Triangulate Your Problem: Can’t Sit Quietly? Can’t Walk Boldly? Or Just Can’t Let Go? | Ajahn Kovilo

[Music]
Namasa
bakawato
arhat sama sambas
[Music]
bakawato
arhat sambasa
bakawato
[Music]
Okay, so you've probably noticed even if
this is just your first time coming to a
clear mountain gathering that as
Buddhists, as monks, we love threes,
we love triplets and
yeah, we we have lots of do things in in
triplicate. Uh often the the refuge is
the recitation and the Buddha did this
um when the Buddha's teachings were
first being recorded. uh they weren't
being written down but were just being
memorized by the monks and nuns and lay
people surrounding the Buddha. And when
you give a enumerated list, when you
give a list in numbers, it's easier to
remember. So that's one of the reasons
that the Buddha gave all of these lists.
But there are lots of groups of three.
So you've got the Buddha, the dharma,
the sa, the three refuges which we
chanted about. You've got the three
types of feeling which is duka which is
that which is painful which is suka
which is pleasant and that which is in
the middle neither pleasant nor painful.
You've got the three-fold training. The
training in virtue, the training in
concentration, training in wisdom.
You've got the three bodily right
efforts. Refraining from killing, from
stealing, from sexual misconduct.
You've got the three modes, three other
modes of training which are training in
generosity, in precepts and in
meditation.
And there's a bunch more. Anybody do we
have any call out some threes?
>> Three characteristics.
Yes, that is anicha, duka and anata
which are uh impermanence,
unsatisfactoriness and not self anymore.
Yeah, the three poisons. Yes. Which are
greed, anger and delusion. And the
opposite of those three poisons are uh
sometimes called the three wholesome
roots which are non- greed which can be
translated as generosity or contentment.
You've got non- anger which can be
translated as love or loving kindness
and non-d delusion which can be
translated as as wisdom.
So I thought today maybe just to talk
about go a bit deeper into some of these
uh some of these triads.
So
part of Buddhism uh part of the Buddhist
teachings are about view training in
view our underlying first principles. So
sometimes when you know a monk or a nun
or a teacher starts talking about views
it can seem maybe a little bit cerebral
like this is just philosophy
but the Buddha is quite specific. right
view is the first of the eight-fold path
and it's something that we can do. We're
taking on a specific way, specific ways
of looking at the world and um yeah the
Buddha suggested that there are
healthier and unhealthier ways of
looking at the world of conceiving how
the human body human mind can interact
with the universe around us. So he would
talk about the primacy of of right view.
He talked about it in different ways.
And as we we talk about triangles or
groups of of three well just groups of
three, you can have uh different ways of
composing a group of three. If you put
three points all in the same spot, then
that's just a spot. If you put three
points in a line, then that's just a
line. And if you put three points not on
the same line then no matter where you
put them that is a a triangle. And so
the Buddha did talk about three points
uh in terms of lines and in terms of
triangles. So in his first teaching he
talked about uh two extremes and a
middle way which was between those two
extremes. So on the one extreme, you've
got the extreme of sensual indulgence.
So just trying to get all of your your
happiness by indulging in sense
pleasures, all the sights, sounds,
smells, taste, touch, uh just get your
fill and thinking that that will be the
ultimate and a sustainable path to
happiness. and the Buddha as any of us
certainly any of us who've gone through
addiction but just any of us
who are trying to live in a world um you
know feeling like you're going to be
ultimately content through the hedonic
treadmill. It just it doesn't work like
that. And the other extreme is the
extreme of aestheticism or self- torture
which some monastic traditions or
aesthetic traditions can lean into. But
the Buddha taught the middle way which
is the eight-fold path. Right view,
right thought, right action, right
speech, right livelihood, right effort,
right mindfulness, right concentration.
And
there's some more modern ways of looking
at at view which I think are fascinating
to think about. So I've I've said it
before, my favorite non Buddhist quote
comes from Pascal
and it is the only French that I know.
It's the only French that and I've made
the mistake of trying to say this out
loud when there have been French people
in the audience. Is is anybody here a
French person or knows French? Oh, dag.
If you hadn't raised your hand, I would
have tried my French. But um yeah. Okay.
So, here's the statement from Pascal.
