Four Applications Of Mindfulness Retreat 2013 with B. Alan Wallace (part 3)

0:03 So we'll very shortly go right to the meditation, but just with a couple of comments prior to the session. The question, a very interesting and important question, was raised last night about the role of yoga, some kind of physical exercise, whether yoga, tai chi, qigong, and why this is largely missing in the Buddhist tradition, at least the Indo-Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 0:03 Highlight the passage at 0:03

0:27 And I just wanted to add a little footnote to that, and that is, This practice of mindfulness of breathing is quite remarkable in terms of its subtle influences on the whole system. And Report an error in the passage at 0:27 Highlight the passage at 0:27

0:44 that is in certain Buddhist traditions, including the Tibetan tradition, there are breathing exercises, like there's the ninefold breathing, there are in higher kind of tantric practices or vajrayana practices, there are breathing practices that are designed to really regulate your prāṇa and direct them in the right. Report an error in the passage at 0:44 Highlight the passage at 0:44

1:04 In the right channels. And likewise, of course, in pranayama, in the Hindu tradition, in qigong and tai chi, I think there are breathing exercises there as well. And so this kind of manual override of the respiration can be very helpful if it's done in a skillful fashion, if the techniques are authentic. Report an error in the passage at 1:04 Highlight the passage at 1:04

1:25 And there are many such authentic techniques in India, in Tibet, in East Asia. But as I know from personal experience and then from one of my teachers, if one has an unqualified teacher, then with this manual override of the respiration, holding the breath, closing apertures of the body and so forth, you actually can do a lot of damage to the body. Report an error in the passage at 1:25 Highlight the passage at 1:25

1:50 If it's done unskillfully, then damage can be quite severe and can be also quite difficult to heal or to repair. This mindfulness of breathing, Is taking another approach. And that is the ones of pranayama in these different traditions. And again I say all of these can be very good and all of these can be damaging if you have an incompetent instructor or if the practices themselves are ill-conceived. Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

2:17 And so if you are following someone who is telling you to breathe in this way, this aperture, close the breath in such and such a way, then you really need to have faith that this person is competent. And that the techniques being taught are authentic and they're proven. You're not the experimental guinea pig, right? So faith is very important there. Report an error in the passage at 2:17 Highlight the passage at 2:17

2:40 And if it's misplaced, then you're the first person to suffer from your misplaced faith. Mindfulness of breathing is quite different. And that is, as we'll see, and we'll venture into this more and more deeply over just the next couple of days. Hopefully you'll have much more opportunity in the coming weeks, months and so on. We're doing just the opposite of regulating the breath. Report an error in the passage at 2:40 Highlight the passage at 2:40

3:01 Even to an unprecedented degree, we're seeking to allow the respiration to flow without any intervention, interference, regulation, no manual override, but really to get out of the way and let the breathing take place of its own accord. Now, I've been practicing this for more than 40 years, teaching it for more than 30. And just in this last retreat we just finished a few days ago in Phuket, there was one woman. Report an error in the passage at 3:01 Highlight the passage at 3:01

3:31 A bit younger than I, maybe mid-fifties or so. And she told me that for years and years she'd suffered from really quite severe back pain. And she'd been to doctors and all kinds of things, very professional, very intelligent woman, highly educated. Done everything she could to try to alleviate this chronic back pain. Report an error in the passage at 3:31 Highlight the passage at 3:31

3:50 It was just always with her. So she was in this retreat and very sincere, like everybody in the retreat. They were just a wonderful, wonderful group to work with. And as I recall, her primary practice was, I know it was, it was mindfulness of breathing, even though I taught several techniques. This is the one she really honed in on. And she said in this eight-week retreat after two weeks, and she was commenting the first two weeks, boy, the back is really painful as usual, not getting worse. Report an error in the passage at 3:50 Highlight the passage at 3:50

4:17 And after two weeks she said, hmm, the back pain is starting to, it's softening, it's getting alleviated. The weeks went by, just an eight-week retreat, it's only two months. And by the end of it she said, the back pain is reduced by 90%. This is not the first time I've heard this. That's just the most recent, because that was just a couple of weeks ago that I heard this. Report an error in the passage at 4:17 Highlight the passage at 4:17

