Как выполнять ежедневную практику 05 — Совершенное тело и ум (1998, Нью-Йорк), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
Today we're just going to go straight into a guided meditation, and then we'll talk a little bit about the theory afterwards. Prepare yourself to meditate. By the way, the way Elizabeth got into the tractor was that she went to Sarah Monastery.

You're all welcome to go sometime. It's really, really wonderful. I take students there once or twice a year.

We have now in Sarah a total of 3,000 monks, in all of Sarah. It's really, really beautiful, and it's really exciting. I remember the first time I came over the hill and saw the monastery, I started to cry, because it's so beautiful.

Everything that's going there is really, really great. You should try to get there sometime. September, okay.

I think we'll probably go in September. I don't mind to help you all. We can take care of you once you get there.

You need to work out your own airfare or something, but we could spend a week or two there if you want. It's really, really nice. She went, I think, two years ago, and they bought this tractor for her, and told her about it later.

No, just kidding. It's very beautiful. We have 200 children there.

We built a school there for the children, and that's really beautiful. Normally, people who go, they end up teaching English to the children for a week or two. It's a lot of fun.

To see 1,000 or 2,000 monks doing the little mandala offering we just did or things like that, it's really beautiful. What they do there is very beautiful. We have a college there that we helped build.

We all stay there, and it's really beautiful. It's out in the countryside in India, and it's very beautiful. Anytime, we want to go.

We really will go in September. Sorry. In Tibetan they say, sem la dak chu, which means, keep it in mind.

Get into a position which is comfortable for you, and it doesn't have to look great, as long as it's comfortable. Then watch your breath. Watch your breath means be very quiet, and observe the feeling of the air moving inside of your nostrils, especially in the front.

Watch the sensation of the air coming back and forth and touching the inside of your nose. Concentrate on that, and don't let your mind go elsewhere. The next step, we're talking about the warm-up, the preliminaries, is to go for refuge.

In this case, it would mean thinking about how this meditation might help you to stop all the negative things in your life. How, if you could learn to meditate properly, it could help you stop all the bad things that ever happen to you in your life. So, think about that for a few minutes.

The next step in meditation is to think of someone who you'd like to dedicate meditation to, someone who's having a problem, physical or mental problem, someone you know, and dedicate this meditation to them. Next step is to invite a holy being to be with you, and whatever being you can think of that fits you, invite them to come and be with you as you meditate. Invite them to come in front of you.

Imagine that they are sitting in front of you, right across from you, and that they're going to help you meditate. Next step is to think what makes them holy, why you think they're holy, and try to think of some good thing about them that you would like to have, something about them that you would like to learn how to be like that, and then you bow to them in your mind. Next, you make them some offering, and think of something beautiful to offer them, like the best things I think are things which nobody owns, like if you've seen a sunset recently, or early spring flower, or the clouds that you saw today, or something of beauty, and then offer it to them in your mind.

Next step is to think of something negative that you did today, or you said to someone today, or some negative thought you had today, and to look at it, and then purify it from yourself, which means to think about how you might be able to stop that in the future, or some small thing you could do to stop acting that way. So pick something specific that happened today that you're not happy with, and something you'd like to improve, and think about it. Now, next step is to think of something good you did today, something you said or thought about today that was very sweet, and something very good, and remember it.

Try to remember the details of it, and be happy. Then in your mind, ask for teachings, whether it's understanding the formal teachings you're receiving, or whether it's getting inspiration from someone that you know, or a finding that you're able to hear teachings in what people said to you, and things like that. So request that.

And then lastly, pray for the long life and the continued presence of your teachers and your Dharma friends, the people around you that help you on your path. That completes the preliminaries. And then this is a good time to shift around or move if you have to.

And when you're ready, go back to the breath, feeling the breath inside your nose. Try to be very quiet now. Then tonight we'll do a special meditation.

It's called DE BU LAM DU BYAS PA and it means we're going to try to visualize what it would be like or how we want ourselves to be at the end of the path. What would you like to be when you finish Buddhism? What would you like yourself to be like?