It's this good that it's worth learning
another language for. Okay.
pretty bad
comprehensible. But what it means is all
of humanity's problems stem from the
inability to sit quietly in a room
alone. Can you turn the volume off a
little bit? I'm going to say that again.
All of humanity's problems stem from the
inability to sit quietly in a room
alone. That is fascinating. And it's
almost a And honestly, for the
last week, that's been a bit of my my
co-on trying to figure that out. And I
think the first time I intuited some of
the meaning of that was when I was on
went on my first meditation retreat. It
was a 10-day ginka vipasana retreat. And
basically for those, it's a very deep
dive. You're going in and doing 10 days,
10 hours a day, every day of basically
just watching the breath at the tip of
the nose. And for the first two days, it
was just utterly horrible. It was just
horrible. It was horrible because it
seems like the easiest thing in the
world. Just watch the breath at the tip
of your nose. I'm human. Easy
instructions. I think I'm smart. I
should be able to do this. And if you've
ever tried to do this for two and a half
minutes, you'll realize that it's not at
all as easy as it sounds. It's extremely
frustrating. But on about day three of
this retreat, I don't know if I had
heard this quote from Pascal before or
if I just uh intuited it, but I felt
like my mind calmed down, was able to
coalesce into that insight that
okay, this the mind ve got very content.
On those retreats, you give up all of
your outlets for sensual indulgence. You
give up your phones, you give up your
music, you give up writing, um, and all
you're doing is meditating. So all the
ways that a young dude in America is
getting his pleasure, give them all up
for those first two days. And that's why
it was uncomfortable is because I'm
doing something I'm not used to doing.
But then day three, the mind just
coaleses and is able to feel into a type
of pleasure which I can just have to
call peace, a type of peace which is
independent of having to feed off of the
world. And in that that moment, that
day, that that period, it was like,
okay, this is the piece that Pascal is
talking about. All of humanity's
problems stem from the inability
to sit quietly in a room alone.
And I felt like that day that I could
see that. And it didn't seem like it was
just the solution for me. It seemed like
this is the solution for everybody. If
everybody if I could just keep this up
and it seemed like I could it was it it
seemed durable that day. Like if I could
just keep up this insight, I am good for
the rest of this life. Okay, this is the
key to human happiness is this level of
content. I don't need anything. I don't
need to feed off of the world. I can
just sit quietly in this room alone and
not cause anybody any trouble. And if
everybody could do that, then that will
be the solution for everybody.
But and I do think there is a lot of
truth there. But there's also some
degree if you actually take it up as a
it won't take too long before you
actually start poking holes in it.
really like all of humanity's problems
stem from the inability for me to sit
quietly in a room alone. Really, all of
it?
You know, it doesn't take long to for
that side of the question to really come
through. So, I'm going to posit that as
being one
very interesting extreme, an interesting
extreme of introversion.
And the opposite extreme of that is the
opposite, which as far as I know, no one
has ever said, but it's the opposite of
Pascal's
paradox there.
And it's basically what I grew up with
and what a lot of Americans grow up
with. It's basically the religion of
justice, the religion of I grew up
unitarian, which is the underlying view
for that is that all of humanity's
problems stem from the unwillingness to
walk boldly into the world with others.
That's the exact opposite of Pascal and
that's totally what I grew up with. So
you've got Pascal saying all of
humanity's problems stem from the
inability to sit quietly in a room of
alone. And you've got a whole world of
people advocating for social justice and
engagement.
All of humanity's problems stem from the
unwillingness to walk boldly into the
world with others. And I'll posit that
also as an extreme because when you
taste and hopefully all of you have to
some degree and if you haven't would
recommend going on retreat those 10day
going retreats are it's a big dive but
taking some period of retreat because
when you taste this type of peace
the the fallacy of this that this
take that all of humanity's problems
stem from the unwillingness to walk into
the world boldly
with others. The fallacy of that comes
about because actually no as I sit here
quietly with myself I'm not causing any
trouble to anybody else and I don't want
to cause any trouble to anybody else and
if everybody could do this then that
would be fantastic but again both of
these are extremes in a certain way and
the Buddha taught the middle way which
is the four noble truths that there is
suffering there's a cause of suffering
there's a sessation of suffering
uffering and there's a path leading to
the sessation of suffering which is like
a Buddhist version of that Pascal one
without the problemic the problematic
sides of that. So what are those four
noble truths and I'll do it facing your
way. So you've got going to balance this
on my Okay. So we've got the causality
of unhappiness and you've got the
causality of happiness and well-being.
