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How to Go Forward Part 2

Lesson 28 from: Meditation for Everyday Life

David Nichtern

How to Go Forward Part 2

Lesson 28 from: Meditation for Everyday Life

David Nichtern

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Lesson Info

28. How to Go Forward Part 2

Lesson Info

How to Go Forward Part 2

We have a comment from velvet verbosity oh that deserves a sound effect do that again I experience an opening to the world when I meditate with regularity but this openness can produce reactions and others that I don't know howto work with people either kind of freak out or they interpret it as an invitation how do you work with that as an invitation to what as an invitation I think maybe to do what they're doing yeah I can see right in right away and say invitation to what always rabbit might be a man we'll just see but you make that sound again way to complete I have a band complete thing going on there so um wow uh yeah it seems to come up for a number of you have said this you know how I'm actions going to influence our impact on others and maybe a hair too much concern about that of course if you want to be concerned about others um but there's a there's two things when people say that one is yeah there's consented for others but the other is not enough confidence in others to mak...

e their own call on the situation and to make their own choices about what they do next so I think you're denying yourself the freedom but you're also denying them their freedom at the same time so if you're going to harm somebody else then you should be foot thoughtful about that for sure for sure but if you're just going to kind of, um invite them into greater wakefulness I think you should be willing to take that lunch but particularly well and another thing that uh trumper they said as well as how people are attracted to sanity you know? So by one's own actions yeah, but people also drawn towards kind of ah authentic expressions you know? And somehow when we liberate ourselves this I think we've seen this culturally a lot in the last thirty years in this country people being willing to be themselves mawr in open way on other people just strangely enough there's a few wackos who just go will you can't do that most people go like, you know, it's loosening the notch on the belt for everybody so definitely I wanted to cover a few things and then we'll probably just take the rest of the time to continue um this kind of dialogue but just so we don't run out of time um going forward packing the lunchbox you know what to what can we take away from this for the folks here and for the folks online our program was an introductory program it was meant to introduce the idea of meditation I took it at the most basic level why meditate how to meditate what's it good for what are the different ways to practice? Um contemplative meditation loving kindness meditation um mindfulness meditation and also just take a moment for all of us is just you know, people who are busy people to just fall back for one minute take a good look at our lives and see if we wanted to do a course correction and that that I think is a valuable thing contemplating happiness, success things like that um so if you're moved to take any part of this forward um I consider that a positive outcome you know, some people might just say, you know, I just something like this could start somebody just starting to read more look into it more and I would I suggest a couple of books maybe I can just mention them now can I do that? Is that okay for people to start on? Um I think, uh there's three authors that really represent my tradition really strongly. Um the first one is the kind of creator of it really or the sort of original um presenter of the teachings was choking m trumper temperature which is rim pitches a title and his name is tibetan so it might be a little bit hard for us to pronounce but there's a book called shambala the sacred path of the warrior which I recommend hardly to everybody um and then um one of his sort of principle students was pama children who a lot of people but when I traveled she's really reached a lot of people she's a wonderful she's american buddhist nun she was a married person with with children and she just got into the more strict practice and very, very accessible to a lot of people I think so I recommend her highly pama children and lots of books there and even audiotapes and serious and things like that. So the one book I sort of recommend is called the wisdom of no escape, which is like, you know, how do you how do you close the barn door on all this and keep yourself in there? Um in the logic of that and then, um my teacher now which is trunk remit his son psycho on me palm remedy, which is m I p h a m I can meet parliament has quite a few books out that are carrying these teachings forward. Um and, uh, as a divergence, I'll say two books one is called turning the mind into an ally which is a very good meditation primary turning the mind into an ally think of your mind is either an enemy or as a friend um and how the path of meditation can work with that and the other one that I think even though there are quite a few I'd recommend um and you can look up any of them if you like the other one I would recommend is running with the mind of meditation so I think you know, I know a lot of people who run in america I don't know what they're running from or to but maybe they're just running for the sake of it the health benefit of it I think it's good to learn how to run in case somebody is chasing you that's it like and if you if you couldn't run far enough or fast enough that would be a really good skill to have or if somebody has stolen your wallet you have to run after them that could be good skill but a lot of people run for exercise um does anybody hear a runner okay, so um anybody out there a runner maybe you could write in if you do running running with the mind of meditation because it mixes this very popular kind of exercise form with the arts that we've been talking about um and then um another book I wanted to uh recommend is um by my dear friend michael carroll awake at work because this is setting the meditation practice into the workplace so that's a wonderful book too and then if you just look online um there are quite a few uh books that you can read about and just get organized to know more about this that's a good first step I myself like to be a kind of lemonade salesmen in the middle of the oasis you know, just uh as people are buzzing by you know like they say I'm thinking of reading this book by this teacher taking this workshop you can write to me and if you want to just stay in touch with me in general facebook dot com slash david nick turn hit the like button we're on it's it's a social networking and it works so you can drop me a message on that I'm trying