It's a very important practice to visualize it physically and mentally. So we're going to go through a meditation of trying to picture what you want to be like when you finish your Buddhist practice. At the end, what would you like to be like?

So first try to get an outline. We'll work on the physical body. What would you like to be like physically?

Assuming that you could become anything that you want if you practice well, then what's your main body going to look like? What would you be like? Try to get the silhouette of that person, what they look like.

You can be anything. Buddhists can look like anything and imagine what you would like to be like. Now try to picture what your face looks like, what the eyes look like.

It's the outline of the eyes. Now try to do the hair. Now the rest of the face.

Now fill in the colors of the eyes, and the face, and the hair. Now the shoulders and the chest. Now the arms and the hands.

Then everything from the waist down. Then dress yourself as you will be. Then try to make sure you feel what it's like to be inside of that body.

You're not just watching it. You're inside of it, and it's alive, and it's warm, and it's breathing. What it feels like to have a body like that.

Try to imagine what the things look like to a Buddha. If a Buddha were in this room, what would everything look like? Would it look different to them?

Then finally, try to imagine how you think. How do you feel towards other people? What does it feel like to have real compassion about all the people you see in this room?

Then just enjoy being them and thinking like them. When your mind wanders, then bring it back. We'll spend maybe five, ten minutes like that.

Every time your mind wanders to something else, then bring it back to how it feels when you reach the end. And that you're feeling that right now. And don't forget how you look.

Okay, stop there and relax. I wanted to talk a little bit about how to stop a meditation, okay? Say thok.

[Speaker 2]
Thok.

[Speaker 1]
Ha. Ha-so. Ha-so.

It's a very important concept in Buddhism. It means to start something right, do something right, and finish it right. Thok means beginning, Pa means finish, and Pa means in between, like bardo.

Bardo. And I want to talk about the Pa part. Like how to stop a meditation, how to finish a meditation.

So, I have a pet peeve about American Dharma students is that when they smell the class is ending, they start packing up, you know? And it's the Dalai Lama, and he's about to tell them how to get enlightened, but they know it's stopping in five minutes. You see people, you know, closing up their curses, and packing up their books, and, you know, they start eating something usually, and it's important to end your meditation sweetly, you know, and to end it right.

And the way we end it, which we'll do at the end of this class, just before we run away, is, first of all, it's very important to bring the meditation mentally to a conclusion, you know what I mean? While it's still going pretty strong, which you can tell it might get tiring in another ten minutes or something, but while it's still sweet, and while it's still going well, then you stop. So it's important that you stop at a good point.

If it's not going very well, wait a little bit longer, okay? Assuming you're not late for work, okay? And, you know, it seems you always stop on an upbeat note, so wait until it gets sweet again.

If you're in pain, wait a while, and it comes up, you come out of it. And I always think it's a shame, because a lot of people stop when it hurts, and they don't realize that if you went another five minutes, it would stop hurting, and it would feel great. So never stop desperately, you know?

Never stop out of being forced to stop. Stop when it's going sweet, and don't wait for yourself to get exhausted before you stop. So take it up to the point, sweet point, and then taper it off.

It's very important that you get the blessing of the being. Remember you brought a being in the room, and they're meditating across from you. They're like two feet in front of you, and there's a process by which you withdraw them.

You know, it's called dhubha, javyul dhubha. And you imagine that there's a whole motivation involved. You want them to melt into you, and later they will, in reality.

But in the meantime, you're focusing on them, and you ask them, you know, I want to be like you. I want to have your blessing. So do you like to melt into me this evening?

And they're like, sure, that would be great. And there has to be this feeling that they're really happy about it. This is all part of the practice.

So they're like, that would be wonderful. I'd love to be inside of you. And there's this joy, or there's this really nice feeling of a collaboration.

And they're like, that would be wonderful. I'd really like to be inside of you. So the first thing is they agree, and you see their face, and their face is really, really happy.

