https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=h-XCVyBJ-qw
I have an hour, so in that time I’m going to teach you the entirety of the Buddhist, Taoist, and Neoplatonic meditative and contemplative practices. So what’s actually going to happen is I’m going to show you a meditative practice that’s at the core. It’s part of what I call the core four. And then I’m going to show you a contemplative practice. The first practice is drawn from the Buddhist tradition. The second practice is drawn from the Neoplatonic tradition. So I’m trying to give you a good sampler. And they actually go together. You need to have both a meditative and a contemplative practice. I’ll talk about that in a little bit. But my intent here is to give you a sense of what’s going on. And if you’re interested, I have on YouTube, completely free, a meditation and contemplation with John Vervecky course if you want to watch it. I did it during COVID. So there are also recordings in which I wasn’t teaching. I was just sitting with the Sangha virtually and answering questions. So if you just want the lessons, you can go to the playlist that says just the lessons. But if you also want to sit in on a couple of the Sangha sessions and see the kind of questions people are answering, that’s also available to you. Is that OK? All right. So I want to start, first of all, by explaining a couple of things to you. I used to always do meditation on the floor. And if you watch the videos, I explain how to do that. But over the last few years, my manures has gotten worse. So if I don’t have something behind me and I close my eyes, the room can start to spin for me. And also, I’ve hurt my hip about eight months ago. It was getting better. And then I went to Rafe Kelly’s Return to the Source, and it got much worse. So I can’t actually kneel anymore. So you just sort of start falling apart. So we’ll do it in the chairs, because that’s what we have here, too. So that works fine. But again, if you want to really pursue this deeply, take a look at some of the instructions for how to sit on a zafu, because that actually improves your posture in some really helpful ways. OK? All right. So I’d like to start. I want to talk about, I think, the very place you should start if you want a mindfulness meditation practice. And this is from the Buddhist tradition, so it’s very much a mindfulness practice. And what I want to talk about is finding your center. We talk about centering, and we even had this sort of phrase for a while, I have to find my center. He’s a well-centered person, et cetera. But there’s actually three dimensions to finding your center. I’m going to take you through each one. First I’ll list them, and then we’ll zoom in on each one in a progressive fashion. The first one is to center the relationship between mind and body. And what you want to do is you want to try and adopt a posture that is enhancing the communication between mind and body. So very often, what’s happening in our mind and what’s happening in our body are not communicating very well together. They can even be antagonistic. You can be stressing your body out with your anxiety, or your fatigue from your body can be disrupting your ability to concentrate on something you need to do. So instead, you want to try and adopt a very different attitude and relationship. You’re trying to befriend yourself, and you’re trying to get your mind and body into a friendship relationship with each other. So the way you do this is… Okay, I’m going to just… I’ve done this a long time. I know what people start doing. So don’t start doing it when I start describing it to you. Don’t start doing it when I start describing it to you. Don’t start doing it when I describe it to you. I will describe it to you, and then I will talk you through it, and we will do it together. Okay? I’m going to look to see who starts doing it when I describe it. Okay. So I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. Don’t do that right now. Okay, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. And then I’m going to ask you to move yourself so you feel off-center forward. You have an organ… You have a… You know your inner ear, right? The structure is 400 million years old vestibular system. It’s actually what’s out of whack in my left ear. But you have it, and it is really good at telling you, I feel I’m off-center frontwards. And then a little bit back. And you might have to arc a little bit to get that sensation. I’m off-center going backwards. And then a little less off-center forward, back, and I slowly move back and forth. And using the feeling… I don’t calculate. Using the feeling, I find my way to feeling most centered front to back. Then, side to side. Same thing. Then once that, when you’ve done your torso, you repeat it with your head. Front to back, side to side. Why independently from your head? One of the most common errors that first time are novice meditators is they let their head roll forward as they’re meditating. Okay, this is a mistake for a couple of reasons. First is this actually restricts your air passageway. So the oxygenation to your blood drops. Secondly, this is a signal to your brain. Go to sleep. See, when you close your eyes, your brain says, I know what we’re doing. You go, no, no, no. And the brain goes, oh, I know what we’re doing. We’re going to sleep. And you’re trying to say no to both of those. You’re trying to find a place in between them. Okay, and that’s not a place that your brain is highly familiar with. So you don’t want to do anything with your posture that increases the error signals to your brain. Okay? So that’s why you do your head independently. Also, if you let your head roll forward and you start meditating for longer periods, you’ll put a strain on your neck and you’ll start to get headaches, which will also dissuade you from continuing your practice. I’m going to teach you in the expectation that you might take this up as a practice. If you’re interested in this, it’s sort of a novelty. It’s not going to do much for you. Okay? Meditation is not a vacation. It is an education. Meditation isn’t about what happens in your sitting. It’s about what happens from your sitting to your life. Okay, so