Second noble truth is the cause of
suffering of unhappiness. That's
craving. And you've got the causality of
peace. And that causality of peace is
the fourth noble truth which is just
acting in harmony with yourself with
your own mind with the people around you
with the world.
So yeah, that's a line a three points on
a line in avoiding either extreme the
extreme of uh radical introversion in
the extreme of radical
extroversion and keeping this middle way
that okay whether for myself this is
true for me and it's true for everybody
uh that yeah all the suffering this
would be the Buddhist formulation. But
all of humanity's suffering stem
all of my suffering stems from craving
the second noble truth. So it's it's
much more focusing the
the angle the pointing of awareness
inwardly versus seeing how that
extrapolates and when you figure out
that in in yourself then you see that it
does extrapolate with others.
So other three points in the Buddhist
teaching,
we've got what we were exploring with
the meditation.
So we've got the internal, we've got the
in between, and you've got the external.
And really Buddhism does talk to each
and each one is its own subskll set. So
being able to experience the interiority
of your own body, this is called
interosception
in western science. It's the ability to
accurately sense your internal organs,
the internal functioning of your body.
The first what's called the foundation
of mindfulness is knowing the body in
and of itself. Ardent, alert, and
mindful putting aside greed and distress
with reference to the world. So rather
than wanting the my interiority to be a
certain way and hating that it feels a
different way, I can just accurately
feel the interior of my body in a
different way. And why this is helpful,
being able to do all three of these in
teroscept and to know the surface and to
know the exterior is because cognitive
flexibility is a useful thing. It's a
useful thing to be able to be flexible
and not be totally attached to one way
of meditating, one way of being in the
world, one way of speaking to other
people.
You can learn how to shift. If you're in
a uncomfortable conversation with your
spouse or your child and you realize
that 95% of your awareness is on them
and all the bad things that they did and
only 5% is on your interior state of
being utterly ablaze with the fire of
anger. You can learn to shift that
around. And even though it's unpleasant
to feel the interiority of anger,
it's better than just
flamethrowering, you know, all the, you
know, destroying the relationships
around us. So being able to shift is a
very useful a very useful thing to be
able to do. So this interception getting
better and you can get better. I found
this fascinating. Even in that first
10day retreat, I started studying just
anatomy in my free time. got all these
anatomy books. I once went on a camping
trip with very minimal things but like a
six-PB book on anatomy. Carried it into
the forest with me. Walked about 15 10
miles into the forest with this anatomy
book to just learn and just to calibrate
how my interior perception matches on to
the organs within my body. So getting
better, you can train at this. You can
feel your body better.
So the second one this middling sense
can either be called proprioception or
kinesthesia.
So propriception is knowing your body in
space.
And often times you might feel if you
have your eyes closed now and your hands
are in your lap
ask yourself where is your hand right
now?
And it's not at all uncommon that if you
open your eyes and actually look that
your hand is actually in a different
spot than you felt it to be. And this is
called faulty
sensory apperception.
Is when your mind map of the body
doesn't actually map where the body is.
So you can get better at propriception
sensing where you are in the world. And
kinesesthesia is dynamic propriception.
So that's knowing how your body is
moving into the world. How your body is
moving into the world.
And with that meditation that we did on
the in between areas of the body, it's
fascinating because when you practice
you and especially if you practice
staying in this interiority
or I'm sorry in this middle space, you
can ask yourself, where do I stop and
where does the world begin?
and you look at other people or you look
at yourself in the mirror and it just
seems like you are a bag of skin. It's
like okay here's the skin line and
everything inside of that is me and
everything outside of that is the rest
of the world. And then it would seem
like feeling okay, I can feel my heart
beating. And then it would seem like,
okay, if I move my awareness forward
that I would be able to feel the skin of
my chest as if I was inside of a balloon
and then eventually I just reach the
edge of my skin, this skin balloon, and
there I stop and I can't feel forward.
