https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=7r4nA5fBTzQ
Welcome to Editating with John Verbeke. I’m a cognitive psychologist and a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto where I academically teach and scientifically study mindfulness and related phenomena like insight, flow, mystical experience, higher states of consciousness, transformative experience, cultivation of wisdom and the aspiration to enlighten. I’m a Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Chuan. I’ve been integrated in dynamic and cognitive practices for over 29 years and teaching them professionally for close to 20 years. Welcome. If you’re joining us, this is a progressive course and the introductory course is done. What I suggest you do is in the description for this video go to links to lesson one. Immediately watch lesson one, do it, and then every Saturday or Sunday work your way through the lessons and that way you’ll catch up as you attend this Senga. We meet every day, Monday, every weekday I should say, Monday to Friday at 9.30. Mondays alternate between one Monday is a Dharma day in which I teach a new principle and practice and the next Monday is a Vipaya day in which I go over the entire ecology in one session so that you get a sense of how it looks when it’s all fitted together. So a couple things you can do to help me out please, please like this video stream. It’ll help raise its presence on the YouTube search algorithm and that will help me to reach as many people as possible. Reminder that at the end of every session we have together there is a Q&A but please keep the Q&As for those sessions too. Questions concerning this course, this ecology of practice. For more encompassing questions please come to my live stream general Q&A every third Friday on YouTube at 3 p.m. every third Friday of the month. And the first one, sorry the one for, not the first one, the one for this month for June is June 19. That’s where you can ask very encompassing questions. I think that’s everything and so as promised I’d like to go over review what was taught on Monday and then there was a little bit of extension of it on Wednesday and it’ll be a little bit added to it again today so review it and just a little bit more and then we’ll have sort of a core Qigong practice we can build on forward. Okay so again I’m going to turn the slide on to remind you how to do Wuji. Okay so you want your feet about shoulder width apart. You don’t want your toes turned out. So I don’t want my feet on an angle like this. I want my feet straight forward and I want them to be like a bend in my knees. The way I do that is I put my hands out, I make sure my elbows aren’t rolled up but down like there’s weights on them and then it’s if I’m going to sit down I tuck my coxics in and bend my knees and then I open my hands and let my arms drop aside and there’s like the eggs in my armpits. Okay so that’s Wuji. That’s a way of deeply activating and integrating mind and body into a stable, rooted dynamic sensitivity. Okay so we’re in Wuji and then we’re going to do embracing the tree which is a Jianjian exercise. Bring your hands up right and sit like you’re embracing a big tree. So my hands below my shoulders, my elbows below my wrists about a hand width apart. And it’s like I’m squeezing a big ball this way, a big spongy ball this way and this way. Squeezing a ball between my legs and I’m also squeezing as I sit down on it. And then you do four, we’ll just do four baby breaths here as you do in meditation. Remember to center yourself. You’re not on your heels, you’re not on your toes, you’re not on your right, you’re not on your left foot. Okay now the beginning of each one of the exercises. Inhaling and again spongy ball, exhaling. Remember you’re still sitting on your spongy ball and squeezing it between your knees. Now fire in the belly, brings your hands in, tongue here, punch your sphincter muscle, breathing in, feeling that heat between your hands right into the depths of your dantian, four breaths again. Still sitting on your ball. Now the microcosmic orbit, old man stroking his beard. Remember as you inhale, keep that clench, keep that touch all the way up to the top of your head. And then down, center line your face back to where you started. Now the reciprocal opening. So at your dantian, then move to your heart. Opening the heart. Supercal opening of the mind, reciprocal opening with the world in each case, supercal opening of the spirit, sense of self transcendence. Now the ah-ah. Pull out your head first. Now your head, your mind, your head, your intellect area. Heart. Dantian. Now turn slightly side on, I think you’ve got a better orientation for wheeling the silk. So let’s just get the physical going first. Today we’re going to add in a mental component to wheeling the silk. So now I do shift my weight and remember, I’m moving here. I move my hips from my dantian and heart and head just come along from the ride. I’m not moving from my head downward. I’m not turning my head and dragging my body. I’m moving upward from the earth. I turn my hips. My mind is in my dantian. That’s where the center of my agency is. I turn my hips. I turn my hips and that turns my heart and my head. I don’t fold my knees in and I don’t move my toes. So across here, scooping here, here. So this is an inhale. And then this goes down. This comes up. Exhale. Inhale to the left. Exhale to the right. Reeling silk, remember? Just enough tension that you would reel the silk but not too much that you would snap it. Inhaling to the left. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Up from the earth, not down from your head. Okay, now we’re going to add a final component for this, the mental component. