Part 2: Tales of Meditation & Transformation with Chris Parish and Miranda Macpherson

thank you very much for tuning in to this dialogue between chris parish and miranda mcpherson entitled tales of meditation and transformation i'm laura hartzell the director of development at enlighten next and i am very pleased to be introducing this video to you as part of the lead up to our fourth annual meditation marathon event happening on december 8th before the dialogue starts i want to share a little bit about the meditation marathon with you because this video is one way we are building momentum towards this global event on december 8th people all over the world will be setting aside time to meditate in a celebration of spirit whether you are a seasoned practitioner of meditation or brand new and wanting to try it out for the very first time this event is a simple way to engage with this time honored practice with others no matter where you live this is the fourth year we've hosted this meditation event and people of all levels of experience participate some people approach this event like a marathon with the intention of going deeper and sitting for a longer period of time than they have ever done before others who are new to the practice of meditation join for shorter periods of time one hour or six hours whatever they feel compelled to do so over a 24-hour period hundreds of people are diving into meditation being guided by audios and readings from spiritual teacher and founder of enlightened next andrew cohen last year over 750 people participated and we expect one thousand this year please join us at the end of this video you'll have a chance to read more about the marathon and register to participate but now i want to turn our attention to the heart of this whole event which is meditation and spiritual transformation i i want to chime in here because we had a couple of questions that are right on topic here and some of them i'm going to read one which you have more or less i'm going to read two together and one of them you've you've spoken to but i'm going to read it in case you want to elaborate any further and then a second question the first one on intention from martin nathaniel he writes how how important is intention when meditating and is intention more important than the method or technique used what is the right intention to bring to meditation so that that was the question from martin which you were both elaborating on and and the follow-up question related from apollo grace he asked given that meditation essentially requires chopping dropping the judging mind how can we know or intuit whether we're being effective in our practice so how do we know if we're being effective in our practice so first that's a that's going to just speak to the last question because i think martin's question we pretty much already touched upon yeah i would just add to martin's question that different methods of meditation produce slightly different results you know so they all cultivate a certain degree of hopes but for example a centering prayer which is a much more devotional method of meditation is going to very deeply affect in particular the heart because that's the primary channel that it's working on practices that are more about body sensing are going to bring about more more sense of inner ground more of a sense of visceral immediacy of presence because that's the channel they're working on practices that are about um just breath counting they're likely to have more of a um a way of kind of just giving up a gap between ordinary mind and just the spaciousness so emptiness so i would say that there's definitely something about the method that we choose to use and that different really helpful to different people and at different times on their journey how i work with people usually in helping them to actually self reflect a little bit on one of their strengths and weaknesses of character i mean what most likely pulls them out of out of natural being into reactive habitual response and when we really look at that question deep we honestly see yes i tend to be very emotionally reactive i go to anger very quickly or i get really caught up in my emotions and i can't often keep objectivity or i really lose my inner ground i get very overwhelmed a lot answer to that question about how we come off natural being tells us about what method is likely to be most suitable it's most helpful for us but at the same time if we're just doing the method not doing it from a deep sincere intent from that place of love in our hearts where we really love the truth and submit to the truth whatever the truth shows us then of course you know the practice is kind of not going to be that effective so important but most important is the sincerity of intention but linking this to apollo's question where he was really asking how do we what was the question well yeah and he said he was one he was saying get and maybe let's see do you agree with his assumption given that meditation essentially requires dropping the judging mind how can we know or intuit whether we're being effective in our practice some may argue that we don't drop the judging lines or some some may or but so two parts i think have a bigger conversation about judgment versus discrimination definitely right so the development of discrimination is i would say one of the fruits of a true practice that we can see this from that we can understand the difference of things we can see the difference between a habit of judgment which which has a um has like a parting quality of separating in an egoic way me from this over there whereas discernment helps us to discriminate what things actually are is this a conditioned thought or am i seeing something objective um but quite a different tone if we're honest about it from the judgment and discrimination there's not a big energy behind it if discrimination just has a clarity and a spaciousness and an objectivity but yet a razor-like sharpness that's not putting anything or anyone down in the process so i would say that the very fruit of things like discrimination the bearing fruit of more acceptance the bearing fruit of more humility um the bearing compassion and they're in both just being very open we can really be truthful