https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=OWiANJeO_yc
Welcome to Meditating with John Rovicki. I’m a cognitive psychologist and a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto where I academically teach and scientifically study phenomena like mindfulness and related phenomena like insight, low mystical experience, transformative experience, higher states of consciousness, cultivation of wisdom and the aspiration to enlightenment. If you’re joining us for the first time, welcome. But you should know that we have finished the introductory course and we are moving into advanced techniques every Alternative Monday. The introductory course teaches what I’ve been practicing myself for over 29 years and teaching for close to 20 years, an integration of the Pasna and Metta. This part of the course is going to start bringing in something that I’ve also been teaching for 20 years and practicing for over 29 years and that’s elements drawn from Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Kung. For the Pasna and the Metta, please go to the links in this description and you can find the previous lessons. I recommend trying to do a lesson on Saturday or Sunday, practice it for a week and catch up that way and that way you can keep practicing with us. Please like this video screen to increase its visibility on YouTube so I can help as many people as possible. We sit every day, well today we’re going to be doing some standing, but we practice every day, perhaps it’s better now, Monday through Fridays from 9.30 to 10, sometimes a little bit beyond 10, especially on the Dharma days. There’s a Q&A at the end of every session. Please limit the questions for those that have Q&A to concerning the ecology practices in the course that I taught you so far and I’m teaching it. For more broad, ranging, expansive or deeper questions, please come to the monthly stream live Q&A on YouTube. It’s every third Friday of the month at 3 p.m. Eastern Time and that will be June 19th of this month. All right, so I think that’s everything we need to begin. So let’s start. As I mentioned, we’re now going to be drawing, although we did in the Vipassana and the Metta and the Prasna, we did draw upon some Taoist principles. We are going to shifting the emphasis a little bit more towards that end of things and just to explain a couple of basic ideas, they will be refined as we go on. Taoism has this idea of sort of a Yang principle to things. Yang is when things are expanding, brightening up, opening up and Yin is when things are contracting, getting cooler, getting darker. So Yin emphasizes groundedness and Yang emphasizes growth. And then the idea is there is a constant movement between them to interpenetrate and interafford and then when that interpenetration and interaffordance is operating, and this is very similar to Prasna, you get that realization through Yin and Yang, like the two visual fields of Tao, the underlying principle, the oneness that makes the flow and the relationship between Yin and Yang possible. Now in the practices I’m going to teach you, we’re going to learn to try and embody this. This often involves two contrasts, contrast between motion, which is Yang and rest or stillness, which is Yin, and also opening, which is Yang and closing, which is Yin. The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to do a Jan-Jung practice. This is a standing meditative practice. For all these practices I’ll just show you the basics. I also want to let everybody know that I’m going to be doing this teaching session. I’m going to teach this three times this week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that you’ll get a lot of replication and it’ll also be filmed so you can go back and check it. His physical things are a little bit trickier. Let’s first learn the basic standing. At times I’m going to turn side on so you can see what I’m doing. I want my feet about shoulder width apart, maybe a little bit wider. I’m going to stand side on because I want to show you something. What I’m going to do is I’m going to put my arms out like this and then open them. It’s as if I was going to sit down. I’m bending my knees and tucking my coccyx in so I can sit down. Then I open my arms a little bit wider than my shoulders and then my hands fall down. The palms are facing backwards. There’s little spaces under my armpit. This is called holding your eggs as if it was an egg there, cradle. You don’t want to crush it. You don’t want to drop it. This is called standing in Wuji. This is a posture that basically unlocks all of your joints and turns habitual frozen joints into active, engaged muscle. We’re doing that. We’re going to try, in all of these practices, do the baby breathing, do the Vipassana breath. Eventually you can probably work your way up to doing a kind of Prajna breath. We’ll see how that comes. Now we’re going to do this. I’m going to stand a little bit wider. I’m in Wuji. This sort of