moving back and forth,

Keeping you like that.

And then to pick it up and then put it down and pick it up with the foot and then put it down.

And just to notice where the body moves to and from.

And I also talked about,

And so we have our feet and we use our feet all the time and we don't even notice until you've got an injury and you go,

Ah,

Well,

I'm not gonna do that anymore.

So I did do a meditation like that,

That was really,

Really,

I haven't done so much lying meditation cause usually that involves snoring.

So I think a lot of people don't do lying meditation because you just fall asleep.

It really is,

You know,

Cause we've been conditioned so much when we lie down,

We're mostly going to sleep,

Right?

I mean,

That's just how we've been conditioned the habit over and over our entire life.

So if you wanna do the more training about that and they don't teach it much in Buddhist practice either because if you're in a meditation hall,

They don't allow you to lay down usually cause then you're going to sleep,

You're not supposed to fall asleep any day,

Usually in formal practice,

If you don't know,

In the meditation hall,

As far as I remember.

But now the Shifu that I said,

He taught a formal lying down and it's on the right side.

And it's,

You know,

The Buddha was known as in the lion's posture.

So he tilt keeping your head up,

You know,

Those famous statues and things,

But his is more,

You just put your head where you're comfortable.

You can have a pillow or whatever your arm,

If I remember right.

And then you might want to have a pillow between your knees cause you don't have bone on bone,

If you can help it,

Excuse me.

And then he takes a pillow and puts it in the gut.

So you're at,

You know,

So then you're having a physical point where you,

You compress it and your knees are curled up a little bit,

A little bit like in fetal position,

But enough to where you can position the pillow in your gut.

So you have that feedback.

So,

You're not as easily to go to sleep,

Right?

Because if you're feeling this,

An external object pushing back into your stomach,

It's a little bit easier to stay awake.

So a lot of times what will happen anyway,

You'll fall asleep,

But then you'll wake up and you continue to meditate.

And you just go with the breath in that method.

Now,

Another way to do it is what it calls constructive wisdom yoga,

Where you put your knees in the air and you put your hand like a karate chop on the floor.

And so then when you're,

When you're,

When you fall asleep,

Your hand falls down your knees,

Although some people can sleep with their knees.

So that,

So if you're still falling asleep and you want to do this kind of a formal training,

Then you might want to try something else.

A lot of times though,

If you're just going to bed at night,

What I do is I just will set an intention or whatever intentions and just see how long I can be the breath until I fall asleep.

You know,

It's better than nothing.

If you really want to get involved with it,

You can see if you can catch the last breath right before you fall asleep.

Whether it's an in,

I have not been able to.

However,

A few times upon awakening,

I can know you set the intention before you fall asleep.

I want to be aware of the first breath that I take,

I wake up and I have been able to a few times to see if it's in breath or an out breath the first one,

Or maybe it's,

You're just 30,

40 seconds and then you'll know.

So that's a good view,

Not to mention lucid dreaming,

In yoga,

Stuff like that.

I haven't really to that.

I mean,

It's a practice for people that have,

But now back to the standing.

Wendy talked about that noticing that a lift body will auto,

And it's interesting to lock and unlock the knees.

I don't want to keep them locked too long.

You can fall out.

The one thing I found really fascinating about standing motion,

As far as I know,

No one has ever fallen asleep while standing up.

I've done it before when I've combusted and still want a minute up,

And I have fallen asleep before,

But the body will barely move and it'll catch itself before.

So it's pretty fascinating.

I don't recommend getting sleep to project that out,

But that has been my experience as well.

There's,

Then you can get into subtle movements too,

Like just tucking the tailbone in or out will also kind of adjust other parts of the body as well.

So that's a fascinating,

All these formal poses,

And also the transition between the postures.

That's a tough one,

Because a lot of time we're running around like a head on wheel.

You know,

That's all this body is a lot of time,

When I'm not mindful,

It's on wheels,

And then we don't even notice when we're,

Even just notice what kind of state we're in when we come to the,

And then kind of make another intent to resolve.

How long am I going to be where?

Am I going to notice when I stand up?

Getting out of the sitting posture,

How much,

How can I be more?