And then they start to shrink. And the instruction is that they don't shrink down to the ground, and then you're looking for them. They do, but they shrink from the bottom and from the top at the same time.

So from the knees and from the top of the head, they start to shrink. And then when you're done, they're in the air in front of you, and they're about this big, like maybe three inches, something. And they're like right there.

And the scripture says, don't think that they became like a tiny gym or something. I mean, don't think that they're smaller, actually. They're just changing perspective, you know what I mean?

Like they're still seven feet tall, but they're smaller. They're complete. And then, I mean, they haven't become insignificant.

Then they slowly float to the top of your head, and then they reverse so that they're facing the same way you're facing, and then they come down to the top of your head. And then you leave them there for a second and just enjoy it. And then you prepare at your heart like a chamber, like a special...

I don't know if you've ever seen a go. A go is a Tibetan aliquary. It's like a silver thing, and it's shaped like this.

And I'll get to you. I'll show you. There's one in my briefcase at the bottom.

Do you know it? Do you know it? I'll show you what a go is.

So you make a go at your heart, and it's shaped about like that. And you imagine this beautiful little chamber, and you're inside your chest, and there's this beautiful golden light and a beautiful flower. I think in America it's going to end up being a rose, you know.

You could do a lotus if you want. But something that you use a beautiful flower, and then it's big, like it's big enough for them to sit, and the flower reaches up like about to their waist. And then there's this beautiful cushion that they're sitting on.

And you imagine that that's where they're going to be, and you prepare that place for them. So everything is beautiful, ready, warm, nice incense smell. You put some Neil Young music on.

Okay. And then they start to shrink, okay. And they come down to about, I guess about an inch, or even smaller.

And then there's a specific path they have to take to get from the top of your head to your heart. And that should be, it has certain qualities. First of all, it should be very, very straight.

Like if you're like that, like that, you have to sit up. From your chest to the top of your head, everything should be really straight. And then you imagine that they start to melt at the top of your head.

They're coming down, not through your vertebrae, but right in front of your backbone. So like half an inch or a quarter inch in front of your back. They're coming straight down.

So if your backbone is here, they would be coming down, from my point of view, right in front of it. So they look like that. There should be a little chamber like that in your heart.

I don't know if you can see, there's a bridge. And you imagine that space. And they melt down to about an inch, and they're coming down, and then they park on that tower, and then you light up the sky.

Imagine that they're very, very happy. And then all throughout the day, you can check in with them. If you're having a bad time, your boss is yelling at you, or you found out about the race and didn't get it.

If something disappointing happens, somebody's asking you, you can visualize them there. Try to think like them. Let's calm down here, you know, and you picture them.

They can give you advice. Later on, if you visualize it well, then that's the first conclusion part. And then the next part is the act of meditating, especially in the United States of America, is extremely rare.

There's very few people who even want to do it, who know how to do it. And it's some kind of very, very powerful meditating that's very difficult. If you want to do it, it can get you enlightened very fast.

Meditation is extremely powerful. When you take it, it's like getting a big windfall. You can immediately reinvest it.

So you say, I dedicate. It's called dedication. Dedicate all that good power.

I dedicate that, and in the future I'd like to dedicate this energy. Huge amount of energy. I dedicate it to that.

I wanted to talk a little bit about how to how to stop a meditation, okay? Say, It's a very important concept in Buddhism. It means to start something right, do something right, and finish it right.

Tok means beginning, Ta means finishing, Pa means in between, like bardo. I want to talk about the Ta part. Like how to stop a meditation, how to finish a meditation.

I have a pet peeve about American Dharma students is that when they smell the class is ending, they start packing up, you know? It's the Dalai Lama, and he's about to tell them how to get enlightened, but they know it's stopping in five minutes, so you see people closing up their purses and packing up their books, and they start eating something usually, and it's important to end your meditation sweetly, and to end it right. And the way we end it, which we'll do at the end of this class, just before we run away, is first of all, it's very important to bring the meditation mentally to a conclusion, you know what I mean?

