I asked Donald Moyer this morning what his motivation in inviting me to come here to do classes is, and I hadn't asked him before, so he was somewhat taken aback by my question, as though I were saying, why did you ask me to come or something like that. And then when he didn't say anything, I said, well, is there a reason why you want me to do... Oh, he said something about that he feels that, especially for his teacher trainees, he wants a spiritual dimension brought into their yoga practice. And then I said, What I understood before from you was that you wanted some context for the yoga practice of your teacher trainees, but also of the other people that come to study yoga here.

[01:02]

You want some context for how yoga fits into their whole life and how yoga relates to how you share the benefits of yoga with all the people you meet. And he said, yes, something like that is the reasons. Yes? And just now Pam came in. And Pam's sister, I forgot your name. Betsy. You know, if you want to move forward, Betsy, the light won't be shining in your face. I don't know if that's bothering you, but it's bothering me. Come closer. I'm, I guess I, thinking about this class, I guess I would say that I'm kind of in a, kind of in a yoga mood, or I've been thinking about a lot lately about how

[02:22]

to make Zen more yogic and also how to make yoga more, not more Zen exactly, but how to make yoga more enlightened. I think that practicing yoga, generally speaking, even if you do it with some selfishness, it's still a pretty wholesome thing to do. But if you practice yoga with a more unselfish motivation or under the guidance of an awake attitude or an enlightened attitude, if you put the yoga practice together with that, then yoga is not just wholesome, it can be actually liberating. It can set you free from everything. An enlightened attitude by itself is very good, but it needs some way to be grounded.

[03:32]

An enlightened attitude, an attitude of, for example, living for the welfare of all beings, is an enlightened attitude. But that attitude has to land, it has to come down to earth. in order to manifest liberation, to make liberation practical. So a lot of what I think about doing here would be to work both on yoga in terms of the body and mind and breath, but also work with the attitude with which we work with body, mind and breath. So I'd like to tell you that the general format of these classes which we've worked out over the last few years, which seems to work fairly well, is that the class begins with a period of sitting, of silent sitting, about a half an hour.

[04:48]

So it's good if you can come on time or a little early to get your sitting time in. And then we usually have a period of walking meditation. And then I make some presentation followed by time for discussion. And then some more walking meditation if we have time. And then a final period of sitting quietly to immerse ourselves in the teachings and discussions that have occurred during our session. That seems to work quite well. And tonight's a little different, though. I'd like tonight to start with some instruction in the sitting. This won't be the only instruction. I will give basically sitting instruction the whole way through. But this is just I will give just something to get you started, and then we'll go into more depth over the five weeks.

[05:54]

you're already sitting, and so I'd like to ask you to stand up. I partly ask you to stand up so that you can give your legs a little rest before you sit down again, but also ask you to stand up because I want you to sit down from standing. I want you to be aware of the fact that when you sit, you take a seat. Now you're already touching the earth though, which is good. So I guess I find it very helpful to notice that. that when I'm standing on the earth that actually, in fact, I am doing that. I mean, my body is touching the earth. Now I'd like you to take a seat.

[07:00]

Just sit down and touch the earth with another part of your body. Other parts of your body that you touch with. And for tonight, I would say cross your legs in a way that's comfortable for you. And let's see what you do if I say that. Are you all comfortable now?

[08:05]

Are you comfortable, Catherine? Would you be more comfortable if you put something under your knees? Would that help you, you think? You don't know? Like if you fold those over and put them under your sort of... Yeah. Yeah. Is that more comfortable? Could you also give her one more of those? Put one more under your seat. Try that, see how that... Not necessarily fold it over, just one more. How's that? Is it pretty good? Also, over time, I may make some further suggestions about some of you sitting a little higher or something.

[09:14]

So let's just say that I asked you to find a comfortable way to cross your legs and you did your best so far. And I think one of the main things about finding a comfortable way to sit on the earth is that you would be able to sit up fairly straight now. So the next point after after positioning yourself on the earth. And also I would ask you to try to make your knees so that they're fairly, what do you call it, so the line of your knees is more or less at right angles to the line of the wood on the floor. That makes it so that if I come around behind you, I can tell by your shoulders. I can see if your shoulders are lined up, but if your knees are off, it's kind of hard for me to tell whether your shoulder's lined up. So try to sit with a sense of not having one knee farther forward than the other.

