Ming: Good afternoon, my friends. We are deeply
honored today to be in the presence of one
of the greatest living Tibetan Masters, the
very venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. So,
when I first heard about the very venerable,
I wondered to myself, how is it like to be
the guy who is only slightly venerable?
[audience laughing]
Ming: And then I realized that guy is me.
[laughing]
But joke aside. Mingyur Rinpoche is, I think,
a great gem in the world. Rinpoche is a traditionally
trained Meditation Master with impeccable
credentials. He spent many years of his childhood
in strict retreat, and at a tender age of
17, he was invited to be a teacher at an important
three year retreat.
At the same time, Rinpoche speaks English,
he understands the modern world, and he has
a life long interest in western science and
psychology. He volunteered himself as a test
subject for cutting edge studies in neuroscience,
and for that he calls himself, I quote, a
"short red guinea pig." That's very funny,
funny guy. Uh, Rinpoche is the author of a
number one New York Times Best Seller, "The
Joy of Living", which is the book I recommend
to all my friends. It is the best meditation
book that I know of. He's also the author
of two other books, "Joyful Wisdom" and "Ziji:
The Puppy Who Learned to Meditate."
In real life as you might have noticed by
now Rinpoche's very funny, and he possesses
the rare ability to present ancient wisdom
in a way that is engaging and humorous. I
think we are very lucky to have him, and with
that please welcome our friend the very venerable
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.
[audience applauding]
Rinpoche: Thank you Ming. You're great introduction,
you're very kind.
[audience laughing]
And good looking.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: Good looking, that's true. And,
I'm very happy to be here. Welcome everyone
and
hmmmm
Now I've forgotten my talk.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: No, joking. I'd like to begin with
my own story about how I found meditation
and the meditation has helped for my life.
Can you see me? Should I stand up? Doesn't
make change here.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: Little better. Okay, better? When
I was nine, eight years old I was developed
panic disorder, panic. You know panic? Good.
And then I was looking for solution to deal
my panic, to get rid of my panic. I hate my
panic. I have panic of panic. And then my
grandfather and my father were great meditation
teachers. Especially my father, so when I
look at him, wow, he's nice, meditating. Calm,
peace, peaceful, and I want to learn meditation.
And one day I ran, I run from my house, and
ran to the cave because near my house there's
cave. My village, my hometown in Nepal is
northern part of Nepal, right middle of the
Himalayas, Himalayan Mountains. And we have
many caves, I went in cave, and sit there
pretending meditate, and although I have no
idea about meditation. And just sit there,
you know, sleep, you know, move around, you
know. And my grandmother thought I lost, and
she's very worried. And she called the Village
people and everybody now looking, looking
up, looking me. And then later she found me,
she said, "Don't do that next time." I don't
listen to her. I did, And I ran to the cave
again. And later I get permission from her.
But when I was nine years old I really wanted
to learn meditation from my father, but I'm
very shy to ask him directly. Afraid, I have
fear, shy to ask him, but I approach my mother.
My mom to ask my father on behalf of me, and
my father was very happy. He kindly accept
my request and taught me meditation.
But although I like the idea of meditation,
but I don't like the practice of meditation.
I am very lazy boy. You know, I feel very
boring sit there, you know. And then that
doesn't change my panic, because I'm not meditating.
And I have panic about strangers, you know
strangers? And snowstorm, during the winter,
we have big snowstorm, and summertime we have
thunder-thunderstorm. Thunderstorm? Then when
I was 13 years old I was in India place called,
Palpung Sherab Ling Monastery, and there's
a traditional three year retreat going to
start for three years, and I really wanted
to join in the retreat because then I thought
I can meditate, because the retreat for three
years. And I joined three year retreat, the
first-year of retreat my panic got worse,
stronger. And-because I'm lazy, not busy,
but lazy. Then I thought okay, I'm so unhappy
because my panic gets stronger. And one day
I asked question to myself, still I have two
more years to go, so do you really want to
spend two more years like this unhappy with
the panic, or do you really want to learn
meditation with my panic. And I make decision
that yes, I am going to learn, I'm going to
practice meditation with my panic. And I sat
in my room for three days. It's in the retreat,
the retreat for three years, you know.