And it's very important to do it before you get exhausted. So they say, you should always be a little bit left at the end, that you could have done more, but you stop just before then, so that you're not totally tired out before you stop. So while it's still going pretty strong, which you can tell it might get tiring in another ten minutes or something, but while it's still sweet, and while it's still going well, then you stop.

So it's important that you stop at a good point. If it's not going very well, wait a little bit longer, okay? Assuming you're not late for work.

they say you should always stop so wait until it gets sweet again. If you're in pain, wait a while, and it comes up, you come out of it. And I always think it's a shame, because a lot of people stop when it hurts, and they don't realize that if you went another five minutes, it would stop hurting, and it would feel great.

So never stop desperately. Never stop being forced to stop. Stop when it's going sweet.

And don't wait for yourself to get exhausted before you stop. So take it up to the point, sweet point, and then taper it off. It's very important that you get the blessing of the being.

Remember you're part of the being in the room, and they're meditating across from you. They're like two feet in front of you or something, and there's a process by which you withdraw them. It's called duva.

And you imagine that the whole motivation involved. You want them to melt into you, okay? And later they will, in reality.

But in the meantime, you're focusing on them, and you ask them, you know, I want to be like you. I want to have your blessing. So would you like to melt into me this evening?

And they're like, sure, that would be great. And there has to be this feeling that they're really happy about it. This is all part of the practice.

So they're like, that would be wonderful. I'd love to be inside of them. And there's this joy.

They duva. They shrink from the bottom and from the top at the same time. So from the knees and from the top of the head, they start to shrink.

And then when you're done, they're in the air in front of you, like about this big. Maybe three inches, something. And they're like right there.

And the scripture says, don't think that they became like a tiny Tim or something. I mean, don't think that they're smaller, actually. They're just changed perspective, you know what I mean?

Like they're still seven feet tall. But they're smaller. They're complete.

And then, I mean, they haven't become like insignificant. And then they slowly float to the top of your head. And then they reverse.

So they're facing the same way you're facing. And then they come down from the top of your head. And then you leave them there for a second.

You just enjoy it. And then you prepare at your heart like a chamber. I don't know if you've ever seen a cowl.

A cowl is a bed in a reliquary. It's like a silver thing and it's shaped like this. And I'll get you.

I'll show you. Listen to this. One of my briefcase at the bottom.

You know, in an orange cloth. I'll show you what a cowl looks like. So you make a cowl and it's shaped about like that.

And you imagine this beautiful little chamber inside your chest. And there's this beautiful golden line and a beautiful flower. I think in America it's going to end up being a rose.

You can do a lotus if you want. But something that you use a beautiful flower and then it's big. Big enough for them to sit.

And the flower reaches up to their waist around them. And then there's this beautiful cushion that they're sitting on. And you imagine that that's where they're going to be.

You prepare the place in your heart. Everything is beautiful and ready and warm. Nice incense smell.

You can put some Neil Young music on.

[Speaker 2]
Okay?

[Speaker 1]
And then they start to shrink. And they come down to about I don't know, I guess about an inch. Or even smaller.

And then there's a specific path they have to take to get from the top of your head to your heart. And that should be it has certain qualities. First of all, it should be very, very straight.

Like if you're like that, you have to sit up. And on your chest to the top of your head everything should be really straight. And then you imagine that they start melting from the top of your head.

And they're coming down not through your vertebrae but right in front of your backbone. So like half an inch or a quarter inch in front of your backbone. They're coming straight down.

So if your backbone is here, they would be coming down from my point of view right in front of you. Down into your body. And that's a dog.

So they look like that. You should have a little chamber like that in your heart. And I don't know if you can see there's a Buddha inside there.

He's peeking out. And you imagine that space. They melt down to about an inch large.

And they're coming down and then they park on that flower. And then you light up the chamber and they're enjoying it there. And you have to imagine that they're very, very happy to be in you.