[10:18]

And also, to some extent, try to sense whether the weight on your sitting bones is fairly evenly distributed, and that one side is not particularly higher than the other, so that your hips are also fairly even. So again, The awareness I'd like you to bring now is to your spine. And I'll just say the English word, straight. And you do whatever you think that is. And then after you're sitting for a while, I'll come around and make some suggestion about what I mean by straight. Straight doesn't mean like straight, like a straight line. It means the most awake, alive,

[11:27]

way of your spine being, given your life circumstances. So make your spine as awake and as alive as it can be. From the base of the spine, vertebra by vertebra, all the way up into your neck, right up into your head, and then bring that awareness right up into your skull, to the crown of your head. And even maybe feel that you're firmly placed on the earth and that from that seated place, from that well-grounded place, you can actually lift up from there, like almost like a tree growing up out of the earth, way up into the sky. So although your gravity is pulling down to the earth and you're there, you can also be lifted from that place right up to the top of your head.

[12:42]

Sometimes we even say that you almost feel like you're being lifted from the crown of your head, you're being lifted up taller. And then coming down from the crown of your head to the front of your head, forehead is relaxed, eyebrows are relaxed, eyes are relaxed, and yet they're open. They're cast down at an angle of about 45 degrees. And then coming to the nose, you breathe naturally through the nose. And I recommend that you have your lips together and your teeth together. quietly together not clenched or forced just touching is placed on the roof of the mouth with the tip of the tongue touching the back of the upper teeth

[14:17]

The front of your neck is relaxed. The back of your neck is lengthened up and broadened. So you're awake in the back of the neck and awake in the front of the neck, but a little bit more effort to lengthen and broaden in the back of the neck. If your spine is awake and is in its proper place, that will also encourage your chest not to be caved in.

[16:07]

I just might suggest a little exercise, which may be a little hard since you're sitting close together. If you put your arms out to your side like this, straight out. If you pull your arms back behind you, then you feel maybe your chest is opened up quite a bit. Okay, feeling that feeling of openness in your chest by doing that? But that's a little too much for sitting. Now, if you pull your arms forward, you may feel your back opened up and broad. Do you? That's a little too much. So can you sit with your arms in the middle and have that feeling of openness that you had when you pulled your arms back quite a ways, and also have the feeling of openness in your back when you pulled your arms forward? So have that feeling of openness in the front and wide broadness in the front and at the same time broadness in the back.

[17:30]

If you can do both at the same time. In other words, have the largest, in a sense the largest, fullest sense of your upper torso. not caving in in the back or the front. I would suggest now that you again work with your back and front of your abdomen in such a way that you feel some presence some emphasis in your abdomen below your navel. Then you can take either your right or left hand.

[18:46]

I'm going to take my right hand. And you can take whichever hand you want and place it against your abdomen. Touch your abdomen with your baby fingers. With your palm up. And then place your left hand on top or your right hand on top. And have those fingers also touch your abdomen. Again, with your palm up. And then join your thumb tips. And make a beautiful oval. And the place where the thumb tips touch should not be a real heavy touching.

[19:50]

but a light touch, just enough perhaps to hold a piece of paper. And if your fingers are touching your abdomen, I think that will naturally bring your arms away from your body so your arms aren't tight, the upper arms aren't touching your torso, aren't touching your ribcage. So these are the points of posture I'd like you to be aware of when sitting. Usually when I give these basic instructions, I just give the postural instructions because if you just synchronize your awareness with these points of posture, that in itself is plenty.

[20:55]

But tonight I'm going to give you a little bit more to work with, and that is to also synchronize this awareness of your posture with your breathing. And notice these points of posture and also notice whether you're inhaling or exhaling. So that's the basic instruction I want to give you to start off with.

[22:38]

Any questions about this? Yes, Jonathan? I would suggest... At this point in our practice here, I would suggest that you quietly, in the spirit of not moving, reassess or reiterate or reaffirm the points of posture. So, for example, if you notice your eyes are shut, open them, but open them gently. If you notice your tongue's flapping around in your mouth, Just replace it on the roof of the mouth. If you notice that this hand mudra, this way of holding the hands is called the cosmic concentration mudra.

[23:43]

And I'll talk later about why it's called the cosmic concentration mudra, but if this Mudra means ring or seal. If this seal breaks, if this ring breaks, if it falls apart due to lack of attention or whatever, then just I would suggest bringing it back together again. So basically that's what I would suggest, that you just keep working to reaffirm the posture if it slips. Sometimes I might suggest to a person that they just sit still, and if they slip, that they just be still and let it slip. Of course, they must have moved to get in the position of slipping, but anyway, at that point that they're in, just sit still. But for now, I would suggest that you reconnect with the points of posture again and again, and if you notice they slipped, which is quite common, reestablish that.