We have religious center and 15 of us together,
and everybody has individual room, and every
day we join together practice together for
two-three hours, group practice. And I didn't
join for group practice, today. My room alone
for three ah three days. And after that my
panic was gone. Why? I try to make friends
with my panic. And I use my panic as support
for my meditation.
What I found is there's two ways to make your
panic bigger and stronger. And no matter what
I call "yessir" and "Hey, get out." Do you
know "yessir"? What is the meaning of that
"yessir"? Yeah/No? How many of yes? Raise
your hands?
[audience laughing]
And "Hey, get out"? You know that; if so raise
your hand? Good.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: Okay, anyway. The meaning is "yessir",
the meaning is you believe-I believe in my
panic. What about panic, tells you message,
you say, "yessir." Problem? yessir? terrible?
yessir? Here's problem, there's problem, everywhere
is problem. Miserable. Terrible. yessir. yesir.
And you totally believe.
And second "Hey, get out" is you don't like
your panic. And you have panic of panic, fear
of panic. You try to fight with the panic.
If you say "yessir" to panic, and the panic
become your boss, bad boss, not the good boss.
Maybe some of boss are here, you know, I'm
not saying all the boss are bad. I decide
if the panic become your boss then you're
not in peace. If you hate panic, if you try
to reject the panic, fight with the panic,
panic become your enemy. As it becomes your
enemy or your boss both cases not sort of
nice, yeah, do you think so? And do you have
any other possibility? Do you have any third
option? Do you think of any anyway? You can
say anything. Make friends with your panic.
Do you agree? How many of you agree? Hmm,
that's good. How? How to make friends?
Pardon? Talk to it. Talk to panic? Have conversation
with panic: hello, how are you? What are you
doing?-something like that?
[laughing]
Would you like tea and coffee?
[laughing]
Rinpoche: Okay, yes you can make friends,
no problem. But how to make friends you have
to know the right method, the right technique.
How to make friends. Just thinking that I
have to make friends with my panic doesn't
work, you know. I have to make friends with
my panic, FRIENDS.
[audiencelaughing]
Rinpoche: And that makes another stress sometimes,
you know. But just having idea that I want
to make friends with my panic, only the idea,
it helps a lot for you. You begin to accept
the panic. Okay.
How to make friends with panic for me is meditation.
Okay, I will tell you good meditation the
next session. Um, this way, because of my
meditation and I make friends with my panic,
and panic become one of the best friend for
me and one of the best teacher for me. But
unfortunately after three days later the panic
was gone. So now I miss my friend, but one
of my best friend's gone, but I have some
other friends, you know. I have plenty of
friends.
There's not panic, but there's another problem,
another obstacles, and another problems. So
you can find friends everywhere, because problems
are everywhere. They are international. They
don't have any visa to come, and they don't
have to need any special obligation, they
are transparent everywhere they can go this
way. What I found another problem...
[audience laughing]
I press yes, okay, okay.
And uh. What I found is any other problem
I can make friends through meditation. You
can, make, you can use air support for your
meditation become your friends and then I
feel very happy. But my happiness is not like-he-he-he,
you know, some kind of that style, I mean
that kind of happiness, but more like, how
to say it, contentment. More like joyful.
It's continued, especially when I facing problem
that makes me more happy. Everything is good;
everything is under control, no problem, no
obstacle, no meditation. Mind lost, here and
there, but soon as there's a problem, challenge,
and good for me. I can, I can meditate.
I met one time in Yosemite Park. You know
Yosemite Park, near here, yeah? There's one
rock climber and he'd been to Nepal climb,
climb the rocks. And when he saw me because
I wear the robe he said namaste. I said namaste.
Namaste is Nepali-Nepali language to say "Hi."
And he say are you Buddhist Monk? I say yes.
And I ask him how you know namaste? He said
I went to Nepal and climb in the mountains.
And he said tomorrow I'm going to climb this
mountain, and I asked him how long take? Five-six
days. Wow and how you do that? He said I have
to bring the tent, some kind of narrow tent
with the waters, food. And I ask him is it
danger? He said yes, maybe. I may die on the
way if this bad storm comes. And I ask do
you have fear? He said yes, but I like fear.
I thought wow.
