https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=qsE_XxfFQ0w
Welcome. I’m John Ravecki and this is Meditating with Ravecki. I’m a cognitive psychologist and a cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto. I study mindfulness, scientifically, mindfulness and related phenomena like flow, mystical experiences, wisdom, etc. I’ve also been a practitioner of a past meditation, meta-compensation, Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong for 29 years and I’ve been teaching it professionally, introductory classes for almost 20 years. This is a course. I mean, that means it’s progressive. The classes build on each other. Monday and Thursday are teaching classes. Today is a teaching class. It’ll go to 10 after 10. If this is your first time joining us, I recommend instead of trying to sit with us today, you’re welcome to sit if you wish, but it’ll probably be more helpful because this will be recorded. You’ll be able to watch it later at your leisure. Go back and watch day one at least and then you’ll see what you missed and then you can join us tomorrow when we will sit together. So Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Friday and Saturdays, we just sit together from 9 to 10. I do a For each class, there’s a Q&A section at the end and I’ll be able to answer your question. So as I said, today’s a teaching class and what I want to talk about today is the second of the core four that we’re finding in order to properly befriend ourselves and set up an excellent foundation and platform for the cultivation of mindfulness. And the second of the core four is finding your root. Now this is a particular instance where what I’m going to teach you has been deeply influenced by Tai Chi Chuan. So many people come to meditation because they’re very interested in relaxing and of course that’s extremely central on people’s minds right now because of the extra stressors we’re facing which are significant. But we have to remember that we’re trying to get a form of relaxation that’s good for mindfulness, a form of relaxation that will actually more properly connect us in an adaptive manner to the world. So what I’m trying to do is get you to see the contrast between the normal relaxation that we all understood and to which we are deeply habituated. This is the relaxation you do when you want to move towards falling asleep. You start to dull your mind, your body becomes insensitive, your awareness of the world decreases, your ability to monitor and manage your own mind decreases and you pass into unconsciousness. And of course this is tremendously valuable and I’m not criticizing it in any way. But that’s not what we want here. We don’t want a relaxation that takes us into mindlessness. We want a relaxation that actually enhances and takes us deeper into mindfulness. So a good place to look for that is in the martial arts, especially things like Tai Chi Chuan, what are called the internal martial arts, because they really have spent a lot of time working on this kind of relaxation, relaxation for mindfulness. So if you see like a martial artist, they’ll often do something in the tradition I was taught, it was called sort of finding your route. I won’t stand up, but they sink down and then their arms sink and you can see that they’re kind of relaxing. Now obviously what they’re not trying to do there is to become unconscious because that would be extremely dangerous. What are they doing? Well the relaxation that we’re doing, I’m sort of modeling with my arms here, what they’re doing is they’re relaxing their arms because they’re trying to get to a place where they’re actually increasing the sensitivity in their arms and their hands and they’re also trying to find a place of stability. Because that combination of stability and sensitivity and the kind of position they’re taking is multi-app for like transforming this, you don’t fight with this posture obviously, but this posture has you sort of multiply apt, really well set to make the adaptive changes rapidly that you need to make. So with routing, what you’re trying to do is relax till you find that point of sensitivity and stability. In the tradition, this is called, in the meditation tradition, this is called being as still as a mountain but as alert as a warrior. And so the martial art metaphor that I’m using here is actually appropriate for this tradition. So I’m going to teach you how to find your route. Now like before with finding your center, I will talk you through it, but so don’t start doing it right now, let me describe it to you so when I use certain phrases and terms, when I’m talking you through it, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. So what I’m going to ask you to do when we start it is bring your mind, your attention and your awareness to the top of your head. And then I’ll say wash your attention. And what do I mean by wash? I mean don’t jump your attention from here to your eyes, but wash your attention awareness to your eye area. Okay? And then when I get to the eye, your eye area, I’ll say I want you to, I want you to pause and look. And what you to become aware of this area, any tension, any tightness, any tingling, you know the sensations that are here, any sense of any imminent information that’s trying to come into your awareness that we were normally backgrounding or ignoring because it’s not super salient to us. And so what we want to do is we want to look at it. So notice the change when you’re just seeing and I ask you to look. See what happens when I ask you go from just seeing me or just seeing the situation to looking over there. You’re getting that added attention that is getting