In this tenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore fundamentals of mediation via the questions: How do I meditate? Am I meditating right? We addressed some of the groundwork in What Is Meditation? | 11/2/2022 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #02.
Some talking point notes:
- meditation apps:
- formal meditation distinction/context
- starting with a short meditation
- excuses (of my mind is too busy and/or I don’t have time)
- building a meditation habit (of time and place)
- starting with a two week challenge and building on it
- meditation with and without apps
- why meditate?
- how cultural differences impact meditation practice
- reasons for loving-kindness practice first
- practice of receiving loving-kindness and as positive counterbalance
- when (helpful) feedback is perceived and received as criticism
- four general meditation categories:
- Samatha or Shamata (calm abiding, unifying, gathering, collecting, quieting, stilling, or concentration)
- Vipassanā or vipaśyanā (“insight”, “seeing clearly” or a type of inquiring to do so)
- Open awareness
- Awareness (itself)
- right effort — not too tight nor too loose
- enjoyment in meditation
- (right) relationship with the meditation (object)
- trusting one’s intuition as an internal guide and teacher
- readiness to meditate
- maybe it’s not a good fit or right time now and can try again some other time
- internal listening and feedback
- our experience of how “purification” or refinement works
- meditation interviews and reporting one’s practice with different amounts of personalization
- spiritual friendship
- vetting teachers and communities:
- elitism?
- favoritism and preferential treatment (by age, gender, attractiveness)?
- internal trust and gut feelings
- having profound insights outside of meditation
- psychedelics (in trauma work and meditation)
- ‘if you can meditate while distracted you’re well trained’
- maybe you shouldn’t meditate?!?
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 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 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: How do I meditate? Am I meditating right? | “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #10
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
along with Wendy Nash of kindly cutthecrap.com Wendy how’s it going
yeah it’s good to be back here we’ve been we’ve missed a month you’ve been away you’ve been doing other exciting
things I have been getting used to Queensland whether it’s freezing so it’s winter for us and uh normally it’s quite
I’ve come from further south so it’s actually colder there I moved up here
last year and I thought why does everybody say it gets cold and here we are a year later and now we’re
absolutely freezing with thermal underwear and not quite but Ugg boots and everything thick jumpers and I don’t
know what the temperature is but I’m here on guppy guppy country in Queensland so in Ugg boots and wearing
layers of clothes so wild so it is uh technically summertime here in Denmark
but it compared to the states where I’m from it feels like a nice spring day or fall day it’s kind of cool and I mean a
little bit sunny and yes as Wendy was saying I’ve um back from being in the UK for around three months because I had to
leave the country as an American Tourist here and yeah I spent some time at Hurst and amravati these are Thai Forest
monasteries and maybe for another time we can talk about that and did a retreat online it’s an interesting time and
topic too but today we’re here to talk about this question of of course unless
anyone has any questions please chime in on the chat on YouTube or on wisdom app
and I want to say we’ll get the chats here in in um and restream but I’m not entirely
sure um if anyone is is watching this maybe even on Twitter too I think it’s on you
can just go to my site integratingpresence.com and then the YouTube box will show up there and you
can click on that and and put your chat question the chat but what what I’m
we’re doing is calling this um so Wendy and I did a show what is meditation a
pretty simple basic question right start from the beginning it’s a good place to start and so but now we’re going to take
it a little step further still kind of on the basics perhaps although it can go really in depth is um am I doing this
right you know uh am I no first off how do I meditate how do I do it once we
know what it is how do we do it
and I just realized this is last time I was looking for the one from today so oh
you have to click the live tab if you’re on the YouTube channel you click the live tab I don’t know where you’re at
okay okay yes okay all right well that’s good to know too because it should show
up at the very front page of the YouTube channel but I guess it’s not doing it oh well well anyway so yeah the um so we
we like I said we we touched on what is meditation uh and but now we’re gonna do how do I meditate and then am I doing it
right um so even that last question implies a lot it could imply a lot of stuff but
let’s I guess start from the first one here how do I meditate Wendy if if clients come to you or they start
working with you or just somebody that’s interested in meditation comes to you and they say well how do I how do I
meditate how do I do this um how would you give them instructions or if you wouldn’t give them instruction what would you refer them to to for
meditation instructions so yeah it’s a good question because you
know it’s people have this idea they don’t they can’t meditate because you know they sit down they go on something
or they they they get an app and they try and they try to have this clear mind so they think they’re doing it wrong and
they well clearly they haven’t got it they don’t know how to do it their mind’s too busy I can’t meditate so it’s
pretty stock standard answer to that I’m sure you’ve heard that more than once I get that pretty much every time oh yeah
yeah um and so I always recommend an app and
there are a few different ones um whether or not you want to hear those
those ones but I always recommend go for
um a short meditation and test out what works for you so
there’s one I learned a new one called smiling mind which is an Australian one which is great because uh I was
recommending uh what’s it called um with Sam Harris and
they like it but they get they don’t really like the American Voice so they found an Australian one and they
just felt much more at home with that so that was good that was important to them
um I’m so used to speaking with Americans I don’t really think about it I suppose
um but yeah so I always recommend do it and and then get a short one and then
once you get into this the hang of it then I recommend to try and do that
every day and just keep at just chipping away at
trying to remember to do that every day it’s good to set up same time same place all that it’s not always easy because
people have kids it’s chaotic but routine is is pretty pretty important in