[laughing]
That's good; anyway, that's why the idea here
is once you can make really friends with problems,
then the problem become support for your meditation,
your awareness, your happiness. But it not
sort of easy, yeah. It's easy to say, but
difficult to done. But anyway, um, there's
way to do that.
Okay, let's finish about how I come to meditation,
and how meditation help for my life.
Now, I want to say little bit about being
guinea pig. As Ming told you that I am guinea
pig, yeah. And normally I say I'm a red guinea
pig. Have you saw guinea pig? How big? This
big, yeah? It's white, white color, yeah?
But I'm red. Maybe you also little red.
And I have been to different universities
like Berkeley, Berkeley University, Harvard,
and especially in Madison, University of Wisconsin.
And they have study about what they call "Long-term
meditator's brain". They study about that,
and I'm one of the first guinea pig. And not
only me, so far they study with 21 long-term
meditators, those who meditate 10,000 of hours,
you know. That's what they call long-term
meditators and they put me in the big machine.
Machine what they call FMRI, it's very big.
Normally I describe it as like, shape of white
coffin.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: And inside the temperature is very
cold. It has to be cold and there's very strong
magnetic power, you know. If you have some
iron with you then you just fly, boom. You
have to take out everything. And there's some
kind of tongue coming out. Machine like my
head, you know, very big. it shape of white
coffin there's some kind of tongue coming
out. And I have to lying down on the tongue
and pretend it's like corpse. You know, corpse.
Corpse not cups. Because I can not move my
body, I have to remain still, and they put,
what they call, some kind of foam here and
bite guard. Something which is, I had to chews
in my mouth, and they put in cold-water become
freeze, yeah. Become hard, and I chews again
and screw up with the machine, screw-screw
to. Because I cannot move my head, I have
big earphone here. And then they put me inside
the machine. Looks like you're going into
the tunnel, tunnel. Dark, cold tunnel, you
know, very noisy, like siren, siren. Du-du-du-du-du-du
very noisy, and then I have to spend inside
the machine two hours, one and a half hours,
something like that and I have to meditate.
And there's three meditation techniques, what
they call: open present, concentration, loving
kindness and compassion meditation. Three.
And the scientists in the next room having
coffee, you know.
Eating hamburgers and they have microphone-microphone.
And through microphone they say-please meditate
on compassion for 90 seconds.
[audience laughing]
Rinpoche: Stop compassion. Meditate compassion
again. Say-on and off. Compassion- not compassion-compassion-not
compassion, and then while I'm meditating
they send terrible noise, baby crying, and
children screaming. And show bloody image
also the operation, the image, makes you more
fearful. And then open present again, you
know, 90 seconds. And concentrate.
First machine was very narrow, no-good. But
now they got better machine, every five year
they update the machine. First machine was
very narrow, I've been there four, four times,
you know. And they say concentrate on something.
I can not find focus and I cross my eyes.
And one of the biggest problems is sometimes
I get itchy, you know itchy. And I can not
scratch, you know, because my hands are here
and what I do is just like this, you know.
I don't know what the result in the machine,
you know. And should I tell you the result?
It's depressing. They told me I'm totally
crazy, and I was so depressed for three years.
No-no, I'm just joking.
They didn't told me I'm crazy, but they told
me first they thought something wrong with
the machine, because behaved in the brain
is very high something like that and they
change the how do the calculates style. I've
been there so I have to go again and again
and not only me there's 20, 20 other meditators.
And what I found is by being a guinea pig,
a discussion with the scientists. I found
three important things,
First, is what they call neural plasticity.
Have you heard of neural plasticity? If so
raise your hand. Good. The meaning of neural
plasticity is your brain has capable of change
and there's potential and you can change even
reorganize. The brain has capable of reorganize
itself, you know many things. Fourteen, 13
years before neuroscientists didn't believe
that so if you are born with unhappy you're
done, the rest of your life will be unhappy.
But now they say no. It's like what they say
this idea is out a window, out a window. It's
like even if you're born with unhappy you
can change into a happy person and not just
that you can. There is many things; I will
tell you later.
Okay now second important point is: one of
the best ways to change your brain behave
from negative to positive is meditation. Special
the accuracy, accuracy and no side effect,
meditation is the best. And until now no medicine,
no drug can not replace [inaudible] meditation.