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to be, as you do an in-breath and an out-breath, you’re going to alternate between sort of doing something, right, making something happen with your mind, sort of doing, and that’s the end, and then feeling. That’s the end. So first what I’m going to do, although there’s an in component to this, what I’m doing is I’m softening. I’m trying to soften my mind and my body. So I go to my left, softening. And then to my right, softening. Okay, now when I go to the left my second time, what can I feel because I’ve softened? I want to feel suppleness, like a young sapling. I want to feel suppleness. So let’s start again. Let’s go. I soften, okay, so to the left, and soften. Then I feel suppleness. Okay, what’s the next one? I’m going to do each one of these pairs, and then we’ll do them all together. The next is smoothing. So what does smoothing mean? I’m trying to smooth the transitions of mind and body. So my mind isn’t jerking, and my body isn’t jerking. I’m trying to smooth my mind and my body. Okay, so let’s do the softening first again. Soften, and soften. And then feel suppleness, like a young sapling. Okay, now smooth, smooth the transitions of mind and body. Okay, what are you feeling as a result of smoothing? You’re feeling subtlety. You’re feeling how things are subtle. You’re trying to, that smoothness, by that smoothing, allows you to pick up on very subtle movements of awareness and energy in your body. Okay, so let’s do it again. We’re going to start, we’re going to do softening, right, and then, okay, and I’ll talk you through it. Okay, so go into the left, softening, softening. Now feel suppleness, suppleness. Okay, now smoothing. Now feel, feel that subtleness, subtleness of motions of mind and body. So you got suppleness and suppleness, for subtlety, I guess. Okay, so the important thing when you’re doing this is to try and sense how each one of these is affording the next. Okay, so we’ve done softening for suppleness, done smoothing for suppleness. Next one, let’s do the next one. Softening for suppleness, done smoothing for suppleness. Next one, let me explain it to you, but you’re going to be suffusing. What that means is, because you’ve got everything doing like this, you’re trying to suffuse the whole of your body with your mind. So you try to feel, you’re like aliveness and communication, awareness throughout the whole of your body. And you want the whole of your body and your mind so that what’s filling your mind and there’s nothing else in there is your body. And so you’re suffusing. Okay, so let’s again soften. Okay, and then we’re going to detect subtleness, suppleness. Now smoothing. Now we’re doing suppleness, suppleness. Boy, that’s hard. So the softening is bringing the suppleness, the smoothing is bringing that awareness of subtle motions of mind and body, awareness and energy. Now, now we’re going to do suffusing, suffusing mind and body. What are we feeling? Well, it’s shining, not in the sense of light, although the light imagery helps. The word phenomena in Greek actually means how things shine. What’s good here is a sense of how everything is present, shining. Like when we talked about the Lexio-Lubina, all of your body and all of the world around you, everything is sort of singing its name. Okay, so let’s build towards this again. So, softening. Suppleness. Smoothing. Subtlety. Now, suffusing. Shining. Okay, so the last one, there’s four of these. The last one is sinking. But it’s good in your mind to think of spelling sinking, S-Y-N-C, because it’s both sinking and getting everything in sync. And here’s what you’re going to try, and this is like a basic principle, like weight under side. You’re going to try and feel everything sinking, and most importantly, your mind and your energy sinking, not dropping. Like when you’re exhausted, but sinking into like a root, a root all the way through your body. Everything is sinking, and everything is getting in sync. Okay? So, let’s get there again. Softening. Smooth. Sorry, supplety. Suppleness. Let’s start again. I apologize. Let’s start again. Softening. Suppleness. Smoothing. Subtlety. Suffusing. Shining. Now, sinking. Really sinking your body into being in sync. Completely in sync. Every molecule in sync with every other molecule of your body. And what are you feeling here? You’re feeling how it’s self-organizing. You’re not doing it. It’s taking on a life of its own. Working its way out. Like music. Like when you’re listening to music and it just inhabits your body and you start to move with the rhythm. And then you can slow it down. Okay, so let’s review. Right? It’s always an in-breath to the left, right? I’m softening and then I’m feeling suppleness. Like a young sapper. I’m smoothing the transitions of mind and body so I can feel subtle motions. Subtle events. Like fine detail. Then I’m suffusing. Feeling body with mind and mind with body. And I’m feeling how everything is shining. And finally, sinking. Sinking and getting in sync. So I can feel how everything is self-organized. Now this is like music. A rhythm that I’m inhabiting and it’s inhabiting me. And it’s working its way, playing its way out through me. Tai Chi Chuan, you’re a Tai Chi player. Like you’re playing music. Your body is a musical instrument and you’re also listening to that at one and the same time. Okay, let’s do the final thing. Just bringing down the heavens. Down the front. Down the back. Through the core. All three at once. And then back into Wu Ji. Good. Let’s sit. We’re only going to sit for 10 minutes today. So that we can have some time for some questions. I’ll also put in the notes to this video. That sequence. What you’re doing with your mind while you’re doing Mealing the Silk. The doing, feeling, doing, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling, feeling. Okay. All right. So let’s get ready in posture. Please set your phones to do not disturb. And we will begin together when I say begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin. Begin… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … .