This is the seventh installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion. With the coming of spring in the Northern hemisphere we talked:
- changeability
- chances to start anew
- how meditation helps us see old stuff with new understanding
- how to meditate more skillfully
We also get various meditation questions and comments from participants
Wendy also mentions Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep by Andrew Holecek
Due to ongoing technical challenges, for now we’ll forego trying to patch into Insight Timer live as it is not designed for multiple remote sources. Join these Q & A’s when they happen live:
- via downloading the free Wisdom app in your app store or via: https://wisdom.audio where I’m @integratingpresence
- watch live on my YouTube channel
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing up on Insight Timer live or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: Changeability & Newness | March 30, 2023 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #07
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
and I’m back once again with Wendy Nash Wendy how’s it going yeah good I’m
calling from guppy Gabby country in Queensland where it is so hot still and it’s almost it’s almost April and every
now and again it gets these really hot days so it’s really nice thing just whoops
I could hear myself in Stereo sorry about that
yeah I can I wonder if it’s my feedback no as we seem to be good now okay no
it’s just that it was coming out through the YouTube so so how am I oh I mean
every place don’t worry about having yourself have several selves everywhere
as far as I can see well well right on
um so this is our seventh installment and today since it’s uh recently turned
spring officially here in the Northern Hemisphere and I guess the southern hemisphere it’s
um now fall right well we’re in Australia actually it
doesn’t happen until the 1st of April I think so we we do it by the calendar month and it doesn’t really mean that
much here because um the Australian Seasons aren’t the same as European or or North American
Seasons I think the Aboriginal people had something like seven or eight seasons so it sort of doesn’t make sense
yeah yeah it is it’s different the different parts of the world but we well what we wanted to touch on here today is
um this kind of uh just this the notion of spring I guess this notion of change
you know just seasonal change to I mean some parts of the world it’s more noticeable than others uh near the
equator right they don’t really have uh that many different noticeable changes it’s just like a rainy season and a uh a
non-rainy season from what I understand with a friend who is yeah I think they call it the wet and the dry
yes that’s what we call it you’ve got the wet and the dry yeah so even that is somewhat changed right you know you hear
the old sutas and Buddhism and they’re doing the during the Reigns The Rains Retreat where it just didn’t make sense
to go out and do much because of that and so they would hole up and do meditation for the the that time and uh
but here in the northern hemisphere you know there’s this notion of things
coming back to life again uh after a long winter um life renews itself uh and
everything’s constantly changing too it just seems like when there’s less seasonal change then we have to look
externally a little bit closer how things change but it’s it’s even more noticeable here when things are coming
back to life after being dead for a while so Sammy hello Sammy lovely to have you
online Sammy says just FYI cannot hear her oh no
um okay Sammy can you can you hear it now um it ought to be a turn my volume up a
little bit um uh Wendy say something here this was
um so I’m in Australia Sammy can you just can you just just say anything can
you anyway so let me so what I’m gonna I wanted to talk about also not only that
so while Josh is sorting this out I’m going to talk about what I want to talk about so I was on a Meditation Retreat
recently for a week at home so if you send me or our other dear listener
another of our dear listeners would like to um ask about meditation Retreats whether
um at home or what’s it like or should I do it or
um yeah some pitfalls of being on Retreat on pitfalls have been what is it like being on retreat at home compared
to what’s it like to be on retreat uh in a center because it’s quite
different so all right so uh can Sammy get that she never I never
got a reply back um the I did notice that people let me
just uh what channel if they want to tune into my YouTube channel they can too so
um if it’s on if it’s on inside timer they should be hearing through my speakers uh in through the microphone so
that’s what they’ll they’ll hear me through the microphone and Wendy through my speakers to the microphone so unless
they implemented some kind of new noise cancellation or something it should be able to hear me uh yeah so I think that
can sometimes do this thing where when you’re in the if it’s a sound from the computer that doesn’t convey or
something so yeah so yes Wendy you were saying about uh insight timer I mean your uh your
Retreats I’m sorry that’s all right that’s all right um so what would I say maybe I’m gonna
try something I’m gonna try silencing you on the restream studio thing okay
and I’m gonna go over to the other let me just see if I unmute here maybe
just you so you say something and then we’ll just test your audio yes oh yeah that’s yeah there’s a little is it is
that is it Echo for you a little bit
I hear you I can’t hear you now all right okay I’ll stop there okay all right so
we’ll we’ll see what it’s really patchy technically I got a bunch of stuff going technical wise here so very busy
[Music] okay okay
all right so this is hello hello are you there you know in some kind of uh Ground
Control can you hear me kind of way no everything’s I hear you just loud and
clear Wendy everything’s okay let me just see if I can
fight Justin I’ve just try and turn up the volume the volume okay
um I’ve got I’ve got my settings and I’ve definitely got the the best that I
can do um for that so I oh yeah anyway
all right so I was on a Meditation Retreat at home it was a prerequisite
for my course and it was at home and it was very strange because I was stuck at home and
