Lessons

Lesson Info

Asking Audience - Why Meditate?

Uh and I'd like to maybe this pause from it and hear from you here live and um and the folks out in the online community just so far how we doing you know, are we are we are we thinking up our our our vehicles at this point talking to each other in a meaningful way so any questions or comments that you have so far and then I'm just going to talk a little bit more about kind of the, um how we start to go about doing the meditation practice with involved with that so I'd like to invite first while you guys out in cyberspace are, uh, lobbying your comments into us maybe start with the people here if you have any thoughts that you'd like to share. So julie, I love that you zeroed right in on self compassion that's something that I need to work on you touch your heart yeah, and you know, self compassion and not going into shame and and recognizing how shame and anxiety are really linked me on dh it's definitely one of the things I was hoping that we would work on in here, right? Yeah it's g...

oing to be a big part of it curiosity to curiosity, compassion and understanding that it begins with oneself and then you can bring it out into the world more fluidly well said as we think beautifully stated identifying where we really are right now rather than going through all of the events that led up to right now but being able to identify you know am I anna am I in a state of transition do I feel insecure that's personally how I feel right now but rather than sugar coating and kind of going into learning about the view and then the practice with this fairytale version of where we are or what has led up to where we are rather than really identifying where I am now yeah good lawyer mind is actually one of things that you're impotent used to talk about it sort of that clarity of like really discerning okay what what did happen here? You know what is happening so that's good you have that kind of shop shop mind but else here have a problem with I guess aggression a manipulation but at the same time you said that you need to love yourself and you need to accept like I feel like I need to accept that part of me and still like take that aggression and take the manipulation and just do it in a good way yeah I don't know just like I know that I'm aggressive but I I think a lot and I think about all the like okay, I know I have this and if I'm going to be really mean I should be mean and still intend to do something good person you know and on also it's sometimes I'm scared of, um stopping that part of me because I don't know if it's if it's up if it's a really big part of me that just needs a little bit of of tweaking or or if it's something that's actually bad and I need to fix that makes sense absolutely so like I want to ask another question a little chilly in here yes way possibly we can just bump it up a degree or two and out there in the online audience if you're house is too cold or too warm please take a moment and just way can't do that for you yet but he read creative live we're working on that they have a app for climate adjustment for participants so we're gonna warm it up a little bit okay, so um well first what everything you're saying is really juicy, isn't it in a way you know it's fertile area yeah it's scary sometimes stressful but I mean I do deal with it like I I think oh, I think a lot about it and it guides me crazy sometimes but what's the essence of what do you think? Well, I mean like how to be a better person, something like that uh, good person I think it's experience of like like seeing someone that has the same energy but using it in a really bad way that just makes me want to like just grab that and like for a long time I was really ashamed of it and I didn't like it and then after that I just I decided to just do the opposite of what that person was doing ultra and then slowly I was accepting it yeah, we're definitely gonna get into going to get into some strategies really is what we're talking about methods for howto work with those kind of feelings so you stay put, okay? Okay. I appreciate the way sahar shares her thoughts with the audience there because it really did begin to resonate with people. Mel petrie was saying he really did agree with sahara what she was saying and then I did not just aggressive towards others but war more towards himself for myself wei have quite a little comments coming in. Yeah, actually, this one's from michelle and rv says wow never made the connection between meditation and empowering others. I always viewed it as self beneficial but never considered the ripple effect as the new meat goes out into the physical world. Yeah, and we also already have people purchasing this course carol says just ordered this course want to share it with my husband? Yeah um wonderful dear that what else are people saying? You know more and then we'll come back well, jennifer h is saying it really resonates with the grounded nous I don't know that's actually a word way had to understand it of david's approach I like the all inclusive aspect of these teachings I think being grounded is something that people are really looking for here um and then you know, michelle andare via adds sharing that practice with the person whom you're sharing your life can on ly make it that much better so yeah and that's like a deepening of a connection, sharing the experience of learning um and opening and changing teo so so the idea that we're sort of kicking into right naturally here is that if I'm sort of achieving some kind of further compassion and clarity myself, it is going to ripple outward. So of course as the workshop goes, we'll be even explicitly talking about howto ripoll you know, you can ripple by just being there and you can ripple you can push it a little bit and develop certain practices that actually help you a ripple effect general, I don't want to actually take a question at this point joe, because cesar is joining us in mexico is asking basically how do you stick to a meditation program schedule when you feel so anxious hey saying just the thought of sitting for a period of time is very hard for him? Where do you start one of the necessary stepping stones