to uh keep a lot of this kind of virtual communication going in that way so facebook dot com slash david nick turn let's let's stay in touch that way um and then every tuesday night with the exception of the next several weeks I've been doing a live online talk their discussion just a lot like this in a way I'm on a particular topic and there's a whole bunch of them archive there so you can if you go to ustream dot com you khun and look up david nick turn you khun look at some of those talks so in general there's also amazing stuff on youtube of great you know, teachers from all different traditions I would say find something that resonates with you because then you're gonna go for it and you know I I can usually know with somebody what it's going to be um and so I don't always recommend my own school uh interestingly enough because some people you can just tell they're gonna love us then you know and some people are more devotional so they might like a different kind of practice on some people like shamanistic practices and things like that so I consider myself a little bit of ah what would you call it a nudge uh niente thank you if those who you don't know what yet it means it's sort of like a grandmother who loves you but it's a little bit annoying so uh, you know there's a lot of wonderful traditions out their wisdom traditions and you khun on there being framed and all kinds of ways thes days you know, so you can just kind of look around for something that suits you but if what we've been talking about the flavor of what we've been talking about sort of entices you at all I got it I am one hundred percent shambala kid, you know, so shambala dot or ge s h a m b h l a dot or ge and there's it's a pretty well organized school and it's really? I'm all over the place. So you confined centers definitely big center here in san francisco. Um uh l a you know, even a lot of smaller places in between. So if you like this flavor of teachings on dh there's other people there and then you can find the kind of environment which you goto practice session on a sunday morning or wednesday evening open class or taken ongoing class and develop your relationship with it uh so I also just wanted to mention that I said this several times and I guess I'm kind of pitching my retreat I'll do it shamelessly at crip pollo k r I p a l u dot or ge I will be there november tenth the fifteenth and I'll be looking to meet you in the flesh in the person they got good food there they've got a nice hot tub if they've got diabetic treatments massages you know all the all the kind of fun stuff to mingle in with the kind of hard work that we're going to do together you can have a soft landing right after that um so please look into that if you want to join and come meet up in person um and um I think that's kind of did I forget anything? No my phone number I don't get out but if if you want to write to me at facebook that's how it could get the message for now because I don't know you know how many people like you be interesting you know that there could be four people are forty people so facebook is a safe way to get in touch and I would remind all of our audiences are we do actually have a thank you card for david on our facebook page at facebook dot com slash creative life you could go there poster there's a great picture of him behind the scenes with all the team and you could say thank you to him for this course I wanted to clarify that's okay is this a good teo so uh velvet verbosity remember okay so I said what which is we which is which is is she bunny so actually what she meant by invitation was that they see the openness as an invitation to possibly a romantic attachment and as a woman feeling like you know that she can feel like this is kind of aggressive yeah so that's what she meant how does that invitation come about? Because she's more open yes well yes exactly the invitation is because of regularity with her openness causing this reaction and others yes I see so the openness translates to others a za mistaken invitation to be romantically intimate yes she's really just kind of open heartedness yes they either freak out all they missing miss conceive it as an invitation to something more and in my mind I see the world spinning around day after day, year after year thousands of years men and women chasing each other women and women chasing each other men and men chasing you and makes the world spin so stop the world if you want to stop it but this is part of who we are you know this kind of attraction and communication and sometimes spiritually communion can get mistaken for a romantic but what's beautiful is language clarifies those things you just simply say no uh you clarify the situation the person and if they still can't get that straight it's really not your problem that point so um you know, I think these air energies that we all work with its energy of attraction and it's interesting that she's bringing that up uh throwing honest in a way but it comes again to that point of like if we manifest on lee up to a certain point can we take into account all the variations and how people are going to react to us you know there's some risk involved in being alive but she has all the protection she needs I think that this is what we call the protection principle and she has her own boundaries that she can create and move around as she sees fit so I would encourage her to um think about skilfully communicating with others if there's anything she's doing that creates, you know, consistently the wrong impression of people maybe there's something to look at there? Um but the other hand, if other people are getting the wrong idea, we all know howto we don't we all know how to deal with that don't you just say no or you could say no thanks I just not not even close, you know, like not even close and then she can laugh too well, you know she could that'll always scare everybody away for sure think you're crazy or something, you know? Yeah it's interesting the way that people interpreting the other people's reactions and we've had quite a few comments and questions about that over the last few days one that came in just before lunch with star eyes one who's saying wondering how I could disengage in the feelings of needing to please others making their happiness and comfort maurin porton down my own mounds and interesting threaten my fritz we've seen quite a few comments that's been a thread for all of us hasn't really, um that's been somehow that's a that's interesting thread for, um a challenge really for even for developing an intimate relationship of course you want to please your your partner, but then in certain point the balance is very important, so I myself I'm like I've said this off and I'm a student, not a teacher in this area. So good luck, everybody relationship says my friend said are black elt territory and I myself have