setting up something because otherwise it’s yeah it’s too difficult to get into
places sort of sitting practice um I mean there are standing practices
those sorts of things of course lying those sorts of things but most people
you know you me Josh we sit down and we meditate for however long it is
and I think when we talk about meditating that’s what we’re talking about often so I think I think start
with sort of five minutes for for an app I think is great and then after maybe a
couple of months maybe a year of just trying different apps and different things then
see then see if you can do the app every single day at the same time and just
just say maybe you might do it well I’m gonna do it for two weeks every day
without fail and then if you find that you’ve been able to do that try another two weeks
doing that and then if you’ve been able to do that try and do
another two weeks in six weeks and basically by the time you do six weeks
in a day every day you’re now in a routine and then you can start going well if I
didn’t use the app every day but instead maybe I used it I gave one day a week with just five
minutes in silence how would that be and try that and then and then increase the
number of days where there’s no app so that’s what I I recommend
um so and and just do it don’t don’t don’t uh don’t rush but just just do it
regularly that that’s what I would say how about you Josh oh wow you brought up a lot of good
stuff here Wendy um from you know that we’re talking about formal meditation here right and
there’s a whole other thing where people can do it in their daily lives maybe we can come to that in a little while um
the short one that you say starting off with it with a short one the apps you
know and building a habit and challenging oneself and then get getting to uh without the app so I’ll just pick
up on some of these I might as well just kind of start from the apps because we are kind of an app driven culture now uh
like it or not do for good bad ill otherwise whatever uh yeah so I haven’t
heard of this smiling mind that’s beautiful I have to check that out Sam Harris I’m familiar with him a little bit I don’t know the name of his app
though the big ones in the states I know are called calm c-a-l-m and there’s also
headspace and those two have a bunch of um startup funding from what I at least
the last time I checked in with them so there’s I think both of those have um either introductory or freemium but
then they they charge now the the one that I’m big on is called insight timer and Wendy and I were broadcasting live
on there for quite some time of course I took my own heart here right uh established quote unquote teacher on
there um it’s also a social media app where you can thank people follow people join
groups there’s guided meditations there’s courses but there’s challenges on there too so it’s a built-in
challenge so um just jumping ahead to what happened without apps so what I do uh is I do a
little bit of both uh I’ll I’ll have the app just as a timer that’s how it started off too it’s just a ding to know
when to stop and you don’t have to interact with the app at all you Ding and hit done and that’s it that could be
the end of the app just but it does track your progress and things like this however I will go times when I don’t use
it and go back in later and log my process having the phone completely off and I notice I can go even deeper
without um distractions or any kind kind of connection Electronic Connection
so I like Wendy’s thing about short meditation yeah so this is important too
because the big excuse Wendy talks about is my mind is too crazy it’s all over the place well well hello people you
know it everybody’s mind is like that we just haven’t paid attention to it in in a serious way before but that’s I mean
that’s common if that didn’t happen it would probably be fairly unusual you know and like when he says that’s not
the goal uh it the mind will quiet naturally over time but yes and then
building this habit and then it’s just like your teeth you know you don’t even think about you just brush your teeth in just the same way like this so how are
we uh when he gave some good tips on how to establish a habit through this
um and then you know the other excuse I I don’t have the time Wendy Wendy I just don’t have the time to meditate you know
if I had more time what this this comes down to I think what this was kind of all pointing to
and maybe we could I know Wendy doesn’t like why questions but how about what is
the importance of this you know I mean the classic why why even do this why is this important or what is this help you
know do we want to frame it of um what do we want to get out of this or what’s
the importance of this I guess we can frame it like that and maybe that’s a whole other show because that’s the fundamental thing too you know uh
because some people say oh yeah it’s it’s it’s good for me I need to do it but x z y excuses why I can’t you know
and so this is really I think in contemplation because it’s it had such an immediate effect on me it doesn’t
everybody else so there’s so many different Health regimens and people will say oh I need to be doing this so
one thing I think making it enjoyable you know and when he’s a big proponent
of uh loving kindness meditation and eventually once a lot of slog is cleared
it feels really good to do this a lot of times you know especially when a lot of
stuff’s cleared so yeah it’s um and I want to throw it back to Wendy before I go into these kind of quick
classifications of different if we want to talk about different specific types of meditations but I’m sure Wendy has
plenty to say here I was just going to say the app with Sam Harris is called waking up
and there’s two versions one is um has a 30-day free trial and the other
one has seven days so go for the 30-day free trial for sure uh the other thing
is it’s interesting so I’m doing the mindfulness meditation teacher certification program with Tara Brach
and cornfield so they’re two very well regarded teachers in the western Insight
American Western Insight traditions and
they used to they used to do um breath meditation mindfulness meditation
Sati meditation historically that’s they’ve been doing that course for
several years now and this year apparently it’s different we started with loving kindness
meditation because they found that people didn’t have enough loving kindness to have the foundation to then
allow the Stillness now in Asian cultures you it’s traditional to do the
the Sati the mindfulness before you do the loving kindness but Asian cultures
are very different and they have um their their family systems very
different so they tend to be much more family oriented and connected with each
other whereas we and of responsibilities and obligations to family it’s a much
it’s less individualistic we have a much more individual individualistic Society
so we we just don’t have enough relatedness and I think loving and we don’t we
struggle to to find relationships as sort of kind I mean certainly that