they they were really trying to recreate a retreat that one a person might have
at a meditation center but at home so what that did though is it just
reminded me of when I used to be locked in my room as a kid so that it was kind of it was an
interesting way of looking at that so meditation Retreats you know
I think we can get quite hardcore and they can set up they can put
they can have things that arise for us because this is about meditation so in
terms of the topic which is um looking at things are fresh for the
season then I think what I did do is I was able to
understand some of the deep loneliness that I experienced as a child
and but with the new lens of being an adult and to really look at that as a large
as I guess it’s a deep wound but it’s a long time ago now you know so it’s 40
years or whatever so over 45 years ago now so but it still sits there
you know came up this was really unpleasant why am I having such a miserable time oh yeah that’s right it
reminds me when I was knocking my you know as a kid my bedroom is a kid but it
also gave me an opportunity to look fresh at some of the
um I would say almost cruel ways that in fact my parents could be quite cruel but
um how did they get to be like that and it I really
you know there were a couple of very very good teachers there and I had it you know we had group interviews
and it was very good because I got to see something about my parents
the way that we internalize care as children then that when we had grown up and we
have babies you grow up into people that the way that we have internalized care
that’s what we do then to our children unless we look at it so if we inquire and we make a
really so this is what we’re doing here what this is what meditation for me as a western a Westerner this is a very
Western approach it’s to go what do I want to take with me from the past
what what is good what needs to be worked for what do I how can I do this
so that I don’t do the same things to others that have been done to me
this there’s so many great Dynamics with this um this was a new form of retreat
during the lockdowns I I did this more during the lockdowns than here recently although I am signed up to audit a
course um remotely um you know what you’re talking about too with Joseph Goldstein IMS and may I
think it’s the the beginning of middle of May so possibly do this again but
during the lockdown I did these two um and in general for the whole world it
was like the retreat that they didn’t want to sign up for right everybody was
forced to do this to some degree during the lockdowns um now what Wendy speaks
about um during our childhood like this it’s it’s really profound these realizations
of yeah I see it’s so clearly so so clearly where
um you know my folks a lot of times they were just passing down
um things that have how they learned you know and and tell they they turn inward and actually see it and realize oh this
is the thing that I learned from so and so this is not mine it will keep repeating and repeating until it’s seen
and known and then there’s a choice whether we’re going to continue that type of rearing and behavior or
something else can come in its way and it is made yeah
and I think that actually we keep making the same people say it’s a mistake but I
want to say we do the same behavior more and more and it’s like each time
it we’re kind of we’re repeating it because there’s a part of the mind and
the body that that one there’s a part of the mind that is telling us we have something that we
need to shift here and so I’m just going to put you back in the same situation again and again and
again until you realize you need to shift here and if you don’t pay attention to that then you keep
recreating the same problems and this is like anything in life it seems to things
seem to repeat over and over again until we kind of learn the lesson we need to learn from it the good news is that I
like this spiral scare staircase method instead of a hamster wheel every time we repeat it we get a higher and higher
broader perspective uh of what’s going on uh so it’s just not like this cycle
that’s just so overwhelming and daunting and these are habit patterns right I think it’s also important too to know uh
to not beat ourselves up over this you know it’s just cause and effect in a way you know we’re doing the best we can you
know our parents actually did the best they could if they could have done better they would have now it doesn’t
say what they did was right it doesn’t excuse any wrongs you know um you know unwholesome I mean harmful
acts as harmful acts we never want to back them up and say that was okay because a lot of times it’s not okay you
know harm is not okay abuse is not okay at the same time you know they’re doing the best they
could to their ability but I think that what they’re doing is
they’re recreating so I had this really big insight and I thought this was really useful to
understand what are we doing what is it that gets us upset
and I guess it’s quite psychological but um because but it but let’s see so my
sense my my thing that I did and you can let me know whether you you feel this is
true too that what we’re always scanning for in our interactions is
does this person care about our needs and feelings
and if it’s yes we feel sound gone so Sergio has just gone sound
gone I don’t know what sound gong means I
think it’s Sergio so I think what he’s saying is did the sound go how did the
sound go uh you know what oh this is my bad everyone oh my goodness I’ve been
muting myself but I don’t think that should affect it actually uh unless things are tight so I’ll just not mute
myself and we’ll see if that fixes it my bad ah sound good so Sergio says sound
good now um
hear a woman I just want to find out whether he can
because he’s actually online which is really good so I’m using Chrome browser too which I
think I usually use Firefox but I mean only a man so they can only hear you only hear a man interesting I don’t know
what’s going on then um it shouldn’t be that way I mean I don’t
I don’t I don’t know what’s going on in my end where that would be the case because
um I have the live stream can you hear a woman okay well
I don’t know what else to do here I guess we’re just gonna have to you have to catch the repeat on the the YouTube
you know um I why don’t I’ll just hop off okay and then
