Practicing a different way of experiencing life

Ken: First thing I want to say about meditation is that there are many different kinds, and I’m going to talk this evening and lead you through a process in the approach to meditation practice that I personally have found most fruitful. So this is a very prejudiced talk right from the beginning. And I’ve been exposed to a lot of different meditation practices in my training and probably have received training in about 150 to 200, somewhere around there. I’ve never counted. And one of the things that screwed me up for a very, very long time was the idea of trying to get somewhere. How many of you practice with the idea of trying to get somewhere? Well, there’s two or three honest people in the room. We all do. We all come with that.

What I found is that what we’re doing in meditation is practicing, and I want really want to emphasize that word. It’s practicing a different way of experiencing life. Let me say that again. We’re practicing a different way of experiencing life. Now, the reason I want to emphasize the word practice is because when we’re practicing something, we’re allowed to fail. We don’t have to do it perfectly because we’re practicing.

How many of you play a musical instrument? Okay, how many of you have practiced scales? Okay. And when you’re practicing scales, how upset do you get when you make a mistake? Anybody? It’s not the end of the world, is it? Okay. Because you’re practicing. Now, you make a mistake and do it again, and you’d learn by it. And this is what we’re doing in meditation. It isn’t about being perfect at all. It’s about practicing.

Now, the second piece I want to focus on is a different way of experiencing life. Now, how many of you, when you practice meditation, are bothered by thoughts? Ah, a lot more honest people in the room. Now, I like that. Okay.

Thoughts are like leaves in the wind

Ken: There’s an 11th century teacher in Tibet whose name was very famous. His name is Gampopa. And he once said, I have this student who meditates in the mountains, and he keeps practicing trying to have no thoughts. If he’d stopped trying to get rid of thoughts, he would’ve been enlightened years ago. But he keeps trying to get rid of all the thoughts.

And another teacher, this is a contemporary teacher, a person on the east coast, Gunaratana, says that, uh, thoughts are to, the thoughts are to the mind, what sweat is to the body. You know, we have thoughts. Thoughts are not the problem. That’s one of the things I want to get across to you. Thoughts aren’t the problem. What the problem is, is thinking.

Thoughts are like leaves in the wind. [Whistling sound] Thinking is like chasing the leaves. So there’s a difference. There’s no problem with leaves in the wind. It doesn’t interfere with you walking at all. But if you chase them, then you have a big problem because they’re going all over the place and you get very confused and disoriented, which is exactly what happens when we fall into thinking when we’re meditating. So thoughts are not the problem, thinking maybe. So how do we step out? And that’s the first difference in this different way of relating to the world, a different way of experiencing the world. How many of you spend a good bit of your time thinking?

You know, well, how many of you are prone to a little anxiety? Okay. You spend all your time thinking. [Laughter] Because that’s what anxiety is: thinking about this, and thinking about that. So, is there a way of experiencing the world without thinking, not getting rid of thoughts necessarily, but just without thinking? That’s what I want to explore with you this evening. Okay?

Body like a mountain

Ken: So I’m calling this talk this evening, Mountain, Sea, Sky. And we’re going to go through three things here. And the first is about mountain. And the line that we’re going to work with is body like a mountain. That’s not very difficult

Body like a mountain. Now, when you hear that, what’s the first thing that comes into your mind? Anybody.

Student: Stillness.

Ken: Stillness. Okay. Anybody else?

Student: Stillness.

Ken: Stillness. Okay. You said that so beautifully. Okay. Over here. Behind you.

Student: Solid.

Ken: Solid. Okay, anybody else back here?

Student: Large.

Ken: Large. Okay, one more.

Student: Foundation.

Ken: Foundation. Okay, so we have still, solid, large and foundation. I’d like to introduce one more thing. Well, let’s look at each of these actually. Okay. Does a mountain hold itself still?

Student: No.

Ken: No. It is still, but it doesn’t hold itself still. So when we talk about body like a mountain, we aren’t talking about making or holding ourselves still. We’re talking about being still. And we’ll talk a bit more about that, that’s a very important point.

I think the second one was solid, wasn’t it? Okay. Now, when we think of solid, all kinds of things we can think of hard, we can think of dense, we think of unmovable, etc. And again, is a mountain trying to be any of those things? No, this is very important. The mountain isn’t trying to be any of those things.

Foundation is rooted in the earth. It’s spreads out at the bottom. You’ve never seen mountains perched on a small point, and they have a big base, right? [Laughter] Well, there are a few things we can take from that. If we’re going to be “body like a mountain,” then just feel the foundation on which you’re sitting. Some of you’re sitting on cushions right now. Some of you’re like me, are sitting on chairs, feel the earth supporting you. And there’s a big difference between sitting on the earth and feeling the earth support you. Just try those two. Feel like you’re sitting on something, [pause] and then feel like you’re being supported. Is there a difference there? How would you describe that? Anybody.