that was my experience and so I had to learn how to think well of people kindly of
people amen the first time I did loving kindness meditation I said wow I didn’t know I hated
everyone so that was my starting point so given that’s where I was at the idea
of sitting down and trying to calm my mind I had a whirlwind going on that was just not possible so loving kindness in
whatever form or self-compassion or just looking for joy joy in life acts of
kindness these These are really good I mean Sharon Salzburg does a great
meditation when you’re driving and she said you’re at the traffic lights think about all the kind things in that good
stuff happening in your life and she said after a while she realized that she didn’t want the light to turn green so
the traffic light to third grade so because she was kept wanting more you
know she was more and more positive so I think starts more start kind that’s
definitely easier definitely I hope I answered the question yeah this is uh
to me the loving kindness is important too and like Wendy said realize very
humbling right when we we sit down and realize there’s a lot of ill will going on you know
um and I experienced the same thing when I first started the The Loving kindness and hard opening things is you know uh
how I had been treating myself how I treated others how others had treated me
um uh addressing this thing that you know of harming you know others myself
and being harmed in a way you know not maybe physically but emotionally kind of
um psychically especially with words I mean I had a it’s ironically and um I
hadn’t respected The Power of Words and I wrote them off as not having the the
power that they actually have and so that is so humbling when I hear this feedback from some people in my past and
even unfortunately some people in my current life that you know um I you know when you say this to me it
makes you know these feelings come up and you know even though that’s not my intent you know I have to double check
okay you know how um what can I do to to to do the utmost on my part to to that
these words are meant for kindness and non-ill will you know and all these
these wonderful things we aspire to like it being helpful it being the right time it being kind to being true
causing our uh leading towards Concord instead of division you know these type
of things and so I sit down and see all this stuff come up and that’s another thing people can get bummed out at first
with loving-kindness because they a lot of the stuff surfaces and I tell people you know this is absolutely common it’s
a purification process you know it’s um just because we intend something actually it’s if we’re having a stronger
and stronger intent towards kindness in Goodwill well then what we want to do is we want to clean all the stuff out that
we’re not normally aware of on even on deeper deeper levels so these these
Notions of ill will will come up and it’s not I find it helpful not to identify with them it’s just kind of
like you’re we’re spring cleaning we’re getting into the nooks and crannies and crevices that are normally overlooked
and ooh it doesn’t feel good to clean that out but it feels good afterwards to have that cleaned out and I find this
happens naturally and it’s a gradual process and um
yeah it’s so this this notion of then focusing and amplifying Goodwill too
because it is the antidote to ill will it’s the loving kindness and again this
is friendliness this is lack of ill will this is um Goodwill these practices
deliberately bringing this to mind and yeah I think that’s the most important
thing to say here um Wendy did you have anything else before I go into kind of more classifications of different types
of meditation yeah I think often when it comes to
doing you know loving kindness we think it’s actually about we’re doing it that to them
but I’m really really keen on going okay so what is that what are other what are
acts of kindness gestures moments of care that you’re receiving
that you might have overlooked whether it’s somebody who goes you’re a partner goes to the grocery store and buys food
that you like or doesn’t buy food that you don’t like or makes you a meal or
makes you a Cuppa or you know a drink in the morning or whatever and makes it so
it’s what you like did they remember that you like it black or that you like it really sweet or you know these this
kind of care I think a lot of people don’t register actually how much other
people are attending to our needs so for me I mean that’s really my my key
practice is how to be happier without doing more and that’s why I run a workshop on that you know so
that’s because people are we are so Keen
to look at what isn’t working and you know
that’s because it jars the body more you need you need 19 good uh sincere interactions before you have
a negative you know 19 in order to maintain a harmonious relationship that’s how much that’s a lot of saying I
think you’re doing great I love what you do I love you it’s so good to be with you I mean that’s a million of those
that you have to do all day every day so I think that’s really important and
just thinking um a little bit like that this morning I was meditating
and I have a family member who’s a bit tricky or quite tricky and I’m more I’ve
always been thinking they’re the problem and this morning I went actually that person I thought I
was giving feedback that was useful because they were giving mixed messages they said
they were good they were interested in communication they’re good communicator and then I tried to give feedback about
that and well that didn’t land so well and I did it over successive years because this person is a family member
so I then realized actually what I thought was being kind
and sharing information the other person might be interested in to have better relationships actually that person just
saw me as being critical nothing but critical
and I I so I guess I mean I’ve been meditating for 20 years
and I’ve been doing love and kindness for most of it and I hadn’t realized how
my relationships with family have been jaded because
I was giving information that I thought would be useful or the person was
interested in and I wasn’t picking up the cues that actually they weren’t so I
think it’s that meditation it’s not really meditation but I I certainly think it’s about becoming aware of me
you know when you meditate you become more aware and sensitive to other people so I think that’s all I wanted to say
these These are really good points this um the first thing uh well they touched
on mainly three things you’re receiving kindness and this positive counterbalance uh and then the the
feedback perceived as criticism so the first one receiving kindness I think this you’re right this gets overlooked
and met the practice a lot you know these these classic phrases you know may I be well you know and you know may I be
happy may you be well and then to different groups and things like it’s taught in the basuti manga but what’s