let’s try that okay Sergio says it’s the Twilight Zone why you do that Wendy I I I’ll get the
YouTube address for people that want to tune in on YouTube all right can yeah can you uh let me just I’ll come I’ll go
and I’ll come back okay
okay while Wendy’s rejoining us um Sergio you can you can listen to both of
us on the YouTube channel more than likely so you go to YouTube um slash at integratingpresence
uh that’s uh YouTube and then ads I’m typing it in
here
so I don’t know what’s going on today we’ve had this before um we’ve had it working before but for
those still here what we’re doing um Wendy and I is we are talking about
Retreats and things uh Retreats and Trauma
and okay Wendy’s back again now we’re gonna test the sound uh all right gergio
do you hear windy now Wendy say something so I
can you hear all this is I always think this is really funny because here we are two Buddhist
practitioners how many Buddhist practices does it take to get the tech right you know exactly
so I have the the microphone quality and I have my Blue Snowball Mike it’s
showing up as that and uh yeah now it says 12 meditators uh Sergio isn’t uh
say something Wendy well I don’t know so so can everybody
hear Wendy when she’s talking um and then I guess people are hesitant in
the chat it says 12 meditators are here I guess people are shy they don’t want to say yes they’re asleep
yeah they’re falling asleep they’re falling asleep [Laughter]
that’s off but uh well anyway the YouTube will be there and um sorry for for the technical
difficulties or the confusion here folks I guess we’ll just we’ll just go on because yeah we spend all our time in
Tech it’s uh it turns into a tech show you know let’s let’s
jump on next time a little bit earlier sure yeah see if we can iron those out
okay so well I think you should maybe do I am
on your channel on YouTube now what should be done so that’s what Sergio says okay yeah look you Sergio look for
the live this should be a live stream going on the YouTube my YouTube channel and just tune in live to the uh
meditation um meditation q a with Wendy Nash yep should be there right Wendy do you see
it too why don’t I just put the link in there in the chat yeah
the thing is though that they block links in the chat because they don’t want people going elsewhere but what I
did is that you just go to youtube.com at integratingpresence and
um you can see if it works there but okay all right well you know there we go
you guys are getting your training and patience today right everywhere yeah it was just and it’s like hello hello
No One’s Gonna watch it no one’s gonna watch this afterwards don’t worry about it
I think you should talk I think so let me let me ask you a question let me ask you a question all right so what what
what has changed for you so what’s something that you had that
changed from meditation like the same thing but A New Perspective yeah and this is something that Wendy um
when we were talking about before the the show here and one of the things she um offered is you know we can also see
how meditation can help us see things uh old things in a new way right and
there’s so much with this and just by the way I’m just at the it’s it’s there’s two people watching on YouTube
uh I’m going there so as soon as you go to my YouTube channel you can see uh where we’re live streaming so you just
click on Sergio says he’s in his hands so he’s he’s uh he’s juggling inside
timer wow what a trooper like we are huh okay so far okay so now
um here’s here’s the thing with meditation just how can meditation help us see things
um old things in a new way and you know I’ve mentioned this several times before when I first started I started off kind
of at rock bottom right in in my practice where it was kind of a last result and
as soon as I did the first session like for over an hour I mean I got little
pith instructions before right and so I sat down and it’s like well I’m just
going to try this for longer periods and all these memories came back to me the very first time and it was like this
huge relief just to re replay those memories now I wasn’t doing traditional
meditation right at all I was just it’s basically closing my eyes in Stillness and just letting the Mind Vomit up what
it wanted to vomit up and that was one of the things I was like wow that came up and it just felt so good to clear
that out then it kind of turned into I had a few mystical experiences right on but after
that very first time I committed I was like well this is such a relief the first time I don’t have anything to lose
I’m just going to do this every day now and just commit to it and I did and then I had a few mystical experiences maybe
for another time we can mention those but probably not because they’re not really relevant unless to certain people on certain paths but then then it
started to turn into like my own um therapy session for a while and this is before I really even got proper
meditation instructions but uh what it did is uh it provided a space for memories to
arise and see again I had forgotten all these things in my life significant moments in my life started to reappear
you know relive and it was I saw how I was treating myself and I saw how I was
really putting myself down you know um all these it was basically like airing
my dirty laundry to myself I saw all these things that I wasn’t aware of before and then also how I was treating
other people and I didn’t realize how horrible I was treating them you know it was really like this I a sobering moment
and so there was this deep kind of sadness and regret for this and just
also at the same time a relief that now that I could see this and know this now
I had a chance to act on it because if I didn’t know it was there to begin with I don’t really have a chance and heck to
to do anything about it right so then I you know maybe not the the wisest thing
but I found myself really reaching out to people I hadn’t talked to for years and years and and forgive it you know
asking for their forgiveness and they’re like I don’t even remember that what are you talking about or oh that’s okay everybody does that you know but for me
it was this really deep moving thing that I felt really important to do and
that was part of the journey there too now um so this is another thing about just