[24:57]

Yes? Kathleen, is it? Kathy. What if when you're sitting, you initially chose an option that you thought was comfortable, then over time it becomes uncomfortable and you just change it? Well, it depends on what kind of uncomfortable you mean. What kind of comfortable do you mean? Well, let's say your knee joint begins to hurt or your hip joint begins to hurt or something like that, or your lower spine begins to hurt, any of those things. It's okay to move into some other posture if you want to. But it's also okay to consider whether maybe, for example, let's say my neck starts, in my case if my neck starts hurting and if my neck starts hurting it's usually because I'm not giving enough support to my head. let's say my neck starts hurting, so then I might think, well, maybe I should rock my neck around or take a nap or something.

[26:10]

But in my case, I've learned that if my neck starts hurting, it's usually because I'm not holding my head properly. If I just sit like this and don't move for a while, my neck will start hurting. So look at my head the way I'm holding it. It doesn't look too bad, does it? Does anybody think it looks bad? But if I sit this way for quite a while, my neck will start hurting. Now, when it starts hurting, it usually reminds me to go like this. Watch. Do you see a difference? Did I get about maybe a half inch taller or an inch? I don't know. How much taller did I get? I got taller, right? Where'd that come from? Yeah. I lengthened and broadened the back of my neck. Now, if I sit this way, usually I can sit really a long time and my neck doesn't get stiff. The other way, although it seemed to be fairly relaxed, it was actually a little bit crunched back there.

[27:16]

And I can sit that way for a while and be fairly comfortable, but as I sit, you know, 40 minutes or an hour, then that just starts to, or repeated periods, then it starts to not work. So the only way I can sit a lot, a long period, is to sit with my neck like this. But I don't push it up there so hard that I'm straining it. That also could cause it. So the pain doesn't necessarily mean that you should move. Sometimes it means that you should lengthen your spine. Also, I sometimes get a cramp feeling or a crunch feeling in my lower back or my hips. That also is often due to not holding my hips properly. Some laziness there. Some pushing too much one way or the other. And the pain sometimes gives me notice that you know, I'm getting lazy down there. So it doesn't mean necessarily you should move. For a beginner, it's hard to tell whether it means that your posture is not awake enough or whether you have some problem.

[28:23]

Okay? So if you're not sure and you're worried, make yourself comfortable. I would say now the important thing to do at this point for most of you is to Make yourself comfortable so that you look forward to coming back next week. Make yourself comfortable so that you enjoy the experience and feel like it's healthful and so on. But as you practice more, you learn that some discomforts are not a problem. For example, the pain that happens of your butt touching the ground. That is almost never a problem unless you sit really long, long times, like maybe 24 hours a day without moving. Then you might have developed dicubitus ulcers from pressure on those points.

[29:26]

And if you do sit a long time, sometimes it does get actually raw down there and almost, you know, gets red and so on. But that's usually from much, much more sitting than we're doing here. That's like maybe something in the neighborhood of 18, 20 hours a day of sitting. Then you get sore there sometimes. But otherwise, you can get sore there long before any kind of skin damages occurs. But you have to learn that. Knee pain. You have to learn what knee pain is worrisome and what knee pain isn't. I can tell myself from my experience certain kinds of knee pain are no problem. Other kinds of knee pain are either unfamiliar or I've learned that they are a problem. When the problem kind of knee pain occurs, I make an adjustment in the way I'm crossing my legs or I uncross my legs. When the non-problematic knee pain occurs, the kind of knee pain which I've learned, after I sit in that kind of pain, when I uncross my legs, there's no problem. As a matter of fact, I sometimes have gone into the sitting posture with swollen knees

[30:30]

And by positioning my legs just right after sitting that way for a while, the swelling goes away. On the other hand, if you have, sometimes you cross your legs improperly, your knees can swell up and you can get, you know, a lot of problems. So I would say for the beginners, if you don't know what the pain means, make yourself comfortable. And then maybe discuss with me or some yoga teacher what's going on. And you may find out, they may say, no problem, or they may say, let's see how you're doing that, do it this way. A lot of people ask, what about legs falling asleep? And by that, what I mean by falling asleep is that feeling of sleepiness or numbness that happens to your leg, and that when you uncross your legs, the sensation of pins and needles happens, and the feeling comes back in usually less than five minutes. maybe just one minute, two minutes, rarely more than five minutes. If it lasts for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, then I would say let me know or let a yoga teacher know.

[31:32]

Probably a problem. Not to mention it lasts a half an hour or all day. Then you've got something more serious. But the falling asleep that comes back right away, I don't think is a problem. The only problem is if you try to stand up and walk too fast and then you can sprain your ankle or something for trying to stand on a foot that's asleep and you don't You're not familiar with how to walk with feet that are numb. After you're more experienced, you can walk with your feet completely asleep. But for now, I would say the important point is if your feet are asleep, just uncross them and wait for them to come back. And don't feel in a hurry just because other people are standing up right away. Just stay down until your feet are awake. That's an example. And people say it hurts. They say it's numb and it hurts. I think what they mean is it's kind of annoying. It doesn't really hurt usually. So I guess I would say, again, for the beginner, don't push yourself too hard. If you're uncomfortable, make yourself comfortable.

