Q&A About Meditation

A Questions and Answer session given with a meditation group in Massachusetts. The questions revolve around meditation posture, the right effot in meditation, what to do with the mind and the thoughts, how to properly brainwash yourself in the practice, and smile.

Please note: This track was recorded live and may contain background noises.

Transcript

So how's everybody doing?

Good.

Anybody feel more sleepy after the meditation?

Anybody feel more awake,

More clear?

So I'd like to use the next 10 minutes just for questions and answers.

Questions about your practice,

About meditation.

I mean I guess technically about anything you want,

But probably meditation would be helpful right now.

Hands.

Does it matter what you do with your hands?

I feel like I went like this and my hands just kind of like come together.

But is it more like receptive to you like this?

Like what is the purpose of Palms Up during meditation?

So hand placement in meditation is not something I would say to think about right now.

Not so important.

Eventually one of the most basic things I've realized about my hands is their placement starts to inform my posture a little bit.

That when my hands are more up here I kind of sit up straighter.

When my hands are down here my back starts to curve.

So sometimes I've noticed just really practically speaking where my hands are located on my legs can make my back hunch forward or sit up.

My teacher told me that he says also if you're feeling too hot,

If your body feels hot you could actually put your palms open.

Or if your mind is overactive,

If your hands are open.

If you're feeling cold,

You might keep in heat and put your hands down.

In some of the Zen traditions they like to sit like this,

Thumbs in front of each other.

And also in Thailand they say right foot over left,

Right hand over left.

It's part of their regimen.

And then you get into things eventually like mudras.

This I don't think is actually Buddhist.

But they do different mudras like holding,

Touching your pinky finger,

Touching your forefinger.

One's for concentration,

One's for balance.

This did not originate.

The Buddha never spoke about stuff like this.

It's not Buddhist.

And I think by the time you're working with things that get that subtle,

You've already kind of really mastered some of these more basic techniques.

So ultimately hands,

I would say wherever is comfortable.

If your hands are gravitating more towards here,

Then that's your hands telling you this is where we go.

Okay.

Yeah,

What else?

Question.

I wanted to ask about the idea of struggle or effort during meditation.

So I speak about not trying to force on this.

You get the example,

You can't force a pawn to be still.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

When I think about applying that,

I go to not applying effort.

And when I do that,

I can tell the difference between meditating or just thinking with my eyes closed.

So,

Can you talk a little bit about what kind of effort are right or wrong types of effort applied?

Sure.

So,

I spoke about a garden last time too,

I think.

Or was I?

I think so.

I teach a lot,

So it's hard for me to keep track of what's left.

But,

So right effort in a garden means water,

Sunlight,

Earth,

Weeds.

Wrong effort is grabbing the plant and trying to pull it to stretch it.

So,

Effort in meditation,

It's about feeding the conditions.

Right?

So if you're trying to force your mind to be still,

It does nothing for you.

If you just sit here and close your eyes,

It probably does nothing for you.

So,

The process that I lead you guys through in the guided meditation,

It's a process of relaxation,

Right?

So,

Relaxing the body,

Starting to come into a place that you feel relaxed,

But you feel also like a sense of wellness,

Right?

That the body feels,

Ah,

It's nice to sit here.

A body peacefulness almost,

We can call it.

And then I bring you into feeling the breath flowing in and out,

Which kind of starts to bring the mind in a little bit.

But still with that peaceful element that you're kind of just feeling this.

And then ultimately what starts to happen is that that peacefulness starts to become a feeling.

You start to feel more relaxed,

Feel peaceful.

And that feeling is what brings you deeper into the meditation.

So,

Right effort in meditation,

It's actually cultivating the feelings of relaxation,

The feelings of peace,

The feelings of contentment.

It's very,

Very normal and expected that right now you guys are going to come in here,

You're going to sit down,

You're going to close your eyes,

Breath.

And you're going to be lost in daydreamy thought kind of things.

Yeah.

I am too,

Okay?

It's also,

Things come up in my mind,

But I personally have learned that I don't focus on those.

I've learned how to just relax more and relax more and sometimes right,

You're in your thoughts and then you drop out of them.

And then you're back here,

Right?

Maybe you guys have noticed it comes in waves,

You're kind of lost and then you're kind of back and then you're lost and then you're back and then you're lost and you're back.

Every time that I come back,

So I've realized that I was previously lost,

Suddenly I'm back.

And every time I'm back,

I kind of just relax more and I smile more.

So I give my mind more reason to stay here.

So right effort in meditation,

So one of my teachers,

Achim Brahman,

Said,

It's actually practicing harmlessness,

Yeah?

It's practicing kindness and it's practicing making peace.