about where we happen to be um our fruits of true spiritual flourishing so i wouldn't limit it to just judgment right maybe i'll just add a bit to that because uh yeah it's it's a good question because people often come up with this and uh and definitely uh i agree with miranda making the distinctions here because it depends how you're looking at things like for example we're taking when you're actually meditating and the way i would see it is it is it's all too easy and habitual to just be judging all the time what's going on in the meditation how you're feeling what whether it's working or not you know but you you can't do that because you're lost in it that's there's very much the judging in mind you can't judge your you can we won't get very far because it's all part of the distractions if you're trying to work out how you're doing as you're doing it the point of meditation as i see a deeper point is you have to leave everything alone and not be bothered whether your mind is judging or whatever's in the whole point is that i see it in order to have this sort of relaxation at the core of one's being you have to allow everything to be exactly as it is you're not trying to change anything whatsoever in the in the minutest no that's all so in that sense you don't know how you're doing because you have to let go of that too really because the nature of the ground the nature of a deepest part of our self doesn't make distinctions it doesn't judge i mean it doesn't discriminate it doesn't do anything you know then in order to abide in that you have to let go of of uh judging mind but but then again this doesn't it's not to make us um stupid you know sometimes people say well we can't talk about anything we can't make distinctions you know that's uh that's the sort of dumbing down as as miranda says we need to we need a finer discernment and i think that um the more we get to be consciously aware and abide more and more in this infinite dimension the space of the deepest ground of being it gives us the ground and to be able to discern and discriminate more finally and more clearly and less from a very sort of small self-centered from from the separate sense of self which all too often is so much influenced by what i want what i'd like to happen what i don't like my prejudice is my what i want to be and so then to really judge your meditation if you want to judge is i i feel it's much more how um you know how much does one's actual life change that's how you actually judge meditation how are you actually uh with other people that's the real that's the real discernment if you want to say well is it working or not it's not how you feel during a meditation you know what's it actually producing yeah in terms of the way we're showing up for life in a way that's the result of our meditation but i think just coming back to that one a little bit it's i mean i remember you know in my earlier years of meditation you know feeling such a strong mind wanting to get somewhere wanting to be successful in meditation and then if you really look well who is that that's trying to be good at meditation you know who is that then what exposed is oh that's just that's just the learned mind again trying to hook some sense of positive sense of self around meditation practice and really it's an invitation just to let that relax as i completely requested it beautiful as you're meditating in your mind and the goal is to do nothing just to relax and let it all move through it's all weather yeah here we are it's deeper than the passing yeah and just so this will clarify one more thing just before we move on because i feel it's easy for people to get the impression that there's something the matter with our mind we've got to always get beyond it or oh it's like some some affliction you know you know some of the ways that people sometimes talk about their mind and yes our minds are all you know can be all over the place but the mind is you know extraordinary it's just it's extraordinary beautiful tool as long as we're we're not just obsessed neurotically with it and the meditation yes we don't want to be engaging with our mind there but it's so that we can have another basis so that so that we're not um lost within the mind trying to change the mind from within the mind and not war inside the mind with ourselves but but then you know the mind is an extraordinary uh evolutionary um you know emergence you know that that's what makes us human that gives that you know the extraordinary powers to discriminate in order to evolve to actually be all all the great things about humanity you know apart from the innate ones are ones that we we need the mind for that so it's engaging with the mind in the same way that's the purpose of meditation so it's not like because people can easily see where you know mind is a good thing or it's a bad thing and it's it's it's not it's meditation it's not that you leave the mind alone but of course in in you know when we're acting in engagement with other people you can't leave your mind alone you'd be a vegetable right well i'd like to make the discrimination between our learned mind and then true open-mindedness because our learned mind is really all the thoughts that we've just inherited either their collective thoughts or their ego thoughts or their conditioned thoughts so they're thoughts that are really arising out of the the sense of being separate from everything and everyone and the layers and layers and layers and of course the way that that mind works is very limiting and um not present not open so a lot of really the point of meditation and spiritual practices to produce open-mindedness genuinely open-mindedness and that's what jesus was meaning when he said be ye as little children to be deeply young is incredible and then what happens is the head center totally switches on and it's capable of depth of intelligence and brilliancy and clarity and understanding and refining that is exquisite and it reflects the profound depth of being and um cooperates with it becomes an instrument of that so meditation to me dismissing the mind something glad you put you've brought that up chris it's important that we just understand the difference between mind and open-mindedness in which the faculties of