Beyond Body and Mind

[00:00:04]Let's see. Need some.

[00:00:13]All right. At least some of them are going. Yeah, it's on. Great.

[00:00:19]All right.

[00:00:22]Welcome everybody to tonight's uh guided meditation.

[00:00:31]on a weird cushion I've never sat on before.

[00:00:39]We'll see if if I can make this work.

[00:00:42]Um, [clears throat] you know, let let me just It's probably okay. Thank you, Ana.

[00:00:50]If you can't, you know, if if your uh samadei is so fragile that a different cushion messes you up, then what are you doing up front? Um at home I sit on a seat of spikes like um if you have a device like this please check triple check that it is silent and um you know [clears throat] I guess in every other way it's probably recording everything you do and feeding AIs somewhere but at least try to have it turned off as much as possible.

[00:01:31]Um, and if you can just literally turn it off, that'll probably feel the best.

[00:01:38]In any case, what we're going to do is do a guided meditation for an hour. And as always, that's an invitation. You know, the guidance is an invitation which you can follow or not. Feel free to ignore it and just do your own sit as long as it's silent. We're not going to do any Osho like, you know, energetic uh meditations.

[00:02:00]Um, [clears throat] we're going to sit silently and motionlessly for an hour and uh then I will do some kind of talk of some kind. Um, and then after that we will we have our uh our uh >> microphone person.

[00:02:20]>> Yeah, microphone person uh back rather than the substitute microphone person.

[00:02:25]So, we will bring her out a microphone if in case you have stuff you want to say or ask or whatever. Um, and then at the very very very end, we will do a another silent sit just to kind of as the the a little bump right just before we end.

[00:02:44]So, um, if you're not used to sitting on the floor motionless for an hour, it can get a little uncomfortable, right? And as the person who sits up here all the time, I watch people get uncomfortable and then it's like this and then it's like this and then it's like this, you know, and I'm like, feel free to avoid that by sitting in a chair now, you know, if you because if you if you don't do this all the time, this, you know, sitting on this thing, you got to do it all the time if you're going to be able to sit still. So there's no no uh um group shame directed at anyone if you need to sit in the chair, right? It's like you're here. That's that's all that's all that matters.

[00:03:31]All right. So let us begin um by doing a little bit of stretching and breathing.

[00:03:42]Um I'm going to just guide some stretches which might not work for your body. So, make it work for your body. Do what you want. Um, but what I would do first is just breathe up like this.

[00:03:54]Really opening up your rib rib cage all the way up your rib cage as much as possible. And then don't hold your breath here. Breathe.

[00:04:02]And feel some space, some openness, some boundarylessness coming into your rib cage.

[00:04:17]And then leaning over to one side, open up this whole rib cage all the way from the bottom to the top. And feel the spaciousness coming in on that side.

[00:04:31]Keep breathing. [sighs] A big part of non-dual practice is [snorts] bringing um recognizing noticing spaciousness and experience. So when we bring spaciousness into our literal rib cage, it's actually kind of a somatic opening that can be very helpful.

[00:05:01]I kind of need about an hour of just that sort of stretching, but we'll just go down in front.

[00:05:10]Open up that lower back and even along the whole back and breathe into the space in your spine. [snorts] And notice this is a great hip opener if you're on the floor.

[00:05:36]And then if you want to, you can do the fingertip one like that.

[00:05:42]And just walk yourself back up.

[00:05:52]And then just breathe here for a minute.

[00:05:55]Couple deep breaths.

[00:06:03]Good.

[00:06:04]Then let's do a twist.

[00:06:10]Little harder to breathe that way, but see if you can breathe a bit.

[00:06:17]And then the other way.

[00:06:26]Traditionally, that twist is supposed to be like a ringing a rag and there's actual, you know, toxins being ringed out of rung out of your internal organs.

[00:06:37]So, don't blame me for whatever happens next. [laughter] Um, but I I find it feels really good to do.

[00:06:47]And then the next thing we're going to do is um shake our arms a little bit.

[00:06:52]You can do circles or shakes, whatever you want.

[00:06:56]Are you joining us, Grant?

[00:06:59]>> Uh, yeah.

[00:07:01]And then this with your shoulders kind of stuff. Whatever you want. Make it work for you.

[00:07:17][snorts] And then let's do a big um simhasana or two.