Maybe it was gentleness and harmlessness,

Right?

But it's not a process of what,

It's a process of how.

So right effort in meditation,

It's not a process of what,

It's a process of how.

So it's about how you're approaching your mind,

How you're relating to the process,

Process oriented.

So if you stay relaxed,

You stay peaceful,

You stay happy,

You stay accepting,

Whatever's coming is fine.

And every time you realize that you are lost,

Actually means that you're already back.

So the mistake a lot of people make is that once they're back,

They start thinking about how they were lost,

Or thinking about how not to be lost,

Right?

They start trying to stay present.

So they're filling the space they've just created with garbage,

With more thinking.

So when you realize that you were lost,

Know that that means that you must be back now,

Because you're not lost anymore.

So actually the Sanskrit,

So the Pali word for mindfulness,

It's Sati.

Sati originally meant memory,

It's about memory.

So knowing that that's the root,

You can see that mindfulness,

Right,

The mindfulness of our breathing,

Right?

That mindfulness has a quality of remembering.

So it's almost that you're just remembering that you're breathing,

Right?

So we can almost say that when you're lost,

It means that you're not,

In that moment you're not remembering.

And then your mind all by itself remembers and it comes back.

Yeah,

So they say that,

Or maybe I thought this myself,

That you'll go away all by yourself,

And then you'll come back all by yourself.

So there's nothing you can do.

You'll go away,

You can't control that,

And you'll come back,

You can't control that.

Once you're back,

However,

You want to make this as beautiful as possible that the mind is happy.

Anytime I go and I come back,

I really,

I sit.

Sometimes I feel like maybe I should have you guys just watch me meditate sometime.

Because I'll just sit,

And I'll relax more,

I'll smile,

It feels nice to smile,

So.

And I'm kind of sinking,

I'm relaxing,

Smiling,

It feels nice here.

Yeah,

A thought comes up,

And I relax,

The thought goes away,

I smile.

And I keep feeding this joy,

This pleasure,

This relaxation,

This good feeling into this moment.

It's good to sit here,

It feels nice.

It feels nice,

It feels peaceful,

I'm smiling,

I'm happy,

I'm relaxed.

And I keep feeding that,

And the mind just eats that up,

It just kind of sinks deeper and deeper and deeper into the present moment.

And what you're doing is you're also taking the power away from the thinking mind.

Because it feels so good to be present that eventually the thinking mind is just kind of this wisps in the back,

It's not even there anymore.

And it's just this peacefulness,

Right?

And then eventually the mind clicks into that zone.

And then that's when you can sit for hours,

You don't even notice because you're just.

.

.

Yeah,

It feels so good,

Just like that.

It's like everything melts away.

It's just like that.

Sounds great,

Right?

Quite hard to do.

At home I try to practice a little bit of this.

For two minutes it seemed like I was meditating.

And before I realized it I was busy thinking about some work or something like that.

And I stopped meditating long ago.

So you got two minutes.

Congratulations,

Good job.

Keep going.

Make that two minutes three minutes.

As soon as you have one moment,

You've done it.

Because as soon as you've made that experience,

That there is this thing called relaxation,

That there is this thing called quiet,

As soon as you pierce that one time,

Then it's just about making that whole bigger.

As soon as you've made that experience of sitting,

Smiling,

Breathing,

Relaxing,

Feeling peaceful,

Relaxed,

As soon as you've gotten yourself into that zone one time,

That's it,

You've already done it.

And then it's just slowly familiarizing,

Right?

Meditation,

It's about familiarizing ourselves.

Keep getting familiar with that place.

The brain starts to change actually as well.

And your mind starts to know that's how to get back in that zone,

Right?

The more you play an instrument,

The more you play a computer game,

The more you do anything.

You start to get better at it,

You get easier,

It gets in the zone,

Right?

We put so much time into a lot of things in our life that don't bring us anything.

Yet something like meditation,

Which could really change your life,

And I tell you from experience,

Really can change your life fundamentally.

People don't really put in that much effort.

It's kind of crazy for me.

But when you really sit and you meditate,

You meditate every day,

You put in effort,

You do it.

And you'll notice that you start to get better,

It gets bigger,

That space of peace,

It gets bigger and bigger,

And it starts to get deeper and more powerful.

And you can start to call on it much easier.

You start to get right in there,

You know how it works.

Yeah,

So if you have two minutes,

Awesome,

Good job.

Yeah,

Really,

Very good.

Okay,

Last question.

Yeah.

Who's you?

I was just going to check.

Yeah.

Is there a recommended amount of time?

Like,

I don't know how.