And then all throughout the day you can check in with them. You know, when you're having a bad time and your boss is yelling at you or you found out about the race you didn't get this year and stuff like that. When something disappointing happens, when somebody's hassling you, you know, you can visualize them there and try to think like that.

Like, let's calm down here. This is not so important. Let's go beyond that.

And you picture them there. They can give you advice. Later on, if you visualize it well, then it really happens.

That's the first conclusion part. And then the next part is the act of meditating, especially in the United States in 1998, is extremely rare. There's very few people who even want to do it.

And there's very few people who know how to do it. And it's some kind of very, very powerful karma. The karma of meditating is very, very powerful.

You just did something very, very special and something very rare in this planet. If somebody has enough time and who wants to meditate and who knows how to meditate, it can get to enlightenment very fast to meditate. And it's so powerful that you've done a very heavy good karma, extremely powerful good karma.

And you have to invest it. You take it. It's like getting a big windfall profit.

If you're a smart Buddhist, you take it immediately and reinvest it in something else that's important. So you say, I dedicate. It's called dedication.

You dedicate all that good karma for something very powerful. I dedicate that, that in the future I'd like to become enlightened. And then I can help other people.

So I dedicate this energy, huge amount of energy. I dedicate it to that holy purpose that I should become a being like that. And that's called dedication.

And then you actually do the words of dedication. And if you don't know them, they're written in the class book and you can see that. I get really...

One of my pet peeves with myself also is when I start thinking about Michael and Zoe's milkshakes while I'm doing the dedication. And you have to make totapassu. You have to make the whole thing sweet.

The whole experience has to be powerful. And don't lose it at the end. Don't let the last three minutes be wasted time.

Finish it perfect. Get to the very end of the meditation. Get to the end of that prayer.

Don't lose it. Don't waste your time on the prayer. Make sure the prayer is powerful.

And that prayer is This is... I don't know if you know it. This is Nagarjuna.

Nagarjuna wrote that. He's like the most famous Buddhist meditator of all time. They call him Siddhita, the second Buddha.

He wrote that prayer. And the meaning of the prayer is means I'm dedicating this energy that I can become a Buddha and that everyone else can become a Buddha through the energy. I dedicate this energy to them.

And you take the energy to do karma and you dedicate it to them. And you should never say that prayer without thinking about it. I think for most people the prayer is and the mind is what kind of snack can I get at the consulate?

I know. That's what I'm thinking about. And then don't just jump up.

Make it a sweet ending. The meditation ending should be sweet. And my mama used to say to look at your meditation seat.

When you get up, look down at your meditation cushion and say, you know, Honey, I'll see you later. I hate to leave you. I'll be back as soon as I can.

And it should be like that. The relationship in your seat should be like the cushion. And when you get up, it's like I'll miss you.

And I'll be back soon. And we had a good time, didn't we? And it should be instead of jumping out and saying, I've got to go to work.

And just ignoring them. The last thing is called tun sam. Say tun sam.

Tun sam. Tun means meditation session. And tun sam means the time between meditation sessions.

And it's like I heard a theory about art. Great art or great dance or great music is that the silence is to find the music. And the empty space is to find the art.

And the times when the dancer stands still, they find the dance. And tun sam is that. Tun sam is the time between meditation.

What do you do between meditation? We went into this long thing about how you have to do a good warm up or else you'd have a lousy meditation. And the reason why Americans have lousy meditation is that they don't know about the warm up.

And then today we finished the ending time. And you know how to do the meditation. And you know the posture and everything else.

There's one thing more that you have to know that makes the meditation go sweet. And that's what you do between meditation. Like if you don't take care of things between meditation, the meditation is going to be lousy.

So there's certain maintenance that you have to do between the time that you leave your honey at 8.30 and the time you see her again at 7.30 or whatever you do in your evening meditation. What do you do between the end of the morning meditation and the beginning of the evening meditation? There's certain maintenance you have to do on your own mind.

