Mindfulness, Dhamma Chat, Metta, Gratitude

In this 36 Minute Mindfulness, Dhamma Chat, Metta, and Gratitude practice we explore some old and some new ways to work with our practice. If you couldn't make the live session, this is the next best thing :)

Transcript

Welcome everyone.

I'm Michael Morphis and really glad to be here with you today for mindfulness meditation,

Metta,

Loving kindness,

And gratitude practice.

For those of you that were attempting to join the class on Tuesday,

My apologies.

There was a scheduling conflict and I just wasn't able to join.

So very,

Very sorry about that.

And thanks for being here today.

We'll start with a very,

Very short sit.

I'll circle back around,

Talk a little bit about some Dharma stuff.

We'll sit again,

We'll go back and forth.

For those of you that aren't familiar with my teaching style,

It can be a little conversational.

I try to keep things both kind of casual,

But then also get some solid practice in.

So I hope this works for your temperament and your expectations.

For our sit,

Position yourself in a way where you will be really comfortable and yet really alert,

Awake,

And clear and sharp.

Eyes can be opened or closed.

And we'll turn our attention to,

Again,

We'll do open awareness.

So we just really want to tap into our natural curiosity and the languaging is completely up to you.

But I use phrases in my mind when I'm doing my observational practice,

My samatha calming practice.

I use phrases like,

What is the mind knowing?

And if I hear something,

I say the mind is knowing sound.

If I smell something,

I say something like the mind is knowing a scent or a smell.

If I have a sensation on or in the body,

The mind is knowing sensation.

If I have an emotion,

Feelings,

If there are thoughts,

I say the mind is knowing thoughts.

And I deliberately try to weed out personal pronouns.

It's an exercise of not taking everything so personally.

And really moving into this very profound,

Some people would say the most important part of the dharma practice and really the most unique thing about it is this exploration of what we call not self,

Right?

Really kind of dismantling the ego's kind of,

You know,

The ego's the ego's kind of addiction to taking everything personally and always labeling something as I or mine.

And we'll get more into that later.

So just to keep things simple,

See if you can relax into simply noticing what's being noticed.

And one of the five ways or six ways,

One of the six ways that we think about noticing in the dharma practice,

Seeing,

Hearing,

Tasting,

Touching,

Smelling,

Or cognizing thinking.

Without overanalyzing,

Notice for yourself,

What is it like to label anything that you hear as simply hearing,

As opposed to getting caught up in what you're hearing or starting to think about it?

What is it like to label a thought as simply thinking?

Again,

Without analyzing,

Figuring out,

Fixing,

Or trying to change.

Same with your emotions and bodily sensations.

It's a very,

Very different way to be in relationship to the phenomena of human existence.

And so if you're finding that you're easily getting just caught up into normal thinking about the things that you're experiencing,

Don't be too surprised and try not to beat yourself up or feel like you're failing.

It's just acknowledging that this is a very,

Very different way of approaching what we've done our entire lives.

So again,

It takes practice and patience.

And if you can get curious about it,

It can ease the transition from an unknown activity to a more doable activity.

Watching the mind,

The activity of watching the mind,

Watching our inclinations,

Watching the habit patterns.

Okay.

So I wanted to talk about something that's,

It's an interesting way,

For me,

It's interesting to kind of wrap my head around what's going on with the Dharna practice,

With being conscious,

With processing our existence in the context of just,

I don't know much about videography or the technical aspects,

But I know,

Or kind of basically understand that when we're watching a movie or a TV show,

Anything that's an image,

Even right now,

If you're watching me,

What's happening is that the movie camera,

The video camera is taking pictures really,

Really quickly.

So somewhere usually between 30 and 60 pictures per second.

So,

And then it puts it together.

And then what we see is a moving image.

And if you think about a TV show or a movie,

Something where you get really caught up into the story,

Right?

You could be laughing hysterically,

You could be crying,

You can be emotionally really moved.

But technically,

What's happening is we're not seeing real motion.

We're seeing 60 frames per second or 30 frames per second,

Still pictures,

One picture after the other,

Still pictures,

Still pictures,

Still picture.

And the mind,

The human brain basically is doing the same thing.

The current understanding of neurobiology and the way that the mind processes information,

Somewhere between 100 and 200 frames per second,

Right?