And then also pretty cheap, yeah. Not so the
expensive. And it's not just transforming
your brain, and it's very important it's good
for your physical body, good for developing
your immune system and blood circulation,
heart disease, many different things, of course,
good for stress reduction, yeah. They give
us what they call; they have some kind of
like chemical produce blisters, blister you
know? And we have to meditate and after meditating,
and they know that, some kind of, it effects
your cells, good for immune system. Cells
really heal rapidly, heals very, very you
know , good. And they also did with the test
with people who do physical exercise, eating
good food. That's control group, and, oh,
another thing is what they call clarity.
Clarity test, they put us in the machine,
this is, I think, third-year I've been there
third-year and they give me some kind of monitor,
and I have to change my compassion. I have
to make my compassion stronger-stronger-stronger
and I push button like 5-6-7-9-10, and I have
to decrease my compassion. Slowly, slowly
now 4-3-2-1-0 compassion, you know. And what
they found is in the machine for me it looked
like stock market. When you look at the screen,
you know the screen, the stock market's like
this, yeah? There's two line like this, and
one line is what happening in your brain;
second line is your description. The meditator's
description and these two are matched. And
when they test with the novice, when they
say, okay I have 9% of compassion, but what
happen in your brain has zero compassion,
this is different. And the second thing is,
another interesting is, this is new one I
think. They make some kind of like, maybe
I'm not going to tell you this one. This is
very brand new. I think better they, soon
it will come out in the papers.
Okay, so anyway. Three important point, yeah?
I add one more number four. Number four is
a good for your life. Why? Because it's good
for your mind become calm and peaceful, happy,
and good for your body. And that's why it
good for your life, yeah. Of course, yeah.
Okay, now this is my two important things:
one is with science and one is with my own
experience. Now I would like to share you
a little bit meditation, okay. And for that
there's two important things:
One is your physical body posture. And for
that you have to keep your spine straight,
and if you have problem with your spine you
can use chair against two chair. Keep your
spine straight.
And second is relax your muscles in your body,
just relax. Please close your eyes and now
just relax your body and please feel your
body, be aware of your body. And be aware
of energy in your body. There's some kind
of like gravity and weight in your body. Mind
and body together. And just relax; please
relax muscles in your face, ear, shoulder,
back and stomach, arms and legs. Just relax.
100% relaxed, not 200% relaxed.
Why I say 100% relax, because you just stress
as like natural, normal. You can have tightness,
tension, stress, every thing allowed. Tight
okay. Tensions okay. Just relax.
Okay, that's two important thing with your
body. One is keeping your spine straight,
and another thing is relax your muscles in
your body. And it's true relative to your
body.
Okay, now that's finished and next one is,
I would like to teach you how to relax your
mind.
And for this is not meditation. First I'm
not going to teach you meditation, and I will
teach you how to relax. It's okay? Do you
want to learn how to relax?
Okay. How many of you learn meditation before?
Raise your hand. Okay. Good. Now, even if
you know how to meditate, don't meditate here,
okay. With this next practice don't meditate,
just relax your mind. And how to relax, you
have day off Saturday, Sunday's day off, yeah.
You work Saturday, Sunday or not? No. What
time you finish? Five or 11, 5 p.m. 6 p.m.
Pardon, to 7, okay. Friday night, Friday afternoon,
after you finish your work you feel pretty
happy, yeah. Okay, now I finish my job, Mmm
Mmm. This is Friday and tomorrow I have two
days day off, how wonderful, and you leave
from the office, go back to your home, apartment,
whatever. And you have a small bag, yeah.
Bring your small bag, and as you, soon as
you arrive at your home and you put your bag
somewhere else and rest on nice chair in your
living room with big, deep breathing.
[exhales]
And you just rest, yeah. Good, rest like that,
not now, not now, later. I will tell you.
Just relax. Don't meditate, because you're
not meditating besides noise okay. We have
some noise around here. Okay, no problem.
You can rest with the noise, yeah. You can
even rest in the subway, in a bus, in the-
you know- watching movie you can rest some
time, yeah.
[laughing]
Rinpoche: Although there's big noise, so,
just relax. Don't meditate right now. And
another example is: maybe you do physical
exercise jogging or swimming. I saw you have
some kind of swimming pool with a machine,
yeah. You swim but you get nowhere. You swim
in that kind swimming pool or any swimming
pool maybe- 20 minutes, half an hour. After
you finish your swim, you're pretty happy,
yeah? You finish your exercise, but your body
a little bit tired. I need my rest again,
That's one. And do you have any other examples?