[32:35]

And over time, you'll learn which things are worrisome and which things aren't, which pains you can sit through, which pains you can't. I would say my feeling about this sitting practice is that, and all kinds of yogic practices that are practiced in relationship to enlightened attitude, is that they are They're for the long haul. They're not just for this week. They're not to get some kind of great experience this week. They're for your whole life. So we're trying to set a basis here for a lifelong practice. So there's no hurry to get to... There's no hurry. Any other questions at this time? Okay. Okay.

[33:35]

So next I'd like to teach you the walking meditation. So would you carefully, with great dignity, rise and stand. There are many kinds of walking meditation. I'm just going to teach you . It's called in Japanese, or Chinese, it's called means. to circulate the scripture in Sanskrit sutra.

[34:42]

The word sutra means thread. And literally, the word sutra is the thread that's referred to as a thread that goes through the leaves of the text. The reason why they could have called the sutra Leads, or Pages, too. There's Pages in the text. But I think they chose the word thread that goes through because what the sutra is, it's a thread that runs through everything. So this walking meditation is kind of like a thread that connects your walking to your sitting. It connects your walking to your sitting, to your standing. So it's kind of like run this thread through or circulate this thread of mindfulness and awakeness throughout your life. The way I would suggest is that you start by standing with your feet staggered slightly.

[35:47]

And we'll be walking up and down the aisle between our seats. I'm standing facing you, so maybe I'll turn to the side. And your feet are staggered so that the toe, the back foot, is at the instep of the front foot, or the arch of the front foot, the starting position. And we put steps, which are basically the length of our foot, so you take a step to the length of your foot, you wind up with the same arrangement of the toe with the instep again. And the feet are about hip or shoulder distance apart. They're not right together. And the toes are pointed out a little bit farther apart

[36:51]

at the front and at the back. And if you watch me now, I'll show you. So the walking actually is not like exactly straight. It's not like walking like this. It has more like, it looks a little bit like, not intentionally, but it looks a little like Tai Chi when you do it. So the walking follows the breathing. So you're mindful of your breathing when you're sitting, and you're mindful of your breathing when you're walking. And when you're walking, now your walking will follow your breathing. So first you tune into your breathing. And I would suggest that on inhale, when you start on an inhale, I'm just going to use my hand to show you inhale.

[37:58]

I'm going to lift my hand up on inhale and have my hand go down on the exhale. On inhale, I'm going to lift my back heel. And then as I finish my inhale, I'm going to have most of my weight on my lead foot so that my back foot relatively free to go forward. And then on the in exhale, I take a step. So, walk my back heel. So now I'm going to show you the hand posture that we use.

[39:32]

This is the hand posture for the sitting meditation. It's called the Cognitive Mudra. And the wapi, we put the, if you have, you take the left hand, you bring the thumb in and wrap the finger around it. And you tilt it. You place it against your chest, around here. sternum, below your sternum, and then cover it with the right hand. And place the finger in the little crevice there. And again, the arms are away from the body. So this is the long way of holding hands. Okay? And again, your spine is long. Open in the front, open in the back. Eyes cast down. Palming the lip of the mouth. Some presence below the neck, that area is called . You heard that?

[40:34]

It's the secret of the Asian culture. We have some presence here below the navel. Not too much. You can look. You can find out how much to be down there. Some presence there. OK, now, I'd like you to watch me, and I'd like you to say what my breath is doing. I'm not going to tell you. But you can tell by my feet. I'll allow it to stay what my breath is doing. Great.

[41:45]

You can see I step on the exhale, and then I continue the exhale, and as I continue the exhale, I'm shifting more and more weight under this lean foot. So I'm going over this way, and my heel comes up, and I put the foot over there, and I go over this way. There's somewhat of this kind of thing going on. Don't do it to do it. But if you just naturally shift your weight from side to side, this will happen. Any questions about the walking meditation? Some people find that in sitting they get really concentrated, and they don't really get up and do walking meditation. But if you do this early, you can be as concentrated in the walking as you are in the sitting. Some other people actually have trouble concentrating and becoming calm while they're sitting, and they actually can get more into the concentration when they're walking. Each of the four noble postures, standing, walking, sitting, and reclining, each of these postures offers an opportunity to have a balanced state of body and mind relationship.