viewing ourselves our past selves with kindness you know um and it just goes with the future
exercise just to jump ahead a little bit I think Tara Brock uses this technique of you know what wisdom would our future
self have for us now you know if we could tap into our wise self just like if I could have tapped in back then to
now uh you know what would the would that future self what words of wisdom you know what care and kindness or at
least compassion in saying you know yeah this is freaking tough right now you know so um I think just just seeing
things that way and applying wisdom to to sex what about you Wendy how have
you seen um things in your past um differently now through meditation
I don’t know how much to say because um people who are on inside timer can’t hear me but I I think it’s really given
me so so there’s something about well if I
can give space to my thoughts and see it’s it’s like
you know when you’re in the heat of something and it drives you a bit nuts and you’re kind of like yeah it’s like
that and then the next day you go oh my goodness what did I do I’m completely
misunderstood and um and
it’s like I do that so no one can hear me on inside timer
oh no uh guys go to my YouTube Channel please
I’m sorry um I I don’t understand why they’re not this is it hasn’t happened before
everybody’s always been able to hear you on insight timer um you know what I’m gonna do when they keep talking and I’m going to start up
the insight timer stream on a different browser so I’ll be right back on inside time and
we can we can still you can still talk if you want okay well no one can hear me except I
suppose Sergio you can hear me I think yes if they’re watching okay oh no and I
don’t know if they can um I I don’t know if I can restart the stream since I ended it on YouTube on
inside timer we’ll we’ll see here though I’m I’m starting it up and see if I can still do that the event might have ended
once I hit end um so it might just have to finish it out on YouTube
oh it is what it is well just okay so so Sergio Sergio can hear me so I’ll just
keep going because you’re off and offline okay great so thank you Sergio for keeping me abreast of where you’re
up to this is really helpful so for me just to answer your question
Josh how has meditation made me really think about it so
it’s more that when I used to have a really volatile
character very angry and once I realized that
I didn’t have I didn’t if I didn’t react I got a new perspective
so it’s like when I didn’t react when I just sat with it and didn’t react
then then everything was really um
everything old is New Again and that was what was really good so
well um yeah it’s it just so you know there’s
four people let me have a look in that and see if there’s anybody on Instagram no it’s what it’s doing now it it gives
me mixed messages it says live now but then it says watch replay so it’s not uh
it looks like the event has ended and it’s not allowing me to pick it up yet okay all right let’s let’s leave the
tech because I think we’ve had like 20 seconds of conversation because you’re really caught in that and all the rest
so that’s a lesson for us that when it doesn’t work it doesn’t work and then we just have to drop it and then just rely
on the YouTube it’s tough for me to integrate presence like this right yeah integrate presence you know like how
hard is that it’s so hard because because it’s it’s all the little bits
you know and so what are we doing we’re talking about meditation and we’re talking about
doing getting something new and it’s not
it’s just getting the old stuff and thinking well what what what am I miss I
mean this is my this is a big part of my practice I’m an ins I’m so engaged with the Insight stuff and I heard something
the other day on a treat which was so Sergio just so you know I was on
Meditation Retreat you couldn’t hear me um that um
it that the Buddha said if there is one one thing you need in terms of
your meditation practice your whole Dharma practice it is actually just
curiosity so that is though if you have nothing else
curiosity is the most important thing in curiosity about I guess
where are our blind spots what are we not seeing what are we missing because
clearly we do things and the problem isn’t that we need to do something new
it’s that we need to get a broader we’re missing information
so we need to remove a cloud to allow the sun to shine so it’s more
there I think that’s what I think for sure it really is you know the the
historical Buddha he was a Seeker after truth when he left and went into the holy life that’s what his title was and
I forget the poly word for it but it was a Seeker after truth you know this curiosity and this was what drove me so
profoundly in the very beginning I was having Insight after Insight discovering new things and it was really exciting
and kept going deeper and asking questions and investigation you know this this notion of Investigation uh is
the one of the Awakening factors you know it has to be there you know we have to see and know this for ourselves we
can’t have someone else tell it tell us about it I mean we can but to really see
a note for ourselves is a requirement and it’s encouraged too and this is
where curiosity comes in because if we don’t have that Curiosity to even you want to look into things or can see the
potential importance of it then a lot of times we’re not going to do that you know um so yeah this is a really huge uh
part of the path for sure um and it’s more of an active part of it too we we talk about being passive in
meditation and allowing that’s part of it there’s also this kind of active uh curiosity too and curiosity in the body
you know how does this feel in the body you know where where do these thoughts
and emotions I guess physicalize or what is the physical correspondence in the body of
these these things you know yeah
and I guess I was thinking what that says it’s a kind of prison we live in
the prison and what meditation does is it shows us that we are in prison now that I have
actually a present on the mind because I got a letter from my friend who is in prison so I have never known anybody personally
who has been in jail and um she just I was like where is she gone
and the next thing I hear a mutual friend is gone she’s in jail
so luckily she’s it’s a woman not a man because if she went to a man’s prison