[00:07:25]Um, you know, we're going to do the giant simhasa, but if u depending on how well we do it, we'll do one or two. So, give it your all on this first one.

[00:07:34]Okay.

[00:07:41]Well, you guys, that was perfect. Thank you.

[00:07:46]I couldn't ask for a better one.

[00:07:49]Well, maybe I could. Let's do it again just for fun. [laughter] big energy.

[00:08:03]Okay, feel how that feels. Notice it starts raising your energy right away, right? It's very good. Then, um lastly, let's do stuff with our spines. either circles or um sine waves or whatever. But get that feeling in your spine like it's a loose, relaxed, open, alive, supple.

[00:08:32]It's the It's the spine of a of a child, right? like completely not doesn't feel like a a dried out broken twig that's snapping like mine does right now, [laughter] but feels loose, relaxed, open, easy, almost like a Now, as you come in, just smaller and smaller movements and have it be almost like a magic rope, right? It's a rope that's just levitating, but it maintains that thing where it can just move in any direction any way. Very supple, very open, very relaxed. So, we're not rigid with our spine, right? It's not stuck.

[00:09:30]Good. And then from here, we're going to we ra we raised energy a bit with our uh lion roars, but let's do a little bit more energy raising with the seed syllable. Um, let's see. We'll do whom.

[00:09:46]So, if that was English, it'd be H O M.

[00:09:49]Really, it's not even an M at the end.

[00:09:51]It's a so and we're just going to do that together for a few minutes. And the idea is just set your thinking mind aside. You don't need it. Just tune into the energy.

[00:10:02]Okay? Just tune into the openness and the vibration. Whom is the seed syllable which dispels all delusion.

[00:10:18]We'll just wait while these guys do this.

[00:10:37]All right. Ready? Let's go.

[00:10:45]Oh.

[00:10:51]Oh.

[00:11:01]Oh.

[00:11:13]Oh.

[00:11:27]Oh.

[00:11:42]Oh.

[00:11:57]Oh.

[00:12:11]Oh. Oh.

[00:12:23]Oh.

[00:12:33]M.

[00:12:49]Oh.

[00:13:05]Oh, Very good. Now, just riding on that energy. Notice that there's uh more energy available, more vibe in the spaciousness.

[00:13:38]You may even feel it in your body along your spine.

[00:13:43]And just rest in this openness, this spaciousness outside of thought. Just set your thinking mind aside for now.

[00:13:52]That doesn't mean you're stopping thinking. It doesn't mean you're fighting with thinking. It doesn't mean you're denying it or controlling it or trying to make it lesser or different.

[00:14:01]You're just not paying attention to it.

[00:14:06]And instead in this energy, we're resting in the spaciousness, resting in the openness, resting in the simple presence, right? Just being present.

[00:14:20]And notice beyond just stepping outside the thinking mind, there's no method to presence, right? You're just simply being present.

[00:14:35]And so if for whatever reason that's a little hard, like maybe your mind is still kind of sticky, still kind of busy, then feel free to kind of direct a tiny bit of attention, like 3% of attention to your breath. Just noticing that the breath is very gently coming and going, rising and falling in this vast space of awareness. But we're not really focusing hard. Instead, we're just returning to this just absolutely natural presence which is open and relaxed.

[00:15:19]As long as our mind is not all caught up in the thinking stream, we're going to generally just be open and relaxed.

[00:15:28]So, let's sit like that for a little while here together.

[00:16:16]Again, just allowing the thinking mind to do whatever it's doing, but just basically not engaging at all.

[00:16:46]and instead remaining just present and open.

[00:16:54]And if you want to just kind of noticing the breath wave that's it. It's extremely simple.

[00:17:03]Nothing complicated. No almost no technique. Just sitting in presence.

[00:17:11]If you're waiting for something big to happen or some big shift that might not occur at all, it's just perhaps sitting here present with your body being uncomfortable or comfortable in various ways and your emotions being comfortable or uncomfortable in various ways and so on. And we're just that's okay.

[00:17:36]Just let everything be exactly the way it is.

[00:18:52]And metaphorically we can just sort of sit like the sky, right? Doesn't mean pretend to be the sky or imagine the sky, but it's just kind of a mood of openness and spaciousness and clarity.

[00:19:12]in our absolutely simple presence.

[00:19:28]If for whatever reason you're very distracted yet you can't stop coming back to the thinking you can add the wh to the breathing and give it a little more attention and that will make it a little easier to let go of the thought stream not engage with the thinking but in general we're just sitting We're just expressing the skyike nature of our own being by simply sitting.

[00:20:48]Just letting everything settle its own accord.

[00:20:54]You stop shaking the snow globe.

[00:20:57]Everything eventually kind of settles, but it takes a little while.

[00:22:06]Good. Now, just expand what you're noticing just a little bit to include the entirety of body sensation.

[00:22:23]Not just the breath wave, but it includes the breath wave.

[00:22:27]But now feel all of body sensation. So your face, your head, your arms, your legs, and the inside of your body, your belly, and your chest, and your face.

[00:22:51]Just feel all of body sensation.

[00:22:56]You're not focusing on it. You're not trying to deeply deconstruct it. You're just feeling it arising as a continuously changing experience within this vast openness, within this boundless awakeness outside of thought.

[00:24:24]If you find yourself all wrapped up in thinking again, just set that aside very gently and come back to just being space, being the sky, simply naturally resting as openness.

[00:24:40]Noticing body sensation occurring.

[00:24:47]And you may begin to notice that the body sensation keeps changing, right? Every every moment of body sensation is different than every other moment.

[00:25:10]Things are moving and changing. Things are growing and shrinking. Things are bubbling and turning. The breath wave is happening.

[00:25:19]Again, we're not paying tons of attention to body sensation, but it's like a continuously transmogrifying wind in the sky of awakeness.

[00:26:10]And just like we noticed last week, the boundary of the body keeps changing. The felt sense of the boundary moves and shifts and grows bigger here and smaller there.

[00:26:30]is continuously changing.

[00:28:21]Just noticing that the body becomes kind of permeable and open, more like a cloud of continuously changing little sensations rather than some kind of pile of meat and bones.

[00:28:40]Feels more like buzzy, tingly, spacious energy which is how the body actually thinks of itself so to speak.

[00:28:58]Our mental model of the body is quite different from how it feels about itself which is as this open permeable cloud of vibrant energy.

[00:29:15]So don't it's not about imagining that or picturing that or trying to drum that up somehow. We're just directly noticing the movement energetic quality of body experience when we're not engaging concepts about it, not engaging the thinking about it.

[00:29:43]This is the body on its own of its own accord without The labels in straight jacket that the brain, the mind, the concepts put on it.

[00:31:13]The more we set aside the thinking and just kind of relax that core gripping, more spacious we feel and the more we sense the body's absolutely effortless natural permeability and openness energiness and just for a moment I want you to try to find what's aware of this body sensation what's knowing the body sensation and look within experience Just try to find it. It's not a question you answer by memory or figuring it out or thinking.

[00:32:03]You just look what's even having this sensation. What's even knowing this sensation and you can't find anything, right? If you find ideas then those are just ideas and you can ask yourself what's aware of the ideas and then look again.

[00:32:30]If you find particular body sensations like oh the feeling behind my eyes or the feeling in my throat is what's knowing the sensation then well those are just body sensations. So ask yourself, well, what knows those sensations? And look again.

[00:32:55]And just keep looking and eventually you'll realize.

[00:32:59]But you can't jump there. You got to actually do it.

[00:33:03]That you can't find what knows the sensations. You can't find what's aware right now. But something is aware nonetheless.

[00:33:20]It's just not a thing. It's not an object. It's not something you can point attention at.

[00:33:29]It is what is aware. It is quote unquote what's looking.

[00:33:35]And that's not an object. Any idea of it being an object is just a thought. And you ask yourself what's aware of that thought.

[00:33:44]You come back to just spacious [snorts] wide open wide awakeness.

[00:33:55]Now from that very spacious skylike simple natural presence come back to feeling the body as this just energetic movement within the awareness.

[00:34:12]This is the nondual flip that occurs.

[00:34:18]The fact that the feeling of our body and the feeling of our emotions and the feelings of our thoughts and so on is arising within awareness rather than the other way around. Right?

[00:34:38]We normally feel that it's our body and then there's a brain in there that's having thoughts and then somewhere way way way at the core of it is this awareness. But when we look, it's actually we experience it the other way around.

[00:34:56]Just look and notice in this boundless timeless space of awakeness.