Do we want to share? How to rest? Normally
what you do in your life?
male#1: Sleep.
Rinpoche: Pardon? Sleep, okay.
female #1: Drink tea.
Rinpoche: Drink tea, and coffee, how about?
Okay. Now we are going to practice this together.
Again just keep your spine straight, little
bit straight, and relax the muscles in your
body, and please rest your mind as it is.
And you're going to do one deep breathing.
And after exhale at the same time your mind
rests, okay. Please breath in,
[inhale]
let go.
[exhale]
And rest your mind as well.
Of course you can not rest too long. Why you
forgot to rest. Your mind already in the cafe
area drinking coffee. That's okay. You can
rest, but this is not meditation, you can
have thoughts. If you not forgot resting that's
okay. Your mind can rest only for a few seconds
and forget the rest.
But you can come back in?
Okay. That's finished now. How was it? Do
we feel little bit relaxed? If so raise your
hand. Okay, that's good. And now, I'm going
to tell you one secret. Do we want to know?
The secret is that was meditation.
[laughing]
Rinpoche: What you did right now that was
meditation. Why? Non-meditation is the best
meditation. Real meditation, you don't have
to meditate. So, you just really rest your
mind as it is, and there's awareness. There's
mindfulness just so you not forgot to rest.
Although there is no special object of meditation,
no special focus. But maybe focus is awareness.
Awareness resting into awareness. Not get
lost, not meditation. Two things: not getting
lost, not meditation. Just being, just being
there, being present. Not too long only for
few seconds. And you forgot you're in the
pizza restaurant and eating pizza. Oh I'm
suppose to resting here, how come? You know,
you can come back in, rest. And that's what
we call, this meditation we call "open present".
The scientists, you know, they test in the
FMRI, it's open present. And it's really good
for body, good for mind, and to make your
mind calm and peaceful. Do you want to try
again? Okay. Try one more. Same style, just
rest. Please keep your meditation posture,
relax your muscles, and please strech your
mind as it is. If you want to use deep breathing,
also okay. Only one time.
[silence, meditating]
Okay. Now finish. How was it?
Now I will ask you question. We did this exercise
two times, yeah. One before you know the secret,
and this one after you knowing the secret.
So, which one you like more? First one or
second one? First one more, raise your hand.
Both is good. Okay. First one- if you like
first one more that mean something wrong with
you. Not like that. Or second time more then
there is something wrong with you. Not like
that, okay. Both is good. First if you like
it more, first raise your hand, okay. Second
time more raise your hand, okay. Why? Because
this tells you little bit of your personality.
Because first time you like more means second
time you're a little bit tight. Why? You know
the secret. You think this is meditation.
Wow, I'm practicing in the best meditation.
Do I have this awareness or what ever you
know. Do I loss, do I have no meditation and
not get lost. Part of this not, you know,
how can I tell I'm in the meditation or not?
I have pretty good experience the firsttime,
but I need that same kind of experience right
now here. But I think I can not have. What
happened here? That's like your-you?re how
you say-thinking. Worry about the quality
of meditation. It's like for this kind of
people, if you are this category, don't worry.
Don't worry about result of meditation. Good
meditation okay; bad meditation is okay; right
meditation's okay; wrong meditation's okay.
What ever happens, happens. Okay, who cares?
Just rest. And you don't have to know, is
this meditation or not, it's just rest. Don't
know really about awareness or not awareness,
distraction or not distraction. Okay.
And people who like second time more means
normally you need some kind of guide, because
first time you were a little bit confused.
I come here to learn meditation, you know.
This guy said "rest". But how to rest. You
a little bit confused, you know, just resting
or meditation or?
And the second time you know more, better
so you can rest. So, you like second time
more. So that some kind of, how to say? And
second time you need a little guide. But if
you like both, then it's okay, no problem.
If you don't like both, it means this meditation
technique is not suitable for you. That's
why, there's many different personality, different
mentality. One meditation technique can not
help for everybody. So one medicine can not
cure all the disease, yeah. If you don't like
this both, don't worry also. Okay and that's
why this meditation technique's so easy, so
simple, so nice, but there's one problem.