Student: For me it felt like the sitting … one felt heavy and then being held felt light.

Ken: Right, you don’t have to worry about your own weight, do you?

Student: Right.

Ken: It’s there. So that’s very important. And I think the last point that was raised was “large.” Well, this actually takes us into something which is not exactly like large. I’m gonna say depth. Now, how deeply can you experience your body?

There’s that quality, there’s a certain … what’s the word I want? I’m forgetting all my words tonight. A bigness and awareness, which allows us to sense and appreciate the depth in our body. And I know that’s a bit poetic, but is it communicating anything to you? Okay. Now there’s one more thing I want to introduce here about mountains. How much effort does a mountain exert ? Anybody?

Student: None.

Ken: None. How much effort do you exert when you practice. [Laughs] If you’re anything like me, it was like, push, push, push, hold mind, no thoughts, nothing. And once one of my teachers was talking about a certain kind of practice in the Tibetan tradition, a relatively complex visualization practice. And he sat like this. He says, “So you visualize this, and you visualize this, and you do this, and you do this, and you’re holding it all together,” and he’s squinting his eyes and clenching his forehead, things like that. “And you’re really working at this hard. And then you get a headache.” So no effort.

So what I want to do now is we’re just going to meditate for a short time together. But I want you to meditate this way. I want you to practice experiencing your life this way. And you know what the first aspect of our life is? It’s our body and everything that we sense in our body and everything we sense in our body includes everything that we see, everything that we hear, all that’s going on, the sensations of touch, smell, and taste as well. That’s all to do with our body, ’cause all of that comes through our body.

So, find a way to sit where you can sit without exerting effort. And you’re going to find to do that, it will help to have the back straight and to have the head positioned on top of the spine, the chin brought in slightly, the hands situated in such a way that your elbows are right under your shoulders. And just feel like the body is a mountain. It’s not trying to be still, it just is. It’s not trying to be solid. It just is. And this comes about because you’re sitting and not making any effort whatsoever, just sitting and help a little bit. You’re sitting in the experience of breathing. And I’m going to talk more about the breath in a few moments. So meditate for a few minutes this way, and then take up something about your experience. [Sound of bell]

Body like a mountain.

Feel your body. There may be all kinds of sensations in your body. May be some pains, may be some tensions, maybe feelings of warmth and relaxation. Whatever you experience, be aware of your whole body and include whatever sensations, comfortable or uncomfortable in that awareness of the whole body. So your body just sits perfectly at ease like a mountain. [Silence]

Your body naturally moves with the breath. So don’t try to hold the body still, let the body move with the breath however it wants. And you may find that it becomes still on its own. [Silence]

I also talked about depth in the body. So feel your body as deeply as you can. You opening to your body, and your body opening to you. [Silence]

And if you get distracted, involved in a bunch of thoughts, remember, this is practice. When you become aware of that, relax and just come back to the sensation of your body and rest there. So rather than trying to hold yourself still, just return and be still. You may only be still for a few moments and that’s fine. This is practice. And whenever you recognize you’ve become agitated or distracted, relax and return. [Silence]

Don’t try to make things one way or another. A mountain doesn’t care whether the sky is cloudy or clear, whether there’s wind or not. Just whatever’s there, experience it. It’s a different way of experiencing life, not wanting it to be this way or that, just experiencing it however it is. [Silence]

Body like a mountain. [Silence] [Three bells]

Okay, what was this like for you? Anybody. Some people we haven’t heard from yet. Yes.

Student: I just really thought the vision of … it sort of like swept … I was thinking of stuff pouring off like rain.

Ken: Yes.

Student: The idea of like, “Oh, anything can happen.” And [unclear] it was an Interesting take on it. I liked it.

Ken: Anything can happen and I don’t have to do anything about it. Right? So, go a little bit deeper into your experience.

Student: Well, there was a lot of falling asleep that happened, unfortunately. [Laughs]

Ken: That’s very understandable because we, we come out of our days and the body rests and the body says, “Oh, good,” [makes snoring sound, laughs], but it happens all the time.

Student: But I definitely managed to be less frustrated with that.

Ken: That’s good.

Student: Woken up and, “Oh, no, no, just right, just here.” Yeah. It, it felt like a helpful image for me.

Ken: Okay. Very good. Somebody else. Nobody got anything out … oh, behind you there. That’s what I love. Nobody gets anything out of these. [Laughs]

Student: I kind of went to like a, a visionary stance on it where I almost like put myself on a mountain.

Ken: Yes.

Student: And, you know, rather than focusing on like my own sitting up position, I tried to feel the earth underneath me.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Student: Really heavy and like, be that mountain and not move as if I was that stationary mountain. And it was really helpful to me. And it was just, it was calming to feel support of the earth under me and becoming part of that stillness. I felt like, sometimes I feel the air, I smell something and it gets me off path and I just, you know, I just got brought back to me being the tip of the mountain.