And I really like Wendy Miller about opening the eyes during meditation,

Because most of our life we're around in eyes open.

Now I've noticed I can go a lot deeper when my eyes are closed,

But I like to at least end the meditation session a lot of times with the eyes open,

Because it's a nice transition.

Can kind of keep the meditative state with the eyes open,

And it cultivates this meditative state forward to our everyday life.

So I was just thinking,

When I lead a meditation,

One of the things that I do when I lead a meditation is actually I get people to put their fingers in front of their face,

And then I stick my arms out to the side,

And they,

So that they track that so that it triggers the peripheral vision,

And then drop the hands,

And that then sets up a sort of a broad mind.

And then when I go to,

When I bring people back,

I bring them back and I say,

Before you open the eyes,

Just see if you can just engage the peripheral vision,

And then open your eyes.

And it's just to keep the mind a little bit calmer.

That's beautiful.

I don't know how I haven't heard of that,

And I'll have to try that now,

Yeah.

And so,

Yeah,

You're starting with a narrow and then going into expanded,

And then before you come out,

You're starting from that again,

Instead of just bam,

Right back.

Yeah.

And mindfulness,

Go ahead.

And just when you're in,

So just different places to be mindful.

So when you feel stress,

So if you just now,

You're sitting in the car,

So if you just notice your peripheral vision,

Just keep looking at me in the screen,

So just keep looking,

And now trigger your peripheral vision,

And then you'll see your body just suddenly drops,

Or there's some ease or something.

Yeah,

I mean,

Yes,

Absolutely.

And what I like in that too,

When we get in a kind of fight or flight situation,

There gets to be tunneled in,

Right?

So all the things that we no longer need in order for survival get thrown away,

And we focused on either fighting,

Flighting,

Or freezing.

And so all our capacity is now going into a singular thing.

And I like in that to go through our lives where we're not indigest,

Or relaxed,

And don't have really capacity to expand our consciousness in broader,

And then we're kind of more focused.

And society says,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Do,

Do,

Do,

Do,

Do,

Do.

Get to point eight.

Who cares about what else?

If you're traveling in a car,

Or certainly just going to point eight,

You're not slowing down enough to,

Again,

What's more than the goal to do next.

The next thing I like to do,

Well,

I don't do it much,

But it's fascinating,

Just mindfulness of vision.

Most of us are very visual.

So much of our consciousness and mental capacity,

I think,

Is taken up by the visual field,

Visual consciousness,

Visual objects,

Right?

So there's a difference between looking and seeing,

Okay?

Looking is kind of what we're looking at,

And seeing is just kind of this passive state where what's happening when we don't choose anything in particular in our visual.

So,

And then there's the awareness,

Being aware that we're seeing,

You know?

Not what we're looking at,

You know,

Or judging something,

But what is actually aware of seeing or,

You know?

So it's like taking a step back and now knowing what's known,

The seeing.

And so mindfulness of seeing is a really interesting thing.

I've never heard of mindfulness of seeing,

So that's an interesting one.

That reminds me of the,

Who am I meditation?

And I've been looking a lot at that.

We can talk about it as we're coming up.

And today's topic is nomadic meditation.

So.

.

.

That's right.

And so we can review some of the practices we mentioned.

And a lot of these are actually things we can do wherever we go,

I think.

And just to tease the next one,

Well,

You know,

We're going to talk about specific spaces,

Internal and external spaces.

And we covered a little bit and quite a bit of this today,

But we'll go into more detail.

And one of the reasons I wanted to bring this up too,

Well,

I'll just tease it enough for that.

We'll have plenty of time to talk about that.

And that's later on this month.

We're going to do two this month in order to make up for the ones we missed in October.

So Wendy,

How would we,

Do we want to kind of recap what we've talked about today?

Or,

I mean,

Would that even make sense?

I think we've given enough.

I'm just a spout of information a lot of times,

Unfortunately,

But I really enjoy Wendy's,

The balancing out my emotion overload thing and just the kind of beautiful heartfelt practices that she engages in.

Yeah.

I feel like I never have enough time.

Like I just have to inundate with a lot of things instead of,

Yeah,

Slowing down and repeat,

But you know,

It is what it is.