So,

What's recommended amount of time that you meditate on the day is,

Like,

When you get good at it,

Ideally?

All the time.

Except for driving.

Also,

You can drive and be very mindful of your driving.

What's that?

You can drive very mindful too.

Most of us get somewhere and we have no idea how we're driving because we were somewhere else.

We weren't in the car.

I've got a really crazy one for you guys,

Right?

That's distracting,

Right?

Yeah.

So,

Sometimes,

Okay,

Sometimes I get a little crazy,

Okay?

Don't judge me.

Sometimes I drive and I don't listen to any music or anything.

I just drive silently in the car and that's it.

It's crazy.

So,

I would say if you want your questions about how much to meditate,

How much to practice,

How long,

Right?

Per meditation.

You know,

Personally,

I've never been a big fan of timing my meditations.

In the monastery,

We had very set times meditations.

We'd sit for 30 minutes or an hour in the morning depending on the time of the year,

Half an hour at night.

And on retreats,

We'd sit for 45 minutes,

A small break,

Then 45 minutes and a break.

And then we'd extend it to an hour and then a break.

And then I was often the timekeeper,

So I'd be sitting at the front with my bell and this and 50 people behind me for an hour long meditation.

And I would start to know because at the beginning,

Of course,

I could always keep checking how long,

How long,

How long.

It's a terrible job.

And then I started to know how it felt actually.

So I got to the point during those meditations where I would sit there and I would feel the check the time and I would know,

No,

That's just 10 minutes.

And I would just keep sitting and I'd feel again and I'd think,

No,

It's a half an hour.

And then I'd feel and I'd say,

Hmm,

40,

6 minutes.

And then I'd feel and then I'd say,

Okay,

Now we're getting towards an hour and then I'd open my eyes and it was almost exactly an hour.

So I could start to feel what does an hour feel like by just sitting there.

I personally,

Personally find it's terrible.

It's terrible to meditate with a clock,

A timer.

Everybody does it.

A lot of people do it.

They set a timer and they sit for this amount of time.

I hate it.

When I set a timer,

My mind is the whole time freaking out.

Personally,

I sit down because it feels really good to sit and I get up when I'm done sitting.

Yeah,

I'll just simply sit and it's like,

Oh,

It's nice and if you relax and good and you're good and eventually I'll just be like,

Okay,

And like,

You know,

I kind of just come out of it.

So I just really do it through my feeling when I feel that I'm through and I feel that I've got through this layer of tensions,

Layer of stuff.

When I feel that all this is melted off of me and I feel it's like a brainwash,

Right?

But it's a good kind of brainwash.

You just washed all that stuff away.

I feel peaceful.

Then I come out of it.

In depth,

Like this is my daily life.

I'll sometimes wake up in the morning and just kind of sit in the bed for a little bit and just breathe.

It feels like,

Okay.

When I'm on retreats,

When I have time for myself,

Sometimes like in this weekend actually,

I'm doing a three-day solo retreat.

I try to do this every month if I can.

Take three days just by myself,

Find a place.

And it's the same thing.

So even though I have nothing to do,

I have no schedule,

I'll still just sit and it feels good to sit.

I'll sit and I'll breathe and I'll kind of stay with it just because that's what I'm there to do.

But when I feel that it's time or I feel that my mind is really fighting against it or there's something,

Then I'll get up.

But the trick is,

Especially on retreats,

Is that then you can do walking meditation.

If your mind doesn't want to sit,

Then say,

Oh,

Then we'll walk and then you could walk.

And if that doesn't walk,

You can say,

Okay,

Then I'm going to go walk in the forest,

Which is still very mindful,

Very nice,

Very open,

Still energizing.

And then maybe I'll go take a shower or something,

Drink tea,

Just hang out.

And then eventually I'll feel again more relaxed and then I can go and sit again.

So it's about kind of playing with it and adjusting it.

But for daily life,

Really make it work for you.

So don't go through any heroic efforts to really just what feels right,

What feels good.

But don't sell yourself short.

I'm telling you guys that there's amazing,

It's like a blueberry pie,

Right?

So there's this crust on top.

And a lot of people,

When they first approach the meditation,

They just see this crust.

They try to meditate,

They don't really get anything good.

It's just this crust,

It's like,

Man,

It's restless and I have pain and it's weird and it's not working.

But then you start to get down,

You start to get through that crust,

And there's more crust kind of.

It's still not really working.

But then the crust gets a little gooier,

And then you're like,

Oh,

I have two minutes of relaxation now.

It's starting to get nice,

Right?

But then you'll break through that crust and you'll get to that gooey,

Delicious,

Blueberry filling of the meditate.

You get to this place and it's amazing,

It's delicious,

It's nourishing,

It's exquisite.