Ken: Very good. Thank you. One more. Guy.

Guy: I had an experience of a lot of energy coming from below.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Guy: And it was kind of surprising.

Ken: Now what’s important to note here, there isn’t one right experience. There isn’t one way to do this. This is practicing a different way of experiencing life. So each of you are going to have your own experience because each of you have a different experience of life. And don’t think any two people, any two of us here, have the same experience of life. And so your meditation experience is also going to be different. But these instructions can still help us because they point us in a way of, “Oh, I can, I can approach my experience this way.” And then it’s different.

Breath like the sea

Ken: Now I want to introduce the second. Now, traditionally this was breath like the wind. But as I was practicing over the last few days thinking about coming here this evening, it seemed to me that breath like the sea actually works better. Now, we live close to the ocean here in Los Angeles and except in really exceptional circumstances, you go down to the beach and what’s, what’s one thing that’s always there?

Student: Sand.

Ken: Sand. But we’re talking about water here.

Student: The waves.

Ken: Yeah, they’re waves, right? And it struck me that the breath comes in waves, goes up and down, up and down. Now how big is the ocean? How big is your breath? Okay. What if you relate to your breath as being like the sea? Now again, you can feel the depth there. Now sometimes, do any of you notice how your breath changes while you practice?

Sometimes it’s short and shallow. Sometimes it’s long and shallow. Sometimes it’s long and deep. Sometimes it’s short and deep. Sometimes it’s very ragged. You know, usually lots of people here feeling anxiety, that makes a ragged breath. I always find that my breath is much more ragged when I am thinking; it’s quite a close relationship there. And this is like the sea ’cause they’re big slow waves. And then there are little waves, and then there are choppy things and, but it doesn’t matter what’s happening. There’s still that infinite depth and infinite expanse.

So in the next period, in addition to body like a mountain, I want you to consider breath like the sea. You breathe in, it’s a wave rising. Breathe out. It’s a wave falling, breathing in. And how successful are people in controlling the waves on the sea? [Laughter]

It’s unimaginable. We can make small waves if we have really big ocean liners or something like that, but it can’t control the waves on the sea. And they can be huge. I once read an account of a person who tended a lighthouse off the coast of Nova Scotia. And during storms he would walk down to the beach and he would watch a hundred foot waves crashing on the beach. And when you have that much water coming down, can you believe this? The beach shakes. Have you ever imagined that the beach is shaking? Big waves.

So it doesn’t matter what’s going on in you or how you’re breathing, you don’t have to worry about that at all in the same way, you don’t have to worry about what’s going on in your body. If you’re body like a mountain, how ever it is, that’s your breath, and you just breathe and let the breath come and go like the waves in the sea.

At the same time you let your body continue to be like a mountain. So we’re not moving from the body to the breath. I want to make that very clear. We have the body and now we’re adding the breath. So I’m asking you to do two things now. It’s gonna get more complicated soon, I’ll ask you to do three, but that’s as far as I’m going this evening. So, body like a mountain, breath like the sea. Now, before we go, any questions about this? Anything anybody would like to ask? And I do like to have questions, so … but I’m out of luck tonight. Okay.

Body, like a mountain, breath like the sea. [Bell sound] [Silence]

So as you sit, just let your body breathe and let the motion of the body breathing be like the waves in the sea. They come and go on their own; no control on your part. And if anything, it’s just like you’re riding the wave while your body sits making no effort at all, like a mountain. [Silence]

Body like a mountain, breath like the sea. [Silence]

Feel the waves rising and falling on their own. It may sometimes feel like you are the wave rising and falling. You may also feel sometimes you are the mountain. [Silence]

If you lose track of the breath, this is practice. That’s fine. There comes that moment of recognition, and then you just come back to body like a mountain and the wave of your breath. [Silence]

My breath comes and goes. Let the breath be like the sea infinitely deep. And this regular pattern of waves rising and falling. [Silence]

As you rest this way, you may notice tensions in your body. Don’t try to relax them. Keep attention on the whole of your body and include the sensation of tension in your awareness.

You may find that something changes, perhaps not right away. One place that many of us hold tension is in the jaw. So what’s happening in your jaw right now? Another place of course is the shoulders. Have you ever seen a mountain hunch its shoulders? Let yourself rest, and the rising and falling of the waves of your breath.

Body like a mountain, breath like the sea. [Silence]

Body like a mountain, breath like the sea.

Again, if you fall asleep or you’re distracted, you always come back to yourself. That’s the way we are. And as soon as you do, and don’t bother beating yourself up, this is just practice and come back to body like a mountain, breath like the sea. [Silence] [Sound of bell]

So just move the body around a little bit. Been sitting still for a while now. Just move your arms and your shoulders, legs stretch a little bit if you want. Anybody? Talk about your experience.

