https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=quJgxBZoNfc
Welcome to Meditating with John Vervecki. I’m a cognitive psychologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto. I scientifically study mindfulness and related phenomena like insight, flow, mystical experience, and wisdom. Additionally, I have been practicing Vipassana meditation, Metacontemplation, and Tai Chi for 29 years, and I’ve been teaching it professionally for almost 20 years. For those of you joining for the first time, this is a progressive course. There’s teaching classes on Monday and Thursday, and then there’s just sittings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. There are no classes on Sunday. You’re welcome to stay with us, but I recommend what you do, because this will be recorded. As you go back and look at day one, find a lesson there, work your way through to the other lesson days, and catch up on what you missed, and then you can join us tomorrow, if you wish. So today, I want to talk to you about the third thing you’re going to find for your Core Four. My man ears is still presenting a challenge to me, so I’m going to be leaning up against the wall just to give myself a little bit of extra stability. So what we’re doing today is, like I said, we’re going to learn how to find your flow. Now, this has to do with something that people at least associate with meditation, and it’s a correct association, but typically how they frame it might be wrong. This is your ability to get very sort of absorbed in your meditation, really, really get deeply engaged and involved in it. And people think this is sort of a matter of will, sort of, I’ve got to will myself in. We’ll talk more about this on Thursday, getting the right kind of concentration. But it’s not really a matter of will. Instead, it’s a matter of engaging what’s called flow. As I mentioned, I studied flow scientifically and published on it in the Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought with Leo Ferraro and Ariane Arabena. And the basic idea by flow was it was studied first, sort of explicitly and developed by Csikszentmihalyi in a book called Flow, the Psycho-Ariads. For some of you who are interested, I believe it’s the second video from the Meeting Crisis series where I talk at length about flow and what’s going on there. For our purposes, flow is that state where you’re engaged in a task and it’s so involving that you sort of lose sense of the normal passage of time. Everything seems sort of super salient, right? That nattering sort of egocentric mania in your mind, how am I doing? What are people thinking falls away because you’re so absorbing the task. You know that you’re exerting a lot of effort, but it seems effortless. People get it when you’re dancing, sparring, playing jazz, rock climbing. So what we’re trying to do is engage the flow state because the flow is the state where we’re going to get, learn how to get really more involved and really almost dwelling within our meditative focus. It’s a skill you have to practice and you also have to set the conditions up correctly. Notice what I mentioned about the flow state. When people are in the flow state, they report that all that chatter in their head goes away because of the intensity of their involvement. So instead of thinking of this as willpower, think of it more as increasing involvement. So what are the conditions that get us into the flow state? What you basically have to do is you have to put a challenge on yourself so that the demands that you’re putting on yourself just throughout the edge of your skills, you have to really engage all of your skills in order to meet the demands and that there’s a constant sort of shifting on the demands. You have to keep sort of ratcheting up the challenge. You need very clear feedback and your actions and the response from the environment has to be tightly coupled. Well, how do we bring that into our meditation? And then how do we also integrate that with what we’re trying to cultivate in mindfulness which is an increasing sense of being present and coupled to our environment. So following, I’m going to teach you how to expand and enrich and enhance your awareness with your attention. So normally when people are following their breath, they’re following their breath. So I’m just going to talk right now. Don’t start doing this. I will talk you through the exercise when we’re in the set. Okay, so when people are following their breath, they’ve got this little sort of spot here perhaps where they’re actually feeling the sensations. So after we’ve taken time, there’ll be silence and you’ll center and you’ll root all three lines. All right, we’ll bring our attention to where we’re going to follow the breath and then I’ll ask you to expand your awareness. So expand it over your abdomen. Remember we talked about increasing your introception and integrating it with your introspection. So we’re going to expand it over your abdomen and into your abdomen. Like as if somebody was asking you, how’s your stomach feeling inside like when you’re at a doctor? Okay, so you’re going to expand, right? And then I’m going to ask you to enrich your awareness. What I mean by that is try to pay attention to many different kinds of sensations. There’s sensations of movement, temperature, texture, tightness, and also different patterns of sensations will automatically constellate for you. So what you’re doing is you’re simultaneously distinguishing different kinds of sensations, right? And you’re also expanding your awareness and letting patterns form. So you’re sort of zooming your awareness out and in. You’re actually very good at that. I’m going to hold this up and I want you to quickly read it. Okay, so this is a cat. Now notice how you read this as an H and this is an A even though they’re the same. Because what you’re doing, right? What you’re doing is part of your attention is going up to the whole word in order to disambiguate the letters. But part of your attention is also going down to the individual letters so you can actually read the word. And you’re doing that simultaneously in a highly dynamic and flowing manner. And that’s what you had to do to develop the skill of reading. So what you’re doing, right? Here’s an object. This is my frog. I carry a frog around. Not this one. I carry a frog around in my pocket as well. Frogs are a symbol from neoplatonism for self-transcendence because they start in one world and they transform so that they can live in another world. So what you’re doing is a neat spot where it’s called the optimal grip. If I’m too close to the details, I lose the whole. If I’m too far back on the whole, I lose some of the details. And what I’m constantly doing depending on the task is I’m practically just moving around the world