Как выполнять ежедневную практику 03 — Ведомая сосредоточенная медитация на образе учителя или просветлённого существа (1998, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Get very comfortable, and we'll do about half an hour. So make sure you're comfortable. After you take your position, don't move.

So if you have a problem with your knees, stick your legs out.

[Speaker 2]
If you have to sit in a chair, sit in a chair. And don't be proud about it.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, if your body hurts, you can't meditate. The point is to get your body out of the picture by parking it nicely. And if the parking is something that hurts you, then it defeats the purpose.

But we're going to leave your body. So just put it somewhere where it's not going to bother you.

[Speaker 2]
Then watch your breath.

[Speaker 1]
So try not to move, okay? So get in a comfortable position and then grin and bear it. Master Shantideva said if someone was standing behind you with a gun up to your head and said, if you move in the next half hour I'll shoot, you would sit perfectly still.

The first exercise is to watch your breath. It's not a meditation in itself. It's to get your mind slowed down.

And watching it means not to be aware of the colors and shapes of your breath because you can't see it. Watching it means feel the feeling of the air passing the tip of your nose. So you'll feel cold air coming into your nostrils and warm air going out.

And pretend you're a little guy who's sitting at the end of the nostril and he's watching the air come and go. And focus on that spot. Watch your breath for a few minutes.

Every time you catch your mind wandering, bring it back gently. It's a great art form to catch yourself wandering. Some people meditate for years and they learn to sit quietly and their mind wanders all over the place.

You have to gain the ability to catch yourself when you're wandering and bring yourself back. Don't get upset. Don't feel like you're a lousy meditator.

Just quietly catch your mind and bring it back calmly and in a happy way. And just say, come on now, come back and put it on your breath again. It'll keep slipping away and keep bringing it back.

I'd like to do some breathing meditation. Try to visualize your breath as like a clear liquid moving in and out of your lungs. So like one long piece of clear liquid.

And one part is still attached to the bottom of your lungs. And then when you breathe out, the other part is coming out of your nose and going out in front of your face. And this helps a lot to start to breathe properly during meditation.

So now try to picture your breath as like clear liquid, like a water. And it's coming in and out of your nose, but the base of it is attached to the bottom of your lungs. And when you breathe out, then the top of it goes out like about six inches or ten inches.

And then it stops and it comes back in. But you're always breathing the same liquid in and out of your lungs. The front part comes in and out of your nose.

The back part is attached to the bottom of your lungs. But try to picture your breath that way and see the liquid coming out perpendicular to your face, straight out away from your face when you breathe out. And then you suck it back in.

So picture your breath that way. Now when you breathe in, try to push the air down a little bit further. Generally, you shouldn't force the breath.

But now try to feel like you're using the bottom of your lungs. Normally, you don't bring the air all the way in. You're just breathing with half of your lungs.

So try to bring the air in more. When you breathe in, at the end of the breath, then breathe a little bit more. Don't try to hold your breath.

And don't force it like you're going to swim underwater or something like that. Just gently take in a little bit more air than usual. And try to breathe a deeper breath than normally you would.

Don't try to hold it. Just breathe more deeply and then let it out in a normal flow.

[Speaker 2]
And keep watching it. This is good if you get sleepy. Now in the out-breath, do the same thing.

[Speaker 1]
Which means when you push the air out, imagine it like liquid crystal or some kind of liquid. And when you reach the end of your normal out-breath, then gently push a little more breath out. And you always have a little bit more left inside.

And so now on the in-breath, you took a little more breath in. And next on the out-breath, push a little bit more out. And then you have the sensation of the breath going out away from your face.

And then send it out another few inches and then suck it back in. So you'll see the breath come out of your nose and it'll go away from your face like a little stream directly out like eight or ten inches away from your face. And then gently, before you suck the breath back in, then gently push a little more out and try that.

So now you're taking a little bit extra on the in-breath. And you're pushing a little bit more on the out-breath.

[Speaker 2]
This is really good for concentration and it also keeps you fresh.

[Speaker 1]
Now as you breathe, try to be aware of your heartbeat. So keep up the same breath. Don't force anything, but take a little bit deeper breath than normal.

Expel more of the air than normal. And then now see if you can pick up the beating of your heart like it'll be... At first you can feel it in your chest as a tactile object.

You know, it's a feeling of sense that you feel the vibration in your chest. And later on, if you get to meditate in a quiet place, you'll hear it in your ears, in your eardrums. But right now, try to pick it up as a vibration in your chest.

Try to be aware of the beating of your heart while you breathe. Now try to count how many heartbeats it takes for the breath to go out and how many heartbeats it takes for the breath to come in. Some people count double heartbeats.

They hear a da-dung, da-dung. And some people count single heartbeats. All they can hear is dung, dung, dung.

And it doesn't matter which one. But just according to how you hear your own heart, try to listen carefully or feel carefully and see how many heartbeats it takes for the breath to go out. And then see how many heartbeats it takes for it to come in.