often overlooked is there’s a receiving end of that right so if someone’s practicing loving kindness towards me
well how do I receive that I know some people have a hard time they don’t they
don’t want anything like that or they they can’t have enough they always want it you know but that’s other people I
don’t have any control over them for me what is my relationship to that how do I
how do I uh open and how does it land and then how do I see that and respond
to it or can I just feel it you know or even imaginatory instead of me sending
out meta what about all the people practicing meta at any given moment
um and just kind of bathing in that Goodwill and how nurturing and caring
that can feel or maybe not maybe it feels different and then how I am how am I with that
um it says oops seems like one of the connections is um
uh it’s they’re retrying one of the connections I don’t know what that means but you can still hear me Wendy right I
I’m I’m good but one of the things maybe it’s me who can’t be heard or something because sometimes no I think it was one
of the streams but it was just a technical message we’ll we’ll see either way it should record so I just wanted to
I I just wanted to add something to that and I was just because you were talking about receiving kindness and you were
talking about oh so one of the things you know here we live in this International landscape and one one you
know at three o’clock in the morning we’re having an existential crisis and we think we nobody loves us I don’t know
if that’s just me but I have certainly had many periods in my life where I felt
no one cared about me no one was interested in me no one you know it was
all all awful and then I realized that at any time of
the day whatever was going on for me actually someone somewhere in the world
was practicing meta for all beings everywhere and that that really made me think oh
wow okay actually there are millions of people everywhere who are wishing me
kindness and often in that often when I do the more traditional meditation you
know the uh the city Marga version where you know may I be happy me then what
I’ll I’ll often do and I I do this for people who are feeling I have a client who’s who’s slightly
estranged from her children she just gets just rare access so I say
to her as we we do the meditations together and I go all right imagine how
many women are in this situation all over the world who have no access to
their children and how many children miss their mothers
all over the world and I just I do a bit of a sweep so I’m on the East Coast of Australia and so I go you know up north
up through Asia and then also uh in New Zealand across the Pacific and then and
I go across the whole world and I do it according to Time Zone and that’s a very interesting process to do that because
then you get an idea about well there are all these people everywhere who are
in this situation and it stops IT feeling so solitary so I just wanted to put that in sorry Josh
no that’s beautiful and I mean if we’re gonna get almost crazy about it we can extend it to the animal realm all the
mothers in the animal realm that have something tragics happen to them or who knows even off the planet or who
whatever you know if you’re into that kind of thing too so the the POS so you
also talked about the positive counterbalance yes you know we do have this term called positive positive toxic
positive toxicity but for people that are just kind of prone to negativity in
general are having a bunch of challenges I feel this this positive counterbalance when he was talking about is very very
very helpful and that the amount of work it takes in relationship to do this it’s such a beautiful thing but it is it is
work but it should be uh it ideally rewarding and fulfilling and uh
nurturing and caring for both parties um and then but this I almost think this feedback perceived as criticism uh this
is I’ve been running up against this uh time and time again especially even so I think that might even be a show on its
own uh this is really important and I just I don’t know I don’t want to jump into this now but I think maybe that
might be a potential future topic and so now um jumping in just so we’re running
out of time here I just wanted to do these formal categories of you know what is meditation and maybe we’ll have to do
uh am I doing it right uh We’ve covered a little bit of that so maybe not but uh oh we still have 30 minutes oh yeah
that’s right we started at the bottom of the hour oh my goodness wow okay so I guess the last time we started so I
guess I don’t have to jump into it but uh maybe I’ll maybe I’ll do it anyway so
the um so there’s I’ll just say them real briefly in their their fancy words and then we can come back and expound on
them maybe but we have samata practices um vipassana open awareness and these
awareness-based practices themselves and I’ll just give the cliff notes samata is this gather during unification
calming stabilizing effect that these certain practices have on the Mind
loving kindness will fall into the samata sometimes people call them concentration but I’m not really fond of
using that word concentration practices but for sake of ease vipassana it’s
people get really touchy about what that doesn’t mean some people just consider mindfulness uh vipassana and I don’t
know how I feel about that some people go really in depth like the suti manga I mean um avidhama like they’re getting
into ultimate materiality ultimate mentality mind moments all these chitasika and this is just different
lists upon list upon lists mind moments Discerning all these different things
and the individual so basically if I want to use that it would be simplified deep investigation into the nature of
reality Moment by moment on vast profound levels so so but but in
the service of realizing the characteristics of existence impermanence or changeability stress or
suffering and not uh which maybe might be not self or I would say maybe helplessness
um so and then so then we have these open awareness um I like these so basically we’re just
Moment by Moment The Meditation object Changed by whatever comes into our awareness so if it’s a thought sound
memory sensation so Moment by moment the the awareness or attention is Shifting
to whatever or being being aware of and then finally the awareness practices is
what’s actually doing all this knowing this perceiving this noticing you know
this awareness what is that and how do we investigate that and use that as the kind of Investigation itself and this is
what gets into really profound territory and this this very mysterious blessing
we have known as awareness that that we all have access to on various levels of very times
so I know a lot in there um so I guess one of the things we can
throw out there too is um is uh am I doing this right you know uh and that’s probably gonna
open a can of worms and we can we can sort that can of worms too you know Wendy I’ve been meditating for years now
am I doing this right you know I think early on really briefly it’s um