readiness, an emptiness that’s also a readiness. Right from the beginning, the end of the egg, I’m standing still but this is highly yang because it’s highly active. I’m getting very ready. You notice what I’m doing here. This is rooting. I’m getting sensitive and stable at the same time. I’m going to bring my hands up in front. My hands are slightly lower than my collarbone. They’re about a hand width between them. My elbows are lower than my wrists. This is called embracing the tree. What I’m imagining, I’m pantomiming, is this. I’m sitting on a big air ball. It’s sort of a little bit squishy but I bounce into it and it holds me. I’m holding the ball and I’m swishing against my chest. On my feet, I want to make sure I’m not back on my heels or forward on my toes. I want to be centered. You know what I’m talking about. I want to be centered between my heels and my toes. Let’s just do a couple of breaths of this. This is called embracing the tree. Really pantomime, squishing that ball with your arms, squishing that ball between your legs and also squishing it as you’re sitting down on it. Now what you want to do is bring your hands like this. That same feeling, it’s called pong, that feeling of sort of, almost like you’re not rigid but you’re not limp. As I inhale, I let my hands open and then as I exhale, it’s like I’m pushing on another squishy ball. It gets harder and harder as I push it. Now, I inhale and then as I exhale, I bring my hands to my stomach. Now I do four baby breaths here and I feel the heat. It’s called fire in the belly between my hands and in my stomach where my breath is. I’ll turn the slide away so you can see something. I’m going to raise my hands in a second and when I do, I inhale and I trace a line all the way up to the top of my head. That’s the inhale and then as my hands come down in front, you’ll see in a second, I’m going to do the same thing. There’s an exhale and I trace all the way down, back to the bottom. You put your tongue on your palate as if you’re going to say tea or beep. Sorry, this is a little bit graphic but there’s no other way of talking but you close your sphincter muscle like when you have gas and you don’t want to let it out in a social situation. So you’re closing your sphincter muscle, you’re tucking here. I’ll try and do it as I’m talking. I’m going to inhale and I trace all the way up from that point of contact where I can feel it to the top of my head and then washing front all the way back down. It’s called the microcosmic orbit. Back into Wuji. Now lift your hands up above your head and lift your head up a little bit as if you’re looking out into a bright horizon. I’m going to do two types of breathing here and I’m going to move my arms with it. I’m going to open my arms and I’m going to inhale and I’m going to say the word ah. I’m going to try and pantomime and I’m experiencing ah. And then as I exhale, I’m doing ah like I’m stepping into a bath. So as my hands expand, I’ll lift down like this. I do ah. And then ah. I bring my hands in front. Same thing. Now I’m trying to feel like I’m expanding like almost in meta. My mind is opening again and then it’s grounding. Now my heart. Same thing. Opening your heart as if you’re experiencing wonder and joy. It seems somebody, you haven’t seen them in a while, very beloved. And then as you’re closing, you’re centering like when you feel really grounded, really centered in this situation. Okay? Ah. Now at your dantia. And this is where it’s mostly more energetic. It’s just the raw energy of yang. Raw energy of yang. Okay. So this is now going to be the trickiest one of all. This is called really no silk. So we’re going to end with. Okay. So remember, I am reversed from you. Okay? If I turn my back, you won’t see what my hands are doing. So what I’m going to do is as I inhale, I’m going to shift. I’m not turning my head and my shoulders. You see this? I turn my hips and my heart and my head come along. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Turn your hips to turn your heart and your head. Okay? And what I do is I shift my weight onto my left foot. My hands are like this. This, this face is palm down and this face is in. Like this. I get to here. Okay? And then as I inhale, so I’m beginning to inhale. Okay? And I inhale up and this presses down and this comes up. Like this. Okay. And then what happens is this turns in and this turns flat. And I exhale across. Okay? And I’m going to turn my hips. Okay? Okay? Now this is going to, so turning my hips all the way here. Now as I inhale, this comes up. The left hand comes up, the right hand comes down. And I carry all my, I carry this all the way across. Notice my, this arm is staying below my clavicle and this is staying around my dantian. Like this. And then exhaling. And inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling. Exhaling. Inhaling. Now try to bring some imagination, a trained perception. Imagine, you’re trying to get the feeling