What are we practicing for?

Student: Hi. If this is practice, then what are we practicing for?

Ken: [Laughs] Oh, you’re going to need this. [Laughter] Why did you come here this evening?

Student: To meet my friend.

Ken: [Laughs] Okay, you met your friend, but you stayed. You’re sitting here.

Student: I’m still meeting my friend.

Ken: Yes. You’re not interested in meditation at all?

Student: What?

Ken: You’re not interested in meditation at all?

Student: Yes, I am interested in meditation.

Ken: So why are you interested in meditation?

Student: Well, I don’t know.

Ken: I’m going to ask you to dig a little deeper because you didn’t come here just to meet your friend. You could have met in Starbucks.

Student: This is where I always meet my friend.

Ken: Okay, but you come here and you practice meditation too, don’t you?

Student: Yes.

Ken: Why do you choose this place?

Student: It’s the only place I know.

Ken: And why are you interested in meditation?

Student: I don’t know.

Ken: Oh, okay. So when you sit this way, what do you experience?

Student: Nothing.

Ken: Nothing. You had no thoughts, no sensations. Absolutely blank for the last 10 minutes?

Student: Pretty much.

Ken: Were you asleep?

Student: No.

Ken: Were you at peace?

Student: I don’t know.

Ken: No?

Student: I don’t know

Ken: You don’t know whether you were at peace?

Student: It was just time passing.

Ken: Right. Were you bored?

Student: No.

Ken: Okay. Do you have a use for this experience?

Student: I’m experiencing the experience, so I don’t know what the use is.

Ken: Well, you remember earlier this evening I asked if people were anxious and almost everybody held up their hand. But I don’t recall whether you held up your hand, did you?

Student: No.

Ken: No. So you’re not anxious?

Student: No.

Ken: Well, all of these people who are anxious, they have a use for this experience, you see. How many of you felt a little less anxious with this? You see? Take a look around. See all those hands. They have a use for this experience. They’re looking for a different way of experiencing life, but maybe the way you’re experiencing life is just fine for you.

Student: I don’t know.

Ken: Yeah. And that’s fine. But when you ask, “What are you practicing for?” most of us come to meditation practice because we don’t like the way that we experience life. Is that fair? Yeah. See, I actually got some agreement there. [Laughs] And so it’s that discomfort or struggle with the experience of life that brings people to practice meditation. And other people do other things. Some of them take drugs to get away from the struggle of life. Some of them build businesses, some of them go do all kinds of crazy things, but people come here to explore…

Student: No, I think my question was more along the lines of like, if we’re quote unquote practicing something, then what are we practicing for? Usually there’s something that you’re practicing for. Like when you’re playing the guitar, you’re learning, you’re trying to learn a song or there’s some sort of goal in mind. And I’m wondering like, we’re practicing, but is there something that we’re practicing for, that we’re trying to achieve? Because to me it’s already perfect. So what’s the point of practicing when it’s already perfect?

Ken: And that’s a very important point. If it is already perfect for you, there is absolutely no point in your practicing. [Laughs]

Student: Okay.

Ken: And that’s true. If that is how your life is, you’re very, very blessed. You’re extraordinarily blessed. That’s wonderful. And you can meet your friend here, sit quietly, enjoy the passing of time, fine. But if your life is perfect and if things are just perfect the way they are—the way things are is perfect—then there really isn’t any point in practicing. So that’s great. You’re very fortunate. Maybe I should study with you. [Laughter]

Okay. Anybody else? Please. What was this like, body like a mountain, breath like the sea?

Student: When we did the first exercise, I’ve always been comfortable in sitting, so I didn’t notice too much, just the mountain ’cause I feel pretty grounded. But when we did the breath as a sea, I was really surprised by how my body reacted, especially on the out breath, the bottom and the top of it. I would normally just go down and all the air would go out, but then I kept feeling like the water kept receding and I could just stay down there. And it almost felt, even though my lungs started moving, like the energy just kept draining and draining and draining, and I felt it go very far down. And the same thing when I brought it back in. It’s almost like the wave of energy kept enlarging and expanding outward. And it was also great too because it was very unconscious. It’s almost as though my body related very well to the image of water flowing.

Ken: Yeah. Thank you. So it sounds like you found the breath was much deeper than you previously experienced.

Student: Yeah. And more fluid. Yes. I think my mind tends to invade the process and this helps sort of shoo it off a little.

Ken: That that’s a really, really good point because that’s exactly what happens. We think, “Oh, I’m, I’m, I’m meditating.” And part of us goes, “I have to control the breath.”

Student: Yeah.

Ken: But it’s not true. Okay. Very good. One other person please.

Student: Hi. Do you have any suggestions as to how to do two things at once?

Ken: Well, describe to me a little bit more detail what your difficulty was.