it can be a way to beat it beat ourselves up thinking I can never do it right if we’re that type of personality
in other ways if we don’t ask this question enough then we might be getting too far off the path and this is where I
think friendship and teachers are are very helpful for feed for feedback and we can talk about feedback here and
meditation in the context of student teacher or even wise friendship
yeah and just going back to some of those meditations so there’s samata or
shamata which I think is also calm abiding is that right is that a abiding meditation
would you that’s a beautiful that’s a beautiful translation I love that comma biting yeah and there’s also uh vipassana which is
vipassiana in other traditions and that’s often translated as Insight so
generally when you see you know Western context Insight that is a sort of an inquiring
process and I’m probably more at that end than I am at the karma biting I’m
just generally not a calm animal so the idea of sitting there being calm doesn’t really filming with joy you know I just
get what am I doing here I want to do something new I’m sort of quite outcomes focused I suppose I want to feel like
I’ve done something useful with my time uh so just that I think
um yeah what what was a question do you think
oh yeah the other ones are I we’re calling open awareness practice um but now what did you said Insight or
what was the other translation used for the party I’m abiding no that was but but that for vipassana
or the posture not you called it Insight or something investigation or
yeah will you use the word investigation and I thought I’d inquiry you know
yeah I think that’s I I like that but it’s not a sort of piercing hard I think
there is something about the Western Way which is to disregard the relationality
of where we are and and to think that to be cold or to be
um sort of hyper focused is somehow better
than keeping it loose and and there is that metaphor which you know like guitar
where if it’s too tight not in the work because it’s sort of
really tight and you know you know that when someone becomes really earnest and then where you can you know if it’s
not properly strung and it’s really loose or you don’t get any Melody out of that you know it’s too you know as per
my children once said mellow very 60s language there I’m very mellow she said
it was hilarious and then she talked about another time where she was groovy it was just the funniest she’s she’s a
woman of her time um and but there is a there is a this space
where you’re holding it and it’s not tight it’s not critical
it’s not harsh and it’s not slack and uh
on you’re not thinking about everything or you’re not caught in everything
um different different people do different things I know Jason Sif he has a thing where you just follow the
thought to its conclusion I gather but I found it to I didn’t find him to be a
particularly grounded person actually and I I found myself being quite heady
in his space and so I you know that’s also another thing to really engage with when you’re
when you’re meditating and listening to different people and different talks and
going into different Traditions is well how does it feel inside of you you know
really trusting your instinct about whether it feels right for you and that’s also being really aware you know
if it may not be the right time for you to meditate you know if you don’t have time maybe maybe now’s not the right time for
you you know you you but I always think you do it once and it takes about three to five years often before you come back
and you’re ready it take it takes time before you can be ready but just try it once and then come
back three years later five years later but I think I have digressed
no this is answering the question of am I doing it right this is perfect and
this last one about being ready I wow that was I I really letting that that
land because that’s really good I I really love that because that it takes so much pressure off
and actually I actually experienced that in my own um experience I when I was first getting kind of more formal
meditation instructions from someone uh and at a time and they really didn’t
have a practice they didn’t know what they were doing they were just kind of reading out of a book however you know
whoever was in that instruction manual their practice and was a little bit
deeper right and so did that for a short time and it was I don’t know maybe a
year or two probably not two years but before I actually picked it up again and
I think that’s something I overlooked so thanks for pointing that out Wendy it’s really it takes the pressure off doesn’t it you know this this beating myself oh
I should meditate well yeah like you said maybe it’s not time yet you do it once and you can always yeah if it’s
important I really think that’s important too because I can get a little bit righteous and this you got to do this so it’s helped me so much and this
is great you know nobody wants to hear like a Manic Street Preacher
a little bit for effect but yeah yeah I think that when we are we really
appreciate something we can be uh just a bit too enthusiastic and ingredient you
know somebody yesterday she she’s got this idea that she you know to it’s okay
to give feedback you know it’s a it’s an environment which encourages feedback but there’s a time and a place and
there’s not enough internal listening so I think what meditation does is it which
is probably a digression but it’s something that happens over time is you start to pay attention to what’s going
on in your body and your mind and your reactions and you go you know it’s
actually not not the right time or place you know we were talking about this
before at the beginning is it kind is it timely is it um does it need to be said
these are really important points too because the um this uh this so you
talked about using our intuition too to know you know vetting teachers I did a post on how you know how to pick a
meditation teacher or just how to choose teachers in general I think it’s a really important thing and yeah this
internal guidance I I know at first mine was off it was distorted and just know
that not everybody has immediate uh guidance but there is under no I mean
immediately accessible um fully complete total internal guidance right away some people do uh
some people rely on it too much and it’s distorted at first until it’s really
tuned into and developed maybe but I and but then some people they they you know
come up and they ignore it and now if I ignore that it’s usually at my own detriment uh and so it’s the right
relationship to this learning to trust this internal uh guidance this internal
teacher this and a lot of times we write it off because we think oh I’m judging this person right I’m judging that
shouldn’t be judgmental well you know I I remember I mentioned this before I
think that in that case it’s I don’t consider that judging you know there’s a
thing about discernment um because if we’re concerned enough that we’re we’re judging someone and it