There's certain maintenance activities that you have to do on your own mind. And these are also from the government. They're called Pachai Na.

Pachai Na. Pachai Na. These are ways of treating yourself kindly between meditations that help your meditation.

And if you're going to talk about a daily practice or daily meditation, you better talk about what to do between meditations during the Tsongkhapa. The first one is called Actually it means being too busy. Like having too many things to think about.

And this is a delicate thing. Hinayana tradition, Theravada tradition practiced in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma. The tradition is that a meditator should not be doing too many things.

The goal of being a monk in a Hinayana country is to stay in your chambers, don't have any money, don't have any other activities, don't own anything, don't be married to anybody. Everything should be simple, so you don't have much to think about. You need that to be a good meditator.

Mahayana countries, especially those where Vajrayana has lived, it's modified a bit that you have to be very careful about what you think about. It's OK to be busy if the meaning of it is important. In fact, a bodhisattva should be busy.

But your mind should not be busy. So now there's a distinction between being busy in your life and your activities and being able to concentrate. And being able to not be overly busy.

To know your own capacity and how busy can you be. And not to go beyond that capacity. So, you know, the great Dalai Lama said that, the Dalai Lama, I think he's very busy.

And he's very busy for a good reason. He has a lot of bodhisattva things to do. But he knows how to cope with it.

So the idea is not to avoid doing anything, but to manage it perfectly. And so guru means, during your day, between the time you finish your meditation and the time you get back to your honey, in between there, your level of your mind should be concentrated and not too busy. You can't go crazy at work and be frazzled and then expect to have a good meditation the next morning.

It won't work. It doesn't work. This is maintenance.

You may know all the preliminaries. You may have all the meditation instructions. Your posture may be perfect.

You may know how to end your meditation well. If you don't do this maintenance between, you know and I know. You'll just start thinking about what you have to do at work.

It's okay to have a busy job. It's probably good for a bodhisattva to know how to be busy. But you have to know very well how to limit your focus to what you can concentrate on your own.

You get in the habit of concentrating on your own. You get in the habit of calling out activities that you don't need to concentrate on. That's a challenge, especially in New York City.

That's gyopo. Gyopo means the second half of problem number one. Gyopo means You know, I saw Balaram Das when I was 15 or 15 years old.

One of the first teachers I had in a baseball stadium in and I remember because some guy was screaming at him and yelling at him and he was like... He didn't get busted. And he was meditating and he was into Be Here Now.

He kept saying Be Here Now. He had a nice book called Be Here Now. Nagarjuna's second half of the first point is Be Here Now.

Gyopo means to live in the past and to live in the future. And it's a meditation obstacle. What it means is every moment of your every moment between the time you end your meditation and the time you start again, you meet your honey again.

In between there you have to have the capacity to live in the present moment. You have to have the capacity to dwell in what's going on around you. It's a human tendency to want to think about how good things were in the past or to dream about what might happen with this person in the future or dream about getting out of work, getting home so you can have your life and to try to mentally avoid the present moment because it's not very fun.

And it will always be like that. When you get home it'll be the evening. When you get to the evening it'll be the next morning.

When you get to the morning it'll be the afternoon. You're never living in the present time. You have to talk with your present reality.

The second meditation obstacle is to live in the past, to live in this afternoon or to live in this evening and not live at 9.30 at your job on Monday morning and get into it and be there and learn. That's a meditation skill to learn to be there totally in your work even if it's loud work but you learn to be in it and not like off in some other time. It doesn't mean you can't plan for this evening.

Not at all. But when you plan you gotta be into that too. Your planning should be in the present moment.

You have to focus on your planning. And the planning takes place during lunch or something like that. You're not trying to avoid being present at this job because you don't like it and you gotta be thinking about what you're gonna do this evening.

Be present where you are. And that's the second part of the first one. The second one is called Nirmuk.

Nirmuk? Nirmuk means needy sleepiness, drowsiness. And that's it comes from not getting enough sleep normally.