Your brain works super fast.

And every second,

The brain takes basically 200 quick snapshots of your existence around you.

Everything,

All the sound waves that are coming to you,

All the light waves that are coming to you,

That goes to the different parts of the brain,

It sorts it out and your brain makes sense of it,

Right?

Apparently the brain filters out 98% of all the electromagnetic waves that hit you,

That hit your eardrums,

That hit your retina and your eyes.

And then it creates a cohesive,

Understandable image for you of like,

Oh,

You're in your room,

This is the color blue,

The color red,

You have your paintings around you or your pictures or your things.

And so the brain is really into categorizing,

Cataloging and making sense of all the noise,

Right?

Because basically that's what it is to a large degree.

We're just swimming in a sea of electromagnetic radiation and the brain sorts it out so we can just understand what's going on.

So in this process of categorizing and cataloging and sorting,

There are a lot of habit patterns that are running,

Software that's running in the background to say,

Okay,

Well,

This is useful,

This isn't so useful,

I need this,

I don't need that.

And on top of this,

We are these remarkable beings,

Right,

That have this emergent property of consciousness,

Right?

So all the parts that we are made of,

Right,

Our bodies,

Our brains,

Our biochemistry,

They all come together.

And then through some,

You know,

I don't mean this in any kind of metaphysical way or more kind of,

I'm basically a non-theist,

But whatever your belief system is,

Everything comes together.

And then there's this emergent property of consciousness,

Right?

It just kind of comes up.

And the theory in the Dharma is that this emergent property of consciousness gets overwhelmed and kind of almost a little bit confused and starts to mistake that the things that we're experiencing are ours,

I and mine and me and myself.

And apparently this is where all our suffering comes from.

What we're experiencing is nature.

Everything is nature,

Right?

Our bodies are nature,

The sky is nature,

Flowers are nature,

The trash on the street is nature,

Nuclear radiation,

Toxic radiation is nature.

Not that it's necessarily all healthy for our organism,

But as far as the technical unfolding of what's going on around us,

It's all just phenomena.

And the ego part of our psyche keeps on assigning,

This is mine,

This is not mine.

I like this,

I don't like that.

I want this,

I don't want that.

And that's to a large degree how we perpetuate our physical existence,

Right?

We have to kind of be able to know what's going on around us in a somewhat normal way and make reasonable decisions about what we need in order to survive and what we don't need,

And that's going to hurt us.

So how does this tie into our meditation practice and into the Dharma practice?

So basically what we're trying to do is to create a very calm relationship to this process of the mind assigning ego identification with the phenomena that we're experiencing.

And so what we do when we sit and we do this labeling process,

The mind is knowing sound,

The mind is knowing a thought,

The mind is knowing a sensation,

Is we're cultivating the skill to be more objective,

Right?

And this is a bit of a paradox,

But it seems that basically what we're doing in our practice is that we're practicing becoming completely objective.

Our existence is subjective,

Right?

We're a person,

We have our own experience,

And yet the Buddhas tell us that it's this over-identification with the sense of self to the phenomena that causes suffering.

And then also to bolster this insight that the Buddha had and other enlightened folks,

Is that the brain scans are showing that the brain centers that are associated with self-referencing,

The brain centers that light up when I think mine,

Me,

I,

Myself,

Are also the brain centers that light up when people are suffering,

Right?

And there's a difference between experiencing pain because very advanced meditators can do things like get a filling and get their teeth drilled without Novocain or any kind of painkiller,

Because they can just say,

Oh,

The mind is knowing strong sensation.

They don't go to the place like,

Oh,

My tooth is killing me,

I'm suffering,

This is horrible for me,

Right?

They decouple that experience.

And so,

You know,

We could train to do that if we wanted to,

It's not necessary,

It's a lot easier to get a shot of Novocain,

But the point is basically that the more we self-reference,

The more we suffer.

And when we do our dharma practice,

We're learning the skill,

We're strengthening the part of the psyche that is capable of viewing everything as nature,

Not seeing everything so personally,

And creating this healthy dissociative relationship.

So it needs to be navigated skillfully,

Because we don't want to have a psychotic dissociative event where we're like,

We don't know what's going on,

Or nothing matters,

Or we become nihilists,

Or we freak out,

Right?

We're not looking for that.