we’ve done the centering, torso and head. Then what you want to do is you want to relax your chest. Your chest should be open and your shoulders down. You want to place your hands such that it helps keep your shoulders open and down and adds to your sense of stability. You can experiment with that. You can be very zen. You can be Vedanta. You can do baby breathing. People will have their eyes closed so they won’t see your abdomen extended. But I’m doing it right now. They’re filming me and so, oh my gosh. Anyways, I’m not holding my stomach in. That’s me holding my stomach in the way we do for social etiquette. You let it out like this. Let it out. Baby breathing. You want your breathing to be natural. Do not force your breath. I’m going to say it two more times. Don’t force your breath. Don’t force your breath. Let your breathing be as natural as possible. But what you want is you want to be inhaling by expanding your abdomen rather than lifting your shoulders. So don’t inhale like this. You’re inhaling like this into your abdomen. That’s how babies breathe. They breathe that way for a reason. That calms them down and it is the most efficient use of your lungs. So you are getting calm while also putting lots of oxygen in your bloodstream so that your brain isn’t getting a signal that you should be falling asleep. Okay, so you want to do baby breathing. So you want to shoulders. And then you want to sort of sink into this. What does this feel like? So I’ll ask you to sort of savor it. What does it feel like in your mind and body to center your posture? You’re trying to create a felt memory so you could get back to here. Now I’ve been doing this since 91, which is what 31 years or something like that. So I don’t have to go through, I’ll talk you through it, but I don’t have to do all that. I can just, and I’m centered, but I’ll talk you through it. I can’t really move here anyway because of the mic. Now what would be perfect is if I was standing right beside you talking very quietly. That would be, oh, but it’d be really creepy. Okay, so unfortunately I have to talk fairly loudly from the mic. You just got to take that into context. Okay, first of all, any questions about that? We’re just going to do that exercise together. That’s not completely finding your center. This is the first exercise. Any questions? Yes. Yeah, I can’t give you a strict rule. You want to move at a speed that’s not taking too long, but that’s slow enough that you can actually sense the changes and the sensations you’re getting. All right, let’s do it then. Okay, so everybody close your eyes. Again, open your shoulders down, release your stomach, relax in that way. Don’t force your breath. And now when you’re ready, begin moving forward and then back. And now at your own pace, a little less each way, forward and back, slowly finding your way to the center by tracking your sensations of being off center. When you’re ready, now do the side to side off center. When you’re done with your torso, move to your head first, back and forth. Side to side. And you’re centered that way, both head and torso. See if you can relax your stomach muscles a little more, your chest muscles, and especially your leg muscles. Really sink into being centered. Now really savor this. What does this feel like in your mind and body to be centered this way? Notice the effects on your mind and body. Try to create a felt memory so you can return to this place again and again and again. Okay, slowly come out of the exercise. So that’s the first of the three dimensions of finding your center. That’s your posture. The second one is we’re going to talk about centering your attention. I have a bit of a leg up here because many of you are familiar with some of the work I do on attention, but I’ll bring that into sort of a metaphor, which many of you have seen apparently to become a meme. I’m going to talk about, I’m going to use the idea of mental framing and use my glasses as a metaphor. Okay, so you’re very aware from this conference what that framing is now. What I’m paying attention to, what I’m not paying attention to, and I’m using my glasses as a metaphor for this. Right, my mind is constantly framing the world. I’m not looking at my mind, I’m looking through my mind, at the world. But what we want to do in meditation is we want to step back and look at our mind rather than looking through it at the world. This is how you’re centering your attention. It doesn’t mean just focusing. Some traditions it does, but in this, it means this standing back and looking at your mind rather than automatically and reactively looking through it. So, how do we do that? What is the primary way in which you get access to the world? It’s through your sensations. We normally do not pay attention to our sensations. We only pay attention through them. So, when I’m touching the table, I’m usually not aware of what my fingers are doing because I’m focused on the table. But I can actually pay attention to the sensations in my fingers. So, we’re going to pay attention to this and remember what Jonathan and I were talking about, the breathing. Your breath is one of the most powerfully present, inactive symbols you have for the transformations you’re trying to participate in. That’s why we have inspiration in all these terms. So, we’re going to focus on the sensations in our abdomen that are being generated by our breath. Okay, so, and so, if this was the very traditional tradition, I might be walking around a stick and hit you if you’re not doing it right. I don’t do that. The other is, well, it’s one finger below, no, sorry, three fingers below your navel and one finger in. Don’t do that. You don’t need to be that precise. Okay. Find without forcing where your breath is in your abdomen. It’s somewhere because if your abdomen isn’t moving, you’re dead. Okay. So, it’s got to be moving. So, find where it’s moving. That’s what you’re going to focus on. You’re going to focus on the sensations being generated by the movement of your breath. So, as I inhale, I’m silently saying to myself, in, I’m not paying attention to the word. I’m using the word to lens my attention on those sensations. In, out, in, out. And I’m not