https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=9Ta386LEqIU
Welcome to Meditating with John Verbeke. We live stream every weekday morning at 9.30 a.m. with Mondays alternating between a new lesson Dharma Day and the next Monday we will review the whole ecology of practices which is Upaya Day. Today is Upaya Day. If you’re joining us for the first time go to the description for previous lessons and sits do the first lesson and then start joining us every day and then watch a new lesson perhaps every Saturday and Sunday. If you could please help me out by liking this stream to increase the visibility in the YouTube algorithm. At the end of each sit Monday through Friday there’s a Q&A please limit the Q&A to questions about this course the ecology of practices. Other more general questions can be asked every third Friday of the month so that’s this Friday June 19th at 3 p.m. EST when we do a live stream a general Q&A. Alright so today is Upaya Day our first Upaya Day and I’m looking forward to this a lot so please let’s set your phones on do not disturb. Let’s get into wunji position again. We’ll begin by embracing the tree for baby breaths as we do so. Upaya Day beginning. And now the yin-yang. Now fire in the belly. Microposmic orbit. Old man stroking the beard. Reciprocal opening. Ah and ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Back into Wu-ji. Perhaps widen your stance just a little. Reeling yourself. And soften. So, supple. Smooth. Supple. Picking up on how things are very, very subtle. Now suffuse. Shining. Really sink. Try to feel it. Self organizing everything. Moving from your dantian. Now slow it down when you can. Really feel soft. And supple. Smooth. And subtle. Fused. Shining. Sink. Into this self organizing. Reeling that silk. Just enough to pull the silk, but not too much to break it. Okay. Come back. Shorten your stance a little. Bringing down to heavens. Down to front. Bring it back. Through the core. And then all three at once. Back into Wu-ji position. Okay. Sit down. Get into your posture. Prepare to sit. We’re going to sit for 10 minutes. Okay. We’ll begin when I say begin. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Slowly come out of your practice. Trying as best you can to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness, cognition, character, and communi-tas. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let’s prepare to do Reksiya Divina. Set your attention. Reverence for the revelation. Trusting in the transformation. This is by Rilka. As once the wigan energy of the light carried you over childhood’s dark abysses, now beyond your own life build the great arch of unimagined bridges. Wonders happen if we can succeed in passing through the harshest danger, but only in a bright and purely granted achievement can we realize the wonder. To work with things in the indescribable relationship is not too hard for us. The pattern grows more intricate and subtle. Being swept along is not enough. Take your practice powers and stretch them out until they span the chasm between two contradictions. The God wants to know himself in you. God wants to know himself in you. Shifting from being egocentric to reality centric, where realization is not enough. That’s what I’m associating. What would it be like? What would my state of consciousness and my mind be like? Stretching my powers out. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. I’m not going to be able to do that. What would my state of consciousness and my mind be like? Stretching my powers out. Giving them over to the God that wants to know him through me. What would that be like? How would I see the world? How would I feel the world? How is the world not disclosing itself to me? I feel that there’s moments where the fever, hunger of self-reference is letting go. For a moment I’m breathing open. What’s demanded from me? What virtue needs to be cultivated? How I need to conform in transformation to what’s being disclosed to me? My begin. Second is from Mr. Eckhart. The prose. The eye through which I see God is the same I through which god sees me. and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. The same eye by which I see God is the eye by which he sees me. One eye, one knowing, one love. It’s for me, the symptom out of between this reading and the previous reading is really singing to me. Getting a sense of that. It’s not just the way I look out, but the way in which reality is looking in. Ultimate. There’s one, there’s deep non-logical oneness to it. They’re resonating. Getting a sense again of what this would be like. See this way and be this way. What do I need to do to meet this disclosure? What’s the virtue? I need, I need a receptivity, a kind of silencing so I can open. Reach out like Rukka says, not grasping, stretching out so that something can speak through me. That’s what the lexio is doing right now. Now. I’m wastefully absorbed in the I’m done. I’m done a whole set like this. I like to express gratitude. Thank you for what? It’s been realized in this way. Help me to do this. Right. Let’s take time for at least one or two questions. You mentioned slipping. This is from Karima. You mentioned slipping into spiritual BS and meditation. What are the signs? How is it different from the pursuit of gnosis? Meaning the pursuit of empirical knowledge pertaining to spiritual mysteries. I take gnosis to mean the deep participatory knowing that’s afforded when we’re doing reciprocal opening. And that can germinate and come to fruition in prajna. So that we’re getting, as I said, what we’re getting in the ends of lexia. That disclosure and demand to conform and transform. The doctor does diagnosis by means of diagnosis. The doctor is participating in you coming returning to wholeness. Interacting and conforming and drawing out gnosis. So spiritual BS and meditation is in which meditation becomes a vehicle for narcissism. A vehicle for how wonderful I am. How unique I am. How everything is, it’s the opposite of what was just happening in lexia right now if I think of it. So we have this fever hunger for self reference. For uniqueness. Because somehow that will protect us against our mortality. It will protect us from our vulnerability. It will protect us from our impermanence. But it’s a lie. It won’t. We have very little control over the span of our life. But what we can make a difference is the depth to which we live it. And that deep kind of gnosis and love and understanding. We have that hunger for uniqueness and specialness. And oh, here I can treasure this. I can put this on the shelf so all can see. Or the other. The other BS is content. Just content. I don’t need transformation. I’m fine. This is a subtler form of narcissism. I’m really just okay. It’s all just wonderful. So, as you can see, I’m trying to exemplify I’m not claiming I’m free from this. In fact, I’m touching those temptations. I’m activating them. I’m trying to share them with you. That’s the BS that can come up in meditation. Anything, any sign, it’s a siren song. It’s calling you away. It’s calling you away from transformation. It’s calling you away from being called to what is ultimate beyond you and within you. That’s the BS. So I hope that answered your question for you. That’s a really important question. How is the setting out of the items that are reflected in the divina? Can you get more detail on that? Oh, this is from Theurgia. I pick items that are reflective of the wisdom paths to which I am committed, at least broadly. This is the frog, which is, you know, Platonism, because the frog starts. Think of what I was just saying. It starts in one world and it goes through a process and forms it to another world so it can live in another way and be in another way. So that’s the frog. And the rock, right, the rock, it’s wabe. It’s not perfectly symmetrical, although it’s very, very beautiful. It’s black. And so for me, this represents sort of Taoism and Buddhism that come together in Zen. So part of counting these around is remembrance. Remind yourselves of the paths that you’re committed to. And then when I’m setting them down on either side of me, I’m trying to set by literally, so when we embody an act, all of our cognitive actions are actually just acceptations of our sensory motor actions. So when I literally set this around me, that’s an enacted image, symbolic, of me setting myself intending to be in this course and to surround myself by these pathways. And that reminds me so that when I’m reading, I’m not just trying to consume and have propositions. I’m opening myself up to how something will speak to me, how the texts will speak to each other, how they’ll speak to aspects of my psyche that I’m not aware of, how the speaking will the lexio, the logos will come. So it helps me to set my intention. It’s a specific act of setting my intention here for the reading, but setting it within the broader setting of my commitment to my overall paths by which I hope and aspire to cultivate more wisdom and virtue. So I hope that was helpful. One more from Kelly Myers. I’m new to this saying. I have been working through your first lessons as well. What shall I do with my eyes during the standing exercise? How do I keep them closed, looking at, looking through? Excellent question, Kelly. So when you’re doing the moving exercises, keep your eyes open. It’s very important to not close your eyes.