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Note: Upasaka Nandaka is using a tool called Descript to create machine-generated transcriptions of some of the talks on the TMI Archive (at a pace of up to 30 hours of audio a month). The following is one such transcript. If you’d like to help edit them for accuracy and readability, please see this Google Doc for detailed instructions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YxweiCr1N4YXY3Bn1mTzPBp811hTGolKroJS_RCMqo0/edit. Any editing contribution, no matter how small, is appreciated. Please remove this notice when the transcript has been fully edited.
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Culadasa: [00:00:00] Good evening.
Alright, great. That's just take a moment or calm down and get excitement as being back together.
Student: It's true.
Sorry. How long have you all been
Culadasa: survive?
Student: The holidays? Yeah,
Culadasa: notoriously one of the most stressful times of the year.
Student: We are meditated.
Culadasa: I know some people.
Everybody did or not. So I wonder if anybody tried out the experiment that I outlined
Student: before that
you mean
Culadasa: instead of immediately going to the breath, the.
Student: So I've been starting out that way. And I'm, it seems like I haven't had an as time to say anything intelligent about it, big as
Culadasa: well, but when I stick with that. Okay that's good. So at least at this point, you can say that it's obviously making it easier to say what the object that.
I think so if you think at an IB, wow. That's good stuff. We'll give it a little more time. Yes,
Student: I remember we got Sandy mighty buckwheat that helps a lot to bring me back together.
Culadasa: Really good way. Yes. That, yes,
That's something that I've known for a long time. I don't know if I mentioned it often enough. That's you know, when you're buying is really agitated, when you're having monkey mind meditating on body sensations is a really good way. And then also if you've had a really long period of mind-wandering learn, we were really lost there for quite a while.
It's really hard to get centered back into your body. Spent a little time doing that before you go
Student: back to the grip.
Culadasa: I just want to ask the patients. Okay. Anyway, for those of you
Student: are.
Culadasa: Car trying this out and find it appropriate. I don't know. Keep going and let these I need to know whether this is a an ambassador that works well enough that I should include if that's the book it right.
Student: So
guess how did you just going to say, I've been trying since we, since the last. I really liked it. I didn't
it was in Aquinas. It's really easily to my water. One of them
it depends on if it's
Yes, that does that. Now to me, I find that
but
I didn't like.
Culadasa: That's good. Thank you for that feedback. I would suggest if you're finding
Student: that
Culadasa: going too slowly and that phase transition that if that leaves you with a tendency to mind wander the sculpture of Martin chutzpah, and you can go through each of those phases as quickly as St. Jude procreate.
Student: And shade will any questions once I'm in the body exclusively say five, six, [00:05:00] but then I find that at least something that stands for wanting to know, allow myself to open up to them at Sammons or anything. Vision moment in one.
Yeah.
Culadasa: Yeah. That might work better. Yeah. Try it out. It's feeling a little warm and I don't know if those aren't the stats so
Student: that.
Yeah,
maybe
Culadasa: Gira. I think you were, she really agitated. My first sit is helps me
Student: bring it. The Saturday and commented pages, but if I stay with the body too long, that it's Shazam, it's too large, an object, and it would remind you is, goes. And when I do get distracted and mind wandering, it's too big an audience to come back to
Culadasa: it's too big.
And I'm like, is it physically
Student: bigger right. Than just the sensation of breath. So even if yeah. Like even within the substation to the body,
Culadasa: It's too scattered. So if I start with a body and then work my way
Student: through that process to get to the breath, and then I get distracted and come back to the breath that if that all goes smoothly, then the meditation
goes
Student: well, if I get really distracted in the beginning of the process or.
I never really find my way
Culadasa: back to the. Yeah I can really see, I can really see, I can see what you're saying and I see what Adam is saying. And it may be less the case for somebody who is just starting to meditate and their minds all over anywhere just saying in the body might be a pretty big deal, but if you've already been practicing and you're used to being able to stay more focused than that, then yeah.
You almost get lost in.
Although there is a really good thing to do is try and come back to all of them. That will keep your mind busy.
Student: Yes.
I been trying to come out of the salt, all this for awhile. And when I found is really helping is if I just go to the, I just, instead of going to the new, a whole body scan, I just do my spine and just started the basement and work my way up by the time I'm up. Then that's when my hands, it seems to pop me out of it.
Yep.
Culadasa: I mentioned in the context of this practice that's of this method of trying to gradually bring your focus down to small point that a little bit later on, when, when you get to the fifth to sixth stage you start going in the opposite direction. That's where we do the practice of experiencing the whole body with the breath.
And some of you have been through. Description of lately is here at Sonos. You won't be familiar with it, but it's a way of it's a way of increasing the power of your mindful awareness because you're looking for extremely subtle sensation. And also you're trying to entertain the sensations and larger and larger areas eventually in the entire body at the same time, that's a way of increasing the, as I say, the power of your mindful awareness, which tends to make you much more alert and brings you out of any tendency to told us that's the scanning that she was referring to.