jumping. I’m not just taking a little snapshot. In, out. Continuous, continuity of contact. In, out, in, out. And you’re probably thinking, oh, that’s going to be really boring. Uh-huh. Okay. So, what’s going to happen? Remember, we were talking about the opponent processing. What’s going to happen within about 20 seconds of you doing that, if you’re a novice, some of you might not be, and I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but what’s going to happen is your mind’s going to leap away. You’re not going to be looking at your mind. You’re going to be looking through your mind in perception. You’re listening to a noise or in conception. You’re thinking about this and you’re going to think, oh, wow, yeah. How am I, what am I going to do for dinner tonight? Okay. When you, when the major, when the major, think of like the mic on center stage. When the majority of your attention, when you’re, the sensations of your breath don’t have the majority, the center stage of your attention, don’t have the majority of your, that inner receptivity, the mic. Like when you, you’re now think, you’re now thinking about something, imagining or perceiving, listening, you’re not looking at your mind, you’re looking through it. You note the process that distracted you, not the content of the distraction. So if you’re listening to something, you don’t pick up on the content of the, the noise of the conversation. You let, you step back and look at the distraction by labeling it with an ing word. There’s already some good experimental evidence that even that act is really powerful. So imagining, listening, thinking, wondering, complaining. Now, one point here. Don’t be perfectionist about this. What do you mean, John? Well, was that imagining or wondering? Don’t do that. The first intuitive label is the right label because you’re not after accuracy of the con, the content. You’re after training the skill. So label it with an ing word and then you return your attention to your breath. Okay. Attention goes away. You label it with an ing. You label the process, not the content, and you come back to the breath. So next worry that people have is, oh, well, I’m going to fail at this. What do you mean? Well, I, you know, the only way this, I know that I’m doing this correctly is if my mind became like a Canadian tundra, wide open, empty, silent. That’s exactly the wrong way to frame this. That it’s exactly the wrong way to frame this. Every time you catch your mind in distraction and bringing it back, that’s a moment of waking up. Think of this as doing reps with weights. You’re building the muscle of mindfulness. That’s the meditation. Yes, you might get to at some point. Good for you. If you need a gold star at some point, I’ll give it to you or something like that. That’s not the point. The point is the repetition and being willing to stick with the repetition. The danger, especially for novice, if you get that, is you’ll think, I’ve got to get there every single time. And then this is called, right, cleaning the muddy water. You have a glass of water and it’s muddy and you’re taking your stuff and you’re pushing on the mud because you’re going to clean the water. And what you’re doing is just making it muddier and muddier and muddier. Do the reps. Let the tundra emerge of its own. Be grateful for it, but don’t hold your practice hostage to it. You’re doing the reps. Now, that’s how you center your attention. That’s how you center your attention. The third thing you center is your attitude. Your attitude. So this thing that jumps around, the Buddhists call this your monkey mind. It’s like a monkey that chatters and jumps around. When Jack Kornfield brought this style of meditation called the Vipassana to North America, he changed the monkey to a puppy dog because North Americans aren’t that familiar with monkeys. But I still like calling it monkey mind because of the alliteration that Paul and I both like. But in the example, I’ll use Kornfield’s example, it’s a puppy dog. Suppose you wanted to train a puppy dog to stay. Stay. Puppy dog wanders off. Now imagine if when the puppy, oh, come on. Oh, oh, yeah. What are you training the puppy dog to do? You’re training the puppy dog to fight you and fear you. If you take that attitude towards your monkey mind, you will turn it into an angry gorilla that wants to kill you. You don’t fight it. You can’t take the attitude of fighting it. You are not going to conquer it. Oh, I know what John means. He means like take a really sort of California attitude. Hey, puppy dog, stay. Oh, look, he’s over there. That’s fine. Oh, he’s over there now. That’s great. Will the puppy dog learn to stay? Not at all. So you don’t feed the puppy dog’s misbehavior. You don’t feed it. You don’t indulge it. What do you do? Oh, come on, puppy dog. No, no, no, no. Come on. Come on. Remember the reps? Every moment is a moment of befriending the monkey mind. The monkey mind. Again and again and again and again and again. You only have to do that about 100,000 times. Now, you might think, wow, think about it this way. This is how much of your life you’ve spent not educating your education and building up bad habits. You’re putting this much meditation against it. It’s a miracle in a non-supernatural sense, perhaps. It’s a miracle that it works, but it does. I can tell you both that as somebody who’s been practicing it for three decades and teaching it for 15 or more years, and also somebody who studies it scientifically. But it’s like learning to play the piano well or learning a martial art. If you go into the dojo and say, if I don’t, if I’m not at a black belt by five weeks, this is a fraud. You’re the fraud, not the dojo. So let’s review. I’m going to find our center. First thing you do once we begin the practice, don’t start doing it now. You’re going to center your posture. Get the mind-body channel flowing. Then you’re going to center your attention in, out, in, out. When I’m distracted, I label the distraction with an ing word, and I return my attention to the breath. And in that, I’m centering my attitude. I’m neither fighting nor feeding my monkey mind. I am befriending it so that I can train it so that we will come into a greater unity