We want to be calm,

Relaxed,

And it turns out that if we can do it in a skillful way,

It brings a lot of joy,

Because we have this liberative experience where just all of a sudden,

We're not burdened by every little thing that we encounter,

Every phenomena,

Every sound,

Every sight,

Every thought,

Every taste,

Every emotion,

It doesn't push and pull us around.

We're like,

Oh,

There's this thing of nature kind of that I can have a relationship with,

Or am in relationship with,

And then I can choose a wise way to be in relationship with it.

And so it's a pretty chunky and robust field of inquiry,

Right?

It's like there's a lot going on here.

And so,

But to keep it simple,

We can keep going back to this Samatha,

This noticing practice,

For a long time,

For quite a while.

Some people say that that's the only practice you need to do.

Notice and let the thing be.

Notice and let the thing go.

Notice and don't get entangled or caught up or stuck.

And it does take practice.

It's like a muscle.

The more that you use it,

The stronger the skill set will become.

But make no mistake that the Dharma is different than every other philosophy and religion in the sense that it's the only one that teaches non-self,

Right?

The kind of the idea that extricating the sense of the prevalence and necessity of the ego is really paramount,

Right?

And so it's a lot,

Right?

I think that,

You know,

Because we're always,

You know,

If you're new to this philosophy,

It's pretty radical.

And even I think even,

You know,

As Westerners and as modern people,

You know,

What does that mean,

Right?

We have to really wrap our heads around this.

And,

You know,

That's something that we do.

That's why we study the Dharma.

We study the Dharma lists.

We read,

We talk to other folks.

We talk to our teachers.

We try to get a sense because it's a deeply emotional,

Psychological and physical event to think about not taking everything so personally.

And how do we do that in a healthy way?

So let's sit again.

I know that was a lot and we'll keep it simple.

All right.

We'll just again,

Simply ask ourselves,

What is the mind knowing?

If you can play with this thing of not using personal pronouns and just saying the mind is knowing this,

The mind is knowing that.

Again,

In one of six ways,

You're either smelling,

Tasting,

Touching,

Feeling,

Or thinking.

Emotions go under the umbrella of thinking,

Planning,

Worrying,

Laughing in your head or out loud,

Right?

These are all for the practice under the umbrella of thinking.

And see if you can relax into this process,

Right?

And then remember,

We're not trying to shut down thinking.

Thoughts will come.

We just are having a different relationship to thinking.

We can use the prefrontal cortex,

The part of the mind that makes decisions that is capable of deciding to say,

Oh,

I recognize that there's an interesting sound,

But right now I'm doing my meditation practice and I'm not going to go with that.

I'm going to remind myself to label that as a sound and to be available to notice the next thing.

And then again,

This can be really freeing because while we do this every night while we're asleep,

The mind keeps ignoring all the phenomena around us,

Unless there's an emergency and knocks us out completely unconsciously.

Now we're conscious,

Right?

And I call this legitimate ignoring,

Right?

This kind of like we're choosing deliberately and consciously to acknowledge that this phenomena that would pull us in,

That would kind of entertain us or distract us or bother us or make us happy.

And we're having a different relationship to it.

And again,

The upside of this is that we start to become the deciders of what programs we're going to let continue to run.

We are not the slaves of unconditioned,

Habitual reactivity.

We are more consciously saying,

I'm picking this because this is useful to me right now.

I'm not going to go there because it's not so useful for me.

And this objective perspective,

This objectivity is something that enables us to do that.

So again,

Situate yourself so you are relaxed and yet sharp and clear and tap into your natural curiosity,

Right?

That thing that you have with you all the time.

And like the Zen practitioners,

Their whole practice is to say,

What is this?

Everything that they encounter,

Something they smell,

What is this?

Something they hear,

What is this?

They're not looking to answer the question.

They just want to categorize it as something that they can't be completely sure of a hundred percent.

They're not interested in the answer.

They're interested in the openness of curiosity.

So let's see if we can tap.

We're not doing a specifically Zen practice,

But it's a really useful thing to kind of play with.

What is the mind knowing?

Can you relax into having the most minimal,

Light touch acknowledgement of what phenomena the knowing part of the mind is knowing?

Okay.

So with the same type of curious mind,

As you repeat the Metta,

The loving kindness recitations to yourself,

Can you be available to notice how it resonates through your body,

Through all the levels of your being?

