Digging Into the Practice Part 2
Lesson 7 from: FAST CLASS: Meditation for Everyday LifeDavid Nichtern
Digging Into the Practice Part 2
Lesson 7 from: FAST CLASS: Meditation for Everyday LifeDavid Nichtern
Lessons
Introduction - Why Meditate?
15:12 2How to Meditate - Taking Your Seat
12:59 3Placing Attention on Breath
04:32 4Labeling Thoughts as Thinking
06:35 5How to Meditate - Leaving Some Space
12:19 6Bringing Meditation Into Everyday Life
11:30 7Digging Into the Practice Part 2
05:51 8Obstacles Along the Way
08:29Obstacles Along the Way Part 2
08:59 10Body, Emotions, Mind, Stress, Anxiety
26:56 11Body, Emotions, Mind, Stress, Anxiety Part 2
06:28 12The True Meaning of Success
18:28 13The True Meaning of Success Part 2
03:40 14Developing Compassion for Ourselves & Others
04:39 15Compassion for Ourselves & Others Part 2
29:34 16Compassion and Mindfulness
26:27 17Compassion and Mindfulness Part 2
08:11 18Happiness and Joy
18:15 19Happiness and Joy Part 2
04:06 20How to Go Forward
10:59 21How to Go Forward Part 2
07:31Lesson Info
Digging Into the Practice Part 2
So I'm gonna introduce this idea of contemplative meditation, which is step one is the same, You take your seat, it's a formal practice. So if you would in the audience here uh in the studio and at home, I invite you again to take your meditation seat and this case, okay to close your eyes because you're kind of just going to be thinking about something and I'm going to sort of talk us through it. But in general you could take any topic this way that you thought would yield some um insight and just run through in your mind. So um so just be aware now that we're focusing on this topic of uh let's let's do one at a time because maybe the two are different. Let's talk about stress. Yes, dress, I'm stressed out. Okay, you know that feeling, you know, so let's think of a time recently when we really experience stress an intense way, just draw your mind to that experience. And now, apart from, you know, the solidity of the experience and kind of the belief that it's really happening to you. ...
What did you actually experience for example? Where do you experience stress? Where did you experience stress in that situation? Where were you, what was happening? What feelings came up for you? Where did you experience those feelings? Was it in your mind? Was it in your body? Was it in your breath? What kind of thoughts arose? Was the flavor of those thoughts? How long did it last? Were you able to detect the onset of it when it first sort of showed up? Did anything trigger it? Did you have memories of other situations that might have felt similar as part of it? Can you recreate that feeling right now? You have that feeling right now? Where did it come from? Where was it before you experience that A stress? Where did it exist? That feeling? Where did it go? And where is it now? So we're looking right at the experience that we had. So okay, open your eyes for a minute. We just had a brief contemplation that's sort of addressed that topic. Your mind didn't wander off the topic, did it was really focused, you know? So that's a form of mindfulness right there. We've just focused on a particular exploration. So now I'd like to ask, since this is the you could say maybe this is the illness of our age, the disease of our time and place. So many people are stressed out. So many people are looking for a way to soften that people, most many people looking for meditation practice are looking at this. Is this could this be an antidote? We're in a way we're just introducing the idea just the review of contemplative meditation, where you use that creative mind to look at something directly through the filter of your own sort of innocent take on your own experience without judging it without trying to manipulate it right away just to see what it is than the other dimension of contemplative meditation which will get into tomorrow is actually beginning to cultivate certain types of thoughts that you know maybe more productive. Uh and and and that's gonna be a compassion meditation. How can we re track our mind in such a way that it's actually generating sort of positive imagery and kind of creative thought process and unplug or dial down the kind of habitual negative process. So that's just a glimpse. We have the two we have the mindfulness meditation which is very pure kind of simple awareness, developing the golden dot of of everyday life, uh mindfulness and the contemplative practices that we have. And there's quite a range of these. You see that we'll try to, you know over the course of our workshop, learn a few of them and the ground one though, I just want to emphasize this too. Sitting mindfulness meditation, that's the kind of rock that you build the rest of it on. If there's if we don't have the ability to pay attention in a sort of pure way, all these other things will just turn into a kind of fractured, fragmented kind of approach including our whole life. So the rock and mindfulness is something that is a threat that goes through all of these. Um so that's what we're trying to encourage. It's like if you can if you can practice You know four or five times a week to start with for you know 15 or 20 minutes and just get that rock of mindfulness kind of practicing all these other things are going to be much, much easier to to undertake. And it does seem to influence people's lives in a very productive and creative way.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase