https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=XEwIXVhK3p4
Welcome to Meditating with John Verbeke. We do this every weekday mornings at 9.30am. Mondays we alternate between a new lesson called Adharma Day. Today is Adharma Day. And next Monday will be Paya Day in which we review the entire ecology of practices. If you’re joining us for the first time, please continue sitting with us. But what I recommend you do is immediately go to the description in the notes for this video. And you’ll find links to previous lessons and previous sits. Immediately do lesson one. And then every Saturday or Sunday or whatever day you happen to have off, do another lesson and you’ll very quickly be integrated with the rest of us. I would ask you all please to help me reach as many people as possible by liking this video and liking the stream to raise visibility in the YouTube algorithm. At the end of each sit we have a question and answer. Please limit your questions at that time to questions about this course that we’re all on together. For more encompassing questions, please come to my general Q&A that’s live streamed on YouTube every third Friday of the month at 3pm Eastern time. That will be July 17th. I think that’s it for announcements right now. And so let’s get into the Dharma practice for today. This is another layering practice and it’s also a linking practice. You’ll see how it layers on I think aspects of prajna, but you’ll also see how it links again between mindfulness and more propositionally based processing. And so in a similar way, you’ll find that it sort of resonates and the pun is kind of intended with lexio divina. So the point about chanting is we’re going to be trying to do something that’s more a little bit more musical. And why that matters is because music is one of the fundamental ways in which we play with how things are salient to us. And it’s also how we play with the machinery by which we make sense of things, how things are intelligible to us. So it’s getting it to the root and chanting because it is linguistic, of course, will engage the left hemisphere, but because it’s also musical, pattern, open ended, engages the right hemisphere. It’s very conducive, as you can imagine, for increased insight because insight is about getting a dynamic integration between the left and right hemispheres. Chanting is also important for what Winkleman calls neural axial integration. So this is integration from sort of the higher cortex areas down to the basic areas of the brain stem. Music has that capacity to do that. Music has a capacity there because it’s resonant to integrate the inner and the outer. This is why we have this notion of enchanting something, doing magic, enchanting it. Filling it with power or meaning. So there’s a lot to bring to mind in your intention to chant. So the difficulty with chanting, this is why I’m laying, why are you giving me all this theory? I’m laying all this in because not because I want you to, oh, I want you to build a very sophisticated intent for chanting. Because chanting, the setting sin of chanting is to fall into sort of bop. You just go, ah, ah, ah, ah. You can do that. You can do that very easily. But if you remember everything you’re trying to activate and access and accentuate with chanting, then it’ll go much more transformative for you. So it’s very important that you let your stomach be open and belly breathing. It’s also very important that you don’t hyperventilate. So again, try to keep your breathing. Now, you’re going to be breathing differently than you normally do because you’re going to be taking in breaths and then using your out-breath to chant. But make sure you’re not getting that sense of a thinness to your breath. And a lightheadedness. You don’t want that. You should always feel that you’re well-rounded. So typically, we won’t do this right now, but typically where I find chanting to sort of fit in best is I’ve done all my moving practices, all the chi khan, the jian jian, the chuan. I sat, I’ve done the siddhi chi khan, right? I’ve done the rooting, I’ve done the flow. And then I go into chanting. Then I go into chanting. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to inhale. And then as you exhale, you’re going to chant. Now, when you do, so in order to emphasize for me, and I’m just going to introduce something to you. Again, it’s an integrative practice and it’s designed to also bridge between the Eastern course that we’re on and the Western course we’re going to take up with the wisdom of I.T. So that’s why I’ve chosen this one. And it’s also one that for me, it resonates with the two symbols that I carry around. So we’re going to use from the Eastern tradition, om, as one aspect of the chant. And from the Western tradition, one, because the oneness of things is the epitome of the Neoplatonic wisdom tradition. Om has to do with the grounding, the emergence, the flowing into existence of things. One has to do, of course, with the oneness of things, the oneness of things. Om is chanted lower. So it sounds like this. And notice what I’m doing. So sort of my mouth is sort of rounding. Sometimes om is actually spelled A-U-M. Om. And you want a bit of that rounding in your mouth. Om. And you don’t want the chant to end with your mouth coming closed. Right. That’s halfway through the chant. So it’s om. So