So repeating to yourself,

Directing to yourself,

May I be safe,

Free from inner and outer harm and danger.

May I be happy,

Free from mental and emotional suffering.

May I be healthy in body and mind.

And may I be content and find a way to survive that isn't too difficult.

May I know compassion,

Empathetic joy,

And balance.

And see how does that feel,

Right?

How does it resonate for you to offer these things,

To consider these things for yourself?

Now thinking of the person or the person in question,

Resonate for you to offer these things,

To consider these things for yourself.

Now thinking of the person or being in your life that you adore the most in the least complicated way,

Right?

Just when you think of this person or being,

Your body relaxes,

Your heart opens,

Your mind clears.

It's just a lovely consideration.

And to this being,

You're kind of,

It's a dual thing.

It's like you're saying to them,

I would give this to you if I can,

And I would really try to help you have all these things.

And then you're also asking yourself,

How does it feel to offer this?

And how much would I actually do to make these ideas real?

And to this being you say,

May you be safe,

Happy,

Healthy,

And content.

May you know contentment,

And compassion,

And empathetic joy.

In this mindfully observant way,

How does it feel to offer these things?

To be willing to give them,

To be generous with these beautiful,

Hopefully not only ideas,

But when it needs to be done,

Actual actions.

Now only when you're in a relationship with someone,

Actions.

Now only because of time constraints,

We're going to group,

You know,

Let's say the next person would be someone that you maybe love or adore,

Really care about,

But it's a little bit more complicated,

Like usually is in life,

All the way through.

So like to an acquaintance that you maybe barely know,

To the stranger on the street,

To somebody that you have a more difficult relationship with,

To somebody that you have a really difficult relationship with,

To the person that really is like probably the worst person in your life that you can think of,

And then all living beings.

So there would be like these maybe six or seven other categories of people that we would make these offerings to,

But for right now we'll just group them as others,

Right,

As the others in our lives and in the world and in the,

You know,

Wherever else living beings are,

Whoever,

Who knows where they will be.

And just to do this exercise of practicing and strengthening the muscle of caring,

Right,

Just simply setting aside our good reasons or bad reasons for not liking,

Not wanting good things for other beings and trying to set that aside,

You know,

Just for argument's sake and saying,

Well,

You know,

Even someone that screwed me over,

You know,

Technically is just another person in the world,

You know,

Maybe in their own screwed up,

Messed up,

Diseased way,

Just trying to find some happiness and,

You know,

Maybe I don't like the way that they do it or maybe like they're toxic or whatever,

You know,

We can set that aside for a few moments and say for myself,

You know,

Not letting that negativity continue to contaminate my sense of well-being,

I'm going to try to get over it and move beyond it and find heartfulness and caring.

And again,

Not to confuse that with exposing ourselves to dangerous or toxic people or situations,

But to be wise and saying,

Okay,

Well,

You know,

Maybe this situation or person isn't good for me,

But I don't have to kind of screw myself over by closing down my heart completely because I'm wise enough not to interact with the person that may be really unhealthy.

So in that spirit,

To all others,

May you be safe.

May you be happy,

Healthy,

And content.

And there may be a lot of programming and conditioning and habit patterns around not wanting people that we don't like or that have hurt us to be happy,

Healthy,

Safe,

Or content.

And we want to notice that and get curious about that.

I shouldn't say we should want.

It might be in your interest to acknowledge that and to contemplate the value of that perpetual negativity.

And I certainly know for myself that moving beyond it is not easy.

I'm not saying like,

Oh,

You can just snap your fingers and make bad feelings go away,

Nor should we necessarily.

But it seems like a worthy topic of contemplation to ask ourselves,

Is there a bigger,

Better deal here?

Is there a different way to be in relationship to this damage where it's not continuing to hurt me or causing me to behave in a way that will hurt others?

And then we'll wrap up with just a few moments of gratitude practice and get curious and ask yourself,

What am I grateful for?

What do I appreciate?

How does it feel to be grateful?

If it's one of those days where it's hard to find something,

Anything that you're grateful for,

Maybe you can be grateful for the opportunity to admit to yourself that you're not grateful for anything today.

Give yourself a break.

Don't pressure yourself.

Don't try to force something that's not there,

But still be in the arena of inquiry.