We should raise that as a topic actually about,

You know,

That sense of you've got to get it out,

You've got to get it out,

You've got your time.

How do we understand time in our meditation practices and in life?

So what would I say?

We started off about,

We started talking about different countries to meditate,

The sort of space that we're in psychologically in that culture,

In different cultures.

We talked about walking meditation,

Mindfulness meditation,

I guess,

Lying,

Sitting,

Standing.

We talked about,

I guess,

Sort of Mount Kosciuszko and Snowy Mountain retreat that I wanted to do the summer,

The summer in the Snowy's meditation retreat and we'll get there.

We talked about tendonitis and bursitis and the impact of physical ailment on our meditation practice in our daily life and how we have to kind of take stock.

We talked about how are we relating to our practice?

Definitely.

And we talked about peripheral vision and seeing what is the difference between looking and seeing and seeing meditation and a sort of awareness of seeing.

So who is seeing?

Which is basically a who am I practice.

So I think that's pretty much everything I recall.

How about you?

Yeah,

The only thing I would really add is just all my little specifics about giving little tips and hints.

If you want to do more formal meditation while traveling,

Different types of spaces and environments where people often say,

Oh no,

I've got too much hectic in my life or I can't this or whatever,

Or maybe it's just too weird.

I mean,

A lot of the things that I've talked about,

It's just too much or too weird and that's okay too.

But I just kind of from experience of what I do that.

And yeah,

I think it's a beautiful melding of meditation techniques,

Sharing or relating of what we've through.

And I think,

Yeah,

It was a good time here and looking forward to doing this meditation spaces next time.

So this will be,

Yeah,

Spaces and maybe we'll do one on perception of time and yeah,

Something along those lines.

We'll flush it out later,

So.

Yeah,

So for me,

I think our clocks are slightly different because I've still got a couple of minutes left on my timer,

But- I've got 42 after here.

Okay,

All right.

I was just gonna wrap up a little bit more or a little bit early,

I guess here,

Yeah.

Okay,

No problem.

I found out the comments on the screen.

Yeah,

If I do the overlay like right now,

I don't know if Wendy can see it.

It will show up on the video,

But it will only show up from when I turn the overlay on.

So I can see all the chats now,

But they're not showing up on screen last time.

So I guess I could leave that on again.

I don't know the settings.

I've only seen Emery come on because it depends on where people are and how they're doing.

Emery may have gone off anyway.

Anything else with her day,

His day?

So yeah,

So I don't know.

There's the answer.

Thank you both.

Welcome.

You're welcome.

And it's nice to have you here.

Mindfulness of appreciation.

Gratitude.

Yes,

We do a gratitude show too.

Yeah,

Definitely.

It's nice to have a regular participant and checking on with us and nice to know that you're a Sydneyan or you're in Sydney.

And yeah,

So I think they're on the treadmill.

There you are.

So there you go.

You do your thing.

Mindfulness of walking.

Mindfulness of walking on the treadmill.

Mindfulness of running on the treadmill.

Whatever it is that you're doing.

Yeah,

And just know that actually your body works.

I couldn't do the treadmill because my feet won't,

That will hurt my feet.

So noticing if you didn't have your feet,

If your feet had tendinitis and bursitis or whatever,

How would you be able to do your,

What exercise would you be able to do?

What treadmill?

So it's quite a thing.

So I think we're at time there.

Yeah,

So you go.

Nice to say amazing how this body has its own intelligence too.

It just,

We don't have to sit there and say,

Okay,

Mouth,

Chew this food this way,

Just like that over and over and be,

No,

It just does.

The body will just,

When we're in a healthy state,

It will just move itself.

It has its own,

It's just amazing.

And we can drill into this with mindfulness.

Notice this.

We don't have to.

So you can go in and out of as well.

It's amazing thing,

This sack of,

When it's functioning and then when it's not functioning right too,

It's another opportunity to see it a different way,

Be with it and relate to it a different way.

So Wendy,

Thanks again so much for joining and may you all be blessed with the greatest nomadic meditations and really good health and great meditations and just keep on keeping on.

And here we are.

Happy new year.

Yes,

Happy new year.

Bye everybody.

Bye.