Should I tell you problem?
Okay, why I say so simple, so easy? Because
you don't have to meditate, yeah. You just
sit there doing nothing. By doing nothing
you're doing something good. So, that's the-
wonderful. But the problem is too easy. That's
the problem. If it is too easy you can not
believe, because too close to you, you can
not see it.
There's some kind of card here, yeah. Huh,
interesting. If you bring this card close
to your eyes, you can not see it, too close.
So you don?t think, I think this is not the
best meditation, you know. If this is the
best meditation then I have to change totally
my mentality or something, but I don't have
those. This sounds are so normal, so simple,
so ordinary, you know. So you sometime can
not believe. So if you think this is too simple
problem, I have another meditation technique
which is a little bit difficult.
I told you when I was young, I escaped from
my house and went to the cave, yeah. Do remember?
I went to the cave and pretended meditating.
I found one meditation technique by myself.
What we call Mental Recitation. Say something
in your mind. Because in my hometown everybody
knows different kind of like, mantras, pray,
many things. And I choose one of-of them and
say it in my mind. Hello, yeah. I choose one
of them and say it in my mind. And later when
I was nine year old. Nine years old. I asked
my father is that meditation or not. My father
say yes. And I was so happy. So maybe I will
teach you. And you can choose one word, anything
peace. You know peace yeah? And you can choose
the word peace and say it in your mind. Don't
use your lips and tongues. Just in you mind
say, peace, peace, peace. Close your lips
like this.
If you do like this, looks crazy. Peace, peace,
peace.
Try again. You want to try?
Okay, Again keep your meditation posture,
and relax your body and mind and please say
peace. You don't have to worry about meaning
of peace. Just say this in your mind. When
you say this in your mind, you have concentration,
you have awareness, you have mindfulness.
That's why you're inmeditation.
[silence, meditating]
Okay. Hello.
Okay, how was it? How many of you liked this
meditation? Okay, you can apply these meditations
in your walk in your life. Everywhere any
time. For example- if you want to make some
plans, complicated, very serious engineer
or design or anything. First you can meditate
and then let think, and then think and rest
your mind into meditation and think and rest
into meditation That's good for your thinking
also, you have become more creative and your
idea become more clear. Because normally,
too many thoughts many things. You can not
find idea more clear. And also good for meditations,
you can use as alternate: think-meditate-think-meditate-
You can apply meditation everyway anytime.
Thank you, and do you have any questions?
I think people have to come to microphone,
yeah. If you have question you can come to
microphone.
male#1: I'm curious, when you think about
technology and Google and Facebook. Is there
a way that technology can help us improve
our minds and our happiness as well or is
that a negative thing?
Rinpoche: You can use true form for practice
meditation for example- one of my friend have
iPod? And they put some message awareness,
peace, love, and compassion. They put that
message, and they're sending their own message
to them. Ping. You know, look oh, awareness,
oh great, yes awareness. Become reminder,
you know. Or you can use as monitor, about
your experience, you know, to many different
things. And while you play computer you can
meditate also. You can meditate everywhere
anytime.
One time I was looking on the television,
I saw this advertisement, this is not our
meditation, this is a company, one of the
brand of the mobile phone company. They said,
"You can us this every where anytime, even
in the mountain." I change a little bit. You
can meditate everywhere anytime, even in the
city.
And also, good for Google, especial Google,
to learning more knowledge on meditation,
you know. If you want to learn more about
meditation, Google, you know. Oh!
[laughing]
Rinpoche: I use Google also.
female #1: Hi, thanks for coming. So, I've
been learning a bit about meditation and it's
been very helpful for me so far. I tend to
be one of the always busy, rather-stressed
people,
but in general I have a happy outlook.
You know, I like, ever-changing series of
problems. I have a friend who I would like
him to try meditation or be happy or that
kind of stuff. My current approach is to just
do it and hopefully to show him,
you know, through the changes in my own life,
but it's not like we really get to see each
other that often. I can't do it on a daily
basis with him. Bring him in that way. What
are you thoughts on, without going evangelical,
sort of, spreading the either the energy or
the practice to other people, maybe people
who are more resistant at first.