with your attention. You’re integrating the features and the whole together in a constantly flowing manner so you get sort of an optimal grip. Now, what you’re going to do is do exactly that. You’re going to be expanding your awareness and also trying to notice the different kinds of sensations and then the patterns that spontaneously form. And that’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be quite challenging. And that’s the point. We’re trying to get you into the flow state while also improving your optimal grip on your introceptive awareness. So we’ll do flow here. And then I’ll ask you to wash your attention here. And you’ll pick up the breathing in your chest. You’ll use that to anchor your attention. And then you’ll expand your attention over your chest and then into your chest. And then you’ll enrich the rich. Notice the different kinds of sensations, right? All the details. You’re getting that very fast dynamic between the whole and the parts. And you’re really challenging yourself to get into the flow state. Then we’ll repeat it with shoulders and then your spine and your back. And then you’ll have your whole of your torso. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to try and follow the whole of your breath with the whole of your torso. So I feel all of my torsos moving with my breath. Now, the way to think about that is when you come to meditate, see how much your frog is focal. You have a focal awareness, but you still have a surrounding peripheral awareness of everything around it. Your frog, you’ll have a focal awareness of your don’t here where you follow your breath. But you’ll maintain your peripheral awareness throughout the whole of your torso of the flowing of your breath. Okay? Now, it’s really, really important in this exercise and in the practice of flow, two things. That you’re centered and rooted, right? And that you do not hyperventilate. It’s really important that you don’t hyperventilate. People try to start to hyperventilate because they’re trying to force the breathing into a longer periodicity so that they have more time. Do this as best you can with your natural breath. Don’t hyperventilate. Okay? All right, so we’re going to set the timer in a minute. We’ll begin when I say begin. So remember, there’s going to be silence for a while. You’re going to take time because you’re going to find your center. For example, for me, I find it just away from the wall and then I’m going to lean back to stabilize myself. Not because of my manures. Some of you need to do that because of your back pain or other issues you might have. Then you’re going to do finding your root, all three lines, front, back, center. And then I’ll begin to speak. And what I’ll do is I’ll talk you through the finding your flow. And remember, when I say go into meditation, your focal awareness is here but you maintain a peripheral awareness throughout the whole of your body. This really anchors you in your body, really enhances your interoception. And interoception, the parts of the brain that you use for interoception are the same parts of the brain that you use to pick up on other people’s mental states. There’s a deep connection between finding your flow and your ability to become aware of other people’s mental states which is very central to compassion and to metta. Okay? All right. Let’s get ready. Make sure you’re comfortable. Okay. Let’s begin. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Bring your attention to your dantian. Don’t hyperventilate. Span your awareness across your abdomen. And into your abdomen. Okay. Now try and pick up on different kinds of sensation, temperature, movement, tension, any spontaneous pattern. This is challenging. Spanning your awareness and also enriching your awareness. Okay. Slowly wash your attention, awareness up to your heart area. Feel the movements in your chest being generated by your breath. Use that to anchor your attention. Okay. And begin to expand your awareness across your chest. And into your chest. Deep inside. Now begin to enrich your awareness. Try to pick up on different kinds of sensation. Different, you know, sensations of temperature, tension, tightness, movement, location. Any spontaneous patterns that they form. Okay. Don’t hyperventilate. Now integrate the flow at your chest with the flow in your abdomen. One flow. Try to leave that running naturally in place. Bring your attention to your shoulders. They’re gently rocking with your breath. Use that motion to anchor your attention. And begin to expand your awareness throughout the surface of your shoulders. And then deep into your shoulder muscles. Just different kinds of sensations. Different patterns that spontaneously arise and pass away. Gently integrate the flow at your shoulders with the flow in your chest. Reactivate that flow in your chest. Gently reintegrate the flow in your chest and shoulders with the flow in your abdomen. Reactivate the flow in your abdomen. One whole field of sensations flowing together. Gently bring your attention to your back. Your spine especially. There’s a standing wave that moves up and down your spine with your breath. Don’t hyperventilate. Use that standing wave moving up and down your spine. Become aware of motion in your back muscles. And bring that notice to your back. You can use that moment to move your attention to your back. And bring that moment to your spine too. wave moving up and down your spine to become aware of motion in your back. With your breath, use that to anchor your attention. Now begin to expand your awareness across all of your back, top, middle and bottom. And then sink into your back muscles. Now enrich your awareness, pick up on all different kinds of sensations and patterns of sensations. Let the flow in your back merge with the flow in your abdomen. The flow in your chest. The flow in your shoulders. Don’t hyperventilate. Make sure that you feel centered and rooted. Bring your focal attention to your dantian, but keep your peripheral attention throughout the whole of that field of sensation. So you’re following the whole of your breath with the whole of your torso. Your focal awareness is on your dantian, your path is most pronounced, but you’re picking up the rippling effects throughout the whole of your torso. Now begin to meditate. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. Now begin to relax. 