through friendship. Questions? Oh, after a hundred thousand times, you’ll find that that empty spaciousness will come upon you naturally. But if you try to make it happen, it won’t. Just like, think about it. Friendship doesn’t work that way. You can’t, you, you’re my friend now. I’m going to make it happen. All right. All right. Hundred thousand conversations or whatever. Okay, a couple of things if any of you take this up, and then we’ll do the practice together for a bit, okay? Just for about five or, five to eight minutes or something like that. But a couple of warnings if any of you take this. Warnings? Yes. Any real practice comes with real potential side effects. If, if you went into a dojo, you said, I want to learn karate. Don’t tell me about anything that might happen to me. That’s not good. Okay. So this might happen to you. Don’t go looking for it. It might not happen to you for a very long time. But if you practice for a long enough time, some of these things will inevitably happen to you. You can be sitting still and you’ll feel like an electric shock goes through your body. You can be sitting still and you feel like you’re floating up. This is, this is your brain figuring out how to talk to each itself, right? Or you can feel like you’re sinking down. You know you’re sitting straight but your brain is telling you you’re sitting like this. You can get really, really cold. You can get really, really hot. Here’s a really creepy one. It’s happened to me, it happened to me a few times when I’m a novice. Sitting alone, it’s empty house and I hear my name. John! Nobody around. Ian, Ian would love, Ian the Brokress would like that. He said, that’s your right hemisphere. You’re shouting at your left. Probably. I don’t know. Okay. This does not mean you’re going insane. Neither does it mean that you’re almost a Buddha. See, I knew I was, I knew I was enlightened. It doesn’t mean that at all. It means, it doesn’t mean that. This is just another distracting distraction. You label it with an ing word and you return to your breath. Okay. Now, one important caveat and I don’t know you individually and personally. If you have an experience in mindfulness that is indicative that you are suddenly reliving trauma. And I’ve had some psychotherapeutic training and there’s psychotherapists here. All right. Stop the practice. Get proper help. If you are already in psychotherapy, tell your therapist you are doing this practice. Okay. All right. I think we’re ready unless there’s some questions. Yes. Ah. So for the first five weeks of your practice, it’s an added thing that doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you. But if you continue the practice, you will be able to start to remember not a vacation, but an education. You will start to be able to exercise it in your life. You’re in a situation and you’re caught up in one of those things you get caught up in. But instead of you just, you go, wait, and you pull up, you stand back, you go, wait, I’m doing that thing that I didn’t want to be doing. And that space is the space of agency. Here you’re just a wanton running on your impulsivity. You pull back and mindfulness isn’t agency. That’s why I use the metaphor very carefully. But it’s the space of agency where you can step back and look at it and say, no, no, that isn’t agency. That isn’t relevant here. Even though it’s similar to other situations in my past, but she’s actually not my older sister. And she’s not actually angry. She’s afraid. And that’s why I use the metaphor very carefully. And I’m not saying that I’m not angry. I’m just saying that I’m not angry. I’m not angry. I’m not angry. I’m not angry. I’m not angry. But if I don’t, if I’m in this, I don’t see that. But when I step out, I go, wait, I’ve been here before. This is me with my older sister. But she’s not my older sister. And then when I realize that, I realize, oh, she’s not actually angry. She’s afraid. And then I can shift. And if this isn’t too self-promotional, I’m doing that all the time in dialogus. If you don’t think Paul and Jonathan can push my buttons, you don’t know me. Because they can. But Paul isn’t my mother. Sorry, Paul, that sounds kind of creepy. But that’s what. And Jonathan isn’t the pastor at my church, even though they can push, they have the ability to push those buttons. But I can step aside and I can push my buttons. But I can step aside and I can see that’s not who they are. That’s not who I have to be. And I can actually see who they are. I can see the love and the respect coming. And so I’m empowered to return it to them. That’s the kind of benefit of the practice. But will I get that after like five weeks? How many of you think you can get a black belt in five weeks? How long does it take? How long does it take? Minimum of five years. It’s about the same. Minimum of five years before you start to get, like you’ll get initial benefits right after about two or three months. But this is what always happens. The reason why people meditate, the reasons they give you when they start are not the reasons they give you when they’re deep into the practice. They change. And you go, what? That’s just like a friendship. I like this person because they also like the Lord of the Rings. If that’s all that’s holding the two of you together in five years, you’re in trouble. Any other questions? Thank you for that. That was an excellent question. Yes? Yes. So for most people, and that’s the only answer I can give you, sit for 15 minutes. 