Student: Well, it wasn’t all difficult, but I caught my mind trying to put the thoughts together as opposed to simply experiencing the experience.

Ken: Yeah.

Student: And then every once in a while they felt united, but then a moment later it was like, okay, mountain, sea, you know, sort of …

Ken: Okay. Really good point, right? Thank you. These phrases, body like a mountain, breath like the wind, are pointing at something.

Student: Breath like the wind?

Ken: Sorry, that’s the usual version. I’m using breath like the sea and haven’t completely adjusted. Thank you for catching that. These phrases, body like a mountain, breath like the sea, are pointing to something. Okay, so body like a mountain. And once you’re feeling that you don’t need the phrase anymore, you don’t need to think, “Oh, I’ve got to make my body like a mountain.” Why? Because you’re still, and you’re not exerting any effort. You’re just there. And breath like the sea as this gentleman described, “Oh, there’s just this flow, and I didn’t have to do anything with it.” And once that happens, you don’t need the phrase anymore. So as you pointed out, you can experience both of those at the same time. And if that’s happening then you’re doing it. So, you don’t get to ask me, “How do you do two things?” because you already were.

Now when you fall out of it because something happens, then you use those phrases to point you back. It’s a way back. Chuang Tzu who’s a Chinese Daoist master from 2,500 years ago, put this as: “When the shoe fits, you forget about the feet. When the belt fits, you forget about the waist.” And it’s the same here. When you’re just experiencing it, you rest there. That’s meditation, that’s practice. When you fall out of it, then you use these phrases to come back. Okay. Very good. All right, now any other comments that anybody would like to make? There’s one back here.

Student: Thanks. Well actually expanding on what you just said, my experience was that I was having the same kind of separation … if I started to think about “body like a mountain,” then the sea was way in the distance and that was up there. And then they’d sort of reverse and they go back and forth. But I couldn’t keep ’em both in focus at the same time. And then instead of describing them to myself as I was doing it, I was sort of trying to just be it.

Ken: Yes. Very good.

Student: That’s what I meant.

Ken: Yes. We don’t have to talk ourselves into it.

Student: Yeah.

Ken: There’s another set of instructions in the Tibetan tradition, and one of them is, Be like a child that goes into a cathedral for the first time. How many of you have been in the one the cathedrals in New York or in Europe? Yeah. Okay. You know, you walk in and there’s these fantastically beautiful gothic architecture and these high vaulted ceilings and the stained glass. And you just go [makes gesture]. And that’s the meditation instruction. It works exactly the same way. It’s pointing to something, and your mind is just so open, and everything’s just so open. But one person asked my teacher, “I say those phrases over and over to myself and it doesn’t work.” [Laughter]. Well, no, you don’t say these phrases over and over to yourself. They point you in a direction and then you go there.

Now in the beginning, most of us don’t stay there very long. Body like a mountain, that’s good for about two seconds and then something starts to happen, we let it go and come back. Okay, just rest. And that’s why we call it practice because you’re practicing just actually resting in your body that completely. And then breath like the sea, it’s the same thing. But as you gain facility, then one’s able to rest in the experience for longer. And that’s how you begin to form or develop a relationship with a different way of experiencing your life. This make sense to you? Yeah. Good. Okay. Yes. Thank you.

Student: In fact, I understand it so well. I don’t think I need to practice anymore. [Laughter]

Mind like the sky

Ken: Ah, yes. We fall into that trap very easily. Okay, now for the third component, mind like the sky. How big is the sky?

Student: Wide open.

Ken: It’s wide open, and if you go up to Antelope Valley, you get this huge expansive sky. I was up there when the poppies were in flower and just like fantastic just shoooo, big sky country, a bit like Montana and New Mexico and so forth. So very, very big. Now, between you and me, if a cloud appears in the sky, how bothered is the sky?

Student: Not at all.

Ken: If a bird flies through, does the sky get upset about that? What if a whole bunch of planes come through?

Student: Maybe.

Ken: The sky get upset about that? Yeah. Now when you’re sitting in meditation, if a thought comes along, how upset do you get about that? “Get out of here thought you’re disturbing my meditation.”

There’s a wonderful line from the Japanese tradition. “The floating white cloud does not obstruct the infinite sky.” Usually we think of it the other way around. The infinite sky, the cloud can go anywhere it wants in it, but the floating white cloud does not obstruct the infinite blue sky.

So, mind like the sky. Now we need to go into this a little bit further. The word in Tibetan, and in Sanskrit, which we translate as mind also means heart. Mind we associate with thinking, heart we associate with feeling. In Sanskrit and Tibetan it’s associated with both. So I just want you for the sake of our practice here this evening, is to think, “mind like the sky” that’s big in a certain way, right? And you can feel very open. Everybody with me on that one? Okay. Now I want you to try this. Your heart is like the sky too. What’s that like for you? Does that have a different feeling? Okay, so you gotta do these two things at the same time again. Pardon?