might be detrimental I don’t think that’s judgment what I think it’s judgment is oh that person sucks and now
I feel better about myself from from criticizing this person now I I boost myself up because I’m putting that
person down because they’re not doing it right they’re doing this stuff and now I feel better about myself that I think is Judgment so but so what you know what is
this discernment you know what is this guy did the Buddha gave a thing to the kalapas about his advice on you know who
to pay attention to and what’s important and things like that so we can maybe include that in the show notes or you
know what’s important uh how do you
yeah uh um the the relationship you talked about
that you talked about the right effort the guitar tuning that’s beautiful too because this it can be too slack too
like we were talking about you know maybe come back in a year or so when you’re ready but then it can be too slack people can just be oh everything’s
groovy man everything’s a meditation you know life is all good all the time you
know so that’s that’s this right effort not too much not too little and yeah can I just add can I can I just add
something on that so just about loving kindness meditation one teacher I I
heard about which I thought was really good advice they said the the student or
the new person meditator came up and said but I like everybody you know no
one you know I’m okay with everybody like I’m just not and the teacher said
more loving kindness meditation for you because you need to really which speaks
to that purification practice which just as a heads up on that that’s not saying you should be pure what that’s saying is
you’re doing this sifting process so you start with the big things that make you really angry or hurt or you’re working
your way through that and then you end up with the smaller and smaller Pebbles so that’s that’s what this is talking
about those painful bits in your shoe kind of thing you take out first you find out if your shoes are comfortable
and then you find out you know if you’re getting Pebbles getting them out one by
one I mean and that’s what it’s talking about when I didn’t know that for a long time what the purification practices
were talking about and um and then I went oh okay that’s what it is all right
it’s not that big a deal yeah exactly that’s instead of purification
because we can get or I know I can get well what one person might think is pure
and holy or whatever another person might think oh come on goody two shoes or another I can never live up to that
but this is like a refinement um I think you know it’s like you start with the course and you go to the fine right you
clean out um um you have to I don’t know um if you have a flood or something you have to
clean out the mud before we can do a deep cleaning in in the corners you know
and make it shine everywhere yeah yeah so that’s it goes from gross to subtle in a way right
um another thing I think is helpful am I doing this right is this interview process I’m sure Wendy’s done formal
Retreats before and um I don’t know some people have different opinions about this how open are we to share what’s
going on in our meditation um in general I mean how aware are we of
the moment to moment and then of course the relationship with with all that is just as important as Randy was uh
mentioning our relationship to our meditation how willing are we to seek out teachers to that we’ll sit down and
take the time with us to go through our formal practice as well and then how does this relate to daily life I think
that’s really important to integrating this into daily life but also friendship uh spiritual friends quote unquote you
know um how uh are we spending time talking about you know our meditation practice
from time to time I think there’s so much other things to talk about in our daily life but can we take a a few
minutes out to just see how it’s going you know or or maybe it’s just you know um so yeah I think these are some things
to consider and so maybe yeah um willingness to share our process in
meditation or how it’s going and then how do we integrate this into life
yeah so I think the sharing one you know apparently
in in Zen and you know Japanese teachers Tibetan teachers Asian teachers they’re
amazed at how much we talk about ourselves and our emotions that’s not
part of their habit of expression much more internally or in you know that
that’s private you know but we just let it all hang out and it’s a bit of a surprise for the teachers I think but I
I think that yeah I guess you do have to respect the
teachers ideas and I think it’s really important also that they are not meditating so
they may give you advice or ideas or have an interpretation of something
and it’s it’s not true it’s not what’s right for you no it’s not there is a
saying in tibetan uh one of the lojong slow slogans the Mind training slogans
and it says of the two witnesses trust the principal one and that means well if somebody gives you advice
don’t just take it as given it’s it’s you you know what is the right
thing for you so trust your gut in that way and it that that may not be
in the beginning it’s it’s not straightforward you know it takes time
before you get the hang of before you get the hang of what does it mean like we were just talking about
purification now it must have been 10 years before I figured out what that meant was the sifting through process or
gaining Clarity or lightning that the sort of Boulders of the mind you know
but I I thought I that meant I had to be really good
so I was becoming gooderer all the time and I that’s that definitely wasn’t
happening so I didn’t know what was happening at all so I didn’t understand the term so I think that’s that’s really
true and I think it’s really important I mean you know
I’m an older woman so I don’t get the advances the predation by by male
teachers but keep your wits about you I always say keep your wits about you and
if it feels off then trust that gut and maybe maybe it’s not entirely right
maybe you’re the only one seeing that but I had a situation where
um somebody I had a bad feeling about a
teacher I just I went into the tent and I just went I do not like this it was
actually sogio rinpoche and my partner at the time who you know his mum was really into soggy room Pache and and
he’s going oh it’s just you you’re so funny about Authority and you’re so
funny about you know guys and bad you know bad vibes you’re misreading it
and then five three two three four years later
well the whole world exploded and it turned out that I was right on the money and my gut was right
and and so I think it’s really important so I always say to people when they’re going into communities just check if
there’s sort of this elitist Vibe shouldn’t be any elitism
and check whether there’s favorites and just feel and in the beginning you
don’t necessarily understand what’s going on so it’s easy to to age is