And that's a during the Tsun Tsang you have to try to avoid it. We're talking in between the time you end your meditation and you start it the next morning or something you have to get enough sleep. If you want to be a successful meditator you want your practice to go well it's as important as food.

In the Abhidharma culture it's a kind of food. Sleep is a kind of food. Along with meditation meditation is another kind of food.

And then there's physical food. You have to get what you need. When your practice won't be good when your meditation won't be good.

One of the best ways to plan or to promote mental friction for later in the week is to stay out till like tonight. And you'll get a lot more mental friction during the week. They love people with not enough sleep.

Jealousy, anger, desire. It's like a fertile garden for them. You have to get enough sleep.

Muk is like dullness. The best way to get dullness is to eat too much. And Americans are very good at it.

I think we're the best eaters in the history of mankind of food that we don't eat. It makes you dull. It makes your mind dull.

You eat too much or you eat too often or you eat the wrong thing. you have to see what your body needs. Each person's body is different.

frankly, vegetables might not give some people enough energy. But maybe they can handle pizza. Or something like that.

What I'm saying is you have to study your own body. You have to study your own body. What makes you dull?

What makes you stupid? What makes you drowsy? You have to avoid those foods.

Eating properly is important for a meditator. It's not enough that you know how to meditate. It's not enough that your posture is good.

It's not enough that you're in a quiet wonderful, beautiful meditation room. And it's not enough that you know all the techniques, etc. You've got to have these other supporting factors.

One is eating properly. And taking care of your body. That comes in a universal way.

One reason for you to suffer by some kind of mental illness is from not taking good care of your body. If you have a body that needs it, then you should exercise. Yoga, or running, or whatever you do.

Whatever fits your body. It should be healthy. Your body should be strong, depending on the needs of your body.

Say, jibba la jibba. Jibba la jibba. Jibba la jibba.

Jibba la jibba means to be attracted to the objects of the senses. And this you could say is any kind of over-attraction to objects of the senses. One would be where you get so much into your yoga and your running that you can't stop looking in the mirror or something.

So there's a balance there, right? You have to keep your body healthy. And if you find yourself looking in the mirror, then you have a problem.

And that will damage your meditation. And you have to balance it. You have to balance it.

You have to be healthy. And you can't be hung up on your body. Because that would be a great mistake.

Music is another one. New York Times is another one. Novels are another one.

Television, you get the same. In small and wise amounts, all of these things are fine. Sex also.

Even if off a moderate amount, it's fine. It won't hurt your meditation. But if you get too obsessed with any of those things, if you start to live too much with any of those things, it'll destroy your meditation.

And you'll never know why. The song will keep running through your mind while you're meditating. You start thinking about those milkshakes you love.

Something like that. By the way, I'm distinguishing New York City meditation from retreat meditation. When you go into retreat, the program is different.

You can't have any music. You can't have any of those other things. You have to be very strict with yourself.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about daily practice of a person in New York City. Zillowabimba means attraction to all those things.

That would be another thing between meditations that you have to work on. Namaste. Namaste.

This way you have any kind of negative thoughts about someone. Any kind of negative thoughts about someone. You want to destroy your chances of having good meditation.

Every time you have a negative thought during the day, you are damaging your meditation the next morning. Anytime you feel irritated at someone, or you think about how you don't like someone, even walking down the street, seeing someone, bumping into somebody, hearing somebody talk a certain way, and if you feel irritated or unhappy, you're actually damaging your meditation for the next few days. And you'll never know why.

You see, if I just try to meditate, it won't help. It's almost like a mantra, I hear from Americans. They say, I've been trying to meditate for years, and it doesn't happen, it doesn't work.

These are the things to watch out for. Any kind of negative thought about another person will seriously damage your meditation. By the way, God has an explanation in the secret teaching.

When you get to the secret teaching someday, you'll see why. It actually changes something inside of you, and it makes it physically possible to meditate. Something happens inside of your spiritual body that will make it very difficult for meditation to ever happen.