20 if you can. Don’t do this. Don’t sit and say, I’ll know when 20 minutes have passed. Because you don’t. You’ll close your eyes. Yeah, that was 20 minutes. Seven minutes has gone by. So you need to use your phones or a silent timer. If you find that 20 minutes, and you have to be honest. To be honest. If you’re really following the breath, and it’s the center stage, and all of that, and 20 minutes, I can do it. Then do it a little bit more. You should always be sitting long enough. It’s called the zone of proximal development. Long enough that it’s challenging, but not overwhelming. Yes? What a time and you get more advanced in there. High point of like diminishing your terms. No, because what… In some sense, you’re in an unfair position because I’ve only shown you one thing. First of all, there’s a whole bunch of things. Skills that build on each other. And they take a long time to get good at. Some things, in some ways it’s good at some point to try sitting for shorter periods to see if you can transfer that. But I have not found a diminishing returns problem. Yes? So in your online course, you talk about when you’re sitting, you might get stiff, or you might have a leg. Oh yes, thank you. If you’ll allow me to just be a little pokey and funny. No Protestant suffering here. Okay? So the principle of this is it’s an education. If you are enduring something to the point where you’re not… you’re clearly not being able to learn anything from the situation, stop. So the first time you get like a bit of a twinge in your leg, don’t just automatically move. But also don’t sit there until like it’s burning fire. Sit for… treat it like a distraction. But if it keeps and then you’re getting overwhelmed by it then move mindfully. Loosen the muscle if you need to. Paying attention the whole time and then return to your breath. So this is not but it’s also not like every little twitch. Again, you’re trying to find the middle path. See this is what the middle path is. It isn’t somewhere it’s like no no between these find the centre. Finding your centre again and again and again. Yes? I’ve been following your meditation course for about six months. And I was wondering because I have a phenomenon you know you’re talking about sometimes you do it on the side I do feel I’m located like here motion diagonally. Is that another middle frist thing? Yeah, yeah. It usually does. It usually does. It usually does. Don’t make it an effort to integrate it. Treat it like a distraction. Return to your breath. Yeah, you can get that one. You can get this one. I’m above looking down. Which when it initially happens can be kind of creepy. I’m dying! No you’re not. Alright. Okay, so. The best metaphor for this is learning a martial art. And that’s why the two are often taught together. One of the reasons why they’re often taught together. What do you think? More questions? Are you ready to try it? Alright. Oh no one more question. Very loudly please. Yes. Does he talk about how the dance practice in the previous talk that they would have this pure consciousness experience. Would that be a result of doing this kind of thing for many years or more? Does this lead to another more advanced practice? No, no. You won’t get into the pure consciousness event unless you’ve been doing this religiously in both senses of the word for minimum ten years. You know, three or four hours in the morning, three or four hours in the evening kind of thing. Okay? So first of all just take a deep cleansing breath. And then remember, find the center in your posture. Then centering your attention by stepping back and looking at your sensations rather than looking through them. In, out, in, out. When your mind is distracted labeling the distraction with an ing word, returning your attention to your breath, centering your attitude, neither fighting nor feeding your monkey mind. Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Don’t open your eyes yet. Please listen to these instructions. Because coming out of your sitting is part of the practice. Very slowly open your eyes trying to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. Meditation is not a practice. It’s a practice that you have to practice. It’s a practice that you have to practice. It’s a practice that you have to practice. Meditation is not a vacation. It is an education. Try to affect as much of that transfer as you can. You have to practice the transfer for it to occur. Slowly coming out trying to integrate into your everyday consciousness and cognition. So, when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes and begin the integration. That’s a meditative practice. So, when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes and begin the integration. Yes. That’s a distraction. Just label it and return to following your breath. You’ll do the spots, you’ll do the paint, oh, wonderful colors. And again, don’t let that feed your narcissism. You’re not unique, you’re not special, at least in this instance. You’re not on the path of Buddhahood other than doing the practice. Neither are you insane. Label the distraction, return. Yes. Yeah. So, just note that as distraction return. So, a couple things to help. Don’t sit and meditate with music. But it’s so wonderful. Too bad. It’s not doing you any good. Because you won’t be able to get into that state unless you carry the music around with you. And it happens to go off when you’re in the middle of doing the thing that you’re always doing that you want to get out of. It happens to coincide with you. Forget it, it’s not going to happen. So, don’t bind yourself to music. Try to meditate at the same time every day in the same place for at least two months. You used to say five weeks, but I’m now saying two months. When you meditate, turn it into a ritual. There’s no reason why you couldn’t bring Christian symbolism into this. But the point from a psychological point of view is that you’re trying to do classical conditioning. Light a candle, burn some incense, ring a bell. Because that tells your brain it conditions you into getting into the state. Once you’ve been doing that for a while, then you might want to try meditating at different times in different places. Don’t meditate right after eating. You’ll just listen to your stomach. Don’t meditate after watching TV, listening to music, because you’ll just play it in your head. Don’t meditate as a novice after having a really difficult, emotionally laden conversation. Because you’ll just play it in your head. You’ll just ruminate. Rumination is not meditation. Rumination is not meditation. Rumination is not meditation. Oh, I meditated because I should kill him, I should kill him, I should kill him. That’s not meditation. Okay? Now, I might have to go over a little bit. Or we could just take questions. If we go over, if we want me to show you a contemplative practice, we have to go over a little bit. Or we could just use the remaining