Build A Meditation Practice

A talk given at Dragonfly Wellness in Massachusetts to a group in the middle of a meditation series. This talk covers some of the basics of building a meditation practice and making one small step a day to reach your goals instead of unsuccessfully forcing yourself with willpower.

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

Transcript

I'll forget it.

So I started a podcast.

There's recently been,

In the last couple months,

A lot of people that have been just reaching out to me with interest just in who I am as a person,

Kind of the journey I've been on.

Maybe they need some help in their lives,

And also people that are doing things in the field of education,

Or that are also trying to bring things into schools,

Or are teachers themselves,

And who are interested in how I'm bringing meditation and mindfulness and things like this into the schools.

So I started these podcasts.

I've made two of them in the past couple days,

Just as a way to kind of start getting information out so I don't have to keep repeating myself.

I feel like I'm saying the same thing again and again and again to all these different people.

I don't even remember who I said what to anymore.

And it kind of makes more sense for me now just to kind of put it all out there at once and let people kind of just sift through it themselves.

So it's also much easier if someone wants some information,

I can say,

Oh,

Just listen to podcast three instead of having to find time to have a conversation about it.

So on top of that,

Then I'm also starting to kind of record some of the talks that I give in the meditation classes just to see if at the end of that that seems like some valuable information.

I could also just simply help other people to benefit other people.

They won't,

Of course,

Get the same experience as we do sitting here together in the group.

You know,

They're not going to be involved in the meditation,

So they'll just get the information.

But anyway,

I think it's just simply a good thing to start getting into practice,

Is to start recording things and storing them and just having that information stored somewhere.

So,

How's everybody doing?

Who has meditated since the last class?

Who has meditated more than once since the last class?

More than twice?

Three times?

Who has meditated every single day since the last class?

In Germany they'd be like,

Teacher's pad.

So I told you,

I think I told you last,

The last time that we were all together,

Which would have even been second class,

That meditation,

It's really important to really put the time in,

To really keep practicing it.

I believe the Tibetan word,

Or one of the words for meditation,

When translated,

When looked at more closely,

It has to do with familiarization.

That's even the word translated,

Something about familiarization.

And it's really talking about how the more that you practice meditation,

The more your mind starts to really know what that place is like,

Know how to get to that place.

I've recently been using this example of riding a bicycle,

Because I think it's really apt in the sense of,

You know,

When you're first trying to ride a bicycle,

You can't really figure out how that works,

Especially as a kid,

It seems like,

How will I ever be able to balance on these little two wheels?

But you do it,

You practice,

You just kind of learn,

And you see everyone else around you doing it,

So then you just jump on and you figure it out,

You can do it too.

I hope everybody here successfully rides a bicycle or else.

The example doesn't work.

You can even say driving a car,

It's even a better one.

So meditation,

It's similar in the sense of that it takes a little while to kind of get the knack of it.

And like when you see,

Again,

People riding a bicycle,

And when you start riding a bicycle,

For you,

You say,

It's easy,

You just kind of do it,

Right?

So I see for myself,

Also when I teach meditation,

I kind of say to people,

Yeah,

It's easy,

You just kind of do it,

Right?

And everyone's just kind of looking at me,

Shaking their head,

And I say,

No,

It's not easy,

We don't get it.

I think riding a bicycle,

It's also easier because you can look around and you can see other people riding bicycles,

So you know that it's possible and you know how many people can do it.

I think when you start doing practices that are kind of invisible,

Right,

They're inside your mind,

You can't really look around the room and see who's got it and who doesn't.

So you'll either think everybody's doing it except for me,

Which feels terrible,

Like I'm hopeless,

Right?

Or you'll think,

Oh,

You know,

This doesn't work for any,

Like this is a practice for guys sitting up in the Himalayan mountains or something,

Or you know,

This doesn't really work for us people here.

So it's important just to really start practicing putting the time in.

I often say between classes,

Try to sit once between classes,

I like that number because it's doable.