[42:58]

But they have different tendencies, which you remind me I'll go into later. So what we do usually is we get up. First thing to do, I would suggest that you get up from your place and then stand in a position where you're walking. Just stand there for a second. And then I'll say, after everybody's standing, I'll say, walking meditation. And then you start the walking. But before we start walking, you have to experience standing as a posture. And after we do that for a while, I'll ring a bell. And then I'd like you to walk quite a bit faster back to your original place. And we work our way in here, up doing this. This road goes this way. [...]

[44:02]

And then this road goes around this way. Yes. Go back up to the front row. Yes. You might walk through that one if you enjoy it. Walk back. Okay.

[45:15]

Yes, it is. It is unblocking. You cast your eyes down the same angle when sitting. So it'll be slightly farther away since you're higher. Basically about 45 degrees. When doing standing meditation and sitting meditation or walking meditation or lying down meditation, the eye The gaze of the eye, the angle is something which you have to adjust for yourself. The point of the gaze of the eye is that it's a gaze that is relaxed, calm, and awake. If you have your eyes shut, of course it's going to be very difficult to walk. So it's too much for most people. Also for most people to shut the eyes.

[46:16]

But anyway, when you're walking, you may be able to have your eyes, you might want your eyes a little bit more closed than when you're sitting. Because when you're walking, generally speaking, you're more alert. and afraid when you're sitting. So you might be able to stay awake and alert with your eyes more shut, because shutting your eyes more generally calms you. So most people will have a different angle of the eyes for the different postures. And you have to find out what angle is most balanced for you. What balance is alertness and relaxation best for you? Can you expand on that? Okay? Yes? Just a funny thought, where you choose to walk. Where you choose to walk? You mean in daily life or right in this class? I would say that this kind of walking meditation you should not do on the street.

[47:26]

I have another kind of walking meditation you should do on the street. This kind of walking meditation you should do in your house, Or if you do it outdoors, you should do it in a place where there's not cross-traffic or anything like that. This is because you really are concentrated and you're not really out in the world in this particular posture. So if you're going to do walking meditation on the street with cars and stuff like that and muggers, then I would have a different kind of instruction for you. which I'll give you later, okay? This meditation is like for indoors in safe places. Because you're being very, what do you call it, you're very vulnerable to this kind of meditation, very vulnerable. You're not looking out for what's going on around you in a real alert way. You're emphasizing calmness a lot, but in certain situations you should emphasize alertness and de-emphasize calm.

[48:33]

because it's a difficult situation. Please do the walking meditation for a while. First let's stand. Get a feeling of standing. And then walking meditation. Starting inhale. hand.

[50:19]

I enjoy what you just did, but do some of you get lost? Who's responsible? Oh, you keep going in the same direction. So like this, if Gabe wound up there, you just keep going like that. One of the hard places is when you come around this corner here, on this side, and they're coming at them. And sometimes, I don't know, something happens, and you end up going in very different directions. So that's the hard part. When you get over there, come straight down to the front again. All right? You can stand more. You can bring this up a little. And two more people came in, Ron and Adrian.

[53:03]

Is that all? Everybody else is here before? OK. There is actually, I think it's part of Chinese culture, but it's also part of the Buddhist culture. And that is that the Buddhist yogis practice what are called the, sometimes called the four dignities, the four dignified postures. And sometimes they're also called the Four Noble Postures. And they are standing, walking, sitting, and reclining, or lying down.

[54:11]

In the case of the Buddha, Buddha was an unusual little guy. As soon as he was born, he stood up. And then he took seven steps. So just right after he stood up, he walked and then made that proclamation, you know, like this, between heaven and earth. I alone am totally cool." However, he did later run into some suffering and decided to dedicate himself to the liberation of all beings. And then he walked out of the palace into the forest and finally he sat. He sat a lot, but then on a certain occasion he said, I'm going to sit tonight and I'm not going to move until I realize the truth which liberates all beings.

[55:29]

And he sat down under the boat tree that night. So that was his big sit. Of course, he touched earth when he was standing. He touched earth when he was walking. When he sat, he touched earth too. But then when he really made his determination to be awake, he was assailed by various demons who said, you know, you can't do this. You can't sit still, completely still, and realize ultimate truth. And he wasn't sure, so he took his hand and made the mudra of touching earth and asking earth to witness and give him permission and support to sit still as long as necessary. And the earth witnessed his authority, his right to sit still, and he did.