[00:35:06]This energetic body sensations are happening.

[00:35:13]Don't make anything out of it. That's thinking. Don't try to have ideas about it. That's thinking.

[00:35:23]Don't imagine. That's thinking. Don't picture. That's just feel it.

[00:35:36]Just feel it.

[00:35:40]Feelings are arising in natural presence.

[00:35:47]Even a brand new baby who has not learned a single concept can feel this body sensation just as directly, just as simply.

[00:35:59]There's no special technique.

[00:36:42]Again, if you're finding yourself lost in thinking, just come out of that into just this presence and openness and natural ease and relaxation and spaciousness.

[00:37:49]Good.

[00:37:53]Again, without imagining it or trying to make anything happen, you can almost start to feel as if space itself is breathing.

[00:38:05]Space itself is generating body sensations.

[00:38:12]It's all just happening.

[00:38:49]You may begin to notice that all of body sensation, even with all its energyiness and vibratory quality, is itself also tremendously spacious, tremendously open.

[00:39:10]tremendously vast. It's not bounded in the way that we tend to impose upon it with conceptualization and categorization.

[00:39:21]It's just open.

[00:39:25]There's sensations there.

[00:39:28]There's feelings there, but they're wide open. And in the center, there's just vast space.

[00:39:39]Skylike boundless timeless openness all around.

[00:39:45]Skylike boundless timeless openness within.

[00:39:53]No separation at all.

[00:40:10]The body itself is sky.

[00:40:32]And all the sensations are just simply winds in the sky.

[00:41:15]Nothing landing anywhere and no place for anything to land.

[00:41:25]It's sky in all directions.

[00:41:35]Nothing for this space to hang on to or hold on to. It's just open and free.

[00:42:28]Good.

[00:42:30]Now, if you'd like to do something a little more challenging, and it will be more challenging for sure, just allow the thoughts to be back within the sky of awakeness.

[00:42:53]We're still disengaged from them. We're not trying to do anything with the content of thinking but the energy of thought, the movement of thought, the vibratory quality of thought, the coming and going and thrumming and throbbing of thought. We now allow ourselves to be aware of the trick here is to let that sense of the continuous flow, the bubbling and burbling of the thought stream be just noticed.

[00:43:38]Just one of the things happening in the sky of the mind, sky of awakeness.

[00:43:45]but to not hang on to any of it. Don't grab any of it. Don't try to do anything with anything of it. Any of it.

[00:43:58]Just let it flow.

[00:44:08]This can be harder. And if it's too hard, go back to just all the sensation, setting the thoughts aside.

[00:44:19]But if you cannot just relax enough and allow the mind, the awakeness to effortlessly and with total relaxation just demonstrate its own unstickiness.

[00:44:35]Demonstrate its own perfectly fluid openness.

[00:44:47]The burbling and bubbling of thought can just happen without any interruption, without any grabbing on. Don't freeze the stream of thought in any way. Let it be smooth and can and do its thing.

[00:45:57]Just sit as the open sky with body sensations flowing as winds in the sky not landing anywhere.

[00:46:09]thought sensations flowing through the sky. Not landing anywhere, not grabbing on, not congealing.

[00:46:28]A boundless, timeless space of openness that's wide awake, but not congealing or constricting or tightening around anything.

[00:46:43]No need to latch on or grab on to anything.

[00:47:43]Not resisting at all. Not pushing anything away.

[00:47:48]Just relaxed. Just simple.

[00:48:15]And notice that the mind of thought, the stream of thought can be just as spacious and open and continuously changing and vibratory as body sensation even more maybe.

[00:48:41]And then ask yourself what is it that's aware that of this thinking and try to find it.

[00:48:54]And if you find some thinking that you think is awareness, like well me or my brain, those are just words. That's just thought, what's aware of the words?

[00:49:04]If you see mental pictures of your body or like diagrams of a brain or something, that's all just concept.

[00:49:11]What's aware of the concept?

[00:49:15]Look, look in your own experience.

[00:49:21]If you find body sensations, well, it's the feeling of being me. What's aware of that feeling?

[00:49:29]Find what's aware of the feeling.

[00:49:33]And the more you look for what's aware, the more you realize you can't find it.

[00:49:39]It's not something that can be looked at. It's not some it's not an object.

[00:49:46]It's just what's aware.