I think if I said to you sit every day,

That'd be too much.

Even if I said try to sit twice between now and next class,

I don't know why,

But that for some reason does something in the psyche,

Like,

Ah.

If I say just sit one time between now and next class,

People say,

Ah,

It's okay.

I actually met with a professor at MIT at the Sloan School of Business,

And you know,

He offered to help me out with what I was doing.

This was a year ago in terms of just trying to get meditation out there.

I didn't really know how I would do it yet.

And his advice to me was to make one concrete step every day.

And I thought that was just a brilliant piece of advice because at that time I would be staying up all night writing emails,

And I'd be putting in a lot of effort,

And then I would kind of get burnt out,

And then I would maybe take a couple days and do nothing,

And then suddenly feel,

Ah,

I need to move forward again.

I'd kind of,

This would be like this pendulum swinging back and forth.

And this idea of just making one little step every day,

It's great because it's manageable,

Right?

It's an easy kind of goal,

But it keeps you going.

And there's some days that I could do more than one step if I felt it,

But I tried to make sure not to do too much more than one step,

Right?

Because that's kind of the other end of the pendulum,

Right?

So to do one step,

And then just to leave it.

And even if you feel like you want to do more,

I could do a little bit more,

But also try to keep it there,

Because I had to also,

I knew that the next day I had to make another step,

And the next day another step.

And eventually when you just kind of make one step at a time,

You look behind you,

And you see,

Bless you,

You see that you've walked a great distance,

You see that you've come a long way,

You've done a lot.

So any time we're undertaking anything in life,

Any new practice,

Or new skill,

Or just whatever,

Even if you're just trying to transition into a different lifestyle,

Really they try to set goals that don't feel threatening to you in a sense,

Feel goals that you really feel okay about,

That seem doable,

And just kind of do it.

So I know enough people,

You know,

For their New Year's resolution,

They say,

Oh,

I'm going to go to the gym every day,

Or go on a diet,

I'll eat organic,

You know,

The next day they're at the McDonald's drive-thru,

And they make Flurry or something.

So yeah,

So willpower in that sense,

It doesn't really work,

Right?

Power kind of works to a degree,

And then we burn out.

You can try to force yourself,

You can try it.

But ultimately,

You'll probably hit a wall.

There was a book,

I think by Thich Nhat Hanh,

Which actually I didn't read,

But I think it was called Power vs Force,

And I think somebody had it,

I just saw the title,

And I thought,

Oh,

That's a really cool title of a book.

Because I know for myself,

Often I'll try to force things,

And when I try to force things,

It kind of never works.

It kind of never works,

And if anything,

I end up in a kind of weaker place than I was before.

There's not a lot that's powerful about trying to force things.

I was on Facebook last night,

And I saw some of the protests that were happening,

There was a speaker from the Breitbart newspaper at a college campus,

And all the people were protesting that,

And they were spilling in the streets,

And then there was starting to break things,

People were getting violent and stuff.

I kind of had the feeling that there was something about that,

I think,

That protests are super important,

Especially now,

People need to speak up when something's not okay.

But then for that to turn into violence,

For that to turn into destruction,

For that to turn into aggression,

That's going to hurt,

You're going to hurt yourself.

You're just hurting yourself,

You're hurting your own cause by doing stuff like that.

And for me,

That's almost like this feeling that you're trying to get more powerful,

I feel more powerful when I smash the window to this thing,

Or I break this thing.

And then we're going to force them to do it,

We're going to force them to listen.

This idea of trying to force yourself,

Force your power.

And ultimately,

It really just turns people off to what you have to say,

To what you're standing for.

It kind of ruins your whole thing.

So in life,

And I'll just say in meditation practice,

If you're ever trying to force it,

You can be assured that you're going the wrong way.

So I would almost say that there's no right way to meditate,

But there's a lot of wrong ways.

So if you feel that you're forcing it,

And forcing it usually means that there's this place that you want to get to out there.