in your arms as if you were wheeling silk, threads of silk. Enough to pull them, but not enough to snap them. Not so you can feel them, but also enough so you can pull them. Try to feel very soft and supple. Your movements are smooth and you’re sinking your mind into your body that’s sinking into the earth. Sinking also means sinking up. Trying to get everything to move in dynamic unity together. Yin and yang. In and out. Side to side. Okay then, bring your hands up, we’re turning to wu qi. Okay then we do a closing exercise. We inhale. And as we do we wash, a wave of relaxation on the front of our face, front of our chest, front of our abdomen, front of our legs, three feet into the earth. And we inhale, scooping up again. This is called bringing down the heavens. Exhale, back of the head, back of the neck, back of the body, back of the legs, sinking three feet into the earth. Inhale. Now through the core of the skull, core of the throat, core of the chest, core of the abdomen, core of the legs, three feet into the earth. And then one more time. All three at once, front, back and core. Back into wu qi. Okay, sit down. Jason’s going to adjust the camera slightly. And we can go into our seated practice. I’ll go over all of that again on Wednesday and on Friday. All right, so let’s get yourself ready for your sit. So your phones are do not disturb. We’ll begin when I say begin. We’re only sitting for 10 minutes today so that we have time for some questions. Begin. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Slow to come out of your practice, trying as best you can to integrate what you’ve cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. by reciting the five promises to yourself. So let’s take a few questions. Let’s give us some terminology. When we’re standing, that like you’re not moving, that’s each one. And when we’re moving, it’s chi-khan. Technically everything we’re doing is chi-khan, because it’s cultivating the chi. Often people use chi-khan to designate when we’re coordinating moving and breath and moving of the mind. When we’re just standing, like when we’re doing mu-chi or embracing the tree, that’s each one. So we’ve got a question from Lynn Slater. Hi, Lynn. Wendy Reed. So when I’m going to my left, I’m inhaling. Going to my right, exhaling. Going to my left, inhaling. I want a continuous breath. So continuous in-breath to the left, continuous out-breath to the right. Continuous in-breath, continuous out-breath. In-breath, out-breath. Karima. In focusing on the space between the trade cars, or this is back to the obsidian practice, where being the cat of muscle, my flow extends to my entire body and my attention wants to go into my third area. Yeah, it’s fine. So I can tell you’ve been practicing for quite a while. So when you move into that space, it’ll throw for your body and then again, that will become less distinctly your body and more the sort of dynamic ground of your embodied existence as you carry it into the practice. The third eye area, probably, you know, what’s happening there is you’ve also got some associated practices with that. And this is, and I mean this as a powerfully positive thing, this is an enacted symbol for trying to realize prajna. So as long as it doesn’t, as long as it’s a lens you look through and not a picture you look at, it’s fine. It’s fine. David R. Rubenstein. Hi, John. Can you please expand on the feeling of terror when we should do, what we should do if this arises and what it means? I think I’ve had this a few times, but I’m not sure what you’re referring to. It feels like I’m being subject to a lot of G-force and all this deepening and settling. I’m going to explore the sensation more. Will this do any harm? So if there’s something in you that is going to exploring the sensation, then explore it, but explore it very gently. There’s different ways in which that terror comes up. Not very often when you get put yourself into a situation that your brain finds as radically unfamiliar that can engender like, oh, and that particular species of that is quite intense is when the speaking mind, sort of the, the consulated metaphor of the ego, which is the speaking mind and sort of the way we have our body armor tension here, here, most of the body armor, but notice all the physical processes we’re doing today are designed to unlock and dissolve the body armor, by the way. But when we lose the sense of that, that the grounding set of sensations that gives the ego its substantiality, its pretended substantiality, I’m not saying the ego doesn’t exist, but it exists as a, as a dynamic process, not as a self-enclosed substance. Right? And so when that set of sensations that is the locus, when the, right, that the speaking mind and the familiar body armor drop away, we get, that can feel like a little death. But if you’ve got something in you that wants to explore that, that’s opening up, that feels it could be educated by that, try to, try to sort of