Don't hold your breath and don't force your breath. Just let it go naturally. Push a little more out at the end.

Take a little more in at the beginning. If they are not equal heartbeats, like if the out-breath takes like six heartbeats and the in-breath takes four, see if you can even them out a little bit. It means normally most people have to slow down the in-breath a little bit.

So don't do anything that's uncomfortable. But see if you can slightly slow it down. Normally the in-breath has to be slowed down a little bit in order that the same number of heartbeats as the out-breath.

So see if you can very gently. Don't force anything. But most people find that they are breathing in very sharply.

And then I think you'll also find that you tend to break the breath. You breathe a little bit and then the breath stops. And you breathe a little bit and the breath stops coming in.

And see if you can slow the whole thing down and bring the breath in in a very steady stream without any hiccups in the breath, without any jolts in the breath. It should come in very smooth and in a steady flow. You probably have to slow the whole thing down.

See if that brings the heartbeats of the in-breath a little closer to the number of heartbeats of the out-breath. Check it out.

[Speaker 2]
Don't try to hold your breath.

[Speaker 1]
Now we'll shift the focus from the breath to the object. Watching your breath is taught in the Abhidharmakosha. It's one of the earliest books of Buddhism.

And it's just a method to get your mind settled down and then you shift it to an important object. Your breath by itself is not normally an important object. And I think over the centuries, in some countries, those instructions got confused a little bit.

And people started focusing only on the breath. And then they never went on to a more meaningful object of meditation. And all of the books, starting with the original book, 16 centuries ago, they say it's only for focusing your mind.

And then when your mind is settled down, like our minds are settled down now, then you shift the focus to the real object of your meditation. So we're going to do what's called a jogom. And that's a special meditation where you fix your mind on a single object.

And we're going to fix your mind on an image of a Buddha. It doesn't have to be just the Buddha. It can be whatever image is holy to you.

So if you feel close to Tara, which is a woman Buddha, then you can start visualizing her. Or if you feel more comfortable with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, you can focus on a mental image of him or your root Lama, or even some earlier teacher from your life like Jesus or Moses, or whatever feels holy to you. So pick a being, and we're going to work on that picture.

So first decide who's going to be the object of your meditation. It's good once you pick one to stick with it for six weeks or four to six weeks until you get really good at it, and not to skip around. The first step in a jogom is to get the silhouette right.

So you don't work on the colors or shapes. You just work on the silhouette. Like all you can see is the outline of the person.

And the inside is black, and then you see some light behind them. So like they're behind a sheer curtain or something. So try to get the outline of the person right.

Get that visualization in your mind of just the outline of the person.

[Speaker 2]
Like they're behind a curtain and you can't see who they are, but you can see their outline, their silhouette.

[Speaker 1]
And concentrate and get it nice. Now try to get the eyes right, the eyes and the face. Don't color them in yet, just like as if they are sketched in, in black and white.

So just a sketch of their eyes. Try to get the shape of the eyes right and the eyebrows right. Don't worry about the rest.

So so far you have a silhouette and just the eyes and the eyebrows.

[Speaker 2]
Now add the nose, now the mouth, now the hair, now the chest and the arms. Not yet any color, just the shape of the arms and the chest.

[Speaker 1]
Around about now your butt starts to hurt and your knees start to hurt and just ignore it. You know, decide that you want to learn to meditate and you have to pay a little price for it and just ignore it.

[Speaker 2]
Try not to move. Now start to fill in the colors of the eyes. Do the legs if you haven't done them.

Now fill in the colors of the face and the hair. Now fill in the colors of the rest of the body. Now make them live.

[Speaker 1]
You know, see the breath, some breath moving in their chest and feel the warmth coming from their body and their eyes moving slightly. Make sure that the picture is alive. It's not just a painting of a holy being.

It's the real thing and their chest is moving slightly and you can feel the warmth from their hands. And their eyes are moving slightly at you and there's a glistening of the water in their eyes. And then last thing, fill in the emotions.

You know, fill in their emotions. Their emotion is intense love for you and the being is looking at you with this kind of a look of intense love for you, intense attraction to you. And you feel it in their eyes.

So look at their eyes and see it as a reflection of their mind. And they have this intense care for you that they want you to be happy. And they want to help you.

And fill that into their eyes. The look of their eyes tells you how they feel. And the corner of their mouth, the way they smile at you, get it right that they have this intense care about you and they want you to be happy and they want you to succeed in your practice.

Now shrink the figure like as if it were going away from you. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's floating in the air in front of your chest.

[Speaker 2]
And it's only like an inch high but still perfect.

[Speaker 1]
Then ask the being to come and be in your heart. And they come closer and closer into your heart and then they melt into your chest. And feel them inside your chest like a little sun.

Like you can feel the warmth of them in your chest and you feel the light inside of you. And imagine that they're inside of you and that they're going to stay there and bless you.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, then relax, okay? Stretch out.