time for some questions you might have about mindfulness in general. I’ll ask for a vote. How many people are okay with going over maybe 10 minutes? Okay. Great question. Could you comment on the relationship just to the breathing itself? Like, if I I imagine people struggle with controlling the breath. So, first of all, a diagnostic thing. If you are controlling your breath, in addition to doing this practice, I recommend you get into a relationship with a good psychotherapist because you have unprocessed anxiety. If you cannot look, you don’t have to go to breathing school. Ever. But if you’re having trouble breathing, you have almost always, you’ve embodied anxiety in a way that you’re not processing. The meditation can help, but I recommend getting some psychotherapy about the anxiety. Try not for the meditative practice, so that’s the life advice for the meditative practice. If you’re controlling your breath, controlling ing word and return to the breath. I’m controlling my breath. Controlling, return to your breath. Right now, you’re not controlling your breath. See? But now when I said that, you are. Some of you. If it’s really chronic and you can’t let go of controlling your breath, I recommend you seek out therapy because you are carrying around it could be CBT, it could be just an eight week thing, it doesn’t have to be like overcoming how you never got along with your father and maybe it’s that too. But you’ve embodied anxiety in a way that has to be addressed. Now, you may just be able to let it go as another distraction in the meditative practice. I’m not saying you’re suffering that. You’re just asking a question. I get it. Right? Yeah. Okay. Well then, in good faith, I’m recommending that if it remains chronic, if you can’t just simply label it and after like, you know, a week of trying the practice, you’re still getting caught up in endemic controlling of your breath, then there’s some things that need to be addressed. That’s your body trying to tell you something. And don’t ignore it. For some people, all they need to do and this is not to say you should never go into therapy for other reasons, but for some people you just label the controlling as another distraction, ING word, return to your breath, and after a few sittings it’s just gone. Because you can just have apprehensive anxiety as opposed to chronic anxiety. Labeling the distraction and letting it go will, the apprehensive anxiety will just go away. If it’s chronic anxiety, the practice is disclosing that you have chronic anxiety and it needs to be addressed. Is that okay? Is that an answer? Yes. So you said before that you’d like to do it every same time every day. So what comes to mind for me is, oh, maybe first thing in the morning. Would you recommend that? I would recommend, if you’re serious about this, I recommend first time in the morning and then about an hour or two after dinner. Don’t meditate right before going to bed. One of two things will happen. You’ll fall asleep and then you’re teaching your brain even more. The point of the meditation is to fall asleep. Or, your meditation will make you very alert and aware. And then you’re in bed like this. So don’t do that. Yes. What is your opinion on So, are we changing the vote? Just to be clear. No, I’ll keep going. No questions. Okay. What is your opinion on the meditation on icons, like in terms of like I wouldn’t call that a meditative practice. I think that’s a contemplative practice. Which is what I actually want to start talking about if that’s possible. Okay. Okay. So, meditative practice is this. By the way, why might I take my glasses off and look at them? You have to clean them. How do I know if I clean them? Put them back on. And if I don’t see more clearly or more deeply, that tells me the meditation isn’t working. So the Buddha is actually critical of people who just meditate and like to withdraw and vacate from reality. The contentedness of a cabbage. Which I think is a great phrase. It’s like, whoa. That’s really good. Okay. So the West is doing what it always does. It’s taking something very complex and a complex ecology of practices, smashing it down into one thing, trivializing it, removing it from its sapiential challenge, and then telling you the point of this mindfulness is to make you sort of satisfied with the way in which megacorporations are destroying your life. That is not the point of mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is not meditation. Meditation is one pole of training mindfulness. The Buddha did not offer the one-fold path. He offered the eight-fold path. And it was in the form of a wheel because all the parts are interdependent and mutually support each other. You need a contemplative practice. But as I promised, I’m going to turn now from Buddhism to Neoplatonism. I sometimes think that my actual position is something like Zen-Neoplatonism, but nobody says that, so I’d be all alone. So I want to take you through a Neoplatonic practice. And Jonathan’s talk is so fortuitous because the Neoplatonic practice… First of all, this is not being stolen from Christianity. This predates Christianity and was taken up into Christianity. I have no offense that Christianity took it up. I get offended when Christians accuse this of being an act of theft because that’s simply false. Okay. So I’m going to describe the practice to you. And then this time, I will talk you through the entire practice sort of stage by stage. So we’re going… We’re going… No. First thing. Your eyes are going to be closed, so you really can’t look at the world because your eyes are closed. So this is an imaginal practice. You’re imagining what I’m going to be talking about, but not in the sense of la-la-la. Remember when I talked about your feet are sinking into the mud? Imagination for the sake of perception. Imagination for the sake of perception. So I’m going to explain it to you step by step, and then I will walk you through it, talk you through it. The first thing I’m going to ask you to do… Well, first of all, I’ll ask you to find your centre. You should do that for any meditative or contemplative practice. If you’re not… Actually, you should be centred and rooted, but I don’t have time. At