you know that that uh its own special form of hell
um but yeah she she’s in this prison and now she’s really she’s stuck in this
place realizing that she’s in a prison and it is her own imprisoning mind that
has lot left her into this physical prison so she’s it’s like she had to get
herself into a corner such a corner
um yeah to go actually I realized I’m like this mess and I’m I mean I know I’m a
mess but I how do I reach out how do I do I mean I I just for people in in
Australia there are prison chaplains so there are Buddhist prison chaplains and I think in the US that’s quite common
too um and they do fantastic work because
it’s such an important service so thank you to all the prison chaplains who and
school chaplains and people who uh Hospital chaplains who who really
intervene in people’s lives in in really difficult in difficult difficult
circumstances when they’re at their rock bottom yeah there’s just there’s so much to
this um San Francisco’s in Center has a famous um outreach program to uh San Quentin I
think it is and if uh buddy Denny knew who used to do a monthly thing with he
was part of that and would go into prisons and there’s just so much really wisdom and relief people get from this
um we talk about uh where practice really can make a difference for sure there’s been I think there was a movie
years ago called uh dhamma Brothers about how they did a vipassana treat in a prison you seen that one
I saw I didn’t know if it was a passenger train I saw one where they were um
uh when it was a therapy weekend in the ordinary lay population could go in and
work with these prison guys it was very it’s amazing work and you just see these
things anyway Sergio has said yes it seems to me like a patience of will a
patient’s will of wisdom guiding our best intentions to know more useful needed wisdom
so uh so um I I think what he’s saying there is
that patience is what you really need then that wisdom guides us in our best
intentions so we know what is going to give us more wisdom
yes and the other thing about um you know I was really like this movie called Shawshank Redemption you know you
could go it’s just uh this whole notion because the the metaphor of a prison uh
with stress and suffering and unsatisfactions we’re all in a in a metaphorical prison until we’re fully
awakened because it really resounds with me and you know it’s interesting too that Australia was originally known some
people say a prison Colony right I mean I don’t know if it’s derogatory or not but I I don’t know the truthfulness of
it but for me what I the what this all boils down to is we do not have a chance
to free ourselves until we realize we’re in a prison and this is metaphorically
right until we realize the bonds in the how we’re Bound by uh the the stress
that sometimes we don’t even know is there there’s no chance whatsoever of getting Beyond it right first we have to
realize that there’s this metaphorical prison that we’re in of stress and
unsatisfaction yeah so I’ll just I’ll just give you a heads up so New South Wales is a p what
they call a penal colony so the English you know they do like to incarcerate
um and if you just they needed to populate Australia because they were stealing all the land so as an
Aboriginal a fantastic Aboriginal illnesses you know the English they just want more land they just obsessed by
land ownership which is such a strange Concept in and of itself how can you own land it’s what does that even mean the
land you know the land owns us not we own the other hand this is a very strange idea
um so just on that one um but
um and and it actually has completely permeated the culture because when you start off with a very male dominated
culture that actually makes it a very Macho Society so I don’t know if in the
south of the US in Texas those places they were very male dominated in the
early days and that’s why it has a much more masculine culture I don’t know but that’s that’s a it is and ironically too
though they have these the the land rules are different there it’s basically if anybody wants a lot of open land and
they can just go live there you know there you don’t have to go through a bunch of government stuff or whatever you know they kind of leave people on
their own to to work it out amongst themselves but I think it’s changing and I don’t know 100 for sure about that but
yeah you know I can see it both ways I I get when you know people are greedy and they want things and they’re just gonna
have to have it their way well then if everybody’s living amongst themselves like that mindset then it makes sense to
put up fences this saying that you know good fences make good neighbors right people take care of a certain spot and
if they’re if they’re not you know they need someone else or a wall to maintain a certain amount of ground otherwise
they would just be shooting everybody that’s on one hand on the other hand yeah exactly how can I say okay well I’m
going to pick up this dirt and this is my dirt right you know wait a second no this spec over
here that’s your that’s your dirt but no this one is my it’s just so absurd yeah so let’s get back to meditation
but but I think that that is perhaps exactly the same in meditation because
because um we say something is ours or something
is true or this is how it is as if that is true
because we feel it to be true but when you and this is why I love
interdependence and looking at how things come together in meditation while
everything is always so Dynamic and moving and that’s what is so clear in
meditation that every moment is a new moment I had this
um did I did I ever tell you my cleaning the toilet story
well if you did tell it again it’s appropriate enough so it was a Sunday morning and I was
cleaning the toilet I didn’t have anywhere to go or anything to do that Sunday so and I was just getting more
and more agitated and I was going ah I should have finished this by now and I
just thought everything is only in this place with for the first time so
this body is this age this toilet brushes this particular toilet brush this
toilet this apartment the water I guess all the bodily bits that are in
the toilet everything is only in that way for the first time in that
particular moment so then everything is in this constant state of flux and
