Shifting Perspective To Find Inner Peace

We live in polarizing times, and it can be easy to become attached to our viewpoint. In this talk and guided practice, we delve into the importance of softening the attachment to our opinions and viewpoints, through consciously clearing impressions and softening the ego. This not only helps us to more productively dialogue with others it also helps us to find a greater sense of peace and stillness within and to access our limitless potential. This is a 20-minute talk followed by a 15-minute meditation.

Transcript

So I'd like to start today with another roomy quote.

Yesterday I was clever,

So I wanted to change the world.

Today I am wise,

So I am changing myself.

I've been thinking a lot,

Reflecting on the state of the world,

And it's sad to see how much fighting there is.

It's a natural human response when we feel threatened,

When we are afraid for our own lives,

For our health,

For the health and lives of loved ones.

And it creates attachment to certain world views and to our opinions and to believing that there's one right way for everything to happen.

And that leads in the end to a lot of fighting and a lot of violence.

And ultimately it damages ourselves as much as it hurts others and our society.

Ultimately it's that attachment to perspective that prevents us from having the peace and wholeness that we truly are deeply seeking.

And when we have that level of attachment to a perspective,

To a belief that some certain way of being is the best or the right way or the right policy or the right way to address the pandemic,

We then try to impose that view on others.

And we try to change others and change the world to try to make it conform to that limited view of how we believe things should be.

This will never lead us to the freedom and the peace that we are seeking.

It's what the mind wants because the mind is attached to being right,

To believing that there is one way.

But that in the end prevents us from having the peace that we are seeking.

But that in the end prevents us from experiencing the wholeness that is already here in the world and that we have within ourselves.

And so if we truly desire to cultivate a greater chance for peace and for health and for wholeness,

It really has to start with ourselves.

And that's where we begin to cultivate wisdom in seeing a diversity of perspectives and seeing things from other people's perspective and incorporating those into the whole.

It takes humility because we have to let go of attachment to that aspect of ego of the mind that wants things to be a certain way,

That wants to believe that there is a right and a wrong.

But ultimately the gift that we get from that is so much greater.

It's really important to allow for a diversity of perspective.

You know,

There's a simplicity in trying to make things homogeneous.

And trying to make everything and everyone be some certain way.

But ultimately that's antithetical to life because life is about diversity and complexity.

And it's through that complexity that there's beauty in the world.

If we didn't have a diversity of color,

We couldn't have the experience of perceiving the beauty that we see with our eyes.

You know,

I've heard before,

I don't know if this is true or not,

But I've heard that the human eye can perceive more shades of green than any other color.

And even just within that one color of green,

There's such a diversity.

And when you walk in the woods or the forest or the jungle,

There's so much green and yet they're all different and it's the contrast.

And I think that's the most important thing.

And the same applies for our perspective.

The more we can allow for a diversity of perspectives in the world and within ourselves,

It opens up so much more beauty.

And the wise have known this and it's something that's actively cultivated.

Because we have the ability to direct our consciousness to open in that direction.

You know,

It's said that Abraham Lincoln was known for appointing running opponents to his cabinet after he had won.

Because he understood the importance of having contrarian views.

That in order to be president,

To manage an entire country of people,

The healthiest way to do that is to take in all the different perspectives.

It doesn't mean that we have to agree with them.

But allowing them and taking them in the right direction and taking them in and sitting with them allows us to come to a third position where we are no longer fighting against each other with two polar views that are locked in an interminable argument.

But a third position that sees the whole that encompasses both of those seemingly oppositional views.

In so doing,

We make space to accommodate.

And we become more whole within ourselves in doing so.

Because when we have an attachment to a single position,

To a single opinion or perspective being right,

It actually limits us and it does ourselves a great disservice.

It's actually more harmful than what we end up doing to everyone else.

And so in order to do this,

It requires softening.

Letting go of attachment to being right,

Which entails opening to vulnerability,

To not knowing,

And opening to uncertainty and vulnerability of not knowing.

It can be scary.

It can be hard.

And it can lead to an incredible amount of growth and wisdom.

Facing the uncertainty.

It's also some of the greatest preparation we can have for facing death.

Because that is facing the greatest uncertainty.

Facing the greatest unknown.

It allows us to take on the adventure of life.

Not knowing what is coming or what is going to happen,

But still choosing to live fully and to express the fullness of our being in our relationship with others and the world around us.

Part of what helps us to loosen our grasp to one perspective or one way of being is working with letting go of impressions.

My wife was asking me this morning what I was going to do.

And I said,

I'm going to do a little bit of a research.

And I said,

I'm going to do a little bit of a research.

And my wife was asking me this morning what I was going to teach.

And when I mentioned impressions,

She was asking me,

What exactly is an impression?

Which is a very good question.

And I like it in part because it is a little abstract and vague and not concrete.

But she looked up definitions.

And one of the definitions is,

As it's used in the phrase,

We are under the impression that X,

Y,

And Z.