Student: So you’re asking us to do four things?

Ken: Oh, I’m a bear. [Laughs] So, mind like the sky, heart like the sky. Work with whatever moves you more deeply. That’s the right one to work with. And I need to go at this in another direction. What is there to the sky? This is a trick question. I like to label those, when I ask trick questions. What is there to the sky?

Student: Space? Emptiness.

Ken: Space, emptiness … What is space? Yes.

Student: Nothing

Ken: It’s nothing. There’s nothing to the sky. You know, space is another way of saying that. What is there to your mind?

Student: Blue.

Ken: Pardon? Blue. Blue. Okay. [Laughter]

So we forget that. We forget that there’s nothing to it and we take everything that arises in it totally seriously. And so one of the ways that we’re practicing this different way of relating to life is remembering this there’s nothing to it aspect. It is open, it is empty, if you wish. There is space for absolutely everything. And it doesn’t matter how much there is, there could still be more.

So when we sit now, we’re gonna sit with body like a mountain, breath like the sea, and mind like the sky. So now completely open or heart like the sky, completely open and resting in the openness and not at least a bit concerned with stuff that comes and goes. Whether it’s a fog bank that moves in or whether there are meteorites or meteors or falling stars coming through or whatever. It doesn’t matter because it’s the sky. Okay, any questions here? All right, let’s do this for a few minutes together. [Three bell sounds] [Silence]

Body like a mountain, breath like the sea, mind or heart like the sky. Let the experience of each arise, and rest in the experience. We aren’t moving from one to another, but resting in all of them together.

Body like a mountain.

Breath like the sea.

Mind like the sky.

Don’t be concerned with thoughts, memories, stories. Rest in the expanse of the sky itself, letting whatever comes take care of itself. You’re not even observing it. You just rest in the expanse of the sky itself, [pause] and the clouds and the planes and the birds, they do their thing. You are the sky.

Body like a mountain. You are at the mountain. Breath like the sea. You are the sea. Mind like the sky. You are the sky. And just rest there. [pause] When you fall into sleepiness or distraction and you recognize it, just relax and start again. Don’t try to hold on to anything. Just let everything go and start again. Body like a mountain. No effort. Breath like the sea. Infinitely deep motion that just goes on and on. And mind like the sky. You can experience everything because you are the sky. [Silence]

Sometimes your attention will go to the body. When it does and you notice it, first expand so that it’s your whole body. And then include the breath, and then include the mind, which is like the sky. Sometimes your attention will go to the breath. When it does and you recognize it, include the sensations of the body. Body like a mountain and mind like the sky. Sometimes your attention will go to the sky. And when it does and you recognize it, then include the body like a mountain and the breath like the sea, and then rest. [Silence]

Now there are lots of parts of us that are not used to relating to the world, to life this way. They have a few things to say about it. You can let them talk and they’re movement in the sky, they’re ripples on the wave, they’re trees and bushes on the mountain, they’re there, but you don’t actually have to do anything about them. You can continue to be the mountain, the sea, and the sky. At first, we can only do this for very short periods and that’s fine. Something pulls us away and so we come back. That’s why we call it practice.

It’s not failure. We’re learning. Body like a mountain, breath like the sea, mind like the sky. [Pause] [Sound of bell]

Okay. What was your experience with mind or heart like the sky? Okay, over here.

Student: That for me was pretty extraordinary actually. [Laughter]

Ken: You want more of that, do you?

Student: It’s interesting because although I’ve read it before, that, heart and mind … basically, feeling not thinking. You know what I mean?

Ken: Yes.

Student: The way that you put it, for some reason it just clicked for me. The heart mind are one. And then projecting that as being as infinite as the sky. That expansion that I felt within even my being just like, it kind of exploded for me. It was even hard to concentrate. I mean, it was hard to do anything at that point. ’cause I got—

Ken: You weren’t meant to do anything. [Laughs]

Student: No, I know. Exactly. No, exactly. But I just felt so much actual joy. It was really interesting.

Ken: A different way of experiencing life?

Student: It was great. It was good. It was really good. And I could see what you meant by practicing. It’s like practicing that being able to let that just be a part of me, and expanding on that sensation in the relaxation of just being present, and breathing and utilizing the elements as you as suggested to them. I saw it, you know what I mean? I saw what the potential outcome would be for me practicing that. And it was pretty exciting.

Let go of all expectations

Ken: Okay, this is very good. But now I have to throw in a note of caution. [Laughter] And this is something we all have to deal with in meditation practice. You’ve tasted something. Fair? And the tendency when we taste something is we want to experience it again, or we want to experience more of it, or we want to experience it for a longer time. And we can’t do that. It’s never the same thing twice, number one. And it’s very easy to attach to that experience and now judge everything that arises in terms of that initial taste. And when we do that, we have the comparing mind running all the time. And that prevents us from actually experiencing everything. You a baseball fan? Uh, well, too bad. I’m gonna give you a baseball analogy.[Laughter]

Baseball in many respects is a duel between the batter and the pitcher. Right? And over the season, that pitcher is going to meet the batters over and over again, ’cause they play so many games, hundreds of games. So a really good pitcher, if they think they’re gonna have trouble with a batter over the season, what they’ll do is early in the season when it doesn’t matter too much, they will throw a pitch that they know that the batter wants.

