Шесть путей духовного воина (1999, Голуэй), занятие 2

[Говорящий 1]
Then, the second thing is to find a place in your house which you dedicate to meditation, okay? So, like in New York City, our rooms are very small. We live in tiny little rooms that we pay $800 a month for, and you just put a curtain up or something, or a sheet, and then you meditate.

Woo! You meditate on the other side of the sheet or something. But it should be a part of your room which is dedicated only for meditation, okay?

Very important to have like a sacred space. This space is not used for other things. Some people try to meditate on their bed.

That's very dangerous. Why? Your bed is covered with the vibrations of sleeping.

Meditation also requires closing your eyes, and the vibrations will make you sleepy, okay? It's not a good idea to sleep in bed with the cover still on your lap and try to meditate, okay? So, find a different part of your room.

Traditionally, we have it on the ground, but if the weather is cold, you can sit on a chair, or if you have problems with your knees, you can sit on a chair. The whole point of meditation posture is to get into a position which you can ignore for the next half hour or 45 minutes. You see what I mean?

So, if you get into a position that hurts, it's the worst thing you can do. You shouldn't be stubborn and say, I have to look like Gautama Buddha, you know? I should have my knees twisted up just right.

It doesn't matter what you look like. The idea is that going into meditation is like to be very comfortable, so you're not distracted by the pain. You're going to be concentrating on something in your mind, and you don't want to be distracted by some pain in your knees or something like that.

In other words, it doesn't matter that you look like a nice meditator. It matters that your body is totally comfortable wherever you are. So, if you need to sit in a chair, that's fine.

There's nothing wrong with that. Really, really deep meditation is very, very similar to reading a good novel. Like, you're on a couch and you're in a comfortable position.

Like, you wouldn't try to read a good novel all twisted up, you know what I mean? You'll get into a nice chair. You'll get into a nice position.

And then, it's that same kind of, I don't know how to say it, but there's the same kind of pleasant feeling to be in the meditation that you have in a good novel, or in your favorite song, or in a very good movie, something like that. Those people play musical instruments. Once you get really good and you're really into it, you might find yourself slobbering, you know?

Because you don't even remember to close your mouth, you see what I mean? I used to play some music and then I would find this big globs of slobber on the thing and I didn't know how I got there. And that's just because you're so intensely deep into that thing, you don't even notice how your mouth is open or closed, you know what I mean?

And that's the same idea of meditation. It should be like how you feel when you're deep into your favorite book, or deep into your favorite song. That is a state of meditation.

That is what we call single-pointedness. Single-pointed, you know, concentration. I used to think it meant that you had a cone head, like that your head was pointy or something, and then I read in the books, single-pointed means single object.

So, it just means your mind is totally focused on one particular object. So, normally you get up in the morning. We say that you should go clean your mouth.

It's good to meditate with a fresh-tasting mouth. Swish it out, wash your face, splash some water on your face, wake up. And then you go to your space, your sacred space, and you clean it.

Now, even if it's not dirty, you go through the whole exercise again. You dust everything. Not very long, okay?

Because you're busy, you have to go to work. So, five minutes or something. You're cleaning the space, making it especially nice.

The space should be simple. There shouldn't be junk on the floor or extraneous things. It should be a simple space.

And then everything is nice. Clean it up nicely. Even if nothing's dirty, just clean it again.

This is a very, very ancient way of getting your mind ready for meditation. Clean it again. And then set everything out.

We say you should fix up a little altar. And on the altar, you can put... It could be a small table like that.

Just so you're going to sit in front of it. And you can put who recognizes holy. It could be Jesus, could be Gandhi, could be Moses.

It doesn't matter. It could be Buddha, Dalai Lama. It doesn't matter.

But some kind of representation, a statue or a picture of someone that you would like to be. Some warrior, saint that you're trying to be. Someone that you admire.

Put that on the altar. And then we say put out some small offerings, like a piece of fruit or some flower. We put out little bowls of water like that.