4:40 But it's been many cases. Now where this is, it's very important that your body be relaxed. This is not a macho kind of thing. I had another woman, somebody wrote to me, somebody wrote to me, that he studied, and I want to keep it vague because I don't want to point to any tradition, they all have their merits and all have... Report an error in the passage at 4:40 Highlight the passage at 4:40

5:01 Certain possibilities of defect. But there's one person that wrote to me that his teacher under whom he trained had told him, when you meditate, bear down, try as hard as you can, really apply your will to it. It was really super macho. And this fellow had developed a lot of headaches and chronic pain and wasn't going away, wasn't going away. And I don't know what I do. And I told him, you receive really bad instruction. Report an error in the passage at 5:01 Highlight the passage at 5:01

5:24 What can I say? That's some of the worst instruction I've ever heard. And so... So I've seen it on both sides, you know, people really bearing down. And so something that I emphasize more than anybody else I know is the enormous importance of venturing into the practice with kind of a soft touch, relaxing, letting go and finding comfort in your posture. Report an error in the passage at 5:24 Highlight the passage at 5:24

5:48 So this includes a supine position. This was explicitly taught, as I think we will see in the Theravāda tradition, as a posture for meditation. And even pointing out for different dispositions, some people better to be sitting or standing, other people better for lying down or reclining. But it's not a wimping out, it's not a California kind of, you know, wimping out kind of thing. Report an error in the passage at 5:48 Highlight the passage at 5:48

6:13 It has very ancient roots to it and there's a lot of wisdom to it. So one is being far too rigid to think that if you're meditating you must be sitting in an upright cross-legged position with a seven-point savarojana, classic posture. It's a superb posture. And if you can be comfortable in that posture, fantastic. But if you're not comfortable and you're trying to practice shamatha, it's just going to wear you out. Report an error in the passage at 6:13 Highlight the passage at 6:13

6:36 The pain will always be dragging you down. And I've never heard of anybody for whom that works well in shamatha practice. Now, we'll see. Pain does have a role in other types of practice, but not in shamatha. You really want to be comfortable. So to conclude these brief comments, the whole process, Of attending closely to the sensations of the respiration, but while doing so egolessly, that is relinquishing all control, releasing, releasing, as if, almost as if you're watching somebody else breathe, or having an out-of-body experience and just witnessing your body breathing in and out, but with no identification, no grasping, no control, no regulation, no preference, but just letting the body breathe. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

7:23 Something quite splendid emerges from this. It's very deep, and that is we discover through our own experience that the body, the body-mind, the whole system here, has an extraordinary capacity to balance and heal itself when we get out of the way and stop preventing it from doing what it can do. Report an error in the passage at 7:23 Highlight the passage at 7:23

7:49 And so the flow of the respiration is disrupted by many of the kind of activities that we engage in on a regular basis. I saw a video of one professor at Stanford University, a large group, 300 or 400 people in the audience, and he was speaking on these health-related issues pertaining to respiration, and he encouraged everybody, okay, everybody now whip out your smartphones and check your email right now. Report an error in the passage at 7:49 Highlight the passage at 7:49

8:15 I welcome you to do so. So out comes 300 smartphones, you know. Click, click, click, everybody's checking their email. He gave him about a minute to do that. He said, good, now, just review what just happened. While you were checking your email, were you breathing? Report an error in the passage at 8:15 Highlight the passage at 8:15

8:29 Real simple question. Were you breathing? Of course you weren't holding your breath. But as you're getting really focused there and clicking away, oh, who's getting contact with me? Do you notice whether this is actually really impairing, blocking the flow, the natural flow of your respiration? And how many times do we check our smartphones or emails and so forth and so on? And so when we become concentrated, when we really get engrossed in something, when we get upset, when we get When we get nervous, all of that breaks the flow of the respiration and not only prevents the respiration from restoring the balance in the body but actually aggravates the imbalances that are there. Report an error in the passage at 8:29 Highlight the passage at 8:29