you present and coupled to that area. So you’re looking. You’re not trying to do anything. You’re not trying to make yourself feel better. There might be unpleasant sensations there. So be it. And so you’re going to do looking. And then I’ll say listening. And this is even more that focusing. Like, you know, seeing is to looking, hearing is to listening. But what I’m trying to pick up on that metaphorically is like when you’re at a party and there’s lots of people talking and you’re listening to the person that’s in front of you. So what you’re doing is you’re creating that special sensitivity channel for them. So you first look and then you’re listening. You’re really opening yourself up, sensitizing yourself, giving a dedicated channel of awareness and attention to what’s going on here. Now you’re going to do loosening. And so the loosening here is when you try to relax the area. But this is a crucial point. You’re relaxing not to make anything go away or make anything better. You’re loosening because what you’re trying to do is get some stability and sensitivity. You’re loosening to enhance the listening. That’s the kind of relaxation that we’re pursuing here. And then I’ll say let it flow. And what I mean by that is let it fill your awareness. Let it sort of unfold almost like a movie that’s starting to unfold and roll. And let it fill your awareness. Again, you’re not trying to make anything happen. And you’re not trying to make, you know, bad sensations go away. You’re trying to be as deeply present as possible. You’re trying to increase sensitivity and yet remain deeply stable within that sensitivity. So letting it flow. And then letting it go means you’re not going to be attached to this. You’re not going to get too enmeshed in it. Because then you’re going to let your attention wash. You’re going to let sort of this sensation of opening, melting, draining, letting your attention and awareness wash to your heart area. And then we’ll repeat it. We’ll do looking, listening, loosening, letting it flow, letting it go. Opening, melting, draining to the dantien. And then opening and repeating that whole process here. And then down to where you can feel where you’re touching your pillow, touching your chair, right? And repeat it there at that point of contact. Because what you’re trying to do, especially at that point of contact, is really enhance yourself of groundedness, connectedness. When the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he touched the earth. Okay? So you’re touching the earth. You’re grounded. This is like the root of a tree. And then what you want to do is you want to, I’ll ask you to imagine. And this is imagination. We use imagination. This is the sense of imagination, not as imaginary, but imaginal. We’re using imagination to train perception. And we now have some very good problems. You’re going to use imagination to enhance that sense of groundedness by imagining all of this pooled awareness and attention, everything that’s sort of drained down like a liquid sinking three feet below you, like the root of a tree growing, seeking stability, seeking nourishment. You’re going to walk you through several points doing a back line, taking you all the way down your back. And then we’ll leave that. So we’ll have a front root, a back root, and then we’ll do that. We’ll go through a center root. You have to imagine in the center of your head, right? Chest, abdomen, point of contact. And then a front root, a back root, and then a center root. And then they all become one root reaching into the earth. And then I’ll ask you to make any micro adjustments necessary to get your root and your center to be fully integrated together. Your root is actually just a deep extension and development of your being centered. So what we’re going to do today is the following. There’ll be silence for a bit. Everybody will close their eyes. There’ll be silence. And I’ll give people time to do the same thing. Always center before your root. I’m teaching you these in an order for an explicit purpose. So find your center. Then I’ll talk you through the rooting exercise. I’ll talk you all the way through it. And then when the rooting exercise is done, we won’t come out of the exercise. What I’ll say is, you know, savor what it is like to be deeply centered and rooted and then begin to meditate. Follow your breath the way I’ve taught you. So what’s going to happen? One more time. There’ll be silence. You’ll be centering. It’ll be a little bit jarring because I’ll have to then start speaking to you. I’ll try and do that as sort of gently as possible. I will talk you through the rooting exercise. Back center. Remember looking, coming into a coupled contact, listening, really sensitizing yourself, loosening, relaxing, which is trying to find an increased sensitivity but a stability within it. Letting it flow. Letting it unfold and deeply talk to you. And then letting it go. Not getting attached or immersed and enmeshed in it. Letting your attention and awareness open, melt, drain, wash down to the next area where we stop. After I talk you through the first, the front, the second, the back, the third, the center, I will then say now begin after you savor your center and your root, begin to meditate. Okay? So that’s what we’re going to do. So again, about a couple minutes of silence to begin. We’ll set the timer a little bit longer today. We’ll set the timer for about 17 minutes. Let’s begin. Okay. Okay. Gently bring your attention and awareness to the very top of your head. Let your attention and awareness wash to your eye area. We’re pausing there and we’re looking. Kind of pick up on any tension, tightness, emotional tone, sensations, emotions that are coming in. Letting it flow. Letting it open. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Just a minute information. Just let it talk to you. Looking. Not trying to make anything happen. Now listening. Now loosening. Relaxing the area but to enhance the listening. Now to enhance the flow of information. You’re stable within that flow. Now letting it flow. Really let it fill and unfold. It fills your awareness. It unfolds throughout your mind. Now letting it go. Letting your attention wash down your throat. Opening, melting, draining to come to your heart area. Stopping in your heart area. Looking. Letting it flow. Let it open. Listening. Loosening for the sake of listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Letting it go. Letting it go. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Tension and awareness washing down to your Dauntian area right near your navel. Opening, melting, draining to there. Stopping. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Loosening for the sake of listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Letting it go. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining right down to where you feel that point of contact. Pausing there. Looking. Listening. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Loosening for the sake of listening. Listening. Loosening for the sake of listening. loosening for the sake of listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go, opening, melting, draining three feet into the earth, like the root of a tree seeking stability, seeking nourishment, being deeply grounded. How to leave that running naturally in place, but don’t worry about trying to manage it or maintain it. Bring your attention to the top of your head again. Very gently. Don’t just jump. Just go very gently. Bring it to the top of your head again. Washing your attention awareness over the back of your head, opening, melting, draining until you get to the base of your skull, point where your neck goes into your skull. Lots of tension there. You’re not going to make all the tension go away. That’s not your goal. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go, opening, melting, draining down the back of your neck to the base of the neck spot between the top, the tips of your shoulder blades at the top. Looking. How to leave that running naturally in place, but don’t worry about trying to manage it. listening, loosening for listening, letting it flow. Letting it go. Attention awareness, opening, melting, draining, down to about the center of your back, opposite your solar plexus, stopping there. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining, all the way down to where you feel that point of contact, more towards the back this time. Pausing and looking. Loosening for the sake of listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining, sinking three feet into the earth. The root of a tree seeking stability and nourishment. The front root and your back root are now touching each other in that depth, connected, interwoven. Very gently bring your attention awareness to the top of your head again. Opening, melting, draining to an imaginal space in the very center of your skull. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining to a spot in the very center of your chest. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining to a spot in the very center of your abdomen. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Opening, melting, draining to making contact to the earth, very center of that contact point now. Looking. Listening. Loosening for listening. Letting it flow. Letting it go. Draining, opening, melting, draining, seeking three feet into the earth like the roots of a tree. Seeking stability, seeking nourishment, groundedness. Front root, back root, center root are now one root. Feel that root as an extension and development of your center. Do any micro adjustments so you feel that your center and your root are locked together, interwoven. Feel and savor what it’s like to be deeply centered and rooted. Now begin to meditate. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Letting it flow. Slowly begin to come out of your practice. Trying as best you can to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. Try to create a sense of what it would be like to be centered and rooted and having that awareness of your mind as you open your eyes, as you look around. What’s it like trying to, it’s going to fade into the background. Let it fade, but let it fade slowly. What it’s like to be centered and rooted. What it’s like to have that awareness of the patterns and processes in your mind as you open your eyes and start to look around. Try to get into the habit, and I’ll talk to you out of this every time, of integrating in this manner. Practice this integration. You’re trying to build a bridge between your practice and your everyday consciousness and cognition. You probably wanted to sit a little longer, but I was trying to be mindful of the fact that it’s also a long time for people that are novices on their legs and stuff, so we already were sitting for a total of 17 minutes. When you initially are doing this on your own, you’ll find that you’ll have to take quite a bit of time, as I said, to center and root and do the three lines. Then you’ll be able to root in seconds. It takes practice. It takes a lot of dedicated, mindful, thoughtful, careful practice. Okay, I’m going to turn to answer some questions that you might have. Any questions that might have emerged not only from today, but from your previous practice. I’ll pick up on a couple