The other part of that is that it's so completely occupies your attention to try to be aware of all these subtle sensation sensations in the entire body at the same time that it leaves no room for discursive thought or memories or emotions or things like. So basically you just feel your whole awareness with body awareness.
And then when you come back to [00:10:00] focus on the tip of your nose, you'll find that your mind is really focused. Really still is there's nothing else going on. Just those sensations, at least for a little while, then the other, the thoughts and sensations start to prepare. So this method. Beginning with the body and then bringing into focus.
We, you could look forward to doing that in reverse later on, except that what you'll be doing there is looking specifically for sensations that are related to the grant. And when you do that, you'll come to the point where you can feel. Sensations that change with the breath, even in your feet, in your hands, on the top of your head, all over your body.
And they're not just, when you put your attention right now on the sensations of the breath, in your abdomen and your chest and your nose, those are all produced by movement or in case in the nose, the passage of the air, These other sensations that you become aware of, but really energy movements.
They're the movements of cheer . And, but when you do this practice they'll the kind of very clear and I'll tell you a little story about my experience with S because to tell you the truth. You have to understand my background is physiology and neuroscience, and I really thought,
The IDs and chakras and channels. Is she an energy meridians and all that stuff you have?
Except that when I started doing this practice and I started feeling those sensations and then I started realizing that there was some movement taking place, the energy, and then I started noticing. Where it was moving and what past it was following, where it got blocked and didn't move on.
It's wait a minute, this is shirt a lot. Like those pictures you said. So all of those kinds of things are available to our awareness. When we train it and focus it properly. But to me, one of the,
Student: One of the
things
Culadasa: that we never know if somebody is expecting to find something and then they find it, did they only find it because they expected to, so if somebody who was really had, were very interested in, in, in yoga and yoga philosophy and listened to lots of teachings and classes like that, and then they sit down and they find.
The chakras and the energy Kundalini moving up the spine, you have to wonder okay. To what degree is that a genuine phenomenon or what degree is that? The mind projecting something based on the expectations and the desires and, wanting to find what you've been told you should fine.
But in my experience, it was quite the opposite. I have, I was just amazed because it blew my belief system out of the
Student: water.
Culadasa: So welcome to those of you that have come in and last few minutes,
Student: and
Culadasa: we have a few minutes left before we began our funnel. Sick. Just wondering if anybody has any questions, anything maybe would like to discuss? Yes.
Student: I guess it was so odd. at 6 45. So I did that and I don't know
cause it's
Culadasa: negative two. Cool. Is it set at 65 now? So the numbers aren't very clear.
Student: It feels okay
Culadasa: to me and better for meditating. It's better to be a little on the too cool side to our side. I think we're good with
reminds me,
Student: I've noticed. I don't know whether it's easier to meditate lately, but it's been colder and somehow,
Culadasa: Focusing on
Student: a mind body and I assume to be more aware of sensation in my body when it's cooler. So I've, I serve in a gym. That's cool.
Culadasa: I'm not sure why you would be more aware of it when it's cooler, but perhaps there's more variety of sensation. I think a, when the room you're in is cooler, probably in different parts of your body or room to learn[00:15:00]
anyone else have any questions?
Student: Cognitive state. Then I started becoming very involved
Culadasa: with EFT
Student: emotional freedom
Culadasa: techniques, which is emotional freedom techniques, EFT. Which is a a theory of aligning meridians in order to deal with physical and emotional difficulties. And I could identify when you're talking because it's
Student: incredibly countered to 32
Culadasa: years of experiences of therapists.
And it's making me question things that are such old beliefs. To me, it just rocks the whole thing. It's very exciting. Very interesting. But it's so incredibly different from what I was taught, that it's a real wake up call and it rocks your world at the same time. So I identify with what you were talking about when you experienced the energy part of it.
And that's not part of what you were not part of your existing paradigm and all of a sudden you have to revise it. But those are really good experiences when that happened. It was quite wonderful. That's consciousness expanding
Student: because,
Culadasa: As I think many of you already know whatever it is, it's the source of all of our experiences is characterized by having a, essentially an infinite number of possible interpretations. And so whatever particular. Paradigm of reality we're operating from is just one very tiny, limited subset of a vast number of possibilities.
But but we can forget that as a matter of fact, we did, most people don't even know that they think they're living in the only reality.
That's funny.
So it is also sad because very often it's it's an unhappy reality, but anyway, it's really wonderful when something comes along to remind us that The reality that we have open for ourselves is just like a temporary it's just like a sweater. We wear it for awhile and then we outgrow it and he didn't know.
And
okay why don't you stretch and the gesture cushions and get your knees in the best place and all of that good stuff.
| Added at | Sept. 26, 2020 |
| Original file name | TCMC-01-07-10a.mp3 |