I take a breath. Om. And see, I’m rounding to closure. Sorry, I have to talk and interrupt the chant. I need a hand puppet or something over here chanting while I’m talking or something. But anyways, when I get here, I want to continue on with the om. So the ah part is out. Right. And then the mm is in. And you want to feel the vibration in your chest and your abdomen as much as you can. And you’re trying to get, it’s like the vipassana. It’s like the centering and the grounding. It’s very energetic, but it’s very much like getting, that’s why it’s a deeper note. Mm takes you down into the daps. Right. Takes you down right to the dow, where everything emerges from, flows from. Then an in-breath. And one is higher because this is supposed to pick up on the, I notice how everything is an enacted image. Everything is symbolic. Because this is like the ascent we’re going to learn about, the anagagay that’s central to the Western tradition. And so this one’s higher. One. And when I’m pronouncing the n, I try to feel, I try to feel sort of how I try to feel all at once, the oneness of everything, and how everything is one. That n is like the pronouncing, pronouncing of everything’s determination. See, there’s a lot happening. There’s a lot happening. So one cycle would look like this. So I inhale. Om. One. What I tend to notice when I do this is that my om tends to get deeper also. I mean like in pitch as I get further into the practice. And the one gets a little bit higher. And what you also, you can feel the prajna. So although prajna tends to me to be more in and out, this is also not just in and out, it’s up and down. So you’ve got the emergence from om and the emanation from one, if you want to think about it that way. So there’s this creative tension. The Greek word is tonos. And so what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to enact in the chanting, you’re trying to enact sort of the fundamental grammar of being. You’re trying to enact it symbolically, but it’s not just a symbol that refers. You’re enacting it. It’s a symbol that participates. And that’s where you get the transformation. Now, because you’re doing something that has this conceptual aspect to it and has this linguistic aspect, you can see how it’s bridging into the propositional, but the musical, the coordination, the music, the coordination with the breath, the rhythm, the actual way your metabolic energy is being aroused. All of that is also moving it into the participatory. And of course, the up down and the in out is transforming the perspectival. So all of this, you’re trying to do this. And I’ll review this again with you on Wednesday and Friday. You’re trying to do all of this in chanting. Try not to have chanting just be there’s other things you can be doing, like other things you can chant with. I’m just giving you an example. I’m trying to give you one that will fit the course. That’s why I’ve chosen this one. It’s also what I tend to prefer in practice, because, like I say, it will bridge between the eastern traditions we’ve been making most use of right now, Buddhism and Daoism, and it will bridge into the Neoplatonic tradition, which is, as Verstuelis argues, it’s the spiritual grammar of the West. OK, so how is that for everybody? I hope that makes sense. I’ll do it one more time. All right. So in breath. And throughout, right? And this is part of the feeling the flow in my body. I’m not losing my flow. I’m not losing my route. And this is really important. I’m feeling again. What’s the tenor of my mind? Is it getting thin and wispy and starting to race? Or is it feeling rich and rooted? It’s rich and rooted. I’m chanting well. If it’s getting thin and wispy and starting to hyperventilate and spin off, or if it’s getting dull and sort of closing in, then I’m falling into sort of just a rhythmic, almost like a lullaby and lulling myself, lulling myself towards sleep. So you don’t want the lulling and you don’t want the wispiness. You want that sort of rich rootedness. And for those of you who can sing well, you want that sort of that rich tonality to be a way of embodying that richness. Try not to think of this as a musical performance, even though there is a lot of music going on. My hope is that we can figure out some way in which we can do this and we can hear each other. We can do it collectively because that then brings up the final dimension that chanting brings to it, which is the deep integration between individual and the group. Because what happens when you’re chanting, especially when you don’t try to make it a musical performance, is that the various chants take on a life of their own and start to spontaneously harmonize with each other. That’s if people don’t really try to do it. OK, so I think that’s it. So what I recommend we’ll do is the following. I recommend we what we’ll do is the following. I’m going to do the moving Qigong exercise just to act as a bit of a bridge. And then do the open and closing motion that I’ve taught you. Then there’ll be silence for a bit as you find your center, find your root, find your flow, find your focus. Then I’m sorry I’ll interrupt and we’ll chant for a bit. And then we’ll go when that will go into whatever son of practice you want to engage. OK. All right. So let’s set the timer again. 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