Something like that. Something beautiful each morning. When you go into the room of a person who's meditating well, the whole corner feels nice.

Everything feels good in that corner. There's something bright flowered there. And it's kind of sparkling.

And the meditation seat looks still warm. And it just feels something different. So once you've got the space ready.

And by the way, we'll give you a description of how to get the space ready. Then you get a good cushion. You should have a cushion that takes your bottom a little bit off the floor.

It could be about that high. The back should be a little bit higher than the front. So right under your spine should be a little bit higher.

And you have to experiment with different seats. You have to find out the one that makes you comfortable. So try different kinds of seats.

Try different kinds of pillows. What some people don't remember is to put something under your knees also. And something under your calves and your thighs.

Some people get cold. Or that knob on your ankle is against the floor. And then your feet fall asleep.

Or your legs fall asleep. By the way, if you find your legs falling asleep in meditation, just let them go. It hurts for about two minutes.

And then you can't feel it anymore. Don't move. Just let it go.

So it's going to fall asleep. Don't stand up quickly. I have a friend, Professor Thurman in New York.

He came one day with a broken ankle. I said, what happened? He says, I was meditating in the phone ring.

And I forgot that my foot was asleep. You have to be careful about that. Make sure your feet are awake before you get back up.

Then you sit down and I'll do it now. We'll do just a few minutes. And then each time we'll do a little bit more.

Today we'll just practice the posture. The posture is like this. With your legs, if you do what we call a half lotus.

You take your right foot and you place it up on your left thigh here. Like this. So if you choose to cross your legs, your right foot should go up on your left thigh.

And then leave your left leg on the ground. You see what I mean? Left leg is like that.

And then right leg is up like that. But this one doesn't have to be here. You see what I mean?

It's just like that. If you want to do a full lotus, you put the left leg in first like that on your thigh. And then your right leg.

And it hurts like crazy. And don't do it unless you're doing a lot of yoga or something like that. Unless you can do it comfortably, don't bother.

It should be comfortable. You don't want to be distracted by the pain in your knee and forget what you're meditating about. You see, that defeats the purpose.

There's no reason to do that. The idea is to get so comfortable that you can stay there for a long time. Then you get your back very straight.

You might find that bending slightly forward at the waist is good. Sometimes you tend to slouch back like that. And then after a while you're like this.

It's very bad to bend your back. Your backbone should be very straight. And you have to experiment with that.

There's sort of a balance. You can find balancing coins. And they say that you'll get to a point where you feel it.

The vertebrae are stacked on each other very nicely. And you can feel it. It's very important to have a straight back.

We say there's a special channel running down the middle of your body towards the backbone. And if it's not straight, it disturbs your meditation. So it should be straight.

Then you should put your left hand on your lap, palm up. And then you take your right hand and put it on top of the left hand. And then you touch your thumbs together.

Traditionally they put the thumbs up like that. I find it very distracting sometimes. Sometimes I just open them up a little bit and let it come down like that.

You shouldn't be meditating on your thumbs. You shouldn't be worrying, oh, are my thumbs right or not? The idea is to be able to leave your body parked in a certain position and then go with your mind where you want to go.

So the idea is that the body should be totally relaxed, totally comfortable. And the reason to sit up straight and to be like that is that you can leave the body behind and go deep into the mind. So you're not worried about the body.

If it's more comfortable to sit on a chair, then sit on a chair. The idea is to leave the body behind. So left hand first, then right hand on that.

It sometimes helps to put your elbows out a little bit like that. I personally find I get overheated. It's very important to stay cool in meditation.

If you get a little warm, you get drowsy. It's very important not to eat too much before meditation. That'll also get you drowsy.

So I even sometimes take off my outer shirt just like that because it keeps me a little cool. And then you can think faster, you can think better. Then you put your head straight like a soldier.

Your head shouldn't be like that. And your head shouldn't be like that. It should be straight ahead like a soldier.

It's very important to keep your mouth relaxed. You'll be breathing through your nose and not through your mouth. If you breathe through your mouth, you get thirsty, and you start swallowing, and it sounds like ...