[56:32]

And then he continued to practice standing, sitting, walking, and lying down until he died. And when he died, again, he assumed the reclining posture, which is to lie. He laid down on his right side, stretched out like this. with his eyes open and his tongue on the roof of his mouth. And he went into various yogic states in this position. And he passed away in this position. In the Zen school, lots of people sit cross-legged when they're

[57:42]

When they pass away, it's kind of like the Zen styles, cross your legs, sit up, and then die in this position with the cosmic mudra. But some Zen teachers get bored with that style, and sometimes one of our ancestors hung with one arm from a tree and died that way. Another one died leaning on a hoe in the field. and so on. There's lots of stories about what posture people choose to die in. They were ready to die and so they chose their favorite posture. One of our ancestors sat down in front of the monks and he told them that he was going to die. He crossed his legs like this and and sat like this and died and the monk started crying so he came back and said he can't let me die in peace okay let's have a party and they had a big feast and then uh and then a week later he did the same thing but that time they were quiet so he passed away

[59:05]

There's a basic principle of conduct there that we have to work that out. When somebody wants to die, we have to support that. And if we're not ready, we need to say, I guess I'm not ready for you to die. Could you wait a little longer? And in some sense, you have to ask people sometimes if they're going to let you go. And sometimes you have to tell them, I want to go. Will you please let me go? Will you support me? to die. Well, you keep living and I'm going to die. This has to be worked out sometimes, especially with people that really were close to. And sometimes when you see the person really wants to go, then you support it. Anyway, the Buddha was reclining when he died. So these are the Four Noble Postures and I'd like to discuss with you why they're called the Four Noble Postures or why they're called the Four Dignities. It's partly maybe that to stand up straight is a pretty dignified thing to do, or to walk with correct posture is pretty dignified, to sit with correct posture is pretty dignified, to lie down that way, you might say, is pretty dignified.

[60:27]

But there's more to the dignity than that. The word dignity, I think, means a form of deportment, a posture, or form of deportment, which has a self-respect such that it engenders respect in others. Now, some people walk around fairly erect with a sense of self-respect, which sometimes is called arrogance, maybe. And people notice, oh, this person has confidence, but I don't respect them. So dignity is is a form of self-respect or uprightness such that other people also respect it. So it's upright but not puffed. Upright without being puffed up.

[61:28]

That's dignity. So these postures, they have the quality of uprightness. Their nobility is in their uprightness. But this uprightness is, what is it? It has no leanings. It has no biases. So you're upright in space. You're not leaning forward or backwards. You're not leaning right or left. or any of the other ten directions, those ten directions, forward, backwards, right, left, you know, north, south, east, west, and then there's also northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest, and then also up and down. So the noble posture is that you're not leaning in any of those directions, plus you're not trying to be taller than you are or be below or lower than you are.

[62:33]

You're not leaning into any of the directions. You're meeting each direction appropriately. you're taking up just the right amount of space you're taking up your space that's appropriate for your body and mind and no more and no less and in time you're not getting ahead of yourself or behind yourself you're not leaning into the future you're not cringing or shrinking away from the present and leaning into the past And you're not even leaning into the present. You're just present without any bias in time or space. You're upright, but not puffed up any bigger than you should be. Some people have a tendency to be a little bit leaning into... When they meet other people, they have a tendency to lean into the other person, to go into the other person's space.

[63:46]

Some people have a tendency to kind of lean back and make space for other people. Lean back and make space for other people, but to such an extent that they actually, like, don't take up their own space. Some people, what do you call it, come on to you, right? They come on to you. This means that they take more space. They take some of your space. They come on to you. They hit on you. And depending on your habit patterns, you may like that or dislike it. If you're into the receding thing, then you're sort of waiting for somebody who comes on to you.

[64:54]

Uprightness is this wonderful thing which can easily be confused with being what do you call it, biased, leaning. Uprightness has a quality of autonomy and surrender, which sounds similar to rebellion, and submission. But rebellion is asserting yourself beyond what's necessary, being contentious beyond what's necessary.

[66:06]

And submission is taking up less space than you're responsible for. Autonomy goes with surrender. The funny thing is that when you're autonomous, you surrender all leanings. When you're not leaning forward or backward, right or left, up or down, past or future, you're autonomous. And you surrender all selfishness at the same time. that autonomous and selflessness are simultaneous. So the surrender is not to relinquish your own self-expression. So uprightness is a balance between self-expression and self-assertion and recognizing other people.

[67:10]

recognizing past and future, recognizing right and left, forward and backwards, recognizing them, listening to them, honoring them, and asserting your position. Your position is not the least bit other than where you are. It's not the least bit ahead or behind you. That's your autonomous place in the world. When you stand with that sense, walk with that sense, sit with that sense, and lie down in that sense, you are in a noble posture. You have dignity. You have the courage and confidence to take your place on the earth. And you feel supported. It isn't an arrogant thing of saying, well, I get this place. No. It's because the earth supports you that you can be in this place.