The best way I can describe it,

It's an exquisite piece.

It's literally like a bliss,

It's an exquisite piece that's just so deep and piercing.

And it's so pure,

You just feel so well rested.

It's like your mind is like,

Ah,

It just rests.

It's like taking a shower,

After a long day you take a shower and just get everything off of you.

That's like what it does with your mind.

It's like,

Everything just pools off,

It's amazing.

And when you start getting that place in meditation,

You start really getting this relaxation,

This beauty.

You want to meditate because you know that it's in there and it's accessible and you start to know how to get there.

And it's no more like a duty.

At the beginning it's more like a duty,

Like I have to do it,

I'm trying.

It's more of like an effort in terms of like,

Even though I've got no kind of results from this,

I still sit up and do it.

I would say that's the only effort in meditation,

Is getting your butt sitting and your eyes closed.

And just doing it,

Just putting yourself,

It's like in yoga they say just get on the mat,

Just get on the seat.

And just keep at it,

And keeping at it means like relaxing,

Being happy.

You sit there and you smile.

Maybe for the last meditation today,

Everyone has to smile.

You guys all have a beautiful smile.

Can I smile?

Can I smile?

Can I smile?

You guys can smile a little more.

Okay,

Very good.

You can really just sit there and smile.

There's a meditation teacher that I know of,

And that's how he teaches retreats.

And people come from all over and they're like,

I've been trying,

I've been with this teacher and this teacher,

It doesn't work,

It doesn't work,

It doesn't work.

And they go to there and he goes,

You're just going to sit and you're going to smile.

And they're like,

But my teacher said follow the breath,

Do this.

No,

No,

Don't follow the breath,

Just smile.

Yeah,

But no,

No,

Just smile.

And they'll sit there and smile,

And they'll walk out and say that was the most profound beautiful experience I've ever had,

Right?

Because they've dropped it,

They've dropped the effort,

They're not trying.

They're just relaxing,

They're enjoying,

They're watering the plant,

They're feeding it the conditions it needs to grow.

They're just smiling,

They're happy to be there,

They're relaxed.

They throw meditation out the window,

I'm not going to try to meditate,

I'm just going to enjoy sitting here.

And that's when it starts to happen,

When you really give up meditating and you start to enjoy just sitting here.

You start to enjoy breathing,

You start to enjoy just being.

Yeah,

When you start to enjoy that stuff,

That's when your practice really starts to take fire.

And that really good gooey blueberry delicious stuff starts to come out,

Starts to be delicious,

Starts to feel good to sit there.

It's nourishing,

And then you'll want to do it more,

Then it becomes a priority because it feels so good.

And it's good for you,

It feels healthy,

It's like eating a good salad,

You feel good in your mind.

It's like some meditation propaganda for you.

But it's true,

It's really true.

Personally,

I gain nothing if you guys are any happier by the time you walk out of here or not.

I gain nothing.

But I do this because I've experienced it,

Because I know what it has to offer.

And there was times where I would meditate,

I would come out and I would start crying because I know how much pain people are in.

And how much people,

Same thing,

How much I wish I could share that experience with other people.

But I had no possibility.

Because I just know what it feels like to not have that,

To be trapped in a mind that is suffering.

I know what that's like.

Many years of my life I was trapped.

And to know that there's something else.

There's no greater wish than just that everybody else can feel that too.

So yeah.

Meditation?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They say that for the body to become strong,

The body needs movement.

Right?

Gym,

Working out,

Hiking.

The body needs movement to get strong.

For the mind to get strong,

It needs stillness.

And I'm sure you've noticed that your minds are running all day and that's why you're scattered,

You're exhausted,

You can't do anything.

Because movement actually weakens the mind.

Stillness strengthens the mind.

And stillness happens through feeding the conditions of joy,

Relaxation,

Peace.

Enjoying where you are,

Contentment.

Even contentment joins the mind and the mind stills itself,

Becomes present.

And then it starts to get stronger.

It's also good,

It heals traumas.

Because what is a trauma?

A trauma is something that happens to you and it makes you feel like you always have to be on guard.

Right?

Something happens to you and emotionally you are always on guard.

There's a part of you that's always ready to attack or to defend.

That's what trauma does.

When you meditate and you really feel it,

You get to a place where you realize everything's okay.

That I'm safe.

That everything is okay.

It irons out the creases in your mind.

You iron out a dress shirt or something,

It irons out the creases,

All these things in your mind.

They realize it's fine and a lot of stuff immediately just drops right away.

It's really healing also,

It's healing.

So for time,

We cannot do a walking meditation today.

So why don't we do a.

.

.