dynamic now Sergio has just said blow your mind with the active side of infinite from Castaneda if you saw
Matrix and found it interesting as concept that book will give a clue thank you Sergio yes I’m familiar with the
Carlos Castaneda books and by the way that was one of the books early on my path to Awakening uh it really uh
profoundly uh mind opening I would just advise people reading those be very careful if you’re going to do anything
in those books do it under the guidance of a skilled Master practitioner because
there’s some very um I would say potentially dangerous practices in that book so yeah
yeah I mean on meditation Retreats when they’re very very that also can be a problem and I’ve
known people to with with a disposition to psychosis
to go full on psychotic and I’ve known known about people who had no disposition when they were on very
pushing pushing pushing themselves that that cause problems so there is starting
to be some really good research about uh the importance of taking care of your
mind so always it’s like you you you you it’s good to apply yourself but don’t
whip yourself don’t push and make it a hard experience it’s about love it’s
about how much care and kindness are you having yeah so um so Sergio says ekitol also gave light
on handle an Unstoppable chattering drama mind hmm I I wonder if if Sergio’s English it
needs to be a little better or he’s just an Enlightenment bot no I don’t know well but either way yeah okay okay so
but this this is a good point anyway because we were talking about land right and the the uh intensities that intense
meditation can happen so when those kind of really um new experiences that become diffuse
and we lose this ground this sense of reference point that can be destabilizing and very um overly
spacious and unsettling for us people and this is when these boundaries can be
very helpful right coming back into the body feeling the body knowing there’s a
physical boundary around the body right feeling the groundedness on on the um
you know on the cushion he’s clear um very um uh physical boundaries that
can help ground us and Center us when these expansive States come and that can be on stabilizing and desettling for
some people on the other hand there are some people that are just become so entrenched in the comfort of that that
they don’t want to push the boundaries they don’t want to go beyond this and so they’re always kind of complaining about
nothing’s happening in my meditation you know it’s the same thing over and over again when am I going to have these
profound experiences so yeah that’s all about these you know are not profound experiences it’s like what you know I
just it’s stuck basically you know so so I think just to answer your question
Sergio is a human being and um
you have to you’ll have to forgive me for my lack of knowing any other language so so I speak a couple of languages so
I’m used to I’m used to it and I spent time in international communities so and English is the lingua Franca for across
the world so um many people have a good grasp and um you know the grammars sometimes a little
bit tricky so English grammar can be a little bit you know at three o’clock in
the morning or wherever Sergio is um so and he says yeah there is needed
caution and responsibility with it all and that’s what we’re describing here
yeah empowering at the same time self-responsible yeah so all right we’re
coming up to Quarter Two so what what uh we were going to talk about old and new
and starting fresh yes and in relation to meditation so
what um what would you and Sergio if you would like to find out then if you have
a question Sergio about meditation and starting fresh or anything like that you
just post up there and I will we hear teachers talk about again and
again right um because uh you know when we’re doing more like a summative practice we’re
just having one object in the mind keeps wandering off keeps wandering off well
every moment we wake up to that it’s a chance to start anew bring the attention
back to the meditation object and start all over again you know uh and for some
people this can be like this is where a lot of people give up you know they say well my mind is just too unruly I can’t
do this it’s all over the place I’d say well hello wake up that’s everybody until they they go within and see that
that’s just how you know out of control the mind is you know that it has no shame but at the same time you know this
is just the nature of the mind until it’s trained you know an untrained mind is can be the the you know the most uh
horrible enemy but a trained mind can be the most powerful Ally and so this is a
training just like we would go to the gym or you know um figure out how to clean our house quicker and more
efficiently or anything like this or learn a new subject it’s a it’s a training and it requires it’s unlike a
lot of other trainings where a lot of times it’s it’s starting from zero over and over and over and over again
so I met somebody the other day I I go to Toastmasters so I I really like it I
moved up here to a new area so I would recommend it if you want to meet people who aren’t at work or whatever just
um to to to do Toastmasters I I found a very personally very beneficial and good for my self-confidence and and things
make me feel connected to the community and um and there’s somebody new and he has a
brand new job as the national sales manager and he says Ah meditation because I said I teach people to
meditate oh meditation I can’t meditate uh you know I sit down and my mind goes crazy and I said yeah okay that’s that’s
just normal we won’t worry about talking about that now but here’s a practice for you so what I said to him is so you meet
people and and you have a secretary and he does and his secretary
um helps him prepare all the paper sets up the meeting and the secretary’s a man
and um is an ally really guiding him in his
new role about attention this person here and be careful with that there and
there’s a lot of informal information that gets shared there
and so I said every time your secretary does something
to make your life a little bit easier you simply notice it
and then at the end and and then maybe somebody holds a door open for you or someone writes thank you in an email or
somebody prepares good documents that or they they go into the meeting and they’ve thought about how come how can