Because unless they make that decision themselves,
currently, you know, they're not gonna--
Rinpoche: Right.
female #1: --really buy it. What are your
thoughts on that?
Rinpoche: Yeah, I think what you?re doing
is good, but actually you can share your own
experience, your own story, experience. And
you just want communication and special, because
many people they not- they don't know what's
the value of meditation. Especially when you
are facing problem, then does really helps,
the meditation. This idea of meditation as
very soft, very gentle, but when you are really
facing problems, can be
very strong. It's really good for you. That's,
right. This you can share with him. Your own
experience, stories, and maybe books. And
maybe, Google. And there's many online program
also, how to learn meditations, you know.
Even you don?t have to come to a different
place, but you can stay in your home and learn
all sorts of things.
female #1: Okay, thank you.
male #2: Hello. So, I'm a personal trainer
here.
Rinpoche: Yes.
male #2: I work with athletes?
Rinpoche: Athletes, yes.
male #2: --yeah, and one of the things the
things that's a concept in like sports psychology
is getting into flow states.
Rinpoche: Flow, flow state mmm, hmm.
male #2: Yeah, it's kind of a state of being
where you're almost so present that you lose
the sense of time, almost lose the sense of
self, because you're so in the moment. You
know, what are your thoughts or techniques
on those kinds of things is my first question.
Second one is, guided visualization, guided
meditation, what are your thoughts on that?
Rinpoche: Yes. That I think important is for
example, if you have so much concentration,
whatever, and if you recognize awareness,
what we call essence of meditation is- recognize
awareness- for example, if you rest, normally
you're resting almost like unconsciously,
but this time you rest, rest with consciously.
So, the sense of awareness there, but if you
use sound as support for meditation, normally
just sound, but now you know you listen to
sound. So with the meditation is you know
you listen to sound, normally just sound.
It's like if you doing- what about the physical
exercise, meditation also really good for
help concentration with exercise. Being, I
mean, when you do physical exercise you're
aware of awareness and then you do exercise.
That's become meditation and then it's not
completely lost in that. The sense of center.
You have center, you have peace, but sometime
your concentration together. But only concentration
no recognize awareness then you're lost in
that. Then you lost time and can only see
one aspect, you don't see other aspect. And
another thing is visualization.
I think visualization is very, very important
in the meditation also because, especially
what we call, we are; my meditation style
is Tibetan meditation style. In Tibetan meditation
we use a lot of visualization, imagination
as part of meditation. What we call using
imagination as path. Path, path, you know
path means practice and because we are using
imagination actually. Without imagination,
we can not make plans; you can not remember
what your past story, where you come from,
where you're going. If you don't use imagination
you don't know how, so using imagination with
awareness is really good I think.
male #2: So you are saying it's okay when
your, let's say meditating, not just say sitting
still, but even if your moving?
Rinpoche: Of course, of course-
male #2: you're doing some activity that you
can still be in meditation and?
Rinpoche: Yes, everywhere, any times.
male #2: Cool.
Rinpoche: Have time? One last question.
male #3: Hi. I was wondering what you thoughts
are on dreaming and, you know, using dreams
for meditating, and do you meditate in your
dreams?
Rinpoche: Yes, dream meditation. There are
two kinds of meditation: Sleeping meditation
and dream meditation. Sleeping meditation
doesn't have dream and the dream meditation
has dream. Most important for dream meditation
is lucid dream. You recognize your dream,
once you recognize your dream you can play
with dream. You can do many thing in the dream.
You can meditate, you can fly, you can walk
in the ocean without sinking, you can jump
in the fire it can not burn you, you can go
to the top of this Midlife- the tallest building
in San Francisco, what is it called? Trans-American
whatever and you can jump and you can not
broke your leg. It's like this is the first
step, and the second step is change your body.
Change into bird, bird to fish. And you can
see change into bird also. And then third
step you're coming from dream world to real
world. Dream body in the dream you have dream
body, dream sense, you can see your dream
body- I mean you can see your real body, you're
sleeping there. [snoring sound] you know.
And fourth step is- only when you learn third
step then you can receive teaching about 4th
level.
male#3: Thank you.
Rinpoche: Thank you very much to here, Ming,
and organize here in Google. And I am very
happy to be here. Thank you very much.
[audience applauding]