[00:49:51]which is a kind of vast open space of awakeness in which body sensations and thoughts are flowing, never landing, never congealing, simply occurring. Okay.

[00:50:42]And it gets a little paradoxical if you try to do this.

[00:50:47]You're just lost in thought. So there's no trying here.

[00:50:53]You're just noticing.

[00:50:56]And if you try to visualize something, you're just lost in the thinking. So just notice the thinking. If you're trying to do something, you're just lost in doing.

[00:51:08]There's no doing here.

[00:51:14]So we can just completely let go of trying to meditate and trying to make something happen and trying to have an experience or try to be this or that and just simply rest in this vast openness that we actually are awake to our own nature as awakeness itself.

[00:51:46]not what's happening in awakeness.

[00:51:56]And then of course realizing it's also what's happening in awakeness.

[00:52:07]And we just let go of any trying to do something, any attempt to make anything happen. Any idea of trying to get something, any idea of trying to go somewhere, any idea of anything and all that, all that trying to be a meditator is just more stuff flowing in the sky of awakeness.

[00:52:40]Not landing anywhere, not congealing anywhere.

[00:53:31]Not grabbing on to any idea of any kind.

[00:54:07]Totally at ease. Totally at rest.

[00:56:27]Very good.

[00:56:29]Now, in just a minute, we'll come back to allowing ourselves to chant the syllable.

[00:56:45]And just notice that h is the syllable that allows us to dissolve concepts to dissolve grabbing on to ideas of the body or ideas of the mind or ideas of being a meditator.

[00:57:04]So just allow yourself to completely dissolve into home and be the sky of home. The sky of awakeness itself. The sky that doesn't congeal around any thought of any kind.

[00:57:29]Oh.

[00:57:38]Oh.

[00:57:51]Oh.

[00:57:55]Oh.

[00:58:07]Oh.

[00:58:14]Oh.

[00:58:21]Oh.

[00:58:35]Oh.

[00:58:53]Oh.

[00:59:08]Oh. Oh.

[00:59:22]Oh.

[00:59:39]Oh.

[00:59:52]Oh.

[01:00:23]Very good.

[01:00:26]From this place of openness and awakeness and non-d delusion and peace.

[01:00:40]Let's just radiate out peace to the entire world. Peace to all beings. Peace to all countries. Peace to all beings everywhere. Just peace. Peace.

[01:00:55]Peace.

[01:01:31]Okay, very good. Let's end that there.

[01:01:43][snorts] >> [snorts] [snorts] >> So, something that I mentioned several times during the guidance I'll just mention again which is that at no point in any of this are we trying to imagine something or picture something or somehow you know kind of um drum up some kind of experience right I'm just simply kind of pointing to certain experiences you can notice notice.

[01:02:48]And if you're not noticing them, okay, don't don't try too hard because then, you know, if you're trying really hard, you're you're either going to kind of make something up or sort of um go off in another direction.

[01:03:05]Um which is why I keep saying just relax, just be open. It's just there.

[01:03:10]And um for example, the body sensation stuff. If we're um noticing body sensation from this place of openness and we've kind of set our thinking aside, we'll begin to notice that our um kind of everyday experience of the body is incredibly conditioned by the mind's thoughts about the body and the kind of pictures we have about what the body's like and kind of images that we put on our body and so on. We're really kind of wrapping it up like a mummy and a whole bunch of ideas about its size and its shape and how it works and how it feels and that our awareness must be like stuck inside it somehow like [clears throat] some kind of little person driving a car or something and the body's the car. And so all that is just this um layer after layer after layer of concept about body experience.

[01:04:16]But if even for a little while we can even [clears throat] letting all that happen, not trying to stop it, but if we can just kind of set it aside so we're not engaging that so continuously.

[01:04:29]Then just sitting in presence without trying to do anything but just sitting there. You'll start to notice that the body of its own accord feels real different than the mind's idea of the body.

[01:04:49]It feels a lot more as I said like kind of this continuously breathing uh moving amoeba like energy thing that's real open. And this is you know energy meaning the felt sense of aliveness.

[01:05:07]>> [snorts] >> And so it's just got this very different quality than our normal kind of um um suit of armor kind of that we imagine it to be.

[01:05:21]Feels nothing like that when the when the thoughts about it are put aside.

[01:05:27]Feels much more expansive, much more relaxed, much more open and continuously changing.