seen some of the workshops given on them and I go like, uh I don't think so because it's rough waters it's kind of raw you're right out of the edge of your hole stick you know when you're having a relationship your partner is gonna hold you to a whole nother level um that's kind of a private workshop of its home very deep kind of workshop couples so and I think socially there's an interesting envelope there to discuss I think I am curious about going there sometime I'd like a group of people talk about this kind of thing but if anybody talks too much down into that it's not right because we're all human beings and we're all trying to explore this this area like I know you know when everybody like they think they figured this particular thing out I'm a little suspect yeah yeah yeah and I myself you wouldn't even dare to try so um but I think it's a assed yuman beings we can look at these things and maybe explore what's brought suffering and what's brought relief in the bigger picture of it what's brought happiness and what hasn't on the attachment of things that have repeatedly brought unhappiness I think it's some people can look at and there are some teachings about this kind of uh type of communion within the but they're considered a little more advanced for obvious obvious reasons I would like to do one final meditation and in a minute and the only thing they want to say is how do we go forward if you want to just go forward right from here other than reading and studying I'm going to recommend to the you know, because I think everybody's uh, got some project oriented mentality to make this into a project that you could do and the way I'm going to say to do that is if you want to continue right away now, right after this, just schedule yourself for a month, uh, to practice four to five times a week off the mindfulness meditation practice that we're doing and, um for fifteen to twenty minutes a day, four to five times a week and actually keep a calendar of yourself so you see, if you're doing that and that's a way to try and know, you know, how is it going to feel? And you might feel like this is very organic this's, very solid, very workable for me, it may not be a cz completely challenging enough and upheaval level is you might think it might be a little bit more like kind of a gradual cultivation, so if you do want to do that, you could sort of have the intention now to do a little reading a little more studying on your own uh, review what we talked about here and then for a month, four to five times a week for fifteen to twenty minutes go ahead and do your practice mindfulness practice if you like and you want to do the the loving kindness practice one or two of those sessions introduced part of that and do some sitting too that's good too if you if that practice speaks to you so I'd like you to feel without any further ado that you've been introduced to the mindfulness meditation practice the shaman to practice and loving kindness the mighty practice and you have the handouts on those if you if you enrolled you have the download you can use those to review um and just to go ahead and schedule, book yourself into the gym the dough joe the mind joe joe okay and don't even think twice about it just do it so if if if if if you want to think of that as a way of going forward I've already told you a lot of links in terms of exploring uh, you know, going to the meditation centers, hooking up with mei I'm sort of consistently trying to support peoples practice as part of my sort of life's work and that should get you going so I think short of that umm maybe we have time for a short sit did you have something that you wanted to say? I had one question too that I I have kind of held my comments because still in a fog and the happiness meditation I feel incomplete but I'm not sure what to say about it yet so um and that is in terms of the contemplated ve meditation all of those have been guided how would we do those on our own yeah I think we could look at the my tree meditation as a contemplative practice that we could do for now contemplating loving kindness and I'll just say that cancer remember today the great teacher that I was my teacher's teacher who is such a great master um I was in his room and he called trunk rummages prime student to his to his house and said I'm going to give you the most ultimate teaching that I have because your lineage holder and he sort of pulled him up and sort of gave him the beer whispered pith instruction and what he said was be kind to everyone so um my tree loving kindness meditation is kind of a pith instruction how to practice that it will seep out if you want to do some other you know analytic meditation you can it's not really that big a drama you just can cultivate that kind of practice but I think for us to get grounded in the sitting practice right now and loving kindness practice would be my emphasis so having said that we have just a few minutes left uh let's do a short sitting meditations you're so weaken let all of this dissolve back into a kind of open space and don't worry about holding on to any of it and if it comes up, we could just labeled thinking and relax our mind into a kind of present awareness. So at this point, I think we know how to do that. I'm just going to ring the bell for the start and no.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Cultivating Mindfulness E-Book
Cultivating Compasion For Yourself and Others
Simple Meditation Instructions for Ordinary People

Ratings and Reviews

Sean Newton
 

I've tried to develop a meditation practice in the past and signed up for this course because of the title ..'everyday life' This course works!! I'd like to thank David and the Creative Live crew for providing a life enhancing course. At first I was a little impatient as I thought the sessions were long, drawn out and repetitive however, half way through it 'clicks' (it made sense) and what may seem as a long-winded preamble is in fact laying a firm foundation for understanding and progression. Hastily wanting to skip to some perceived 'good bit that helps hedge fund mangers etc ' is like sprinting to the end of the rainbow instead of appreciating the various colours. (Your own perceptual colours even ;-)) Anyway, a worthwhile course - so stay the course and feel better for fit

a Creativelive Student
 

David is an amazing teacher, he has a gift for relating the principles of mindfulness in an accessible, relatable way. Plus, he's really funny. I'm super psyched to participate in this workshop. Thanks CreativeLIVE!

Griffin
 

Also found this through the DTFH podcast. What a wonderful, powerful, and approachable course in meditation. Highly recommended to anyone interested in starting on this path. It's chock full of practical information and ways to apply meditation to your life.

Student Work

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