9:14 And so this practice, lo and behold, I've heard so many reports and I have a fair amount of experience myself, this simple practice of just surrendering all control over the breath but not falling asleep, mindfully attending to the breath. That balance, of course, Clarity of cognizance while allowing the breath to flow of its own accord and find its own balance, its own rhythm, whether it's deep or shallow, whether it's regular or irregular, fast or slow, letting the body work it out, that turns out to have a very major impact on your whole prāṇa system. Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:50 I even had one fellow in a recent retreat who was a rather serious bodybuilder. And he said after a couple of weeks of mindfulness of breathing, he said, wow, that's really weird. I can now pump much more weight than I could before. I hadn't heard that one before. It's not actually the reason I teach mindfulness of breathing. But for swimming, athletics, just a lot of endeavors. The finding overall the body feels much better. Report an error in the passage at 9:50 Highlight the passage at 9:50

10:15 Chronic disorders. Of course it's not a panacea, it doesn't cure everything. But you might be surprised. How many kind of lingering chronic stiffness, rigidity and so forth and so on, this woman's back pain that had been there for years and years and years, that the body is healing itself. And so your trust here, your faith, doesn't need to be in me. Many of you hardly know me at all, so why would you trust a stranger? It doesn't have to be in the Buddha Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

10:45 You may have studied it, may not, but you don't have to have a lot of faith or trust in the Buddha Dharma. Your faith here is not in anything outside you. The faith here is in the healing capacity of your own body and mind. And then you can take that as a working hypothesis and see how that goes. So we'll have another session here. We'll have one when your body is still fresh, hopefully quite comfortable. We'll start with the session and go to a bit of lecture, but no more two and a half hour marathons. Report an error in the passage at 10:45 Highlight the passage at 10:45

11:16 Relatively short lectures and we'll have time for discussion. So please find a comfortable position. And from my perspective, you're always welcome to be in the supine position. And as you're settling, I'll just mention this too, and that is, it's very likely that some or all of us at some point will become ill or injured in the future, such that for some time we may not be able to sit upright. Report an error in the passage at 11:16 Highlight the passage at 11:16

11:39 If we are always associating meditation with sitting in a certain posture and then we can't sit in that posture, we're just kissing our meditative practice goodbye. I can't meditate, I have to lie down. And I know only wimps meditate when they're lying down, but that's all I can do, so I guess I can't meditate. Report an error in the passage at 11:39 Highlight the passage at 11:39

11:53 That's foolishness. Or likewise, we may just get old or we may eventually die. It would be really a shame if we get really quite old into our 80s or what have you and we're just not really quite up to sitting really upright in a nice meditative posture or we're actually dying and we find we're not quite up to it of sitting in a meditative posture. Report an error in the passage at 11:53 Highlight the passage at 11:53

12:14 It's enormously beneficial, enormously meaningful to be able to meditate when your body is not in great shape, including when it's dying. But for that, it might be good to develop a habit of maintaining a true meditative awareness, even in the supine position. Because we'll be there time and again, and we'll probably die there. Report an error in the passage at 12:14 Highlight the passage at 12:14

12:34 So why not prepare in advance, so that we utilize that, and not be so fixated, so rigid and dogmatic to think, oh, the only way you can meditate is in this posture. It's way too rigid and dogmatic thinking, and it does not accord with the teachings of the Buddha. Not in any school, really. And this is not just my making of this. I've received this from my own teachers. I'm passing on a transmission here. That especially for the practice of shamatha, taking a very gentle approach, relaxed in body and mind, is the correct way. Report an error in the passage at 12:34 Highlight the passage at 12:34

13:05 It's not a wimpy way. So we'll have one session in 24 minutes. Looks like you're all comfy. Let's go. Report an error in the passage at 13:05 Highlight the passage at 13:05

· · · silence, 1 minute

13:48 As is evident to everyone here, we're starting relatively late. Many meditation retreats began at much earlier in the day. So my own practice began hours ago and I assume for many of you yours did as well. So I'm assuming you've already had some preparation, you've established the most meaningful motivation for your practice. Report an error in the passage at 13:48 Highlight the passage at 13:48

14:09 So I'll assume you're already up and running. We'll simply continue the practice now, turning once again to mindfulness of breathing and letting your awareness descend into the body, which is to say, get out of the head. So often we have a sense of being identified up there in the head as if our thoughts are inside the head. Report an error in the passage at 14:09 Highlight the passage at 14:09