the true mind are utilized profoundly in the service so a lot of the learning how to not pick up the usual habits of our ego mind learning relax learning to reside which is what meditation encourages then we actually create space um for something deeper to to really have some dominion in it that's then very exciting right all right i'm tempted to always say more but i think i shouldn't because it's great because i'd love to because each one of these things we could have a whole uh fascinating discussion that in order to so that we have more time for questions so i won't say anything more so this is great so this next series is this is our most popular set of questions and every time we do an event related to meditation people have tons of questions about this so monica boney asks how do you live meditation in your daily activities and in the same vein murugavel sambandan and i'm sure i'm mispronouncing that asks how do you stay in constant meditation even when are going about your daily activities what are the signs that you have quote unquote crossed over or realized in a meditation okay so you've been touching in and out of these questions throughout but this this is just a more putting it more directly yeah i mean no that i mean they're good questions because i mean i think it's good you know that people don't just see meditation as some hobby on the side you know some you know thing that you do as a on the side but they're actually interested in seeing well how does this really uh you know affect how does this help transform our actual lives which is obviously obviously you know the the point and i think that you know i mean i tell you you know one story i used to when i used to do a lot of um buddhist meditation i i'd spend a lot of time i did a lot of retreats where you'd meditate all day and you'd slow down your activity to you know you so you're hardly moving or doing anything you're aware of every movement you know when you lifted your hand it's very powerful as a concentration technique that sort of practice and then when i'd finish and it you know be back to engaging with people back to so called that so called daily life i mean i don't really feel it's like that we i feel we've only got daily life essentially only one life it's a life with it but anyway that's how we often would view it then i'd find oh i'd lose it i'd lose that that sense of spaciousness and awareness because you i couldn't keep that level of um awareness that you have you know because you're engaging with people life's too fast the sort of uh movement where you lift you know when you lift your hand up you're aware of that you're aware of everything every movement you do slow steps you can't have i'm just saying this is a rather extreme example but it was something that i grappled with quite a lot because i used to think that if i could did this sort of um practice enough i'd get to a state where this would i'd be like this all the time and it just isn't possible unless you live in a cave or in a monastery all the time and it always feels like lose it and you and you'd go back to practice and the big uh subject of among us meditations would would always be dharma in daily life meaning how do you do this how do you live this and of course in looking in that narrow way you can't unless you want to completely live you know a a life that's dedicated to removing or you know nearly all century input or get it to a minimum you know which is like a sort of a yogi or a hermit so then the interesting thing so i i think i think it's changed my view a lot to see that you can't maintain any particular state of consciousness any state of feeling and i think that in terms of meditation i do feel it does start to permeate one's life if one really does it and i think it's important to have a daily practice and i find for myself it does begin to permeate life but not in not in this sort of way that you're always calm or your mind never troubles you it's not the ripples you can't do if you want to leave if you want to develop and evolve and live in active life and you know as i do and create you you know your mind's going to be all over the place but it's more having this i feel this sort of foundation in a way it's more about trust in life it's more about a trust that doesn't depend on what you're feeling because i think the real fruit of meditation in the end is how much do you trust that there's nothing wrong with life because you know it you know it's your deepest conviction that life is positive there's nothing wrong and you don't have to be feeling anything you don't need to just sort of i don't have to have a sense of spaciousness in order to prove that because you know we're human beings we're subject to all sorts of moods you know things will come and go you know what you know we're going to be in unpleasant situations you can't always feel good right so i think it's it's this i feel for my mind that what really transforms is this sense of a deeper trust in life such that they don't have to feel anything particular or that the or the presence of something particular even if it's unpleasant doesn't mean there's something there's something the matter with me or with life or i've lost it you know and i think that that's where it really comes to really i think trust is more important than anything else it's just one one way of you know there's lots of ways of looking at that so one uh one answer and i think you know in terms of it it's like we're saying before also it's like how much does one start to become a different person who is less uh mechanically acting out of all that sort of uh habitual conditioning of the separate self-sense with all its arrogance concern with image you know inferior superior you know or or or focus neurotically on me how much does that actually change and that's something you can actually see if we're interested in seeing it and other particularly other people can see it there's sometimes a better judge of how we are than ourselves so um anyway yeah i would love what you were saying about um personally i just want to ask more can you finalize the questions can you ask that again miranda yes say the question again briefly sure and i'm just going to say these these are our last two questions and we'll