yeah, well, the first stepping senses are is to stay with us for three days here because we are going to really look at that in this segment we're talking about mostly, you know, sort of overview but in as we go ahead we're going to talk about actually howto work with the mined in the practice and then even we're going to look a tte obstacles that come up and how why it is difficult and how to deal with those challenges along the way so that leave that die awareness is our that's the first thing I want and just to share one comment from jennifer h she says she's really resonating with the grounded nous of your approach and likes the all inclusive aspect of what you're teaching I want to share that with you wonderful other any questions from from the the last question was the main one right now, but I think you know the questions will come in as we go through the course of the next couple days and will certainly be sharing them. But please feel free to post your questions in the accused tab but also we really appreciate your sharing so many deep thoughts with us and so many things that must be I think emotionally challenging for you as you are watching this, but we really appreciate you showing them and we'll be sharing them with dave as we go along wonderful and we have a few more in the live group, so yeah, I want to play off the online audience and also reiterate I appreciate the tanja bility of the practice that you bring forward very grounded, very president just with what isthe in working from there and rather send some lofty abstracting additional space I come from a psychology background, so a lot of my life has been the process of self deconstruction and looking at belief systems and generate or feed emotional states of being um that experience so I'm excited for you the transformation of that I've been really digging into accepting what is and being where I am and then I'm excited teo be or transformed to another place to accept what is and also improve or build upon it and that's what that's what I'm curious and excited about where we make that transition in this process and even just add to that that I'm assuming you know that many of you her watching may be a first time uh to get exposed to any of these kind things like kelly you said your absolute beginning, right? So that's really good as far as I'm concerned so in a way I'm goingto ask you to help us monitor if we're getting too ahead of ourselves, okay uh you know, just say, well, wait a minute, you know what about this so but there is a lot of practical stuff I'm going to be talking about really howto work with this in everyday life, you know, on, you know, on the job in family relationships how does this really a ll the things that we're talking about sort of theoretically here to begin with how can you really develop? There are a lot of strategies, you know, in a way that's all buddhism really is is a bunch of methods and strategies to address daily living I mean, you know, if you can master daily living what is there beyond that that you'd like to do? So they they say that you know, if somebody becomes a great meditator, they should have mastered daily life and if they're fumbling through their daily life in these their meditation master you know, you gotta wonder what is it they mastered so that we look at the life as it is really you know what we're talking about? And, uh, you know, hopefully adding some some sense of howto work with that which will include I I've taught a more shop around the world called creativity, spirituality and making a buck includes livelihood relationships um, you know, a lot of I'm sure a lot of our folks out there are creative people maybe some of your artists are photographers, I think right now but a certain amount of um isn't it true that there's a certain amount of photographers that are involved with the creative life wait get a fair high number of photographers in our audience is each time but there's creative people from all walks of life in this and people who are not necessarily in the creative here as well. So as far as we're concerned, one of things we say it's that you know whatever you're doing has a certain art to it artfulness to it that's a very important part of the shambala traditions that living artfully that could include even just how you set the table for dinner how you dress, how you how you shop it's really look at that level that's what were doing during the day we're shopping, we're making dinner so we're going to talk very specifically about some of those some of those things david, I'd like to ask a question just because I'm sure you're going to be addressing this, but this has come actually from shoo be doo are great handle there what is it should be dio that could be a song you wrote? Maybe the next one would be do I've heard that I love that I'm sure it figures figures in midnight at the oasis somewhere it was the kind of shoo be doo are kind of songs that's sure what should we do? Our is asking we need to go with us any suggestions to people who've tried meditation before but I've never stuck with it is there gonna be anything particularly this course is going to help us a result? I sincerely hope so you should be doing because one of my favorite comments is you know I'm um uh often teaching these workshops live and affect this one coming up at kripalu institute in massachusetts november tenth fifteen and I won't invite you balto physically appear there if you can so we can actually connect but one my favorite responses that cripple a once was I ask people how what's your meditation practice like and person said, well, I have a regular practice for twenty years every year for twenty years twice a year so you know, sticking with it in a way finding that glue is what the biggest challenge most of us will face uh, you know, assuming you get some kind of clear instruction and you actually do practice and continue continue study just doing it is huge, so hopefully we will include some thoughts on that and what I'd like to do should be due on is invite you personally if I could this is from me to you uh let us know if there's anything that comes up in this that helps you glue your practice into your life better and