14:31 There's no evidence for that. So let your awareness descend, become grounded in Report an error in the passage at 14:31 Highlight the passage at 14:31

14:41 the sensations of the earth element where your body is in contact with the ground. Settle your body in its natural state imbued with three qualities of relaxation, stillness and vividness or vigilance. So Report an error in the passage at 14:41 Highlight the passage at 14:41

· · · silence, 1 minute

15:47 we settle the body in the state of dynamic equilibrium, dynamic in the sense that we're not just flaking out. We're establishing a balance between the deep relaxation of the body and at least a psychological posture of vigilance. If we're sitting upright, also sitting at attention. So both relaxed and vigilant and so we sustain that balance with stillness. Report an error in the passage at 15:47 Highlight the passage at 15:47

16:14 We Report an error in the passage at 16:14 Highlight the passage at 16:14

· · · silence, 1 minute

17:05 take on the subtler challenge of settling the respiration in its natural rhythm. The easy entry here is with the out-breath. Quite naturally a time to totally let go, to relax, to release the breath all the way through to the end, while also releasing thoughts. The Report an error in the passage at 17:05 Highlight the passage at 17:05

· · · silence, 1 minute

18:25 point here is the very end of the out-breath, just before the in-breath begins, that you relax into that turnaround, fearlessly and simply effortlessly. Allow the breath to flow in and be satisfied with however it flows in, whether it's a shallow breath or deep, however it may be. Just let it be. Let the body breathe. Let the body restore its own balance and heal itself from all the injury we've inflicted upon it. Report an error in the passage at 18:25 Highlight the passage at 18:25

19:03 Our egotism, ambition, drive, anxieties and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 19:03 Highlight the passage at 19:03

· · · silence, 1 minute

19:42 The out-breath relax more and more deeply in the body, unwinding, softening. With every out-breath, fully release the breath and release any thoughts or memories that may come to mind. Report an error in the passage at 19:42 Highlight the passage at 19:42

· · · silence, 1 minute

21:13 Finally, in order to establish The mind in a state of dynamic equilibrium, settling the mind in its natural state. Report an error in the passage at 21:13 Highlight the passage at 21:13

21:24 We initiate that process first of all with an act of will, allowing ourselves the freedom, the leisure, to Report an error in the passage at 21:24 Highlight the passage at 21:24

21:36 release temporarily all our concerns about the future and past, assuring ourselves that it's really okay. We don't need to think about them just now. Report an error in the passage at 21:36 Highlight the passage at 21:36

21:47 Set your mind at ease and release your awareness into the present moment. Let it abide there in stillness. Report an error in the passage at 21:47 Highlight the passage at 21:47

· · · silence, 1 minute

23:00 And let your awareness remain still without roving about, without grasping onto this or that. Report an error in the passage at 23:00 Highlight the passage at 23:00

23:08 In stillness let your awareness illuminate, shine a clear light on the entire field of somatic experience, the whole field of the body. Report an error in the passage at 23:08 Highlight the passage at 23:08

23:28 Many sensations arise and we shall explore them later. But for the time being in this shamatha practice, for training the attention, Report an error in the passage at 23:28 Highlight the passage at 23:28

23:40 we selectively focus our attention just on those sensations. Associated with the in and out breath, wherever they manifest throughout the body, Report an error in the passage at 23:40 Highlight the passage at 23:40

· · · silence, 1 minute

25:12 relaxing, releasing with every out breath. Report an error in the passage at 25:12 Highlight the passage at 25:12

25:22 Maintain a flow of cognizance. It's not a time just to have no thoughts or to have a blank mind. It's imperative. Maintain that flow of knowing, of cognizance. And the object of knowing here is simply the duration of each in and out breath, noting whether they are long or short. Very little conceptualization is needed. Report an error in the passage at 25:22 Highlight the passage at 25:22

· · · silence, 1 minute

27:06 Especially make a point of being mentally very silent. You come to the end of the out-breath so Report an error in the passage at 27:06 Highlight the passage at 27:06

27:23 that you can be sure to release the breath fully, allow the breath to flow in effortlessly. Report an error in the passage at 27:23 Highlight the passage at 27:23