least be centred, because if you’re not centred and you start a practice, it can spin you out. Right? Remember what I said? If I’m going to fight somebody, I’m not bouncing around. I’m centred and rooted, because then I’m prepared. The first thing I’m going to ask you to do is… I’ll take you through it. I’ll ask you to be aware of your sense of taste, smell, touch, because you’re touching your chair, hearing, sight. I can’t see anything. Just look at the inside of your eyelids, and then I’ll ask you to move… Instead of all of those awarenesses, channels of awareness, I’ll ask you to be aware of your awareness. Just be aware of your awareness. What was common to all of those? Because in each one of them, you were aware. Aware of your awareness. Then, what I’m going to ask you to do is to sink into that, just being aware. Just being aware. And then, I want you to sense if you’re real or not, and you are, so the answer should be… Sense you’re real. You’re aware of your awareness. You’re just real. You’re here, you’re now. It’s real. It really is. Don’t get into philosophical conception. Bet you never thought you’d hear John Verbecky say that. Don’t get into philosophical conception. You’re just trying to feel what your sense of realness is. Your awareness really is. You really are aware. Real. The awareness of awareness, and then from the awareness of awareness, you’re moving to the realization of realization. You’re just real. And then, you go through, and there’s Greek names, but John Roussin has some wonderful musical metaphors to help us. The first is called phusis. That’s where we get physics from. It just means things are emerging. And what you want to try and pick up on is in that sense of realness, there’s a rhythm to it. There’s one moment after the other. Maybe you need your breath to do that. Maybe you just have a sense of time passing, like the beat of time. Maybe you have the beat of your heart. But there’s that one, or maybe it’s just almost like a moment of realization followed by another moment of realization. But you have that rhythm of process. And then I’ll ask you to become aware, again, imaginally of all the patterning that’s going on. And just like the rhythm of process is within you and without you, just like music is simultaneously inside you and outside you, that patterning, that power of patterning is everywhere. Jonathan and I talk about the through-line through all the multiple aspects, and Jonathan was doing something like that. That’s like a melody. A melody is not just a repetition. It’s a pattern. The rhythm gets patterned. You’re doing it now. Your perception is being patterned, and the world is being patterned, and they are happening together, or you wouldn’t be seeing the world. You’re doing this imaginally. You’re imagining all the patterns and the power behind that. That’s suke. That’s suke, where we get the word psyche from. Remember Paul’s sermon this morning, Nuss? It’s the next one. What’s Nuss? What’s Noesis? Noesis is you’re trying to sense that there’s something ordering the pattern. It’s a principle of some kind. And again, not philosophical contemplation, but there’s a unity to the pattern. It’s not just higgledy-piggledy. There’s a principle behind it. It’s like the harmony of music. There’s the harmony of principle. There’s the melody of patterning, and there’s the rhythm of process. That’s how realization in the mental sense and realization in the physical sense are co-happening together, and that’s what makes the world intelligible, those two things co-happening together. The rhythm of process, fusus, the melody of patterning, suke, the harmony of principle, Noesis. Then I’ll ask you to do the following. Realize that those three things are interdependent. You really can’t have a rhythm if it doesn’t become intelligible to you in a pattern, and you really can’t have a pattern if it doesn’t become intelligible to you in a pattern. But could you be aware of a principle if there weren’t patterns forming? And if the patterns were static and not moving through time, you couldn’t be aware of them. Each one of those three depends on the other. They all interpenetrate each other. And some of you may be thinking maybe that’s kind of a metaphor for the Trinity. Augustine does something similar to that. You’re trying to realize the oneness of it. They’re all one, yet they’re three, yet they’re one, yet they’re three. That’s the one-one-ing of Noesis, the one-one-ing. They’re one, but not homogeneous blob. They’re one, but not homogeneous blob. They’re one, but not homogeneous blob. They’re one, but not homogeneous blob, because there is the patterning, the process, and the principle. They’re one-one-ing. Knosis. You’re not the center of this. Empty. This one-one-ing is happening at all times and all places. You’re not the center of it. You’re not the center of it. You try to center to it. You try to participate as deeply as you can. That’s Knosis. Theosis. And just to be clear about this, this term was using Neoplatonism first, so I’m not stealing and I’m not being sacrilegious. I was asked to do something and I’m doing it. But if you give it a Christian interpretation, like Eastern Orthodoxy, that’s great too. All of these are taken up into lots of Christian contemplative practices. If you read St. Bonaventure’s The Journey of Mine to God, and it’s this, boom, boom, boom, boom, all the way through. Dionysus, boom, boom, boom, boom, all the way through. Okay? And I’m sure, as far as I can tell, Maximus. I’m just reading it now. Boom, boom, boom, all the way through. The final stage, right, is when you’re not the center of it. You’re centered to it. The one-one-ing is at all times and all places. Whatever you have is still a symbol. That experience, this oneness, this may, it’s just a symbol that participates in the inexhaustibleness of, if you want to think of that as God, the ground of being. In Neoplatonism, this is called the one. You’re grateful for whatever mental image has come to you, but it is a participatory symbol. It is not the one, although it’s not separate from the one. Be grateful for it, and open yourself, and even ask to be shown more. Enact the fact that it’s actually inexhaustible. That