So it's as if you're saying,

I'm here,

And there's this thing out there that I want to get to,

And I don't know how to get there,

So I'm going to kind of try to push myself to get there.

It doesn't work.

And I think that's even the definition of stress,

Isn't it?

Stress is something about,

You're projecting something into the future,

That,

You know,

Just imagining,

For instance,

Say you're sitting in traffic,

And you're late for work.

I guess that could be the most stressful thing,

That you're late for work.

So there's this,

That you're in the car,

But your feeling says you're supposed to be at work.

So you're at conflict with the present moment.

You're at conflict with the reality.

So I'm here,

But I'm projecting myself over there,

That I should be there,

But I'm here.

I think should is also often like a key word.

If you hear should,

You know,

Often something's going amiss.

But I'm here,

And I should be there,

And that space between here and there,

That's a,

There's a tension in that space,

And that's called stress.

Because the opposite of stress would be,

What,

I don't know,

Peace or contentment,

That you're really just fully here,

And that's fine,

Everything's okay.

So there's something about not being stressed that's kind of like,

Ah,

Like right,

We're just here,

And everything's okay.

And the definition of stress is that there's something either,

I guess we could say it,

Either there's something here that we think shouldn't be here,

Or we don't want here.

For instance,

Right now,

If a wolf came into the room,

Right,

We'd probably feel a bit stressed,

Right?

Or there's something here that we don't want here,

Right,

Or there's something not here that we want here,

Which could be called,

Right,

Like a peaceful mind,

Meditation.

You want this thing to be here,

And it's not.

So I think it's important that we kind of know the direction we want to go in,

We know our goal,

So to say.

I think,

Again,

That's why we're all sitting in this room.

If people were told that meditation made you sick and ugly and stupid,

We wouldn't be sitting here,

Right,

But because we've heard that meditation makes you feel more calm and relaxed and shiny and happier,

Right,

We've come here,

So we have kind of a goal,

And I think that's important that it gives it a context,

A framework,

We know what we're doing,

We know why we're here.

But then we have to start reflecting,

How do I get from here,

From where I am now,

To that place that I want to get?

And this is just simply really important,

Because again,

In our lives,

We're used to just pushing ourselves,

We're used to straining and stretching,

And the more effort I give,

The quicker I'll get there,

The more I try,

The more I try,

The quicker I'll get the results that I want.

And meditation,

It's about being relaxed,

It's about letting go.

So one of my teachers,

Achim Brahman,

He said,

Imagine the donkey following the carrot,

The mule and the carrot,

He's following the carrot,

If he keeps trying to get that carrot,

He'll never get it.

But if that mule ever stops,

That carrot's going to swing,

It's going to swing away from him,

So at first he'll stop,

And he's like,

Oh,

Now that carrot's gone forever.

But it's on a string,

So then the carrot's going to swing back,

And he can grab it in his mouth.

Right,

So all that mule would have to do is actually just stop,

And that carrot,

Although seemingly now is lost out of my grip forever,

Would then swing back right into his face,

Right from him.

And I thought this was such a beautiful way to talk about the practice,

Because my own experience tells me this is how it works.

Is that when we sit,

And again,

It's about really putting in the time,

I would really say it's about familiarizing yourself and really kind of getting the hang of what it's like to be in that place.

But ultimately it's really,

Again,

Like riding a bike in terms of that it's about balancing.

So it's really that you're really sitting here,

You're very much awake,

You're aware,

And yet you're relaxed.

And you kind of just wait in that place,

And things will come up,

You'll have thoughts,

You'll have different impressions,

You know,

Your mind will be chattering,

You'll have aversion,

Things will be kind of coming and going through your head,

Through your inner space,

Through your heart.

But eventually when you just kind of just stay there,

Just relax,

Do nothing,

Allow yourself to give up,

Allow it to be hopeless,

Say,

Okay it's hopeless,

I'll never meditate,

So I might as well just sit here and enjoy.

Okay,

I'm a hopeless meditator,

So since I can't meditate I might as well just relax.