we do this well together and then every time someone does something like that you just notice and
then at the end of the day when you get into bed you just go through that whole list of all the time since the beginning
of the day that somebody did something kind for you and what happens eventually is you get
the duchenne smile which is there uh authentic smile it’s the one where
you see you see people who are just genuinely happy that’s the duchenne
smile so the eyes I crease up at the side and you could you and your body
resonates you know when someone has a sham smile and so we talked about how he
he comes from a very very humble background he’s clearly very good at his job he’s Rising rising Rising super
quick and it’s slightly above his comfort zone and
so I talked about how doing this practice get will build the duchenne
smile and noticing all those small little gestures will help him build and
fortify his relationships so that people who may be a little bit wary of him or
something you know the new kids come in that little meditation practice is
changing him to respond always in a more favorable way and uh and since he’s just starting the
job you know it’s a perfect time because people haven’t yet formed in much of an opinion of him
and he um and he thought it was a very handy so New Beginnings so I don’t think you need
to be sitting down for 20 minutes not everybody is ready for that and I don’t think it’s good to start that way
um because it’s a big gig you know it’s a lot I mean I I just when I met my
partner I said okay we’ll just sit together for five minutes and then 10 well I think we did 10
minutes and then 15 and then 20 and then 30 and now you know if I can I’ll I’ll
do two hours he’s like no he can do it but it’s it’s too much time but yeah
it’s this is such a beautiful practice you mentioned because well first off it’s gratitude right we can’t be in
conflict with something we’re grateful for and this is a systematic thing that appeals to people that are more
right-brained right it’s a clear practice okay I’m going to be looking for these things to appreciate and
recognize you know uh and be grateful for it’s it’s and then all it really
takes at that point is a commitment to remember to do this to um incline the
mind for what to look at just like we are kind of normal default of negativity
bias oh we’re looking at the threats where they come from right because in the past that served us well you know a
tiger jumps out okay we wouldn’t be on the lookout for Tigers because we could save our lives so just how we can kind
of have that as the default we can switch to the default to okay what is
you know where’s the benefit of this how is this person’s actually helping you
know this uh look looking for these things to balance out right and to to make things
um gratitude I do the the kind of the opposite I mean for a while there for years I was just reviewing my day and I
still do I keep a journal so I will go list through what happened during the day just to kind of recall it because I
don’t really have a you know a memory for just mundane things that happen day to day but I like to just list them out
at the end of the day but then if I want to go back you know years later and look at a particular day I could say well
yeah I remember that day or oh I have no idea what the hell that day will happen there but so but now waking up in the
morning and just my gratitude practices what is spontaneously coming into mind
and can I be grateful for that or just this prompting you know what can I be
grateful for um you know and usually it’s well I have a nice soft bedroom it’s just on and on
and on yeah so yes yeah so I I’ve heard that but I it’s two
things that in there I the journal journaling thing that seems to have come
into the meditation realm in the last I don’t know what five six seven years I
don’t remember it being part of that I don’t use it I don’t use it for meditation I just it’s a long for me
it’s it’s uh what did I what I did during the day so I’m using it differently than people do it for you
know oh I gotta Journal this out no I just keep track of my day that way so it has nothing to say meditation practice
the way I do it so um Sergio says once I had an experience
in a group meditation workshop for some moment I felt uh like I was had been
floating in a totally Timeless space no sensation of time or body so weird but
Unforgettable is it common Josh you answer that I would say yes I hear these
things from meditation practitioners all the time the danger is on both sides for
this is getting um getting attached to these uh Peak experiences or the other end where I
never have these peaky experience I want these Peak experiences or the the other leg is these aren’t important at all it
should completely blow them off and play no importance to them so I think the balance is in the middle of all three of
those perspectives right some of the peak experiences can be very helpful and
giving aspiration towards the profound nature of the mind and phenomena but
when we’re chasing peaky experiences all the time then we can get disappointed and upset we can miss the fundamental
levels if we don’t see any significance at all in these type of experiences well
then we just kind of get mired in our crap more and more every day and don’t
see kind of any aspiration you know um or are you just is slogging along this
is just oh it’s just matter and whatever you know just um physical things and
whatnot and uh yeah but and so it’s it’s finding a balance between all this as
far as commonality you know that’s the beautiful diversity of life too that we
do have unique experiences and sometimes we have very common experiences too
so yeah can I add something yes and then pick up pick up with the
journal thing where you’re left off too as well okay so I would say
hi you know I had it meditating I remember kind of getting on the train was at the bus and
I saw these people and I had instant oh this is my friend and I were complete strangers and I wanted to go up and see
them and then I had these I was like wow what was that and then I had other experiences and I you know I’ve had one
where I was the same as the tree at sort of I was just as important as the tree
and and then I’ve had other ones where whatever experience and my my thought
