https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=fE0A5zHzAms
Welcome to Meditating with John Verbeke. We do this live stream every weekday morning at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time with Mondays alternating between Adharma Day, which I teach a new lesson. I’m very excited for this upcoming Monday, which is Adharma Day, and we’re going to start the wisdom of Hypatia, begin on the Western wisdoms, which I’m very excited about this. And then that alternates with Mondays where we review the whole ecology of practices called Hypatia. If you’re joining us for the first time, you’re most welcome. This is a little bit unusual. Normally you’d be closer in and I’d be sitting, but today we’re doing some final additions to the Waki Meditations. That’s why I’m like this. If you are joining us for the first time, I recommend that you go to the description for this video. You’ll find links for previous lessons and sips. Go and immediately do lesson one. Continue to meet with us, but every week try to do one or two lessons and then you’ll slowly catch up. No, not slowly. You’ll actually fairly rapidly catch up with us and be integrated into this hangout. I would ask you all to please like this video stream to increase its visibility in the YouTube algorithm so it can reach as many people as possible. At the end of every session, there is a Q&A. Please limit the questions about that time to anything from the ecology of practices. For more general questions, please come to the general Q&A that’s done every third Friday of the month at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. This month that will be the Friday, August the 21st at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. I think that’s it. Let’s review the Waki Meditation a bit and then we’re going to add in the arms. Then you’ll actually be doing what’s a pretty central move from very mini Tai Chi forms, which is called brush knee. Okay, so a couple ways of standing here. Remember the right foot goes 45. So exhaling coming forward. This is quick review. Inhaling coming back. You don’t have to do this with your hands. I’m just showing you what’s happening with my hips. I pivot from my hip, align the knee, start to put the weight on, turn all the way, bring this up. I keep the hip distance between, not like this, not like this, hip distance between my legs, straighten my hips as I go forward. When I want to turn, I shift the weight, lift the foot, pivot as much as I can, don’t put the weight down, then shift the weight from what was the back foot to what was the front foot and then pivot even more and then lift this foot up and over, forward, back, align, turn. Remember, whenever we’re going forward, exhaling, whenever we’re coming back, inhale. What does that look like? Front on. Just give you a sense. 45, back. Remember, don’t lean forward. Head cradled in the pelvis, in the center of the pelvis, center this way, center this way. All right? Okay? What does that look like? Side up, back on. All right, I’m like this. 45 foot, tuck, back, turn, touch. Okay? All right, now let’s add in the arms. Now you don’t have to add in the arms, first of all. You’re finding the walking is very challenging because what you’re trying to remember what you’re doing is you’re obviously meditating on doing the act, that’s why it’s challenging. It’s designed to enhance your chances of getting into the flow state. It’s also designed to help really trigger the cerebellum and the cortex loop and you’re meditating on being centered and rooted and flowing throughout. And if that’s enough, that’s enough. But adding in the arms makes it even more embodied, more comprehensive. You get an even greater sense of being at one with yourself. It makes it more challenging. So let me do side on first to show you how we start with the arms. So we, you know, hip width apart, I turn this 45, okay? So what we want to do is we’re going to start with our hands, right? Like this part, the ball right here behind your toes, right here. And you’re going to, what you’re going to do is you’re going to, that way you can pivot on it. So just like you’re going to walk, this foot goes 45, but instead of stepping, put this foot like this, okay? And what you’re going to do is you’re going to turn my hips to the right, my right hand comes up so that my fingertip, right, of my middle finger is in front of my nose tip like this. So that’s what’s happening there. And I’m trying to always move as one. I don’t move and then my hand, my hand and my movement at the same time. I feel like my hips are turning a crank that makes my hand go into place. What’s this hand doing? Okay, this hand, as I pivot, this hand is coming in front. See how it’s turning and it’s bent. It’s not locked. It’s protecting me here, protecting my liver and it’s protecting my heart. This is called a full body block, right? It’s curved. You see how I’m not lifting my shoulder up? It’s curved. So this one is doing this, this one is doing this. So this is rotating up, this is rotating down. Then I step like I do in the Tai Chi walking, right? And I’m going to straighten my hips and come forward. And as I do, this turns my hands. See how this hand is starting to turn? Okay. Let’s do the upper hand first. We’ll get the lower hand, the upper hand. Now don’t come this way. Don’t come on the diagonal. Spiral in. I’ll do this side on