And then you start relaxing,

And suddenly you're like,

Oh yeah,

That's right,

That's what this was supposed to be about.

So at our monastery we had a lot of monks and nuns that came from practicing really diligently in other places in the world,

For instance like in the jungles of Burma.

So we had some people that went and they went to these monasteries,

And they would sit for I don't even know,

12 hours a day,

Really crazy amount of practice time in these meditation communities,

These monasteries in the jungles of Burma,

Right?

And they'd be sitting there and they'd be trying to meditate and push and push,

And they'd really have nervous breakdowns,

And they'd come back and they'd be really like broken kind of people in a way,

And there'd be something about them that was really severely,

Yeah,

Because they'd been pushing themselves so hard,

Pushing,

Pushing,

Pushing,

Pushing,

And they forgot that the whole point of meditation is to relax.

That if you're relaxing,

If you feel more relaxed,

You're moving in the right direction,

Your feeling is the guide.

You know,

It's like if you put a shark in the water,

Right,

They follow the blood and they know where to get the kill or the carcass or whatever it is they're chasing after.

In meditation,

It's actually the same thing,

You follow the feeling.

You follow that feeling of relaxation,

You follow the feeling of peace,

That feeling of joy.

Follow the feelings,

Even if they don't match what I'm saying to you.

Even if I say to you,

You know,

I don't know what,

Follow your breath,

And do this and this,

If that seems too tight for you and that's not working,

But you feel,

You know,

Actually I would feel better just to sit here and smile.

Yeah?

Then do that.

Then do that,

Really do whatever it takes,

Whatever it is,

Whatever your way is to get to that place,

To get in there,

To that place.

Because ultimately your feeling is going to be your guide,

It feels more relaxing.

So if your goal is to have a relaxed,

Peaceful mind,

Then why would you sit here stressing out?

That makes sense.

So if those protesters want peace,

How does smashing things make peace?

So it's that age-old paradox.

I heard somebody say to me yesterday,

Like in Planned Parenthood,

There's these protesters yelling at people and getting aggressive towards people that are coming in,

And it's like,

Well,

You're trying to protect life over here,

But now you're being aggressive towards living beings.

So how do those two things work?

So you want to save life,

But if this person's already alive,

You're going to be a jerk to them?

So your message is a paradox.

That doesn't work,

Those things don't work together.

You're not following through fully.

So it's really important to make sure that our goal,

So if you want peace,

Then the path to peace has to be a path laden with peace,

There has to be a path of peace.

So peace is the path.

Right,

I think they said,

What is it,

Like happiness isn't the goal,

It's the path,

Or it's the way,

Or something like this.

Because if your path is about being peaceful,

Then you're already there.

It's not this thing,

After six weeks meditation class with Seth,

Then finally I'll know what this peaceful meditation mind thing is.

It's ridiculous,

Because it's really available right now,

Here,

When you change your relationship to your practice.

When I was a guest at Plum Village in France,

This monastery,

If any of you know of Thich Nhat Hanh,

By the way,

So I mentioned him earlier,

Just to see if I.

.

.

So yeah,

I had the pleasure,

The honor of being present in their monastery and practicing there,

And it was really beautiful,

And I even remember,

We'd wake up early in the morning to go meditate,

It was still dark out,

And I remember leaving my hut and crunching on the gravel to get to the meditation hall,

And kind of see the glowing lights of the hall in the distance.

And sometimes I would see right in front of me,

Kind of this figure slowly kind of emerged in the darkness,

And he would just walk in a way that I just knew,

Oh,

That's Thich Nhat Hanh,

It's him,

He's right in front of me.

Because everything he does is meditation,

Right?

So someone once said to him,

What do you practice at your monastery?

And he said,

Oh,

Sitting and walking.

And I said,

Oh,

Sitting meditation and walking meditation.

He said,

No,

Sitting and walking.

That he didn't make a differentiation between meditation and not meditation.

He said,

Again,

It's a paradox.