But for me, and I don't know about
anybody else, but I can't find the edge
of my skin balloon. It's like I just
keep going forward and it's like a
cloud. And this could just be a a trick
of the brain's capacity for feeling
skin. Uh but it does feel like I'm in a
and this is almost certainly not the
case, but it feels like I'm feeling on a
subatomic level. It feels like I'm
feeling into a cloud of electrons. It
feels like I've got this cloud body.
And so experiment with that. Experiment
with that being at your skin. Where do I
stop? And where is the world begin? And
that's fascinating on the level of not
self. Where am I? Where are others? And
if I'm making a self and I'm allowing
other people to implicate me, I look at
someone else's eyes and I feel
implicated. Oh, I am a self. They can
see that I'm nervous or they can see
that I'm calm.
There comes this I, me, you, I feedback
loop and it's like whatever happened
with the microphone at the beginning.
It's just and then eventually your head
explodes.
But if you can shift awareness to a
different a different medium, then no
head explosion.
Exterosception
is the word in neurosychology maybe for
this exterior sense. Our capacity to
sense the light of the world, to see the
light of the world, to receive the
light, the space of the world. Sound is
an extraceptive sense and we can see
that as well. And really um on one level
this universe is very much like a dream.
So if you think about if you can
remember your dreams from last night or
the last dream that you can remember
everything in that dream you and the
world behind you and the world in front
of you and that other person and the
clown and the snake and whatever it is.
All of that is being created by your
mind. That's very much absolutely the
way it is in a dream. And in waking
life, it's not that much different from
a first person perspective. So I'm not
saying that I'm the only human that
exists and nothing exists outside of me
or outside of you, but just on the level
of the brain, everything that you
experience is just like that dream. Your
brain is processing the lights from the
outside and that's what you're
experiencing.
Everything that you ever experience, say
there's this cube which is next to me.
Say it's about a foot by a foot by a
foot this way. Everything that I will
ever know about this cube, the number of
molecules in it, the different elemental
distribution in it, the size of it,
everything I'll ever know about that
exists in my own experience of it. And
same with you. All you'll ever know
about this box.
Hopefully that's not too sad to hear.
Um
but just experiment with this. This
capacity to experience the world is uh
yeah very much if you can't get on board
with 100%
so much so much of it largely created by
by us uh yeah not to say that there
isn't suffering and experience outside
of us but our experience of it is
largely self-created.
So that's another
triplet in the dharma interior. Feel
your insides. And can you do it right
now?
Even if your eyes are open and you're
looking outside, can you feel
this warm, dark,
intimate, utterly intimate, more
intimate than infinite space inside? Can
you shift to the in between? and can you
shift to the exterior?
And the last triplet that I wanted to
talk about is the Buddha, the Dharma and
the Sana.
So
I'd like to just ask here for some
definitions or what are some ways that
people here are how do you relate to the
Buddha maybe just in in one one or two
words feel free to yeah Peter
awakening is a spirit or the principle
of awakening
as awareness
Please
Buddha nature
as emptiness. So the Buddha as emptiness
as Buddha nature
as awakening as awareness
as wisdom itself
as liberation. So these are all very
much beautiful qualities that hopefully
all of us want to incline to
understanding better to living better.
And the Buddha is was also a historical
figure. Um yeah, largely testified to in
other historical documents. And he is
all of these other interior qualities.
And it is useful to figure out a way of
relating to the Buddha uh in a way which
is helpful especially if you're going to
be calling yourself a Buddhist or
relating to the Buddha or not to mention
bowing. Bowing really is a great
practice to experiment with. Is there a
way that you can relate to three con
concepts? And don't let the monk force
these three concepts on you, but find
are there three concepts that are worth
bowing to in your experience,
something greater than ourselves. And
the dharma. So what is worth bowing to?
What is the principle of the dharma
for anybody?
reality.
Sometimes I'll say the principle of
truth. Principle of truth. Nice
wisdom.
And it's also all of the teachings of
the Buddha in the scriptures. And it's
all of these in whatever way we can can
bow to it as something. Okay. This is
something I want to aspire to. And the
SA sometimes I'll say the spirit of the
SA is love. So you've got awakening,
truth, and love. But just looking for
some way of relating to these three
concepts. And if you can, bowing really
is a a beautiful practice. And
especially and I I actually say almost
essentially for bowing to be meaningful
and for it not to become just something
which you begrudge and actually learn to
dislike is to make it meaningful for
you.