[01:05:36]And sometimes I just say that's how the body thinks about itself. But of course it's not a thought. It's just how it feels.

[01:05:50]Um and again for uh you might not have that experience you know maybe it's for you um it it's uh um stayed real kind of um in the kind of mundane quality of body experience which is fine right? We just sit there not trying to make anything happening but just to the best of our ability just letting it be what it is.

[01:06:21]And my um uh thing I'm putting forward is if you sit there letting it be what it is, it starts to be something pretty different than your idea of what it normally is.

[01:06:37]But it might take time to notice that.

[01:06:41]And then again if you want even further with it where we let the thinking activity come back into you know we take it's not set aside anymore. We allow the thinking activity to be there. That too is real different than how we normally experience it. And the sort of odd thing that's required there is to allow yourself to have thought activity without ideas about thought activity.

[01:07:12]Right? As soon as you have ideas about it, then you're putting it in a box and it turns into something quite different than when we're just allowing it to do its thing without having ideas about it.

[01:07:26]And thought activity is the weird very very odd compared to how we normally think about it. It's almost more like a body sensation. It's almost more like just more of that moving felt sense of aliveness.

[01:07:42]It just does its thing.

[01:07:45]And we don't have to then get absorbed into uh its content, but rather we're just kind of being with its flow, its movement, its change, its energy.

[01:08:00]Man, everyone's just bailing.

[01:08:03]I'm going to be here alone giving the rest of my talk. It's [laughter] going to be awesome.

[01:08:09]I've never had so many people just flee.

[01:08:13]>> [laughter] >> flee in terror from from the talk.

[01:08:20]Anyway, [clears throat] so thoughts too are very different than how we normally uh think about them.

[01:08:28]And you know, a couple times we did the inquiry like what's even having this experience? And you may have noticed that that really uh allows the the space to open up, right? because it's taking us outside even the idea of ourselves.

[01:08:45]It's the main thing that we're wrapped up in this this mummy like um uh linen uh of thought, right? This giant wrapper of thought about what even we are.

[01:09:00]And when it's when you really try to find it, it's like find the thing that you think you are. You can't at least not as an object.

[01:09:17]What you find is ideas about what you are and that's the wrapping, right? But if you go past that, what's aware of those ideas and you do it again and again, the wrapping falls away and instead of there being a a desiccated body covered with what's that stuff?

[01:09:34]Natum or I can't remember the name of the chemical powder that's used.

[01:09:41]But instead of finding that, you just find when the wrappings fall off, there's just space. It was a wrapper around space.

[01:09:53]But it's not nothing. It's not a wrapper around nothing. It's not some kind of nihilistic void. It's wide awake.

[01:10:06]It's experiencing everything.

[01:10:10]It's vibrant.

[01:10:16]Notice that it's not nothing.

[01:10:21]It's completely full of experience.

[01:10:26]It's quite a bit different than nothing.

[01:10:29]So, it's empty and open like space, but unlike space, it's wide awake.

[01:10:41]And you don't have to be a meditation expert to notice that. It's right there, right now. That's what you actually are.

[01:10:57]That is your bodhicitta, right? That's your Buddha nature. That's your awakeness.

[01:11:05]That's your source. That is your your actual original face before your grandparents were born is awakeness.

[01:11:21]So, um, [clears throat] the rest of you have not fled in terror.

[01:11:29]So, very good. Let's see if you guys have anything you want to ask or share or report or say. Um, and FISA will bring around the high-tech talking stick.

[01:11:43]And just remember, you know, we're streaming this live to the internet. So you know your your question will be preserved in amber for all eternity.

[01:11:55]Um and also please be mindful of your speech. Okay. So raise your hand if you um have something you'd like to share.

[01:12:07]Um if it's a question or a report or whatever, I'll do my best to respond in a way that is hopefully uh helpful.

[01:12:24]>> [snorts] >> This is good. Everyone's mind is so blown.

[01:12:31]It's just nothing to even say. I think we have someone back there whose mind isn't blown.

[01:12:48]Hello my everyone. My name is Fong. I had my first 5M O um experience um just two months ago. So it still have been integrating about the learning. I was very calm uh out of that experience.

