Comment mettre en pratique les méditations guidées du Village des Pruniers [sous-titré] Sr Chan Duc

Dear friends, I would like to address some commonly asked questions,

about guided meditation in Plum Village. The first question we might be asked is: how do we apply

Plum Village guided sitting meditations, so that we can benefit from them?

You realize that on this app, we have a number of guided meditations for you to practice.

The main thing to remember is not to try to use our intellect

when we are practicing guided meditation. The words of the guided meditation are there

to touch seeds, we call them seeds; they are potentials in the depths of your consciousness.

And when those seeds are watered by the words,

then you can concentrate on that particular feeling that comes up in association with the word.

If you try and think too much, the guided meditation will not help you.

In guided meditation images are usually more helpful than abstract ideas,

so be aware of that. And a word can water an image, and you can use the image in order

to realize some insight that you may not have ever had before.

And every time you use a guided meditation, the insight will be a little bit different.

There is no perfect insight that goes with a particular guided meditation.

The second question: what can we do if we don't understand the exercise or we cannot experience the exercise?

For example, we hear "Breathing in, I feel joy" and we don't feel joy...

So, that is just an example and we should not ever try to experience

something, some words that we hear. If we don't have an experience we can let go...

But, the next time when you want to do that meditation, you may like to prepare yourself a little bit...

You may like to remember times when you have felt a deep joy that came not from things going on around you,

but came from your own consciousness. And you may remember the incident or the event

that triggered that sense of joy in you, and you can feel that joy again.

In our daily life, it is important to recognize

when we have moments of joy, and to help those moments of joy to last.

Because the depths of our consciousness are like a ratatouille, like a stew,

and we put many ingredients in that, and they all, the taste of each ingredient goes into the other ingredients.

And so that, just by watering the seed of joy every day in your consciousness,

it will transform some of the suffering, by penetrating the suffering without you having to make an effort to do that.

What can we do when we haven't realized the exercise but then the next exercise is already coming?

That is a difficulty that many of us may experience, because everyone needs more time than,

or a different amount of time for realizing an exercise.

So if you need more time, the best thing is to try and remember the guided meditation

and then to practice it on your own. You may like to note down the different stages of the meditation,

and when you do it on your own, then you can take as long as you like for each part of the exercise.

Actually, that is really the way for you to use these exercises on the app.

It's not every time to have to listen to the app, but be able to remember the exercises

and then practice them for yourself in your own time.

Are Plum Village guided meditations visualizations?

What is meant by "Breathing in, I see myself as a flower. Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain" and so on?

These are images. "Flower" is a word, and when you hear the word "flower"

and you let it sink into the deep levels of your consciousness,

then a flower image will appear in your mind and the same is true of a mountain image.

So you allow any image that comes up, to come up of a flower, and going with that image there is a feeling,

and the feeling going with the flower image is a feeling of freshness,

and the feeling going with a mountain image is a feeling of solidity.

So the image and the feeling, they go together and they keep watering each other so it's like a feedback.

You have the image and then the feeling, and the feeling leads to the image again and so on.

Should we stay in one chapter if you're using the book "Blooming of a Lotus"

until we understand, before we move to another chapter?

If we're using a book of guided meditations, what has helped me is to be able to know all the guided meditations.

And then, depending on my state of mind or my need,

then I will choose the suitable guided meditation for that particular day.

And if there are days when I feel tired and not so well then I need to do meditations which will help take care of my body,

help relax my body, calm my body.

And in relaxing and calming my body, I will relax and calm my mind.

And when I feel strong and well, I will do some meditation like a meditation on impermanence to be able to see that I'm of the nature to die, and so on.

But if I'm not in good health, either in my body or my mind, I don't want to do meditations

like contemplating my own death, or contemplating the death of my loved ones.

Why in Plum Village is there such an emphasis on breathing and the body in guided meditation?

Breathing is the basis, breathing is like if you have a truck and that truck can carry things.

It can also be empty of carrying things and it can take them from one place to another.

So the breathing is like that, it can take your mind from one place to another, and the thing about meditation is

that sometimes if we haven't got guidance in our meditation, our mind just goes along in one track,

or it's like a train, the train goes from Bordeaux to Paris

and then it goes from Paris to Bordeaux and it goes back and forth on the same track.

But guided meditation is to try and get our mind out of its normal tracks and go in a different direction.

So we need our breathing, and when we come back to our breathing and just concentrate on our breathing,

then we can let go of the normal ways of thinking that we have,

and allow the meditation to guide us in thinking in a different way,

or in feeling in a different way, which can bring us insight and transformation.

And the reason why we often begin with mentioning your body is because mind and body are not two separate realities.

And in fact what we do is we alienate a little,

we alienate our body from our mind. Because we may feel that our body is

a source of suffering and so we take our mind out of our body, away from our body.

But in fact, our mind isn't at its best when it's separated from our body,

it isn't its true self when it's separated from our body.

So it's very important to bring our mind and our body together, and that is what the breathing can do,

because the breathing is a function of our body, and the breathing is also spirit.

So we feel our body and we stay in our body

throughout the meditation exercise. And if at any point you feel that your mind

is gone out of your body, then it's very important to open your eyes

and bring your mind and your body back together again.

So all meditation in Plum Village is about, is meditation that is done with the mind and the body together.

Thank you.