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>> This is a great way to get
into the second practice set --

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we're going to do which is
mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness

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which is really the practice of being more
aware of what's going on in our experience.

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Mindfulness is the kind of fashionable word
for it right now but call it awareness,

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call it objectivity, call it -- it's
there in every tradition and every --

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lots of human beings and cultures
talk about it in their own ways.

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It's just being aware of what's
going on in your experience.

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And it turns out that there's
layers and layers of stuff going on

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and that we're often ping-ponging
around automatically with stuff.

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So patterns are being activated,
and we don't really realize it.

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We're kind of walking around in a bad
mood, or we're walking around [inaudible]

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on something, going around and around.

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And when we're inside these loops,
these loops of behaving and acting

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and responding, what does it feel like?

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It can feel like fate.

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It feels like we're always going to be here.

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We've always been here.

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It feels -- it's so sticky, it's
hard to kind of get out of it.

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And there is truth -- the reason it's
sticky is because you're deepening a pattern

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or a groove that you go in a lot.

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You're like training your body and mind
to continue on in that kind of a pattern.

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So that's the sobering part.

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Mindfulness practice is really a beautiful
practice for kind of working with that,

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understanding, and noticing how that works.

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That is the work of a practice so that's it.

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The work of a practice is you have an idea that
you want us [inaudible] and meditate and focus

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on your breath but you have a life
and your being triggered in your life

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and you have shit that's going on
and stuff that's happening at work

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and in your relationship and in your family
and you're thinking and worrying about it

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because you're trying to sort
it out and that's totally fine.

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So the first thing is to say this is
completely natural that I have this pattern

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that I'm inside, that this is just how it goes.

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So you first except that
you're having that experience

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so that the concentration we have working
with that is just to go back to the breath

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and let it -- and do your best
to let it be in the background.

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Eventually you get pulled up with
it again but you notice it happens.

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You go back to the breath.

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Eventually the breath starts
to become richer and fuller.

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The real estate of the breath gets larger
than the real estate of that sticky pattern.

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And you can sort of shift ratios that way.

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But the mindfulness way of
working about it is to say okay.

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Well, actually I'm going
to look at this pattern.

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I'm going to actually go into it.

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Instead of just being automatically inside
it, I'm going to start to explore it.

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So I'm going to -- when I'm in this thing
-- and you can explore it different ways.

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You can -- one of the most constructive ways
is just to kind of see what it's made of.

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Like generally you'll find it's made of body
sensation, so emotional feelings and tugs

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like anger in the jaw or like
heartache through the chest

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or vibrating agitation or whatever it is.

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Like the body sensations are
really providing the juice of a lot

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of our emotion and thinking patterns.

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So you can just stay with
the feelings in the body.

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And we'll kind of do one like that
in a moment, a practice like that.

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You can also work with the head
part of it, the thinking part.

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You can go in and go okay.

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Can I actually just notice what
images are coming up right now?

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Instead of just being in the images, can I
kind of have this objective witnessing thing?

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Can I disembed from this trance
and just notice the images,

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the face of your disappointed
mother or whatever it is?

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Or can you notice the talk?

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So that's another component.

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The voice in your head, the narrative you're
telling yourself, the criticism, the --

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you know the voice of the other person, whatever
it is just -- and you kind of tried to --

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it's this weird move of just like the act of
noticing it means you're no longer inside it.

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So this is the single most
important thing a human being needs

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to know in their life, I think.

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You know, probably there
will be a few so it's not

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that the single most important
but it's an important one.

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That is that you -- you're not
fated to repeat these patterns.

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If you can notice the thing is happening, the
active noticing it means you're not inside it.

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You're now outside it because the crazy
punch line in the contemplative world,

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in the Buddhist world, in the Hindu
world, in the Taoist world, and even in --

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talked about in different ways in the
Abrahamic traditions, the crazy punch line is

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that you aren't -- like that's part of you.

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That's the process of your personality
but the act of being aware it self,

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the knower is the same knower in everybody else.

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It's empty.

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It has no material.

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The act of knowing is this act --
it's this expression of your freedom.

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So it's different than -- knowing
is different than thinking.

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This is what people don't really realize.

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It's like you're thinking about something.

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Thinking is tractable.

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It's images.

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It's talk.

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It's a little bit of tension in the face.

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It's all this stuff.

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The knowing is just the knowing but we think
knowing and thinking are the same things.

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But a mindfulness practice basically lets you
disembed from the thinking so you can know it.

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So the knower is here and then
that thinking is happening here.

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Does that make sense?

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Okay. Because it's kind of a weird thing
to get around but that is the experience.

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The experience is that you can pop out and
start to observe the thing from outside.

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And then guess what?

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It turns out that process
just keeps going on and on

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and on because the place you're noticing
from, which at first seems like oh, yeah,

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I'm noticing it as this empty
knower then gets slowly coagulated

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into being another thinking process.

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And then you've got to pop out of that.

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So you've got to -- and then
you've got to pop out of that.

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And there's always another layer to pop out of.

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It just is like turtles all
the way down basically.

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But that's okay because it's like it's about
getting free incrementally or continually moving

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into a more spacious perspective
and then getting caught up again

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and then more spacious perspective but over time

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that perspective becomes the
place you take a stand in.

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So I'm going to make that
more tangible for you guys.

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Let's actually try that as a practice now.

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In a very uncomplicated way, it's just being
aware of what's going on in your experience.

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And as we start to look, it starts out kind
of crude like we can't really detect it.

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It's sort of murky but the longer and more
patiently we are -- that we spend investigating,

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the more subtler qualities
begin to get teased out.

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So there is this detection and this quality
that emerges, this quality of clarity,

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and it's like we start to become more
and more transparent to ourselves.

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And you can think of it as -- it's like
the conscious mind is starting to seep

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down into the unconscious or the subconscious,

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these sort of subterranean levels were all
the turbines are and all the machinery.

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It's like it can start to get down in there
and like, you know, walk around on the floor

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of the factory and, you know,
take a look around.

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So hopefully that metaphor won't be -- it will
be helpful and not disturbing so let's try it.