wrap up after these the how do you live this is from monica how do you live meditation in your daily life and your daily activities and then how do you stay in constant meditation even when you're going about your daily activities okay so um thank you for them yeah for re-clarifying that this is a huge and very very important subject i think the first thing is to look at that you know we have times perhaps where we let ourself just drink that's part of what i say to my students that sitting meditation or times of formal meditation perhaps in silence or whatever it's really it's it's a time of conscious residing and resting and just resting in being in silence and i agree with you chris that if you do that regularly it does start to permeate through your day which doesn't mean that you don't get reactive it doesn't mean that things don't happen that are disappointing it doesn't mean that you're always in some spiritual state and i think that's one of the biggest things when it comes to daily practice is to really see that enlightenment is not a state it's an awareness of the depth of things and that brings forth in us the capacity to open and soften and allow levels unfolding to unfold and to to learn more of what we are and of the deep nature of reality in the process of each boband so if we then view opening softening allowing as practice then there is no limit to where how we can practice that we could be at the supermarket standing in the line and just noticing our experience and noticing what's here opening softening allowing into the moment to see what is what is really here we can be at our computer you know facing the daily you know influx of emails genders that come in through our inbox every morning and spencing our body absolutely here noticing my breath um noticing the awareness that's deeper than the email or the person that sent the email so it's really about bringing our attention back in each moment to are we resisting and contracting and insisting the moment should look the way we think it should look or are we relaxing and opening into what is um letting the mystery unfold and and also unfold us because enlightenment isn't a fixed thing i don't think there's an end point of okay now you're done it's as long as we're alive there is more depth of realization to emerge and sometimes we need moments of contraction or pressure to urge us to let the dropping happen here or here or here so i think it's really important to view everything as part of our spiritual practice and every there's an invitation of course we're going to have strengths and residing in awareness in some places in our life more than others and that just shows us we need to bring extra humility and openness and integration through our practice i mean that's one of the big things i've really it's been very helpful personally is to for example i have a hard time with technology and i'm slightly dyslexic and and i know exactly how amazing comes out so it's really fantastic you go oh okay well these are the places where i i really need to retrieve this as spiritual practice so it looks like for me so i bring the right answer this spiritual practice is sitting here feeling like a dummy trying to work out how to install this thing on my computer hearing my mind tell me you can't do that you need somebody to help you like taking a breath just noticing that's interesting um not take for seriously you know coming into the moment what what's needed now taking another breath noticing refuse to contract or resist around that not following them and on it goes and it's exactly the same thing if for example it's harder for you to communicate or a lot of people have difficulty dealing with conflict in their relationship so okay that means right conflict that's spiritual practice right there am i in my how strongly holding on to my position that i they're wrong right now and withdrew the projection within her father and actually just we're willing to just see them as another human being right now right what is this is spiritual practices meditation everyday stuff fantastic i was so sorry so inspiring the phenomena of our of getting reactive of getting upset to not knowing the way of um you know having a challenge in a particular area of our life those things are the gateways can be become gateways to very profound realization if you know without commentating or attacking ourselves or judging for where we find ourselves just opening into oh what's here who's the one even acquiring fantastic thank you boys and miranda if someone wants to learn more about your work which i'm sure a lot of people are going to want to know more about it where can they go what's your website it's a www dot miranda macpherson m-i-r-a-n-d-a-m-a-c-p-h-e-r-s-o-n you can also find me on youtube as well and um there's some various clips and things there but my website's probably the easiest great and and chris for for you where can people come and learn more about your work well this uh leah i mean i didn't enlighten in like next uk site website that's easy to find if you put in like next uk that that's a the main way i mean you can also um find about me um on chris parish.com there's also my own website there fantastic one i want to just thank our listening and and uh watching audience i want to invite everyone to please feel free to write to us at marathon enlightenex.org and we'd love to hear what you thought about the dialogue share share your response with us and i'll make sure chris and miranda get to see it so fantastic chris miranda thank you again thank you take care thank you very much think about what it takes to run a marathon or swim the english channel climb mount everest or ride the tour de france it takes strength focus inspiration and the will to succeed no matter what in a word it takes spirit what would it be like to bring that same kind of spirit and determination to a different kind of challenge an inner marathon in which you're endeavoring to let go completely and sit absolutely still in silence for 24 hours in a row that's what the enlightened next meditation marathon is all about instead of pushing your physical limits you're giving your mind and your soul a challenge and stretching the wings of your own capacity for consciousness so you