becoming too agreeable or B be too disagreeable which is my tendency
but for me I’d rather say no than make
the mistake of being too caught up and being taken advantage of so I I
think that yeah I I think TR always because this at the end of the day what
we’re doing is we are learning about our mind our body
our Sensations that’s what meditation is are we doing it right are you paying
heed to what’s going on in your own landscape so that’s that’s what I would
say did I answer the question I hope so it is very good Wendy and I I was looking at this from a different
position but I just wanted to kind of echo here that yeah I um like sometimes
I get too Technical and talk about kind of things that are removed from daily
life and uh personalities and people in relationships and Community what you’re
talking about so a lot of my practice has been on my own for the most part and so this is a big gap in my in my
practice that I haven’t experienced I’ve Heard lots of stories but I haven’t you know had as much experience in these
situations for a lot of these things to happen um so I just uh I want to go back to
where I left off and just see where I was coming from because I was kind of a disconnect and then I can pick up the on
the more humanistic side here what I was talking about in meditation interviews this would be more of a formal kind of
insight or mindfulness practice where the uh at least the stories I’ve heard
in some of the interview practices it’s not about me or myself it is the moment by moment reporting of what’s going on
in the meditation right okay the breath there’s I’m able to stay with the breath
for you know maybe 50 of the meditation sitting okay um the hindrances that are coming up I’m
nodding off uh you know it’s it’s or I can’t sit still
um or if it gets more and more deep you know the the I I noticed these changing
Sensations happening rapidly all over the noticings per minute are are increasing so I’m noticing a lot more
things in my meditation now and so in in a way maybe it’s not asking for advice
so much is just reporting what it is and then maybe the teacher asking questions
like oh um tell me more about this aspect or
um or if the practitioner is saying well how do I deal with this very specific
questions that aren’t necessarily um involve
who I am and what I’m doing and about me it’s about the practice in and of itself
in a very formal Retreat setting I guess that’s where I was coming from which is helpful in that context but again this
integration now how do we take that off the cushion these very technical uh minute details are or just uh
generalities too and so Wendy talks about the the Sangha side of this the
community side of this and we all know just about any kind of group we get into
is not perfect I mean that’s kind of an understatement right and so there is a real issue in um a lot of the more I
would say patriarchal um and I I I I hesitantly use that word
because I do think it’s overused a lot but obviously it’s there for a reason you know in Buddhism is just kind of in
in general is that way now there’s a lot of beautiful um things on both the monastic and
laylife but there is also tendency for abuse and I I don’t want to single out the Tibet and tradition but I’ve it
seems like I’ve heard more and more stories we talked about this before a lot of spiritual communities get drugged down due to sexual misconduct it’s just
it seems to happen you know you don’t hear about this as much in the business World maybe it’s embezzlement in the
business world but in spiritual communities it tends to be yeah and the flip side too people getting shunned
right you know um preferential treatment giving given towards a certain
demographic other over other demographics and then um you know how
that lands in people’s hearts um this notion of really trust though and safety you know again I think a lot
of this the spiritual path people are on these type of thing is to do with safety itself you know looking for Refuge
looking for who do I trust how can I trust myself but how do I feel safe you
know um on many levels down to very very fine and
fine fine levels of trust and safety and I I want to Echo Wendy’s advice if you
get an elitist Vibe right that’s not a good sign either um can make people feel really important I know it’s it can kind
of blingy and lucrative for some people but it is not a good sign to me um this
that’s not what the Buddha was about either um the the this favoritism and uh you
know this age preferential treatment due to age or shunning uh I think this is
really good and I think this is why spiritual friendship is really important too because it kind of counterbalances a
lot of this you know and even we can’t be friends with everybody like Wendy was saying right you need more loving
kindness I think that’s great it just cuts right through the BS right there right I mean or even if it is even if it
is then he should have no problem doing lots more loving kindness because everybody already loves everybody anyway
and it you know likes everybody anyway so there you’re going keep going you know if that’s really the case
I was just thinking about the interview and what you were saying about um formal interview where people give you
very technical advice or asking what is happening I’ll be honest and say I
actually haven’t done very many of those Retreats I’ve probably haven’t done so much of the Insight I think that’s quite
a specific maybe to Western It is Well I think it’s a lot of Burmese type stuff
Burmese for the the Dharma talks I’ve heard about it the training in Burma I think is very the the vapassana training
you know this very specific what’s going on and just making you notice that you’re I think Sharon Salzburg talks a
little bit about this of just people and forgetting about being aware and things and trying to to get them to be more and
more aware not overloaded but noticing all the times during the day were completely not aware or mindful you know
so I think it’s in service to that uh and I think again it’s it’s good to preface that this is in a specific
formal training yeah I mean I think that just listening to that
I think that just sort of comes with time you know you just you just practice
it every day you do a little bit every day you you develop your skills with
sitting with what arises um and then the Acuity just sort of
arises as you go I think your sense of uh what happens in awareness and you
have you know these direct experiences or insights about things so I mean one
time I was cleaning the toilet and I was going oh there is no other time there is no should time it was just here I am
toilet brush in one hand toilet bowl here we are and this is all that’s
happening in this moment and I got that this everything only hap ever happens in
this moment when cleaning the toilet bowl now I didn’t set that up and you know I had no interest into you know I’m
not saying you know everyone gains Enlightenment in a Chinese jail maybe some people do but gee I’m not going to