that fount of intelligibility, both within you and in the world, is inexhaustible. When I teach this to Christians, and because there’s a lot of Christians here, I want to be sympathetic to this, they often find that at the upper levels, they’re doing something like prayer. I want to see more. I want to love you more. You see this in the cloud of unknowing. If that comes naturally to you, or if that makes you feel better about doing this practice, if you want to do it, that is fine. I have no objections. I would object to anybody who objected to Christian Neoplatonism. But for those of you who aren’t Christians, you can also just follow the instructions I give to you. Is that clear? I really do think that this is a place where we can be, genuinely enter the courtyard together. And people who are not Christian can get a depth out of this practice. And before the Christians get angry at me, Augustine had this experience before he converts to Christianity. And he does the ascent to the one. And it enabled him to become a Christian. Of course, thought there was other things going on, and I’m not dismissing that. It’s the love of Christ. But that was there. So you can enter into it as a non-Christian, as a Buddhist, as a Christian. Is that clear? Any questions? Okay, so we’re going to sit and we’re going to be quiet for a bit. Because what are you doing during that? Anybody? What are you doing for the first bit, little bit, where I’m not talking? You’re finding your centre. Centering your attention, centering your attitude, following your breath for a while. Remember, this is imaginal. You are looking out into the world through an imaginal engagement. Is that okay, everybody? All right, so silence for a bit. Close your eyes, please do. Finding your centre. I’ll be quiet for a bit. And then I will talk you through the various stages of the ascent, anagoga. Okay. Okay. Okay. Bring your awareness to your sense of touch, perhaps where your feet are touching the floor, where you’re touching the seat. Now to taste. You have a taste inside your mouth right now, just taste that. Now your sense of smell. Smell. Now listen to the sounds. Now your sense of sight. Just look at the inside of your eyelids. Just try and have them going pretty much all together. Sight, listening, touch, taste, smell. Now do that compression that Jonathan and I were talking about. What do they all have in common? There’s this awareness. Become aware of the awareness that was disposed in each one of your senses. Be aware of your awareness. Now try to make that as relaxed as you possibly can. You’re just being in your awareness. You’re really here and now and together. That realness. The realness in your awareness that you’re not making, but it is making your awareness real. Your awareness is really happening. Moment by moment. A pure being of awareness. Now imagine we experience that. Now imagine we extend that outward from you. So you’re aware of the room around you. Again, drop down to, you’re not aware of anything in it in particular. You’re just aware of its realness. Moment by moment. It’s there. It’s here. It’s here and now and together. This is Fuses. Moment by moment, the world keeps emerging. Just as moment by moment, your awareness keeps emerging. They are co-emerging together. This is the rhythm of process. Fuses. Remember this is an imaginal practice. That rhythm, moment by moment, of co-emergence. Now imagine all the patterns that are taking shape in the room. But they’re also taking shape in your mind at the same time. All the patterns. But now instead of concentrating on all of the patterns, try to sense the power behind that. This is Suke. The melody of patterning. Moment by moment, the world is being determined by patterns. And moment by moment, you’re determining those patterns in your thought. The melody of Suke. But behind it all, there’s an organizing principle. Because it makes sense. It fits together. It belongs together. There’s a harmony of all these melodies. They’re all together in your mind, but also in being. They are all together. There’s a principle of harmony behind it all. Notice that. That gestalt. Notice it. The principle behind all the patterning. It’s both in your mind and in the world. They are unfolding together. But don’t leave the patterning and the process behind. The harmony of the principle. The melody of the patterning. And the rhythm of the process are interdependent. You cannot know one without knowing the other two. They are three in one. One in three. They are one-one-ing. Open to that. Within and without, equally one-one-ing. Noesis is passed into Hinoesis. One-one-ing. That one-one-ing is not just here in this room now. It is going on everywhere. In all places. At all levels. And it’s not just happening now. It’s been happening since the first moment of time. All times and all places. The one-one-ing. This is Kinoesis. It’s not centered on you. It’s centered towards it. All times and all places. However this is happening for you, be grateful for it. But it is a participatory symbol. Thank you for it. Thank you. You can direct gratitude. But it’s the doorway through which I pass. The one-one-ing of all times and all places is but an icon. An icon to the inexhaustible. The one, the good. Because that marriage between mind and world, that marriage vow is never broken. The promise is continually kept. And you do nothing without that promise being kept. Theosis. Opening wonder and gratitude to the inexhaustible. That the promise of this fundamental goodness never fails. Slowly come out of your practice. Slowly opening your eyes. Trying to integrate what you cultivated in your practice with your everyday consciousness and cognition. You didn’t invent something here. You remembered, deeply remembered, what is always actually the case. That’s the nature of the Neoplatonic practice. Any questions? Yes? Watch after Socrates because I’ll have an entire episode where I go through this practice. You can also come to the Dialectic into Dialogos workshop that Chris and I and Guy Sandstock lead. And we do this Neoplatonic contemplation as part of the workshop. So I have to say it at least once. Thank you very much for your time and attention.