You know? It's very distracting. Breathe through your nose.

Keep your mouth very loose. Like this part here. People who are not meditating well are going like this.

You know what I mean? And it disturbs your meditation. This whole mouth area should be loose.

The corners of your mouth should be loose. Your forehead should be loose. Your shoulders should be loose.

And some people end up meditating like this. It should be shoulder level. Sometimes people go like this.

Your nose should be totally clear. And the Tibetans in the morning, before they meditate ... We have 3,000 monks in our monastery.

Before they meditate in the morning, everybody goes to the sink, put some water in it, turn on the water, and blow as hard as you can out your nose. And clean out every little thing in your nose. So, it's really funny in the monastery.

You hear this ... It's like 4.30 in the morning. There's like a thousand people blowing their nose.

And the idea is that the nose should be very clear. If you can breathe easily, then you can meditate better. And don't be shy about it.

It works better than tissue paper. You get more out. It's kind of disgusting.

And it works great. Then you go and sit down. Put your left hand down first, right hand down.

Get your head straight. We'll try a little bit now. There's an ancient book called Abhidharmakosha, written 16 centuries ago.

And he advises that as you begin the meditation, you should watch your breath. And it says focus your eyes loosely right about here, about the plane of your nose. You see what I mean?

So, there's two choices with your eyes. You can either close your eyes, which is a little dangerous if you get sleepy, but it's good if you tend to get distracted by things. Or you can hold your head straight, but look downwards.

And then close your eyelids like halfway down. And that's a pretty good position for staying in meditation for a long time, unless there are movements or different things going on. Take all books and reading material out of your line of vision, because if you see something, your mind will go to it.

You see like magazine or things like that. So, your head is straight, but your eyes are shifted down like that. And your eyelids are halfway down, if you choose to do it that way.

Or you can close them completely. Some ancient books said focus your eyes here, loosely, meaning don't focus on the floor. And then some people mistranslated those and said focus on the tip of your nose.

So, you see people in India reading these bad translations and going around with crossed eyes. Okay, it's not like that. It just means focus them loosely here, meaning you're not focusing on anything at all.

When you are listening to a really good song, what happens to your eyes? You're like this. You see?

And you've withdrawn from your eyes. Your mind has withdrawn from your eyes. Your eyes are like this and you're not focusing on anything at all.

You see what I mean? Or when you're concentrating on a really big problem, you're like that and you're not looking at anything. It's the same principle.

You just cast your eyes down and leave them. Withdraw from the eyes, withdraw from the senses. Ideally in meditation you withdraw from all the senses.

If somebody came in the room and snapped a finger, you wouldn't hear it. If somebody put pommes frites next to you, you wouldn't smell it. You see what I mean?

That's the idea. Okay, here we go. Breathe through your nose and watch the breath.

Watching the breath means be aware of the sensation of the breath traveling up the nose and right here. You put your mind right here at these two gates. It's like the gates of Hercules.

You're sitting there and you're watching. You pretend that you're sitting there and you watch the air going out and then you watch the air coming in. Watching means feeling the touch of the air on your nose.

So it's actually not watching, it's really feeling. Feeling the air in your nose. That's what watching your breath means.

Right here. And take deep breaths, but don't try to overdo it. Nothing unnatural and don't try to hold your breath.

Let it go naturally. We'll do about a couple of rounds of ten breaths like that together right now. Take about three or four minutes.

Try to be real quiet and just feel the breath coming and going. This is not a meditation. This is a preparation for meditation.

Later some people made a mistake and made a whole meditation out of it and they spend their whole life watching their breath and it doesn't help you at all. This is just to calm your mind down. If your mind gets distracted by a noise like the air conditioner, just bring it back to your nose.

[Говорящий 2]
Then relax.

[Говорящий 1]
We'll do more each time. That's enough for today about how to do that meditation. We'll build on it.

We'll do some more tomorrow morning and then tomorrow afternoon. By the time we finish you'll be able to do it in your own home and do it well.