It's a paradox to come into this room and sit down,

To then go rush back and then rush back.

He said,

If your goal is to relax your mind,

Then why aren't you relaxing your mind as a rule for your life?

Then you should live your life that way.

So he really does it that way.

So I had a really good friend there,

His name was Brother Phap Linh,

Who plays the cello in the Thich Nhat Hanh symphony,

So to say.

They often do chanting,

And he's always playing cello in the background to kind of help them keep the pace.

And one time he brought me through Thich Nhat Hanh's hermitage,

And he showed me kind of the printing press where he used to make these prints to send to the prisoners of war during the Vietnam War to re-inspire them,

Send newsletters and poems and things to the artists and the poets that were being imprisoned,

Saying,

Don't give up,

Inspire the people.

You're the ones that's going to re-inspire our people,

So inspire them.

And then he took me to the upstairs of the hermitage,

And as we approached the stairs,

He looked at me and he said,

And Thay,

They call him Thay,

He said,

Thay has told me that he's never once neglected these stairs,

Which means that every time he walked up those stairs,

He did it mindfully.

So then of course,

Me and him,

We both kind of like really mindfully walk up the stairs,

And like,

Wow,

Cool.

And then eventually I make it to the kitchen,

And the kitchen was just the most amazing place I've ever been in the world,

Which is hard to explain because it had an energy,

A presence about it.

I felt like I was a mile deep in the earth,

Even though there was a window,

And it was this kind of worn stone,

Almost like stone tile floor,

So it's like a village in France,

So it feels like that.

And there was just something about it,

And I felt,

I don't even know,

It's like if a huge tidal wave came across and wiped out all of France,

I felt that this house would still stand somehow.

There was something about it that was so solid.

And I eventually upon reflection realized that it was just this sense of presence,

This really deep,

Deep,

Deep,

Deep,

Profound presence that was almost transformative and transcendent,

And I felt like there was multiple dimensions existing in it.

Because the closest thing I could describe it to was like when I was a little kid sitting on my mother's lap at night when she was reading me fairy tales about the bear making soup for his animal friends in the tree,

And the feeling of closeness and warmth and sitting in that place,

I kind of got little wisps of that feeling,

Of this kind of far off,

Beautiful,

Magical,

Enchanted place.

And in this kitchen I felt that,

It was crazy,

As if it wasn't really there,

It was just this crazy feeling,

Amazing,

Hard to explain.

Magical,

Really magical.

And after this experience I went back to my hut and I got a piece of paper and I wrote a letter and it ticked on Han,

And I said,

You know,

Dear Thay,

I was in your kitchen,

You know,

And kind of just wrote,

And I said,

You know what,

I really understand your message.

And all the teachings you give and all the things you say,

They're all actually pointing to one thing,

And that's just actually this presence.

I was in Andover last night teaching meditation,

It's on the teaching on my website or on my Facebook,

And I said to them,

You know,

We're human beings,

So that being part,

That's always there,

Right,

That we are always in a state of being.

And actually this practice is just about coming more and more just into that state of being and removing the things that are keeping you from being.

And when I was in teaching on Han's kitchen I really felt that this just state of deep,

Deep,

Deep presence,

Deep being,

That's actually what he's talking about,

That's what he's residing in,

That's what he's trying to share with everybody.

But it's so simple and so elemental and so right in your face,

It's almost impossible to talk about directly.

Because it's the base of all of our experiences,

You are all right now present beings that are sitting here,

Like that state of being exists in each one of us right now.

But because it's just so normal,

Again Achim Brahmi once said,

You know,

If you say to a tadpole about dry,

If you say something about dry land to a tadpole,

The tadpole is like,

What's dry land?

And then you'd say,

Well it's that thing outside of water.

And the tadpole goes,

Well what's water?

Because his whole life he was in the water,

He doesn't know what water is,

Because it's all he's ever known.

And only when he gets onto dry land,

He's like,

Oh that's water.