And that means that we are believing mistakenly or on the basis of little evidence that something is the case.

And whether we like it or not,

Most of our beliefs and perspectives and opinions are impressions.

They are worldviews that we cling to,

That we mistakenly believe are solid and true and unchanging,

When in reality they're just one lens through which we're viewing the all.

Now,

The more we can move our lens to accommodate more aspects of the all,

We move a little bit closer to the truth.

But the truth of being,

The truth of reality can never be encapsulated in a single perspective.

Because perspectives that we speak and write and that we think are inherently encapsulated in the realm of duality,

Of definitions,

Which is limited.

And the nature of reality is unlimited,

Unbounded.

And so that's why in Zen and other traditions,

They'll sometimes talk about the words that we're using to discuss these things as fingers pointing to the moon.

They're guiding us towards something that's beyond the grasp of the mind.

But so often we get stuck looking at the finger and grabbing onto that rather than seeing what's beyond that.

And so with impressions,

When I use that word and talk about it,

I'm referring to these experiences that we've had throughout our lives that we've been experiencing.

And the experiences that we've had throughout our lives that affect the creation of the filters of the mind and how we perceive ourselves,

Others and reality.

And the more we can work with letting go of those impressions,

The greater chance we have for actually experiencing things as they are and experiencing ourselves as we are and opening up to the diversity and the complexity and the chaos and the uncertainty and the beauty that is life.

One of the easiest ways to understand impressions is by going to one end of the extremities of it,

Which would be in cases of trauma and PTSD,

Post-traumatic stress disorder.

And when we experience severe trauma,

Whether it's physical or emotional or psychological,

It creates these deep imprints in our psyches and it affects how we perceive reality and how we perceive ourselves.

It's a very deep impression in our being that filters and can lead to us perceiving things that are not truly how they are.

We perceive things in a different way when we have trauma,

We're more likely to be distrustful or more likely to have fear of something happening.

It's harder to open to trust and to vulnerability.

And it's a defense mechanism that can be very useful and can be very important as we heal and to make sure that we're safe,

But ultimately we have to eventually let go of that attachment to that lens,

To that filter,

To those impressions if we want to truly heal on deeper levels.

And so that's more of the extreme end of it,

But we have this with everything,

Everything that we learned from our parents,

From school,

From the news,

Everything that we take in affects our filters and affects how we perceive the world around us.

And so it can be a very important practice as a basis of our meditation practice to work with letting go of these impressions on a regular basis and slowly peeling back the perspectives that we are attached to and opening to being vulnerable to not knowing.

So today for the meditation practice,

We're going to do a practice that I have led once before related to the five elements and it's called the purification breaths.

And so with this practice,

We use associations of the five elements,

Earth,

Water,

And energy.

Earth,

Water,

Fire,

Air,

And ether with certain breathing patterns and certain visualizations as a means to work with letting go of impressions.

One of the reasons I like this practice a lot is besides its ability to help with clearing impressions on a regular basis,

It also is a good way to engage the mind and give it a task through focusing on the breathing pattern and the visualization to concentrate the mind.

As I've mentioned before,

A lot of what we call meditation practices are really concentration practices because we have to first focus and concentrate the mind to then get to a point where we can move beyond the mind and beyond the realm of duality.

Most of the time our minds are constantly running,

Constantly interpreting,

Planning,

Thinking about the past,

Thinking about the future,

Taking us out of the present experiential moment.

As we begin to focus and concentrate the mind,

We move closer and closer to the present moment as it is until we move beyond the mind and we're just in the pure bliss of being,

Of experiencing life as it is.

The mind has a role.

It's very important to have the mind to interface between the oneness of pure being,

Of pure experiential awareness,

And living and being in a world of duality of self and other.

But the proper place of the mind in my perspective is as a servant to the soul,

As a servant to our true nature,

To our unbounded potential,

And not as the president that's in control of this incredible complexity of being that is being human.

Regardless of how you feel about the president or any past presidents,

I think it's more worthwhile to think about your own internal leader and who is leading and are they allowing for a diversity of perspectives that might often be in opposition to the past,

In the present,

In the present,

In the present,

In the present.

So the question is,

What are the perspectives that might often be in opposition to each other that all exist within your being simultaneously?

That's ultimately what we have control over.

So we're going to take a few clarification breaths.

I will lead you in a series.

We'll do probably 10 to 12 minutes with the five breaths total,

And then we'll move into a meditation after that.

So go ahead and take a comfortable position.

You can be seated or lying down.

If you're seated,

You just want to make sure that your knees are below your hips,

That the fronts of your hips are relaxed and open,

That your spinal column is rising up towards heaven while keeping the natural curves in the lumbar,

Thoracic,

And cervical.

We want the head seated over the spinal column and shoulders.

For many of us,

That means slightly tucking the chin and moving the head back an inch or two.