[68:17]

It's not an arrogance. It's not a puffed-upness. It's a simple fact of your autonomy. Your autonomy is who you really are. There's nothing to be overly proud about or ashamed of. However, if you take up too much space, that's called pride, and not taking enough space is shameful. Also, taking too much space is shameful. But when you take too much space, oftentimes at that moment you don't feel ashamed. If you did, you wouldn't. But people can feel ashamed of not taking up their own position, and that makes sense. That shame should go with not taking up your position, not being responsible to who you must be. so these five weeks i would like to in this class and between the classes too i would like you to be mindful keep your eyes and ears and nose and tongue and skin and mind awake and ready to find this noble standing this noble walking this noble sitting in this noble reclining

[69:39]

which will express your autonomous true nature and also will express your willingness to surrender yourself. It's a selfless posture too. There's no self there. There's just the posture in its right place. And these four postures embrace all activities of daily life. There's four, but there's postures between the four. You went through various positions when you went from sitting to standing up. All those postures also should have the same full self-expression, not overdoing it or underdoing it. When you go from the standing to the walking, you went through certain transitions. And when you go from the walking to the standing and the standing to the sitting, These four embrace all activities of daily life. They're just the prototypes of all postures. They're the prototype. They're the prototypes of the body that appears in the world that expresses awakening.

[70:56]

If you're mindful, you can find this body. It's right under your nose. It's very close. It's very close. But if we are a little bit ahead of it or a little bit behind it, we miss it. But don't worry, it's there all the time. All you have to do is heighten and completely, thoroughly practice mindfulness of your body in whatever position you're in. There's no position you can't practice this in. You can even be leaning and practice it. Not leaning to the right means that when I'm leaning to the right, right now you see me leaning to the right?

[72:10]

Not leaning to the right means I don't lean any more to the right than I'm leaning. I'm completely hugging this body in this position. I'm also not leaning any to the left of where I am. My thumb is not the least bit higher than it is or lower. Now this is uprightness, which sounds kind of intense, and it is. It's just the right amount of intense, though it's not too much, it's not too little. But also with this uprightness, with this dignity, we also need to have

[73:22]

gentleness and flexibility. Like I just demonstrated that I'm talking about sitting up straight, but then when I lean, I have to be flexible and realize, well, now I'm in another posture, so I have to do it with that one. It isn't like you get yourself in these four postures and then you can't... and you somehow have to, like, jump from one to the other. You have to find... You have to be soft to be able to feel and be with whatever posture you're in. You have to be flexible and soft and gentle with yourself. You have to, again, surrender to your situation to use this one, to be friendly with yourself, to utilize whatever posture comes up. Now, I could say more, but maybe I shouldn't.

[75:10]

Maybe I should stop now and let you ask some questions. Do you have some about what I said so far? Yes. Forgive me if I don't ask this question. I'll forgive you. I'll forgive you. One is not . Only in contact with your not in contact or in contact If one is, if one is in contact with the earth? Well, that, that's what's left. That's, that's not, so if one is not in the, then one's only position is in contact with the earth.

[76:17]

Mm-hmm. On a, sort of on an axis. Mm-hmm. What is the verification that one is there? How does one know that that's real, that one is in contact with the earth? How does one know if one is in contact with the earth? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is when you're in contact with the earth, you don't need to know things anymore. When you're really in contact with the earth, you don't need to know things anymore. When you're not in contact with earth, you want to know something. Hmm? Because you're... You're hoping that if you know something, that'll assuage your anxiety. You feel insecure if you don't experience being touched in the earth, you feel very insecure. So you hope that knowing something will make you feel better. But when you're really in contact with the earth and you don't have anything else but that, you don't need anything else but that.

[77:24]

When you're not living in the future, you're not afraid anymore. So you don't need knowledge to protect you from the future or from anything. Now, in fact, we're all the time in contact with Earth, but we have extra stuff, too. We're holding on to extra stuff. We don't trust just touching the Earth. We think we need other stuff. If you're holding on to other stuff, then you're going to need more stuff, because holding on to this stuff isn't enough. So you want more. You want to be sure that you're holding on to the right stuff. You want to be sure you have enough stuff. You want some way to verify that you have enough stuff. But that root will never satisfy itself. You never get enough knowledge to be sure that you've got enough. If you really trust yourself, you verify that by giving everything up. Not leaning.

[78:30]

Being in contact with the earth seems to have a greater, more connotation or something, more to it, at least in my mind. Being in contact with the earth has more to do with than just not leaning. In other words, the absence of leaning, there seems to be another element. Yes, being in contact with the earth The other element is not just not leaning, not just being upright. Being in contact with earth implies not harming, implies selflessness, implies renunciation. I know that was a big jump, but And it's the path to the... Is the path through to what?