[01:13:14]Um but the integration has been ongoing still try to process what I have learned nonduality and also sometimes even going to a club I ask myself okay so there's no death so I still just try to figure that out. I have experience with others that medicines. Um but this is has been very different from any other things I have ever took. So just yeah didn't have thought through about what a question I want to ask but just um want to share that here and um if anyone has deep thoughts of integration learning um or want to have a conversation after the meditation I will be up for that.

[01:14:11]>> Great. Um, okay. So, you know, you've had some um big psychedelic openings.

[01:14:18]Great. That's good. Um, and I would just say the most uh you're asking about integration. The most important possible method of integration is to just do what we just did in one way or another. Just meditate.

[01:14:35]Um, trying to figure anything out is not going to help.

[01:14:41]Right. the there's nothing to figure out there.

[01:14:46]Um, and kind of the more you try to figure it out, the more you're you're taking an experience of openness and spaciousness and awakeness and try to build a model out of it. And so you're rewrapping it up. It's a very normal natural thing to do, right? We try to do that. That's how we, you know, try to solve problems and so on. Um, but notice that that's just trying to rebuild a new egoic structure that includes ideas about awakening, right? And so we all do it, but it's something to notice is not actually that helpful, right? It's not actually that helpful.

[01:15:32]Whereas for example meditating um in the simplest way just being this awakeness that's helpful in integration and also other things that are that are not so so idea based and not so let's say rational like maybe dancing or painting or reading poetry or something things like that are much more helpful than trying to figure anything out.

[01:16:07]Okay? The the more that you make a model in your mind out of it, the further you get away from it.

[01:16:15]And what we're really trying to do is recognize that.

[01:16:22]It's not the model.

[01:16:25]And just allow ourselves to express maybe the maybe you have a lot of feelings. Maybe there was a lot of energy. Maybe there's a lot of whatever we just just dance that. Just paint it.

[01:16:36]Just sing it and don't try to figure it out at all.

[01:16:45]Okay.

[01:16:46]>> Thank you.

[01:16:47]>> Yep.

[01:16:54]What else? What else is going on out there?

[01:16:59]We'll pass out the five MEO pens at that [laughter] in a minute. So >> really, [laughter] [snorts] >> that's there's an added fee.

[01:17:14]>> Thank you. My name is Saba and uh I guess >> with a V or a B >> with a B short for Sebastian.

[01:17:22]>> Okay, got it. And um I think there you mentioned like a like a point cloud at some point kind of image >> pointalist cloud of sensation.

[01:17:33]>> Yeah. And that was very it came up and it was like oh there's my knee there.

[01:17:38]It's gone. Things like kind of show and disappear.

[01:17:43]>> Yeah. And what's happening there is is what's really going away is your idea of your knee. the whole mental image and structure of a concept of a knee.

[01:17:53]Instead, what's really there is this cloud of feeling. Right. So, the thing that comes and goes is the whole idea.

[01:18:03]>> Please continue.

[01:18:05]Well, I was wondering on um how maybe it's the same for for emotions and like >> absolutely emotions >> sadness and things that are like >> and yeah, we could do >> if there's anything any tips or anything with when we're or if it's the same technique, it's the same process for emotions.

[01:18:24]>> It's the same technique. Exactly. just um when we say emotions in English there's no good definition for that and everyone disagrees about the definition but in the way we're working we would say it's a mixture of those body sensations that feel like something like you know emotional type feelings and maybe some thoughts about those feelings or the thoughts that are triggering the feeling some something in there is what we would kind of generally agree is an emotion And so notice we worked with body sensations and then we worked with thoughts. So that covers between those two things what we might say is emotional.

[01:19:09]Okay. I could I could lead the same meditation and put between the body sensation and the thinking a whole section on emotion if we had another half hour.

[01:19:19]Okay. So but it's the same thing. you're feeling um the emotional sensations in the body and noticing that it's like a cloud of sensation that never congeals into an idea and then the stream of thoughts or the burbling flow of thought activity about that same thing. it doesn't congeal into um a particular crystallized idea and so the emotions just flow flow flow arise and dissipate arise and dissipate without ever having to become something particular.

[01:19:57]Okay, does that make sense?

[01:19:59]>> Yeah, make sense. And sometimes after this sitting I get this uh like an emotion. It's kind of a mix. A little sad but a little like relieved. I don't know like about just about being alive. And [snorts] I don't know if there's a question, but if it's a common thing that kind of >> presumably you could have any emotion happening >> any >> and um we're not sitting to try to have any particular emotion, >> right? It's just more about the relationship to the arising of those emotions.