But when you're in it,

If you've been in it the whole time,

You can't see it.

If you're in something always since the day you were born,

You actually can't see it,

You're blind to it.

So you need to give all these crazy weird teachings and bring people in all these meditation retreats and practice,

We have to sit here and hurt our knees and backs,

You know,

To finally realize the thing that you've been in the whole time.

It's crazy,

But that's what it is.

So I wrote this letter to Thich Nhat Hanh and I kind of said,

I get it,

You know.

And I kind of gave it to his attendant,

And the next day his attendant came to me and he said,

Thay wants to have dinner with you tonight.

And I was like,

Wow,

Interesting.

I was like,

What else did he say?

And he said,

Well he just leaned over to his other attendant and he said,

Thap Lin took him to my kitchen.

So I went to Thich Nhat Hanh's little hermitage and I sat and he was very quiet.

Actually when I arrived he was sitting staring at a lamp on his deck.

And he just sits there and he looks at me and he said,

Come enjoy the full moon.

And I go and I look and I see that he's looking at this lamp and I kind of laugh and I think,

Oh that's funny.

He's making a joke,

Right?

And then I look over at him and he's still staring at the lamp smiling.

He was really appreciating the full moon that he saw in that lamp.

So yeah,

As we were eating dinner we were sitting there and it was normal,

So there's nothing,

Again very slow,

Silent,

Of course no talking while eating,

Just really present.

And then finally after dinner he kind of,

At some point he kind of looked up to me and he said,

You know,

Practice,

It's like instant noodle soup.

And I stared back at him and I said,

Oh?

Okay.

And he just still kept staring at me and he said,

You don't have to wait to enjoy.

And then he kept smiling at me and then kind of like,

Okay.

And his attendant stood up and they said to me,

Okay,

That was it.

And I was just kind of walked out of there and I was like,

What a queer,

What a strange sentence.

And I was like,

What was that?

You know,

And then Phap Linh,

He came to me and he said,

You know,

The next thing he said,

So how was it,

What did he say?

And I was like,

Yeah,

He didn't really say much,

He just sat there and then eventually he said to me,

This really weird kind of quirky sentence,

He said,

Practice is like instant noodle soup,

You don't have to wait to enjoy.

And Phap Linh looked at me and he said,

Wow.

And I was like,

Yeah?

And so I thought about it and I was there still for another month after that and I kind of just kept,

It became like a mantra,

Right?

I just kept like,

It's like instant,

You don't have to wait to,

And I kind of kept saying that in my head until I realized like,

Oh my God,

Like he was,

You know,

It was like this,

It was like the sentence was like wormed itself,

You know,

Like slowly like worming itself deeper and deeper and deeper,

Like into my heart until eventually after,

I don't even know,

Like a week or two of just reflecting on it.

I just kind of saw it clearly,

I was like,

Oh my God,

I'm like,

Yeah,

Right,

That's exactly,

That's the point.

That it's not this thing that happens later.

And I kept trying to get this thing later,

I'd been practicing to try to eventually reach this thing called peace,

I'd been trying to get this thing eventually in the future called relaxation or enlightenment or whatever.

And it was as simple as him just saying,

It's right now,

It's not,

It's right now,

Right now you do that,

You do peace right now.

Right now you relax,

Right now you let go.

And that's the path.

If you right now relax,

That will guide you,

Like if you jumped into a,

I think the Buddha made a metaphor once,

If you get in a river,

You know,

If you throw a stick into the river and it doesn't get caught up on either of the banks,

It'll flow all the way out to the ocean.

And it's kind of like that,

It's,

You know,

If you just allow yourself to relax,

If you allow yourself to be peaceful,

You don't have to wait.

We're not,

You know,

It's not at the end of these six weeks then it'll happen.

It's right now,

It's really right now that you just make that decision to be that,

To allow that,

To let go.

To let go of something else that's going to come that's better than this.

They say now or never,

Right,

So that's what it is,

Now or never.

So it's always just right now.