So this is another one to watch out for. The last thing, and then we'll finish our meditation. The last thing to watch out for is called petzon.

Petzon means unresolved doubt, and not making up your mind. It's like this wishy-washy state of mind. I mean, you've got to decide what you're going to do and then do it.

You have to decide, okay, I want to meditate. I'm going to meditate. Like, don't pussyfoot around with meditation.

Make up your mind. You're going to meditate, or you're not going to meditate. Make up your mind one way or the other.

I saw a beautiful, I think I was in a barber shop, and they had a TV on, and there was a daytime talk show thing, and they were interviewing Charles Bronson. And he's like, I don't know, he must be 70 now or something. And he looks like 40, 35 or something.

He's like, yeah. And some obnoxious lady announces, she's like, well, Charles Bronson, what are you doing? Tell us about your diet.

Tell us about your what makes you look like you do at age 70, you know, with a big mouth and a face. He jams the microphone in his face. And he says, I do it.

And that's what makes him different. And that's all he wanted to say. He wouldn't say anything else.

It's not that what I do is different. It's I do it. Like, I made up my mind, and every day, no matter what, I just do it.

And you can see that that's what made him different. It's a decision. Tetsuo means the opposite of that.

Tetsuo is like, well, I don't know if I want to meditate today. I don't know if it's so important. I don't know about all this stuff.

Maybe it works, maybe it won't. I don't know, but I really don't have time to decide right now. It's like being too lazy to make up your mind.

You're not going to meditate till you forget it. So, quit fooling around. And go get a part-time job and fill up those extra hours or something.

Or subscribe to three more magazines. You know, and just give up. Or get some useful problems.

Do the crossword puzzle. But quit fooling around.

[Speaker 2]
Quit fooling around.

[Speaker 1]
I mean, make up your mind. That's a big that's a big obstacle where you don't make up your mind, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to be a kick-ass meditator.

You know, I'm going to be really, really good at it. I know I can do it. And you have to have some kind of, I don't know, precisiveness?

So those are the things to do between meditations. You see, meditation becomes a 24-hour thing. Your daily practice.

Even just your meditation becomes something that if you don't live a certain way between meditation sessions, it's due to failure. You have to so now you have to I'll bring time between the time you left your honey and you met her again. Or him.

You're like thinking, should I eat this? You know, will this affect my meditation or not, you know? Look, I'm not going to get angry at this lady, you know.

She irritates me, but I'm not going to do it because I don't want to screw up my meditation tomorrow. And like that. Yeah, I can go out and get four moxiby rams and a big bucket of ice cream.

But I'm just going to affect my meditation. What's this going to do to my meditation next week? And you calculate it.

And then you decide, you know. No, I'm not going to do those things because I want to be a good meditator. I want to find out.

I want to reach those many, many wonderful realms that you cannot get to if you can't meditate. And you'll never know they were there. You will die.

You know, not knowing what you missed. I think that's the worst possibility is to die believing that those things don't exist. Because you were too attached to some other thing.

You couldn't make up your mind that you're going to meditate on that. So that's how to end a session, and that's how to do maintenance between sessions. That's as important as knowing how to meditate.

Now we'll end that session properly. And no one will jump out physically at this point. So go back into meditation and watch your watch your breath.

And now focus on that being in front of you. Ask them if they would come into you and imagine that they're very pleased by you asking them. And they get smaller and smaller from the bottom and from the top until they're floating in the air in front of you.

And then they come slowly to the top of your head and then you're facing the same way as your mother. And then prepare that doll in your heart. Prepare that chamber in your heart.

And when they shrink and they come down straight, straight down in front of the backbone, straight through you until they reach the chamber and sit them down in some beautiful form. Bring them down slow and try to feel like a snake eating a big mouse or something. Feel them making their way down.

And then imagine that the chamber is filled with light and sweet smells and warmth and they're in the center and they're very, very happy with you. And then dedicate this time to someone who needs help. Dedicate it to them.

Send them a little bit of dedication to them.