that we didn’t get to last time. Karima asked, is it okay to focus on a sound you’re hearing? Actually, no. Hearing or listening to something in your environment is another distractor. So if you’re hearing a sound, step back and label it with an ing word, hearing or listening, and then return your attention to your breath. Who’s that behind me? I tried to answer this last time, but Amar has suggested that I misunderstood. Over there, there’s a portrait. It’s an original work of art from Joshua Bow. His last name is B-O-W-E. It conveys self-transcendence. I’ll send a picture of it. I’ll post a picture of it. Behind me on the wall is a little thing. Some of you may have noticed it. This is a small relief figure. It’s also painted. This is a legacy from my mother. She died in 2001. It’s a bearded figure that’s deep and reflective thought. I often understand it as somebody who has taken up a philosophical way of life and is cultivating wisdom. Next question. Could you explain the let it flow part in more detail? Do you mean expanding the awareness of that one location into the space around you? Perhaps, but what I meant is more expanding your awareness within that introspective space so that it fills up. It’s taking up more and more of your mind. It’s letting you feel more of that inner space that you can look inside and see. If that works for you by me letting it expand into a peripheral awareness, if your introspective awareness is outside of your body in some way, then do it that way. What I’m trying to get is I’m trying to get you to learn to enhance and integrate together your introspective awareness of a particular area and your introspective awareness of what’s going on in your mind. If that image that you just mentioned is helping you to do that, then please do that. That’s what I’m trying to convey with let it flow. When I’m looking and listening, is it meant to be like I would bend over and look like I’m trying to look under the bed or at something, but only mentally and without moving? Yes, it’s that sort of exploratory, probative use of your attention to try and zero in, focus, see what you’re not initially seeing. Open yourself up. That’s exactly correct. The person who asked that was I think Nicola. I just moved. Is mouth breathing OK with belly breathing? It seems needed. It’s a good idea if you can. This is also from Kareema to not. Sometimes your nose is stuffed up and you have to do mouth breathing. When you do that, put your tongue above like if you’re going to say T or D and hold it there and breathe over your moist tongue because that will help keep your air passages moist. Mouth breathing is generally a bad idea and you’re probably trying to get too much baby breathing. So again, try not to force it. Give it time. It will gently come over you. It’s best if you can if your nose is unplugged to do nose breathing, not noise breathing, because that will help keep your air passages moist and you’ll need that when you start to meditate for longer periods. Nicholas Limacher. Why take a day off each week? Most meditation courses do that. Sometimes when you’re on retreat they don’t. I’m doing that so I have some dedicated time with my family. I’ve always made it a practice that I unplug on Sunday, even from work when I’m at the university. So that’s part of my overall practice that I’m not going to give up, unplugging on Sundays. It will be good for people to have a day where they’re just trying it on their own. I understand that it is very helpful and there’s research showing this, that if you’re meditating with other people, then there’s a figure there, it helps you to practice. And that’s why the majority of this for five weeks is going to be you practicing with other people. But it’s good also to put in one day where you have to see what that will feel like when you transfer that to meditating on your own. Another question from Victoria. If you’re in a chair and you’re rooting through the feet or the pelvis, do the pelvis and then you can sort of also open and melt through your feet if you want to extend it. So start with the pelvis as if there was a root growing down there, like in a tree, but also an open and melt and drain through your legs and include your feet. That’s a good question. Very good question. And play with that and see what combination works best for giving you that sense of roundedness and connectedness to the Earth. All right. So we’re coming to an end of our time together today. We will meet together tomorrow at 10 o’clock, sorry, at 932, 10 o’clock, my mistake. Tomorrow is we’re just sitting. I’ll do a very quick review of what we did today and then we will sit together and then there’ll be some Q&A at the end. Please. I want to thank always Amar for all this technical help. It’s invaluable for my beloved son, Jason, for his help and him sitting with me. I asked and thanking you for joining me. I’m hoping you’re finding this helpful. I would ask you please to subscribe to my channel because that way you can be notified of the next video. You can get connections to some of the other relevant videos where I talk about mindfulness, where I talk about the cultivation of wisdom, the video series that I’ve mentioned a few times. I’m asking you to please subscribe to my channel. Tomorrow, as I mentioned, we’re doing this every Sunday morning. Sorry, every morning except Sunday morning, every morning except Sunday morning at nine thirty. All right. So please remember continuity of practice more important than quantity. Keep up your practice. I hope it’s serving you well and I’ll see you all tomorrow at nine thirty. Thank you very much for your time and attention. Thank you.