And the batter will swing and hit that pitch most of the time. And the reason the pitcher will do that is because now he knows now the batter is going to be looking for that pitch for the rest of the season and it’s gonna screw him up. [Laughter] These guys are sharp. Okay? So the same thing can happen to us in our meditation practice. We have this taste and now we’re always looking for it.

You came into that taste because you let go of all expectations. And when you let go of all expectations, you discovered something that you didn’t know was possible. So the practice consists not in reproducing the experience, but letting go of all the expectations, even the expectations for what you once experienced. And that’s tough, that’s a really hard part, but it’s a really important part. And that’s my note of caution. Okay? But very good. That make sense to you?

Student: It makes perfect sense. Absolutely.

Ken: Okay. All right. Yes.

Student: I really liked your analogy there because that feeling was pretty much like sort of what I’d been searching for [Ken laughs]. Because I have had that …

Ken: I’ve done you a real disservice. [Laughter]

Student: No, but I’ve had that experience and instead of the mountain I had to put it into context that something that for me, like equates to serenity. And so the mountain, it was Mesa, you know, and I went back because when we did the second exercise, I was having difficulty with the breathing because I was imagining, or I had this image in my head of a mountain with the waves crashing, but my breath got harder, because I was imagining a wave crashing against like this cliffside when I really wanted my breath to be a gradual, you know, like the waves sort of rolling in and rolling out.

Ken: That’s right.

Student: But my breath was getting heavier. So, and the last exercise, it was back to the wind and to this place that I call my home, which has this expansive sky and I’ve meditated there before and it’s taken me to a whole new, like that feeling of the crown opening and just like sitting for hours and being in bliss.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Student: And being back in the city, I don’t ever experience that anymore. And it’s like, like you said, it’s kind of like a drug. You just, you’re wanting a little bit of that glimpse.

Ken: Mm-hmm.

Student: And it’s difficult. I think it’s because you had that experience and so many other times you’re just wanting to kind of get that familiar feeling. And so how do we try to develop a practice of not wanting that, not wanting to feel that when we’re working so much on … not work—I don’t like to think of meditation as work—but to try to find that, that calmness and that peace.

Ken: And you know you used a phrase which is really important here, “having that experience.” That’s the phrase you used, and the phrase that I used is “experiencing life a different way.”

And there’s a big distinction between those two phrases. Because when we say “having that experience,” it operates exactly that way. And that’s why I was giving this person that caution. What we’re doing is—from my perspective and what I’m trying to get across this evening—we are learning or practicing how to experience life differently.

So the first thing is: it’s not one experience, it’s there all the time. There’s the “how we are experiencing” all the time. So whatever we’re doing, “How am I experiencing life right now? How am I experiencing life right now?” And you find, “Oh, I’m holding onto everything right now, no, I’m agitated. I’m like those waves crashing against the cliff right now.”

Now my mind isn’t like the sky right now. Right now my mind is like a little cave [laugh], a very dark cave at that because that’s something I’ve experienced lots of, just being like in this small cave. No light, which isn’t a lot of fun, but part of that way of experiencing life is not wanting something, right? So when we find ourselves, “Oh, I want that experience,” well, that wanting itself is simply a movement in mind. But we get caught up in the wanting and we forget mind like the sky.

Now the reason we call it practice is there are so many different facets where we get caught and there’s so many different levels of getting caught that it takes an awful lot of—and I will use the word work—to actually learn this. And the reason I say it’s practice is because we do this over and over and over again. And by doing it over and over again, something begins to change in us. And so it becomes more and more accessible to us and occurs more and more naturally. That is, we don’t have to do anything and that’s why we practice it. Not so that we can have certain experiences, but so that we are experiencing life a different way. Do you get the distinction I’m making? Yeah. And so the wanting and the grasping, that’s all part of the old way of experiencing life.

Don’t hold on to experiences

Ken: And it’s hard, you know. We have this nice experience like, “Oh, we want more of it.” One of my more experienced students, she was just so mad at me for a whole year because her practice is very good. And I kept saying, no, let go of that. She said, “I like this.” I said, “No, let go of that.” Every conversation we had, I was saying, “Oh, now you’re holding onto this, let go of that.” And she was just so angry with me because I wasn’t letting her hold onto anything. And gradually she went, “Oh, really letting go.” And we all have this tendency to grab onto something. It’s very, very deep within us. And that’s why it takes consistent practice of, “Just, okay, let it be this way.” And it’s letting things be and not wanting things to be different from they are that makes this possible. It’s something we have to come back to again and again. But the wonderful thing, the absolutely amazing thing is it’s actually possible. Anything else you’d like to follow up there?