go to a Chinese jail to discover whether that might happen to me do you know what I mean it just
happens as it happens you know and and that some people have
had amazing insights in a moment and they have sometimes they have been Buddhist sometimes they’ve been in other
traditions and sometimes they’ve had none of that but they’ve just got it and
certainly there are lots of people who take drugs you know the psycho psychedelics now they’re a bit out and
people have amazing experiences and just a heads up because I know we’re sort of off topic here but I’m going to say it
anyway that um the psychedelics are
uh so a friend of mine is in the emergency medicine department and I asked him
about psychedelics and PTSD and he said that
well if you have PTSD and you take a psychedelic
40 chance 60 chance it might go well
40 chance it might really go badly so basically 50 50 might be amazing might
be Crash and Burn and you’re broken forever more so just a heads up on that
about all that I don’t know I digress but I think it’s a really important part
of the conversation because people want to have these woo-woo experiences and they think that’s what real meditation
is getting into the flow getting into the Zone uh being really calm but
actually one of the local slogans I was just looking at yesterday was uh even when you’re distracted
uh something about if you can meditate even while distracted you are well
trained and what that means is even when your mind is wild you can still hold the
space not squish it down not react not get too
caught up and we all get caught up but um that that’s the space I guess so
sorry about that I digress there into psychedelics pose there are either if I’m in Australia and psychedelics have
just um become legalized in a therapeutic way it’s very limited but there are lots of
problems with psychedelics and and I I just I know lots of people who are looking for meditation
psychedelics to resolve their PTSD so just a heads up on the warning on that it’s really important and before I pick
up on that though the uh I haven’t heard that saying about being enlightened in a Chinese jail and that’s that’s great but
a lot of these insights come outside of formal practice that’s right so if if you’re not getting these profound
insights during meditation just realize that it’s it’s kind of a gradual training a lot of times right when I emerge for meditation at least in the
past that has been where War insights will come and yeah just these realizations and things a lot of the
working meditation I did uh out at Mid-America Buddhist Association just in the middle of these work
projects just just deep seeing into things or things occurring that I had never seen before but yeah the
Psychedelic thing is um this is what I tell people usually not in in reference to PTSD I’m hesitant to go there because
I don’t have you know formal um trauma training and it’s a really like you’re saying it is really rolling
the dice here pretty much on it because my spiritual karate moves they don’t work on trauma so much it’s a different
animal a different Beast so but in general psychedelics what I tell people if even if they’re feel really called to
do it do uh a lot of contemplation do a ton of research you have to vet the
practitioners very hard go and meet them first see if they’re legit then go back
and even do more contemplation before even can you know before doing all this so it’s not something to take lightly
then make sure there’s a huge integration process afterwards and I think that is probably even more and
important than a psychedelic thing and I know Psychiatry and maybe this is a too much of a generalization but I think
psychiatrists are now getting very eager to jump on this board and start handing these things out
um and for me I I don’t know how I feel about that but I see it to me these things should be done in a very
therapeutic earthy setting with practitioners who have been doing it for years and it and it should be a track
record too of all this you know this this stuff and you know talk to them and
see how how many people they’ve been treated what their experiences are you know really look deep at this stuff
because like when he said it’s not something to take lightly and gamble with you know they’re way safer methods
and just as effective methods that I see now I can’t rule them all out I’m just saying this this in because you can’t
turn this off meditation you can get up go walk off the mat and you’re done with it if you’re doing a really heavy
intense trip there’s no off button you know that’s it it you know you have to write it out and sometimes people never
come back from them I just wanted to add to that there’s some new research that’s just straight out somebody
did go to a you know a correct practitioner and had the you know she
had whatever she had and then she took the Psychedelic so she had some psychological distress
and there was something fairly innocuous but it just landed on her and because her mind was so sensitive because of the
psychedelics something that might have been did you put the cup over there I’m making it up but something as innocuous
as that can be absolutely misconstrued and taken out of context and she spent years in therapy afterwards trying to
undo the harm from this almost innocuous
um comment but Josh we’ve run out of time again yes we have yeah and so this is
right and people will do these type of things in meditation too they have really maybe breaks and things like this
so yeah psychedelics are a lot most of them are very very powerful medicines or
substances however you want to classify them yeah yeah it’s it’s the yeah so and
then look at your sensitivity level Wendy is there anything you want to leave folks with here I think with
meditation um I was actually speaking with a friend of mine today and his girlfriend has schizophrenia and I just said she must
never do meditation so maybe maybe it’s okay for some people but I’ve seen
people go psychotic in that and so and with that I think it’s really important
to trust yourself maybe you’re not ready maybe it’s not right for some people
it’s not the right thing so I was speaking with somebody and his boss is
um you know really busy he’s busy all day every day and he goes well you know he should take up meditation and I said
when you’ve been a workaholic all your life and you’ve got stuff in the basement you’ve never looked at because
you’ve been a workaholic keeping a workaholic because
actually when those people stop and if they do meditation it can break them
because the lids down so just something on that
um but I I think that’s it I think we’re good to go Josh I think it’s been fun it
is and that’s very wise of I seek out a good teacher that you really resonate with and spiritual friendship yeah you
know it’s very helpful friends that are there for Mutual best interest and yes and in a
good way thanks for joining everyone Wendy it’s been been a blast as always
thanks bye
Integrating Presence 
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