about them is they are really useful because as you as you say Sergio weird
but Unforgettable and it’s it’s sort of I think in the beginning it’s that first
breakthrough and that’s it’s very intense because it’s like a a cloud has
been lifted and suddenly it’s seen But then the cloud parts
and then it’s just an ordinary sunny day and it just becomes part of who we are
and we’re not more special for it it’s just like well we’ve got a one time we
had a really lovely shirt on and we felt really smart or we were wearing a nice
suit or something and we felt so special in that moment because we were all dressed all fancy and nice and then it
was lovely to know that experience to be dressed so nicely and smart and and
looking good and then we take off the coat and we remember what it’s like to have that
lovely experience and so that when we see somebody walking in the street who
looks really smart we can go oh I remember what it was like or we might
have a a nephew or a son who’s wearing a suit like that and they’re like oh like
look at me I’m so like they look so good and then you go I remember that that was
such a it was so important it was such a beautiful moment so I think like that that that that that is the way that I
see it is something that it changes me and it helped means then when I read the texts so sometimes when I read you know
books or or I hear somebody describing a teacher describing an experience I go I
know exactly what they’re saying whereas before I was trying to understand what they were saying but in this one I feel
like yes I know what they’re saying in that that it it has a you know until
you’ve eaten a strawberry you can look at as many pictures of strawberries as you like but until you’ve eaten a strawberry you then know what a
strawberry tastes like so more like that and then you go ah next time you look at a strawberry you go I know what that
tastes like so something down there that’s what I would say it is and I just want to amplify a little more that they
become more commonplace right and so we can start to see the profundity in our everyday mundane lives too if we just
spend a few extra seconds inquiring deeper into the nature of just something
as mundane as like a coffee cup you know like how who are all the people involved
in this you know what was the temperature like to heat this cup where did the materials come from who came up
with the design of this who shipped it everywhere you know with this tea set look you know great in my kitchen or
would it be an aberration to have it there and all my friends would make fun of me you know I I
I’m really interesting because we’ll wind up in a minute but I had a really interesting one so I was on a retreat a
home retreat uh last year I think it was and somebody did a talk about ancestors
so she was she had been in Australia and and uh it was a it was a Buddhist
retreat but it crossed the Northern Territory so a lot of the old the old
people so the Aboriginal Elders no longer there but very clearly you know still there in the in the spiritual
memory I would say and so she did this talk about the ancestors and she talked about
ancestry.com and this desire to find out well where are our ancestors you know
and and I I came off Retreat or maybe it was that day and I went into the bathroom
and I looked at the bathroom tiles and
um and I thought bathroom tiles actually
where what’s the ancestry and so I looked it up on Wikipedia and for 3 000
years people have been making tiles and there’s people just crafting little
little little so that eventually I end up with a bathroom tile now Sergio asked
another question and so it’s going to be the last one Sergio because we’re just about out of time he says would love to
reach ask for projection effortless or at least lucid dream now if you’re interested in dream yoga there was a
fantastic book by Andrew halachek is very thick and it’s very it’s in English
so that might be a little bit difficult but if you can get that book and maybe
see if you can go through it very slowly he talks how to go through that so
Sergio it’s been lovely having you online thank you so much for interacting with us oh my gosh this makes it
worthwhile because this is oh it’s made for yeah these questions and feedback like this so maybe something technically
yeah and thank you for going from insight timer into into YouTube it’s
really been lovely to have you here so you have a lovely time just Sergio whereabouts are you in the world
and these two in the meantime the answer is these tiles this is just like every aspect of the light that ties into the
Gratitude too think of the people who’ve spent their entire lifetime maybe Generations studying the art and
practice of making this so we can something we take for granted every day but it really imagine our lives without
it and it’s almost unimaginable you know we we have to have all these different things everything has to come together
is interconnected has anyone experienced to separate
Spirit from body in a conscious state I haven’t had that one so these are
these are kind of more mystical practices that I don’t know if this would be the right Forum especially
coming to the end that’s a huge question um that uh maybe you can contact me
offline Sergio and we can uh maybe look more into this because it it’s it’s a
really um it’s an iffy subject it needs to be approached carefully with these type of things so
I’m just going to okay so I’ve just given Sergio I’m gonna hop off the call
because we’re at the end of time but I’ve spent the it’s called it’s called Green Yoga and it’s by Andrew holacheck
so I’ve now spelled the name correctly Sergio have you got that name so
I think he’s happy so I think he can read the chat on that one but
um Guatemala he’s in Guatemala okay fantastic lovely so
um I don’t speak any Spanish so do you speak any Spanish Josh other than when I used to drink cerveza and uh I needed
so they could tell me where to go to the bathroom at that’s about it okay
no okay all right so
um that’s it yes that’s it for joining and bearing with the technical difficulties may you all be well and
have all the auspices auspicious changes that are required bye now yeah and just
chill yes this is required in this moment
Integrating Presence 
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