[79:35]

To this contact. I'm trying to understand that. And I think that's good that you're trying to understand. So let's keep trying. Touching earth, when you touch earth, Guess what else happens at that time, at that place? Earth touches you. When you touch the earth, you verify that the earth is doing its job. Namely, it's giving you a place to be. But by you taking up your place and being who you are, you verify earth. And then earth verifies you.

[80:39]

And you then are no longer harming earth or anything on earth. Because everything supports you. Everything supports you. Everything supports you. And therefore you will not harm anything once you understand that. If you feel completely supported by earth, you'll realize you're touching earth. If you realize you're touching earth, you'll realize you're supported by earth. When you give everything else up, actually, when you give everything up, you wind up where you are. You don't have to hold anything onto anything to be where you are. And thinking you have to hold on to something to be where you are is leaning. So we think, I have to think of the future in order to be where I am.

[81:44]

In order to be a good husband or wife, I have to think of tomorrow. In order to be a good parent, I have to think of tomorrow. I have to worry about the future in order to do my job. In other words, I'm not supported to live in the present. I'm only supported to worry. And I am supported through that. And that's right. When you're worrying, you are also being supported to worry. But if you realize that you're supported to worry, if you realize the earth is supporting you to worry, then at that time you touch the earth and you say, earth, you are supporting me to worry. And you're not worrying at that time. You're touching earth. You're saying, thank you, earth, for even supporting me to worry. And the earth says, no problem. Fine, go ahead and worry. We're here to support you no matter what you do.

[82:46]

And earth means everybody on earth. Everybody on earth is supporting your life and mine. Touching earth means I trust that everyone is supporting me. Touching earth means that I trust that the only thing I have to do is do the only thing I can do. I don't have to do anything other than what I can do, and all I can do is take up my place on earth. I can't do more or less than that. The only thing I can do is be here. I can't be ahead of where I am or behind where I am. That's the only thing I can do. And that's the only thing I'm supported to do. And even when I worry and think about the future, in fact, I'm in the present thinking of the future and worrying myself. And you people support me to do that. And you might even be happy to see me worrying to make sure that I can do it.

[83:50]

I told someone I was worried I have a little sore in my head. I told her I was worried I was going to go see a doctor today, and I did. And she was very happy to hear that I worried Are you getting closer? Do you want to work a little bit more at this? Are you done? Time to digest. Time to digest. I think you've got the upright part. I think what you need to work on now is the gentleness and softness part to get a feeling for this. Yes. We can ask questions until about 9 o'clock. Well, you said if you were in a country here, it could be the heart of anything.

[84:58]

Well, the cat might find a mouse and start batting the mouse around. Would you say that the cat is harming the mouse? I mean, wouldn't you think the cat is being a cat? Um... I would say that it's hard for me to judge cats or other people. It's not for me to judge other people. I'm telling you about how to work with yourself, not how to judge whether other people are working with themselves. That's first of all what I'm talking about. So now I talk about myself. If I start batting mice around, human beings can do that too. We can bat mice around. Some people are afraid to bat mice around, but in certain situations, some people are not afraid to bat mice around and can bat them around.

[85:59]

Now, can I bat mice around and touch earth? Could I feel that all you were supporting me to bat mice around? Let's say we had a mouse here and I started batting it around. Would I really feel you're supporting me to do that? Well, if I was batting the mouse around and you let me do it, you would be supporting me to do it. If you let me be mean to a mouse, if you sat here and watched me, in fact, you would be supporting me to do it. In fact, anything we do in this world, we are supported to do. If we weren't supported, it could not happen. If we do cruel things, we are supported to do cruel things. In other words, no matter what happens, you always have the autonomy, you always have your autonomy right there and you are supported to be who you are.

[87:03]

Now, if you appreciate that autonomy and you notice how everyone's helping you, then I propose you will stop doing anything that's cruel. But if you don't appreciate your autonomy and you don't notice how everyone's helping you, then you will do cruel things and you will be supported in doing those cruel things. And the thing that will support you, the special thing that will support you in addition to everybody else that's supporting your life, because basically even if you're a monster, people will support your life. We do, as you may have noticed, we human beings and we cats and we mice and we trees, we support people who seem to be monsters. Have you noticed that? We even love them. The mothers of monsters think they're cute. Not all the mothers of all monsters, and the mothers of some poets, I understand, don't like their boys or girls, but just cruel people, oftentimes the mothers of them love them.

[88:09]

People love crazy people sometimes. Support, there is support we get.

[88:21]

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