too. I come in and then down the center. See how my palm, which is originally facing me, is rotating the whole time I’m doing that. Okay? So don’t do the diagonal. That is wrong. It’s like you’re doing a J. You’re starting at the bottom of the J and going to the top. Let’s the lower hand do it. This is where the name of the move comes from. It’s brushing past the knee. You see that? As my hips turn it, it brushes past the knee. And then as my weight settles, it comes beside as if there’s a plank coming right out of my leg and I’m slapping that plank like that. Not locked, not locked. This is wrong. This is right. Living, living joints, not dead locked ones. Okay. So let’s put that together. And then I’ll do it side on. Okay, so I got my hands. Turn. Brushing the knee. Doing that J with the upper hand. Okay. What does this look like side on? Right foot goes 45, left foot, as I said. Rotating down, rotating up. All at once, all at once. Everything starts and stops at the same time. Step. Brushing the knee with the lower hand, doing the J with the upper hand. Let’s do that again. Okay. Now, in Tai Chi walking, right, meditative walking, you would bring your weight back and your toe would come up because you’re going to pivot. Okay. So I’ve done this. As my weight comes back, my hands come in like this. You see? They’re coming in, you know, almost like that. Okay. And then when I pivot and I align the knee, all of these are now aligned. This hand, this hand, knee, toe. Everything’s aligned. You know, here’s the very difficult part. Remember how in meditative walking you turn all your weight onto this hip and bring this foot up? Remember this? When I do this, I switch my hands. This rotates in and this rotates down. Okay. So I’m like this, right? Let’s get there again. Here, back, align the three, switch. Here, back, align the three, switch. Here, back, align the three, switch. And then you do the brush knee on this side. This is the reverse J here. Well, this is a normal J, the bottom to top here. This is like the reverse J on this side. I guess it’s more like a loopy L. Maybe that’s a better way. This is a J and this is an L. And then this is brushing the knee. Okay. Let’s put the two together. So turn the foot up, right foot 45, left foot comes up, so you can pivot here. Pivot, step, brush the knee. This is the loopy L. Back, align the two, switch. Here, back, align the two, switch. Back, align, switch, brush the knee. And now you can repeat. Back, align, switch. Okay. Let’s try this again. And get reminder. Don’t add it in the arms if you don’t want to. But if you can do the full-blown brush knee, it’s a very, very powerful movement practice. Okay. Okay, so back, align, switch. Now let’s say I want to turn around. Okay. So remember what we do with the foot movement. Just a reminder. This is the foot movement. You see how my feet are going to do the brush knee footwork? Okay. Let’s do it this way. That way I’ll face the camera better. Okay. So what I’m going to do, right, is I’m just going to come up. It’s like I’m pulling here, right. Okay. So I’m going to come up. Okay. I’m trying to think of what way I want to do it that’s easiest for you guys to see. Hmm. Maybe this is better. Yeah, that’s best, I think, to foresee. Yeah. Okay, so I’ve done the brush knee here. Then I’m going to pull. As I do that, this part, remember, this arm is pulling down, and this one is drilling up in front of my face. So like this. This is actually called carry tiger to mountain. Okay. So I’m wrapping this up and see what’s happening. My inside, what’s called the knife edge of my hand, is spiraling in towards my nose. Okay. This one is spiraling underneath my elbow. Now that part where I shift my weight, remember, and turn this even more, I drill this down. Then I lift this up and over, and then I do the J. This hand here, brush the knee. This J’s in, this brush is the knee, and I do a brush knee. Okay, let’s do that again. So forward like this. Drawing this in, drawing this in. As I shift the weight, drawing this down. Step, brush knee. Of course, I can do this way as well. Okay. Here, rotate, drill down, lift up and over, brush knee. And then what would happen? I’d go back, align, switch, brush knee. Okay, so let’s review some of the key pointers. This foot goes 45. This one’s on the ball just behind my toes, so I can pivot on it. Drilling down, full body block, drilling up. This right in front of my nose. Step. This is like a reverse L, not the diagonal. In like this, into your center and down, brushing the knee, hitting the plank. Bend, bend, not this, bend, bend. Okay, back, right, align, switch, brush knee. Okay, up, as I shift the weight, okay, drilling down, stepping, brush knee. Same principles. We’re breathing. Whenever you’re moving back, inhaling, ever pushing forward, you’re exhaling. Okay, I’ll review this again on Friday, and then you guys can ask me some questions around next week. But you’ll find that once you’re doing the full-blown brush knee, it’s a very challenging, very demanding, but also very rewarding moving mindfulness practice. Okay, I’m just going to get my mat and my cushion. When you’re doing the brush knees, you will genuinely be playing Tai Chi. Okay, so we’re going to sit a little bit shorter because we have all the time for the instruction there today. So please get yourself in your position, set your phones on do not disturb. We’ll chant, as always, then we’ll go into the silent sit, and then we’ll answer a few questions. We will begin when I say begin. Begin. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Om. Begin your silent sit. 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. So you can look at your practice, trying as best you can to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your immediate consciousness, cognition, character and communicates, perhaps by reciting the five promises to yourself. Alright. All right. Let’s answer a couple of questions. This is from Karima. You mentioned something about time yesterday. It seems like so long ago. Have you read this book or recommend existential and ontological dimensions of time in Heidegger and Doge? I have not read that book. I think we might have had this question before too, by the way. I’ve read a similar book on comparing Doge and Heidegger on the sense of time, but I think that’s a good book to consider. One of the things that I plan to do when I do the series on the God Beyond God and Reinventing the Sacred, which is exploring the non-theistic tradition and how it’s emerging into prominence right now, is I want to devote a significant chunk to the Kyoto School. I think the Kyoto School tried to integrate between Heideggerian continental phenomenological philosophy, which is very much about trying to recover the sense of embodiment and embeddedness of all the four E’s that are in four E, cognitive science, and also bring back the sense of sacredness of being. So that whole philosophical tradition and also the pragmatism that came out of James. So some very important Western philosophy with important aspects from Buddhism and a bit of Taoism within Zen, and the Kyoto School tried to integrate them very deeply together. Both Dojin, who represents the Zen tradition, and Heidegger saw some very profound connections between the sense of time and the sense of being. Thanh, H-A-N, in his recent book, The Scent of Time, has explored that in great depth and the way in which our current ways of being and seeing so fragment, he calls it atomized time, that this has a deeply fragmenting effect on our own sense of being. And in that sense, I think, and Chris, Dr. Beatriz, with me on this, contributes very significantly to the current meaning crisis. So Han actually talks about an ability to linger with things. Think about how that just picks up on so much of what we are trying to do with the mindfulness and sense of reciprocal opening and being coupled to things and off. Recovering a profound ability to linger things, to be with things, couple things together in the unfolding of time so that we sati, we remember that we are mortals, we are inherently temporal beings. Temporal beings who, nevertheless, in eternity, into right relationship with each other and puts you into right relationship with that right relationship between time and eternity. So we’ll try and get some more questions answered tomorrow. And please remember to share observations and comments as much as questions. It helps all of us. And I want to thank you all for joining. And I want to thank my dear friend and technomagic Mar and my beloved son Jason who is pinch hitting and apprenticing right now. Please subscribe to the channel to be notified of the next video. Also, if you can, if you are not opposed to it on principle, please follow me on Twitter so you can be notified about any updates about all of these streams. Invite others who might benefit by sharing this series on my video channel. You have lots you can share with them. There’s a lecture series, Awakening from the Meeting Crisis. There’s a Dialogo series, Voices with Reveki. There’s a new series that’s coming out soon called A Time the World Nod of Consciousness with Greg Enriquez. There, we’re going to be doing some towards the end of the year, of course, but we’re going to be doing some of the other videos. Towards the end of the year, of course, we’re doing some college psych courses after Socrates is coming. So there’s lots there. A reminder that you should consider getting involved with the Discord server in order to chat with each other, practice with others. This will be relevant for some of the practices, extremely relevant for some of the practices when we do wisdom of Hypatia because they’re group practices. The Western tradition puts more emphasis on practicing in your life and practicing with others than the Eastern tradition. And so we’re going to need to rely on the Discord server. I’m going to talk to Greg and Mark about this, how to coordinate that a little bit more effectively, give people hopefully an arena where some of the practices that I teach you when we’re doing the Dharma from the wisdom of Hypatia can be practiced there. I think that’s everything I need to do about announcements. Just a reminder, we’re doing this every morning at 930 a.m., every weekday morning at 930 a.m. Eastern time. Remember, please remember that continuity of practice is more important, quantity of practice. Don’t hold you, don’t hold yourself to an impossible standard of perfection. Hold yourself to virtuous friendship. There is no enemy worse than your own mind and body. There’s no friend, no ally, no true companion on the path better than your mind and body. Elapse unto yourselves and to each other. I’ll see you all tomorrow. Take good care.