[01:20:38]which is this openness.

[01:20:41]Okay.

[01:20:43]Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Say bye.

[01:20:52][snorts] >> Hi, my name is Arlon. Um, when we were uh sitting uh looking for the self, you know, the observer. Did I ever say look for your for the self?

[01:21:08]>> Well, look look for the what what's what's what's seen the the the body. Um I did have this brief shift where um I was experiencing the body from uh awareness.

[01:21:26]Uh but it was very brief and as soon as it happened the thoughts kicked in and I'm like I got to remember this. I gotta remember this experience um so I can talk about it. So here I am.

[01:21:40]Uh I've had similar experiences where there is some kind of shift and my mind just kicks in and it's like recording it and it's like oh you got to is is what would you recommend for turning that off so I can just sit with that experience or that feeling?

[01:22:00]>> Just do it a thousand times till it's boring.

[01:22:03]>> Okay. [laughter] I'm being serious. Just do it over and over and then eventually it's like, okay, >> that that now that's going on.

[01:22:12]>> Okay.

[01:22:12]>> And it's not so freaky and special.

[01:22:15]>> Yeah.

[01:22:16]>> And it's not. It's literally happening every minute of every day.

[01:22:23]And you're just kind of what you're calling a shift is just for a moment.

[01:22:28]You're not making thoughts about it.

[01:22:31]>> Just for a moment. And that's so that's great.

[01:22:35]And then the thoughts kick back in, right? I better make a thing out of this.

[01:22:40]>> And so just do it at a million times till it's totally boring.

[01:22:46]>> Okay. Just a million. Okay.

[01:22:50]>> Well, like I say, it's happening all day long. So once you get used to noticing how to notice it like that, it will just start to be really easy to notice. It's not a special meditative state.

[01:23:03]Okay, thanks Aron. I'm so glad you had had a moment of that.

[01:23:14]Welcome us.

[01:23:28]Were you raising your hand? No.

[01:23:32]Okay.

[01:23:35]And then let's um [clears throat] first of all thank FISA. Thank you FISA for your microphone SA and then we'll do approximately five to 30 minutes of silent meditation.

[01:29:46]Very good. Thank you so much.

[01:29:49]Um, okay. So, [clears throat] uh, this is, uh, your Olympic, so feel free to hang out for a while. Feel free, uh, if you want to do some some, uh, service, you can help put the cushions back neatly on the side. Um, and then feel free to hang out, have some tea.

[01:30:14]There's even I noticed there's big bags of like potato chips and corn chips and stuff. And so you better if you want any you want to eat those because I will eat all of those potato chips um now you know. Um but uh talk to each other you know and and feel free to have some snacks and tea and and just commune as a community uh of communists.

[01:30:40]Um and um [clears throat] let's see from my end of things uh I've got a new uh uh application form out for the reversing the stack course which if you're you know if you've done a lot of um if you're a little bit more of a seasoned practitioner feel free to fill out. It's a kind of long questionnaire, but um that class is going to start in I think on August 22nd if I'm not mistaken. And it goes, you know, it's in six-month pieces, but it goes for five years. And so that's kind of my more advanced teaching course. So if you are ready for that, um that'd be really good thing to sign up for or at least apply for. And then um uh the other thing I can't resist talking about, so feel free to judge me harshly for it, is you know, my partner Christina is really into parrots. At one point we had a, you know, beautiful red eclectus parrot and we've got an African gray parrot and so um and she's deeply deeply deeply into birds and so has created over the past seven years a tarot deck of parrots. So that's on Kickstarter now. Um, and it's if nothing else, it's just 78 really beautiful pieces of art that are just really nice. She's been working on it every night for seven years, like sitting there drawing it and painting it, but also she's a really into tarot.

[01:32:16]So, the tarot aspect of it is very rich.

[01:32:21]So, anyway, uh, I love Christina and this thing is beautiful. So, if you're if in any if there's any part of you that's interested in a parrot tarot, I uh invite you to check out uh that on Kickstarter. Okay, that's it. See you next week. Bye everybody.

[01:32:52]I forgot to mention that half the art in the building right now part is Christina's art. So you can get a sense of her work from that.