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 carry that state of mind and that state of body. Would you open your eyes and look around your room? What would it be if you were to look this way? Obviously that you’re not going to get there, it’s going to take years, but this is how you get there. Practice integrating the state of consciousness and cognition that you had in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. Okay, so we’re going to take some questions. This is from Nick Kennedy. Hi Nick. Nick’s a former student of mine. I initially taken to pass the course and instructed counting to 10 while sitting. Should I label that habit as counting to what seems to be the expense of a better quality sit? If the practice is working for you, then use it. I’m going to show you a practice on Thursday that’s very similar for finding appropriate concentration. So you might be just want to do the counting rather than following your breath and integrate everything else. That works too. I find following the breath without the counting is better long term because then you can sort of do it without any sort of inner words happening. But that will take time. And so if you’re finding that the practice works for you, you should be able to integrate it with what I’m teaching you. The next is from Nick Nicholas. If I don’t have time for a full meditation session, but still want to do the rooting process, can I only do the center root? It seems to be the strongest, have the strongest impact. If you genuinely don’t have time, yes, find your center, find your root. Maybe follow your breath for four breaths. Just do that basic breathing. Just do that basic thing. Just do that basic thing. Continuity of practice is way more important than quantity of practice. This is from Steven. What to do about internal resistance? If the time comes and I strongly don’t want to meditate one day, should I listen to my intuition or should I force myself to keep up with the practice? So when we get to teaching lesson six, I’ll tell you how to deal with that resistance. What I suggest is if you’re getting a strong inner resistance and there isn’t a genuine therapeutic or traumatic issue involved, you should just practice center and rooting then. Just practice center rooting, maybe finding your flow. What I’ll show you later to do is once that’s a little bit more stabilized, when you get those strong feelings of resistance, they can actually become your meditative focus. What you can do is you can meditate on the resistance and then you’re already meditating. You’re already meditating, even though you’re experiencing the resistance. So try right for now, just finding your center and your root and your flow. Just try to keep up the continuity and then a little bit later, I’ll go over what I just mentioned to you and that will help you to deal with strong resistance. One more time though, I don’t know you, but if there is some psychotherapeutic or trauma issues that need to be there, that are unresolved, I’m not saying you have that. I’m saying if you are considering treatment or you’re in treatment, you need to talk to your therapist about it. That’s a different thing. From Lars, what exactly do you mean by patterns? What might happen is you’ll get a bunch of tingling sensations and they all feel like they’re forming a weird shape. It may not happen for you. Don’t worry if it doesn’t. If you can just pick up on different kinds of sensations. For many people, what happens is it’s almost like it becomes like music for them. They can sort of, well, there’s a sort of rhythm of these sensations in the foreground and these ones in the background. That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t have to force it. If you can just do what I said, if you can expand and enrich your awareness and so you’re getting that sense of being really deeply involved in your introspective flow, that’s more than sufficient. Hi, Lynn. Lynn is also a former student and colleague of mine. It’s good to see you, Lynn. When I am not feeling well in my body, sensing all of my chest seems to increase my tenseness and worry. Should I return to focusing on the dantien? If what you’re getting here is a lot of intense tension, yeah, then just maybe shift back to the rooting exercise and root and release and let that go and return to your dantien. And then just try and pick up on the flow in your dantien. And then keep trying it maybe every few days. And then if it gets tense and tight and it’s starting to cut off your breath, root and relax and fall back into your dantien. And then keep doing that until you can gradually erode your way into being able to flow into your chest. That’s a fairly common pattern that Lynn observed. So that’s a useful thing to do when that happens. Karimina, if we sense a pattern, should we label it? If you sense a pattern, you can label it if you want. Try not to get too attached to it. You want to be basically flowing. You want your attention to be again zooming out and zooming in, zooming out and zooming in. You don’t want to get locked in any one place. So let the patterns arise and let them fall away if you want to. Another one from Nicholas. How long should the rooting process take? I barely finished the front root by the time you started with the new instructions. Yeah, I apologize for that. That’s hard to gauge because different people do that at different speeds. I can’t give you a number. For some people, you know, you might be taking up half of your sit right now to center a root. That’s fine. That is fine. So I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. So I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’m going to give you a number. I’ll put a number on the screen here. What I actually do is I put a number in the chat window where I’ll be sending my code to you. This is what I’m going to do as a feedback to you, but you can also send us a message where your breathing is until it drops more deeply into baby breathing. Okay, so thank you, everyone, for joining. I want to, as always, thank you to Ammar and Jason for all of their help. Please subscribe to the channel to be notified of the next video. current crisis situation. As I mentioned, there’s a video on there explaining flow and depth experience. There’s a talk I recently gave on there linking flow and insight and missile experience, all kinds of things. So there’s, you can get, you can set this into a broader context if you check out some of those videos. We’re doing this every morning at 9.30, except Sundays, a reminder, Monday and Thursdays are Dharma days. Dharma means, it’s like logos. It means teaching and structure and realization. So Monday and Thursday are Dharma days. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday are sit days. There’s always Q&A at the end of the sit. So thank you very much. Keep up your practice. Remember, quantity of practice is way more important than quality of practice, sorry, continuity of practice is way more important than quantity of practice because what you’re really working on is a quality of awareness and attention. And also, please remember to befriend yourself. Take good care of everyone. Thank you for your time and attention.