I guess perhaps today going on the faith that there's value to being curious about gratitude and exploring your relationship to it.

And if you are there,

If you can feel actual gratitude,

It's a beautiful,

Amazing thing to feel.

So lovely,

So healing,

So profound,

And really worth dwelling in gratitude as often and as frequently as you can.

So be grateful for the fact that you can feel grateful.

Sometimes when we're hurt or challenged,

It's blocked off.

So if you're feeling it,

Perhaps be grateful for the fact that you're not at this moment,

Amongst whatever other specific things you are appreciative of.

Okay,

Friends.

So remember,

In order to make the practice something that's really useful for us,

We need to practice our practice,

Right?

So formally,

Where you can set a timer,

One minute,

Two minutes,

Five minutes,

10 minutes,

Whatever you can do,

Where you won't be distracted and you really give your full attention.

Asking yourself,

What is the mind knowing?

What is the knowing part of the mind knowing?

Can you tap into it and let it go?

Practice noticing and letting things be.

You can do this through the course of your day,

From the moment you wake up to the time you go to sleep informally,

Walking down the street,

In conversation,

At work,

With family,

With friends,

Check out what is the mind knowing.

The metta practice,

Loving kindness,

Again,

Formally,

Informally,

When you're driving,

When you're agitated,

When it's really useful and really hard when you're agitated,

To maybe direct it towards the person you're agitated with.

Again,

Not as a way of denying a legitimate issue that needs to be dealt with,

But as an exercise of not closing the heart and not making a difficult situation more difficult because of your reaction,

Right?

We can only control our actions,

Our words and our physical actions,

Right?

We can't control what life hands us.

I don't think ever,

Right?

What another person says,

When another person does,

We can't control that.

All we can control is ourselves,

Right?

And so a great saying from Viktor Frankl,

When things can't be changed,

We must change ourselves,

Right?

If we want to be resilient and be able to weather the ups and downs of life.

And then gratitude,

Again,

Formally,

A lot of people journal at the end of the day,

One or two words in a journal,

Short sentence,

And then just in your head,

Whenever you can remember,

Whenever you can remind yourself,

Is there anything I can be grateful for right now?

Especially when we're down,

Again,

Not to deny or pretend that we're not down,

But to be a good friend to ourselves and to know that every time we're good to ourselves,

It's good for everybody that we interact with,

Right?

We're not in this alone,

Like it or not.

Sometimes it's a great thing,

Right?

We feel like lonely and we feel like we're separated.

We're not,

We're inextricably woven into the web of life.

Even if we don't have as many social interactions as we would like at the moment.

And then sometimes it's too much and we feel like,

God,

I need a break from all these people and all these obligations and all this stuff.

And then,

You know,

Those times it could be really helpful to practice some gratitude and see if we can reframe the situation,

Recontextualize it and find a way to be with it.

Again,

Not pretending that things aren't the way they are,

But acknowledging,

Full front acknowledgement of the reality of our situation and then making the conscious decision,

Is there a different way to be with this?

Right?

Where I'm not pretending,

But I'm kind of working,

Right?

It's a work in progress.

And that's the good news,

Right?

We are process.

We are part of nature.

And if you're alive and conscious,

Everything is workable,

Right?

There's nothing that's not workable if you're conscious and aware,

Right?

And we've seen this with people learning mindfulness in hospice,

A couple of weeks to live,

A couple of months to live,

Suffering horribly,

Learning mindfulness,

And then they're still dying,

Right?

But it's not so bad somehow,

Right?

They have a different way of being with the reality of the situation.

And,

You know,

Not to be too harsh,

But we're all in hospice to a certain degree,

Right?

We all have a shelf life.

The clock is ticking and the time to get our shit together emotionally,

Psychologically,

And spiritually is now because there's no guarantees,

Right?

About anything,

Right?

We're here now and that's all we know.

This is our big chance to take the bull by the horns and to live our lives fully.

So on that note,

I hope that the rest of your day is filled with peace and wellbeing.

These are donation-based classes.

Any and all donations are super appreciated.

And again,

For those that were here on Tuesday,

I apologize for screwing up.

That was completely my fault and I'll endeavor to keep that from happening in the future.

Okay,

Friends,

Hope you have a great day.

Take care.

Bye-bye.