It's not this thing that comes,

It's now.

So that's my impulse for today's class is to really just allow it to be now,

To not be practicing for something that's coming,

But to really already use that as your intention,

As your method,

Right,

Your method of meditation should be the method of letting go,

Of peace,

Of relaxing.

Allow yourself to relax,

Right?

We've done enough today.

Now's the time to let go,

Just to be.

Let everything fall away,

Drop,

Rest.

Okay?

How do you function in that state?

Like,

You know,

What you're saying is good for 20 minutes,

40 minutes,

Whatever,

But then you've got to hop on a treadmill.

And what I would like to do,

And I try to do with very little success,

Is try to function in that state of now,

Which I find very difficult.

You know,

I can get up from my desk,

Go take a walk,

Do some breathing,

And get into a state,

But again,

That's five minutes,

And then I'm back at my desk and I'm on the treadmill again.

So how do you function in that state of now?

That's why it's called practice.

So what we're doing here,

This is like if you were taking a karate class,

Right?

So I'm like the karate teacher,

And I'm like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

This is the punch,

This is the punch,

This is the block,

This is the kick.

You know?

But then when you go out there,

You have to then karate fight with people,

And you use the things that I taught you in this class,

And you have to figure out how that makes sense in an actual fight,

Because if you're in a real karate fight and you try to karate fight like you learned in class,

You'll get your butt kicked.

Because when you're fighting,

You have to be present with your opponent,

You have to improvise,

You have to find new ways in that make sense,

That work for you.

So what we're learning here is what that feels like to get to that place of relaxation,

What it feels like to get to that place of presence.

We're training the mind,

We're becoming familiar with it.

And then when you go back into life,

You'll see if you jump in your car and you suddenly start thinking,

Oh I have to do this and this and this and this,

And you start to realize that you're getting suddenly stressed out again,

You then say,

Ah yeah,

That's right.

And then you take a breath,

And then kind of just one thing at a time,

What am I doing right now?

What do I need to figure out right now?

You know?

And it's really practice,

So you'll start catching yourself throughout the day,

That your meditation will start to bleed into your daily life.

The more that you become familiar with that place,

The more that in your daily life,

Herb Benson at Harvard,

He did a study,

And he said again,

So the average person,

When they encounter danger,

They have the fight or flight response.

But he realized people that practice meditation and mindfulness,

Something else happens,

And it's called the relaxation response.

And so physiologically what happens is that for those people,

And I can also say from experience,

If I'm in a stressful situation,

I'll really quickly notice that I'm stressed,

I'll notice that I have tension in my body,

I'll notice what's happening,

And I'll relax,

I'll take a breath and I'll drop it,

And I'll return back to that place of being in my middle.

Because I've spent so much time in this place of centeredness,

Of being relaxed,

That if something comes up,

That's out of the norm.

And so I know really quickly how to disarm that and let that drop.

The average person,

They live so much in that place of busyness,

Of noise,

Of stress,

That right now,

Having a relaxed,

Peaceful mind,

That's the different,

That's out of the norm,

That's like a weird place to get to,

Like,

Whoa,

I feel peaceful,

That's strange.

Right,

A lot of people tell me that.

I led a meditation at the Andover,

At the senior center,

Right,

I did a class for the seniors,

After class,

I said,

How was it,

An 80 year old woman,

That's the first time my mind has ever been quiet.

80 years old,

Right,

That's the first time my mind's ever been quiet.

Yeah.

So,

That's not normal for us,

We're used to the noise,

We're used to the busyness,

We're used to the movement,

But what happens is the more you start practicing this,

The more that starts to shift,

The more that that peace,

That quiet,

Because also it feels good,

Right,

So the mind is naturally drawn to that,

The more that that starts to take over,

And the more that other stuff starts to get worked out,

Starts to let go,

Starts to disperse,

Until the point that when a disturbance comes in,

You see it really clearly,

Because you've been living in this really nice,

Clear,

Relaxed space,

Suddenly this thing comes up,

And you know exactly what it is,

And you find out what to do about it,

Right,

And that's why,

Again,

It's called practice,

This thing comes up,

And,

Okay,

Does it work to push that thing away?