Student: Well, I guess I don’t really have any expectations when I go into it, but it’s like I think that’s one of the sometimes difficult thing about guided, because that’s like, it takes you in a certain way. And all of a sudden it presents this like glimpse of it. And then I feel like sometimes then the rest of the meditation sitting time is kind of shot because you, you do get that little glimmer of it. It’s kind of like a fish. You get to see that shiny thing and you’re like, “Oh, I’m gonna keep swimming towards that.” Whereas before you come into it with no expectations, there’s really nothing expected out of it other than peace of mind to some degree and …

Ken: You can relate to it as something to grasp after. That’s one way of relating to it. There’s another way of relating to it though. And that’s as a seed and you allow it to grow in you. It’s your choice. Any other comments or questions? please, over here.

Student: Yeah, I just felt my mind was able to feel that openness, but my heart always, it feels a lot different in the two, like for example, I felt grounded and my breath was going, and my mind was open like the sky and I felt great, but my heart was like … it felt warm and it felt thumping. It didn’t feel cool and it didn’t feel open. It felt … the heart felt like a heart.

Ken: So was it pleasant, unpleasant?

Student: It was great.

Ken: What’s the problem?

Student: There wasn’t. There wasn’t, and I was just wondering, am I missing out on something by …

Ken: No, no, no. There’s the problem [Laughs,]

Student: But I was …

Ken: No, no, no, no. With that open awareness, it sounds as if you just became more aware of everything.

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Fine. That’s a different way of experiencing life, isn’t it? That’s all you’ve done. Different way of experiencing life. Okay, but you really missed out. [Laughter] Okay. Well it’s nine o’clock already so, yes, over here quickly.

Taking life into practice

Student: As you engage in this practice over time, how do you take it off the cushion into your real life? Because I’m sitting here doing the practice tonight thinking, “Wow, the last two days, Monday and Tuesday were extremely stressful at work.” And to have had the ability to engage that, those stressful moments with this kind of an approach would’ve probably made for a lot less stress on me and the people I work with.

Ken: Okay, very good question. Now we begin in an environment like this where we aren’t doing anything and we do this over and over again. And so we get somewhat used to it. And when I’ve done meditation retreats, that’s what I’ve done. I mean, I did a three week retreat many years ago, which we have one meditation instruction, do nothing for three weeks.

That’s a long time to do nothing. And I am teaching a retreat this summer, a 10- day retreat. And these are with more experienced students and you know what my instruction to them is? Do nothing! And I did this last year and they’ll come in and say, I’m experiencing things. And I say, “Okay, don’t meditate. Go for a walk.” It’s a wonderful place up in New Mexico, big open vistas and so they really do nothing for this period of time.

Some of them are doing other practices, so we get that, and it actually takes a lot of preparation to be able to do nothing. So, we practice this and we get some kind of feeling for it. Then the next step is to start dropping into it during the day. And I mean, and, and this is very important. It’s not meditating during the day, it’s dropping into it. So there’s a little opening and we just stop, and by now we’ve become familiarized with this, so we can just recall, and it’s just like right there, and we touch it and we may only touch for 10, 15, 30 seconds. That’s what I mean about dropping into it. We don’t try to hold onto it, touch it. And then you start to do that frequently during the day.

Student: That’s where you’re not thinking about it comes in where the feeling that, someone was talking about before comes in where you’re just feeling it rather than thinking.

Ken: Exactly. Yes. That’s right.

Student: Because that way it’s a more instinctual. And it just comes in.

Ken: Yeah, that’s right. And so you drop in and as you do that over and over again, then it becomes more and more accessible to you and you’ll find your level of reactivity and stress goes down correspondingly. But is it something that one has to work at? Absolutely.

This, I mean, people talk about natural awareness. This is such a lot of crap because there’s nothing natural about it in terms of our conditioning. We are biologically, evolutionarily, psychologically, emotionally, culturally, educationally, conditioned to live and experience life a different way.

So is this possible for us? Yeah, you all tasted … many of you, maybe everybody tasted something this evening. That’s wonderful. And if you have use for it, then it’s something you can cultivate. And that’s why I like to use the analogy of a seed. It’s something you cultivate so it grows in your life, it evolves in your experience. Okay, thank you. All right, in closing, I’d just like to sit for a few minutes. I’m gonna say a few lines and just let these thoughts cross your mind.

Goodness comes from the work we have done.
Let me not hold it just in me. Let it spread to all that is known and awaken good throughout the world. [Sound of bell]

Thank you for your attention this evening. I hope you got something out of it. I’m gonna be back here on Sunday. Right?