situate you there. That’s where you’re doing the practice from, from that. Right? Right. And probe the sensations very gently. And this is an easy thing to say, but it’s, and I’ll teach this also in the advanced course, it’s a hard thing to practice, but you can practice it. You can realize that that self-centeredness upon the narrating body armored ego, when it drops away, you’re not, right, it’s not fatal. It’s not fatal. It’s not fatal to your flourishing. It’s not fatal to your agency. See, when we get into the flow state, this is what the research shows, that mattering nanny ego and our regular body armor drops away, but it doesn’t mean our agency, our connectedness drops away. Instead, they’re enhanced. In fact, this is why the flow state is so powerful. People get at one minute, they get out of the prison of the ego and they realize it’s fundamental lie, because its fundamental lie is unless you have me, unless I’m in charge, you will lose your agency, you will lose your connectedness. And that is the fundamental lie. It doesn’t mean your ego is an evil thing, but that lie is something you have to learn to not believe, learn to let go. You have to sort of fast, like, you know, when you’re fasting, it’s a mind-body fast from that ego lie. André, I noticed that during my morning, the sense of anxiety I usually have in the morning lately disappears. I’m doing only the baby breathing and labeling with focus of breath. Is the calm from that? Exactly. That’s exactly right. That’s where the calm is coming from. That’s exactly right. So I’m glad you’ve had that insight, because that’s a deeply affording insight that will carry you forward in a powerful way. Kira, hi, Kira. Kira Kroger. Is arm placement on the silk move important? I have issues with left, right, and so I seem to be able to get the flow of hands in the circular motion, but I seem to have hands in the opposite position. It’s good to try and get it so that, and you’ll have the video to practice. I’ll try and also do it, maybe side on, on Wednesday a few times. The reason why it’s good to do this is because at some point, I hope, you’ll be able to practice this in person with another person, because doing these practices in person where you are in sync not only with yourself, but with those around you, and then the environment is extremely powerful. So it’s good to try and get this to be as much as what I’m modeling as possible for the long-term benefits of the practice. Algernon, in another Tai Chi practice, they use the words opening the gate and moving one’s left and right foot apart into the opening stance and closing the gate when ending. Yeah, that’s a good metaphor. That’s a good metaphor. That’s not part of the tradition I’ve brought up, but I understand what you’re talking about. When I start to show you a bit of the walking meditation and a little bit of the Tai Chi, you’ll get a lot of that there. Okay, so it’s been a long session today. Thank you for your patience. Please remember that this will be available to you. It’s recorded. Consult it. So this is different, right? I have to sort of rush a bit, but the video will be there, and I will do this again on Wednesday, again on Friday, and then you’ll have a set up, and then you’ll have, of course, an entire week, because then when we come back on the next armaday, I’m going to build on it. Okay? So thank you all for joining, and thank you for this wonderful sangha that is so nurturing and nourishing to me. Thank you to my dear friend and techno major, Mark, my beloved son, Jason, who is literally behind the scenes making the camera move for us. I appreciate that greatly. Please subscribe to the channel to be noticed in the next video. On my channel, you’ll find the lecture series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, the discussion series, the DiaLogo series, Voices with Ravagy, exploring all of this and in more depth, more comprehensively, extending it into a philosophy, a way of life, philosophia, the love of wisdom. I invite others who might benefit by sharing this series, trying to help me to help as many people as I can. So Brett, a pleasure, Doug, is probably here. They meet on the Discord server afterwards to do lexio, talk about what’s being learned, just a broader community there. I will be on the Discord tonight for the live Q&A at 6 p.m. Eastern time. So if you want a link to the Discord, you’ll find it in the description of this video. Reminder that we do this every weekday morning at 930 Eastern time. So this now becomes especially pertinent, right? Continuity of practice. Practice what I taught you new today, today, a couple times if you can. Continuity of practice is more important than quantity of practice. There’s no enemy worse than your own mind and body. There’s no friend, no ally, no true companion on the path as great as your own mind and body. Relapse unto yourself. See you tomorrow, everyone. Continue your practice. Take good care. Thank you.