No,

That doesn't work.

If I speak that out,

No.

How if I'm just thankful,

If I'm just thankful for that thing,

Is that what?

What if I just send it,

You know,

Gratitude,

Or love,

Or kindness?

What if I just leave it,

Is it going to be going away by itself?

Right,

That you start to learn different strategies,

Different methods,

How to deal with things that arise in your life,

That eventually,

Whatever comes,

You act impeccably,

So that,

When I was in college,

I was reading like the Carlos Castaneda books,

With like Don Juan,

And,

You know,

And the thing he kept saying was that Don Juan,

He acts impeccably in each situation,

That whatever comes up,

He knows exactly the right way to act.

Again,

I'm reminded of like a kung fu fighter or something,

Right,

That they,

No matter what happens,

They know how to react,

Because they're just present,

And they're like,

Oh yeah,

I know how to deal with a punch,

Oh yeah,

I know how to deal with a kick,

Oh yeah,

That they've just learned how to deal with whatever comes,

That in each moment,

They can really act impeccably the right way,

Right,

And that's kind of what you start to become,

Too,

That you'll start to know what that place of peace feels like,

So when something comes to push you off balance,

You'll start to,

Sooner,

It happens quicker and quicker also,

Right,

So it happens quicker and quicker,

So maybe first you won't realize you've been thrown off for like the whole day,

Only you get into bed at night,

And you'll just be like,

Ah man,

I've been really stressed all day today,

You know,

And then maybe the next day it'll only take you a couple hours,

You'll be eating lunch really fast or something,

And then you'll be like,

Oh wait,

Wait,

Wait,

Too fast,

And then maybe the next day something will happen,

And as it's happening,

You're like,

Oh wait,

This is one of those moments again,

And then you'll change your response to it,

Right,

That you start to create a new way of responding,

That that thing right there gets dissolved and it doesn't propel you forward into another kind of stressful,

Busy momentum.

You can very mindfully run on a treadmill,

You know,

I was teaching in Woburn at the middle schools the other week,

Professional developments,

It's two schools,

I had to teach in one school,

And then I had 15 minutes to get to the other school,

My talk at the first school went a little over,

So I had 10 minutes to go 12 minutes in the car,

So I very mindfully was speeding through Woburn,

And I thought about this,

I thought,

Oh how funny,

You know,

The meditation teacher,

Right,

Speeding through,

But I said,

No,

I don't feel panicked,

I don't feel stressed,

You know,

I'm very aware of what I'm doing and that it's slightly illegal but still safe,

You know,

I wasn't being dangerous,

But then I kind of laughed at myself,

I said,

Oh,

You can mindfully speed,

Right,

So I don't think that mindful has to necessarily mean slow,

You can mindfully go for a run,

You can mindfully work out,

Because yeah,

You're just there,

You're present,

You know what you're doing,

It's not about the speed of your body,

It's actually more about the speed of your mind,

Is your mind getting clogged,

Cluttered with a bunch of stuff,

Are you more or less able to be there with what's happening,

Yeah,

So I'd really say,

Yeah,

Just remember it's practice,

And just slowly,

Slowly,

Slowly let the edges bleed,

So turn your meditation slowly into daily life,

Just let that slowly expand,

Let space expand,

And the more you practice,

The more that should happen by itself,

I'm sure you see that already actually,

Because you practice a lot.

I see awareness is there,

But I still fall into the trap all the time.

Yeah,

Eight years in a monastery,

You know,

It's not.

.

.

When you get to the point like when Eckhart Tolle speaks and he can sit months at a time on a park bench in complete bliss,

You know.

Yeah,

I mean,

If we were all Eckhart Tolle,

He wouldn't make any money from his books,

We'd all be there already,

Right,

So.

.

.

Let's meditate.