Once you have found your posture,

Whether you're seated or lying down,

Just gently scan your body.

Releasing any tension that might be present,

Feeling the solidity beneath you that is supporting you and holding you up,

That allows you to feel the solidity of your body,

That allows you to let go,

To relax the scalp,

The face,

The eyes,

The jaw,

Relaxing the neck and shoulders,

Relaxing the torso,

The hips,

The legs,

All the way down to the bottoms of the feet,

Relax your internal organs,

Letting go of tension within the brain,

In the lungs,

And letting go of the body,

Relax your internal organs,

Letting go of tension within the brain,

In the lungs,

In the heart,

The digestive system.

We often have tension in areas that we aren't even aware of until we guide our awareness into those places and consciously let go.

Come aware of your breath,

Simply observing the movement of the breath in and out.

The first element is earth.

Its color is yellow.

Inhaling and exhaling through the nose.

As you breathe,

You can imagine golden energy from the earth entering and filling your body.

And with every exhale through the nose,

Release any unneeded tension,

All energy that no longer serves.

Inhaling and exhaling through the nose.

The next element is water.

Its color is green.

Inhaling through the nose,

Exhaling out the mouth.

As you breathe,

You can imagine yourself immersed in a green body of water,

Surrounded by green trees and foliage with a green mist hanging in the air.

And as you breathe,

You inhale green mist through the nose,

And exhale green mist out the mouth,

Allowing yourself to feel as though you are becoming water.

So the next element is fire.

Its color is red.

Inhaling through the mouth,

Exhaling through the nose.

As you inhale through the mouth,

You can imagine pure red energy of fire entering and filling your solar plexus.

As you exhale through the nose,

You can feel that energy rise through the center of the body,

Passing through the heart center,

Becoming purified white light,

Continuing up and exiting through the crown of the head,

And purifying your energetic body.

In through the mouth,

Out through the nose,

Allowing the energy of fire to purify and transform.

So the next element is air.

Its color is blue.

Inhaling and exhaling through the mouth.

As you breathe,

You can visualize yourself expanding into the blueness of the sky,

Becoming light,

Becoming air.

So the last element is ether.

Using a very refined and subtle breath,

Inhale and exhale through the nose.

You can imagine wisps of mist gently entering and exiting each nostril,

Becoming aware of all of the subtle sensations as they pass through the nostrils.

So continuing with this subtle breath,

Become aware of the stillness beneath the movement.

Allow awareness of the breath to move into the background.

In the foreground,

Focus on the stillness,

The still,

Spacious awareness.

This is your true nature,

Pure spacious awareness,

Place of unbounded,

Unlimited potential.

Bring your awareness back to the breath.

Become aware of the felt sense of your body as a whole.

Feel the floor beneath you,

Supporting you,

Holding you up in the air around you.

When you are ready,

Gently and slowly begin to open your eyes simultaneously,

Taking in the world around you,

Feeling the still,

Spacious awareness within you.

We all have unlimited potential.

We are infinitely complex,

Multidimensional beings.

We are always changing and growing,

Even when we believe that we are some certain way always.

It's just an impression.

It's a mistaken understanding of the true nature of ourselves and reality.

So throughout the day today,

I encourage all of us to notice when we're having a desire arise for the world to be a certain way or for others to be some certain way,

When we react to something that we hear on the news or read on social media,

Notice how we're trying to limit the world,

Make it be some certain way,

And that that is actually limiting ourselves and try to open to your limitless being and find the space of peace and wholeness that you always have within.

Thank you as always for joining me and joining all of us today.

Reviews

I never really understood what impression actually meant until this talk. Thank you! Wonderful meditation. 💟

I love this talk too. the reminder to let others see things differently or respond differently to things than me is very freeing. i also liked in the meditation the part, release any tension i no longer need. yesterday i had a fabulous surfing expedition with my son and two brothers as we boated to our Channel Iskands. but the return crossing of the channel had a nasty wind swell (the shittiest crossing i’ve ever experienced- to quote my brother who owns the boat). a one hour boat ride took 2+ hours.
that night (safely in my home) as i listened to the meditation it helped me notice i was still holding onto all the tension in my body from the boat ride. It was a great comfort to relax and release it all.
on a technical note. i did audio recording for 35 years. fyi your recordings have a lot of sibilance (hissing s sounds). easily fixiable with a better microphone technique or you can google for other solutions (sorry - i notice things like that 🙃) 🙏

Thank you Thomas for another insightful talk followed by a beautiful meditation which really helped to soften the edges and create a more expansive feeling. So good to be reminded of the importance of changing ourselves, not the world.

Beautiful, dear Thomas. Thank you 🙏

Wow Thomas, that was incredible. So necessary in our current environment. So much going on and it’s very freighting. Your talk and meditation was very comforting. I truly appreciate your guidance. Thank you, namaste. 🙏🏼✨

I really appreciated this and it felt like an opening. 🙏🏼😊