then we'll do more of it the next time and even with this live format anything that we're talking about if you can uh just keep us posted as we go along so and also all of you like a lightbulb goes on uh okay, you know here's a way that I can I can dig in a little bit more but we'll certainly be doing that while we're together and that's one of the what that's one helpful things um any other uh yeah actually um julie see and seth f are wanting to know how to be brave enough not to turn that channel what you're saying is resonating but it's scary and they want to know why these practices of looking at ourselves are so darn scary uh yeah, that has to do with how people use the mirror you know, I've always been intrigued by how people he was a mirror I mean actually it's a great way to see yourself, isn't it? But a lot of us don't really look into me okay like that's kind of how many of you like really go? And if you look in the mirror you will experience great beauty and great fear there's no doubt about it that's just that's because we are ourselves our final ultimate mystery in terms of solving life's issues if you know who you are, you can look in the mirror and it's actually going to be a positive experience but we're afraid we're going to see something that we don't want to see and um what we say and put its tradition is it's worth looking because ultimately you're going to see something that has a tremendous amount of goodness and sparkle to it you know that's what we call that in ramallah basic goodness you know that's what you're going to see but of course along the way we might see all our doubt all our fear all our anxiety so it takes a lot of bravery to look in the mirror properly and that's why I call it the path of the warrior it's a break it's it's not because you're gonna go beat people up it's because you have a certain amount of uh courage the word for warrior in tibetan is power which means you know, possessing bravery so uh yeah it seems ironic and I've said this for years and teaching a lot of yoga community to me the yogis look fearless it's crazy even what they do you know they're putting their ankles behind their neck and you're hanging from the ceiling and standing upside down and I go like this is really courage you know you could get hurt nobody's ever gotten hurt meditating I said put that in the blurb and crew apollo I said one my favorite things to say is nobody's ever gotten injured in any one of my workshops never happened so however when you come out after people been practicing yoga intensely for an hour and I don't have and you say we're just going to sit still for ten minutes they look at me like kind of you know I'm more threatening and it's ironic because just for looking at ourselves directly somehow brings up very deep I fear but one of things my teachings say is you can do it you know, that's that's the role of the teachers in the linear just to say you can do it okay kelly, can we go to the live I I've been practicing yoga for a while, so I always hesitated though with the meditation aspect of it and maybe it was for that fear of looking at one's known so I like what you said about looking in the mirror and seeing general goodness me not to see oh yea great stuff but as long as you're kind of a from seeing only fear yes and that being new to meditation in your introduction here that our first priority is to deal with being just a human being and not oh today have to be super photographer today have to be super wife or whatever you're super, you know, cooker whatever it might be so dealing with how to compassionately be just a general goodness human being it takes away a lot of pressure let's take that pressure off let's just take it off because that's who we are we're human beings and um this tradition is to really explore the richness of that red than to make us feel worse about being so that's a very you know, buddha never had any claims to divinity or anything like that so we don't say yes or no on that that's up to each individual person how they framed their world but we are saying that there is something fundamentally good about being a human being and that was something intrinsically good in it and we can look and uh uh we're going to go through a certain challenge and it takes a lot of bravery and same time is going to reveal a lot of richness so um that's gonna influence every dimension of life okay? So well last question then I'm gonna move on yeah, I just wanted to make a comment which is basically it's not bad to look at ourselves like in a constructive, constructive like, constructive sure criticism like criticize ourselves because I see ourselves as like a piece of painting or a piece of artwork and we need to we need to make it better. We just try to perfect ourselves and if if someone's criticizing us or if we're criticizing ourselves, we need to still look at what we're criticizing and what if you fix that whatever with that make the art project this project better and is that is that what you want and if it is what you want then you do change that but I also don't like saying oh I'm so great I'm so awesome because I feel like that that's negative because that is actually stroking your ego and forgetting about the bad parts about you so I think actually it is important for us to to be harsh on ourselves sometimes yeah well remember projects just in quiz enquiring really looking at it without aggression you can have the precision without the aggression she too that one okay precision is possible without the aggression okay, so um I wanted to just roll forward a little bit and uh you know, we're going to start like going from the theory to the practice uh in in about twenty minutes we'll have a break for everybody tio take care of what you need to take care of so don't worry too much about that we know about those things here. Yeah, right you know and obviously in if you're in the comfort of your own home, which is one of the great reasons for doing it this way you can be, you know, having munching on a bagel or something while you're doing this and so forth but uh I'm gonna take the view that we're all in sync in real or non real time and we will have a break in about twenty minutes