So as monastics we bow a lot. Bow first
thing we wake up and I'll just do the
type of bow that we we often do. This is
kind of a Thai forest bow. So we do as
monastics, one of our rules is that we
sleep on the floor, which is great
because as soon as you wake up, you're
already on the floor. You're sleeping on
the floor and you're already on the
floor, which is much less cushiony. It's
rather hard. I have to say I have slept
before, but it is it's hard to bow on a
bed because there's all these cushy
parts and you start like falling over.
But when you're on the floor, solid
ground. And so first thing, hopefully
you've gotten enough sleep, but you
start off first thing you wake up. Okay,
I can get into a position of
uprightness.
So we have our uh
butt on our back of the the heels and
just hands up in aneli. And again, this
is the first posture of our day. Just
sitting up upright even before we bow
and establishing whatever this dharma is
for me. Truth awareness Buddha nature
and then coming down and bowing
and then to the dharma
and to the sa.
just orienting our life
and we do that before bed as well and
then you can go and do your ne
negativity bath or whatever however you
kind of go and check Twitter or whatever
it is but uh
yeah at least you've started in an
upright way bowing to these principles
which spend some time spend some time
today spend one minute spend five
minutes spend half an hour spend your
next hourong meditation actually
figuring out what is a Buddha that I
could bow to? What is a dharma that I
could bow to? What is a sa that I can
bow to? Even if you don't end up bowing,
still just asking that question is
really meaningful. What is a power
greater than myself?
So those are several triplets and just
as a parting suggestion
I'll mention something uh that I've come
to call the nine breath challenge. The
nine breath challenge. Often times in
Buddhist circles you hear somebody say,
"Oh yeah, just once an hour just take
one minute to meditate or just do a one
minute meditation." And often times the
momentum of our day, the momentum of 59
minutes is such that we can't even sit
quietly for a minute. So to actively
give one's mind something to do in that
minute. So the nine breaths if you can
do it in pi it's bud on the inb breath d
on the outreath s n gacha me d s gacha
me
gacha or in English to Buddha for peace
or for refuge
I Go to dhama
for peace. I go to sana for peace. I go
nine breaths. Nine breaths. Do I I bow
to this? But can I actually stop the
momentum of my day to actually
reenter on that for just nine breaths?
That's all I'm asking. Kovaleo. Just
nine breaths. Takes about I timed it.
It's only 50 seconds. Just 50 seconds.
Can I just stop my momentum and just
breathe for nine breaths? So I'll end
the talk there but we can just end it on
those nine breaths
because I do not know the tie for
requesting or for expressing our
gratitude except to say simply
Sadu,
sadu, sadu.
[Music]
So, we can open things up to questions
or if people have comments
Peter.
Well, thank you uh John for that
wonderful talk.
um very helpful for kind of daily
practice. A lot lot to work with. Um,
one thing you mentioned uh in talking
about
uh the external is the uh we talked
about a sort of a box out there and
everyone conceives of it differently.
But um
I've kind of posited that to people you
know that I know who are interested in
Buddhism and meditation and uh just
getting comfortable with the notion that
we create the world
uh is difficult. So could you talk a
little more about that? Thank you.
>> Yes. So
the Buddha, there's a sutra where the
Buddha said the all, the all as in a L
l. People talk about the all. But what
is the all? And the Buddha said the eye
informs and eye consciousness. The ear
sounds and ear consciousness. The nose
odors nose consciousness. The tongue
tastes taste consciousness. the body,
tangible objects and body consciousness,
the mind, dharmas
and mind consciousness. And so that's
the definition of all. And that very
much is in line with I believe a rather
um uncontroversial
take of modern science and neuroscience
and just the anatomy that our experience
of the external world is mitigated by
our sensory neurons in different ways.
The ways that the cells are optic nerves
from the back of the iris go in and
interact with the brain. we're not
having an unmititigated relationship
with
anything anything outside of us. So I
think that uh dream simile is more than
a simile because even though it seems
like and I am it's not like I can
control anybody else or that I I would I
wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to um
well
maybe maybe sometimes um but but the way
I perceive it is being mitigated by the
brain
and is entirely my the brain's creation,
the heart's experience. Um,
Sean, do you have anything to add to
that?
I think that was a really good way to
answer it. And I might just add that
we have such an inheritance in western
philosophy and psychology of really
trying to overlay these philosophical
concepts intrinsically onto a very
solidified external vision of reality.
And the Buddha was pushed on stuff
constantly like tell us is the world
infinite or finite? Is you know is the
body the same and the soul another
thing? And he said look what I teach is
suffering and the end of suffering and
this radical phenomenology. I mean I
think you know the Buddha is not saying
that all we have that there's nothing
external but I think you can just say
look practically
can you see how your perception of an
individual shifts radically daytoday
just your reaction your bodily like your
loved one you know in one second they're
your deepest friend the next they're
just like this person again you know
just that's that's it and what happens
when you can I mean this is a really
well established uh principle of
cognitive behavioral therapy as well.
It's like in the scene there's just the
the scene and in the herd there's just
the herd and you know so so seeing how
our overlays shift things but that's
something we're really bringing to it
and just simplifying is really helpful
because all of experience are just these
six things happening you know the eyes
seeing forms the ears hearing sounds the
mind perceiving mental objects etc and
there's a place for bringing it all down
and seeing how we create that but I'd
say for very practical purposes just
especially people seeing how they create
self and other and veilance and anger
loved unloved. I mean that's a really
potent way of seeing how we create the
world in a very practical way leading
towards the end of suffering
>> Cheryl. Um, just to add to that, um, one
of the things that I'd say, and I got
this from Tueri a long long time ago,
was, um, do no harm, be as kind as I can
be, and restraint and and show
restraint. So that's using the six sense
doors for sure.
>> Sarah,
>> I have another triplet that I'd love for
you to talk about. Is this on? Okay. Um
the three conceits
greater, less than, equal to. Correct?
Yeah. So the Buddhist said that we had
to give up these three ways of relating
to others basically at the end of the
day. Um so greater than okay, we
understand that less than okay. Um but
equal to that too, we have to give that
up as well. Um
and I'd say that
what the Buddha talked about um when he
talked about creating a self that we
compare to others, he said, "This is
mine.
This is me.
This is myself." So it's these three
ways like there's this crystallization
the self forms in the shadow of desire
in the shadow of craving and you can see
how when we want when we possess when we
want to be a certain way it crystallizes
a nexus and a center from which um we
act and want and where self and other
become defined and
you know the Buddha there is a place
apart from better than, less than, and
equal to. You know, in the somewhat
problematic words of Nietze in a
Buddhist context, there is a field
beyond good and evil. I'll meet you
there. But actually, that's kind of
right on the mark in a certain sense.
Um, but that there's you can just see
this like when when you're comparing
yourself to others, there is this sense
of me and and outside, whereas there's
moments where that ceases and there's
just a resonance and a empathy. uh a
sense of loving kindness and that sense
of self as something we do it's an
action we do again and again and again
and the Buddha saying stop see the
suffering inherent in that action and
stop and when you let that go you rest
in something that's very different a
resonance and a dharmic sensitivity and
an intuitive uh awareness which is
beyond better than less than equal to um
is that
a anything to
There's a another list of three conceits
where the Buddha said, uh, why am I
who am overcome with the conceit of
youth? Why do I look down on other
people having the conceit of health? Why
do I look down on other people who are
not h healthy? With the conceit of life,
why do I look down on people who don't
have that? And then there's another
list, the Buddha loved list. And Abid
Dama, they love lists even more. There's
a list of like 21 conceits, which is
like conceit of height, conceit of
height, conceit of beauty, conceit. Oh
my gosh, it's a great list. Such great.
It's kind of hard to find it. I think
the last translation was like in the 50s
or something, but uh I don't remember
all of them. some more.
>> Conceit of clan, conceit of youth,
conceit of health, conceit of being a
good speaker, conceit of uh eloquence,
having lots of followers, being
intelligent, being tall like you said,
and being well proportioned. There's
others, too. Being a nsdicant,
don't have to worry about the tall
thing. Thank you, parents. Good.
uh to your point of um giving up that
sense of self um and I so appreciated
your demonstration of the proper way of
bowing or the way you do it first thing
in the morning. Um I the recommendation
of the full bow um I started doing that
before meditating in the in the mornings
and something really started to shift
and I think it was sort of giving up
this sense of myself. I don't I can't
even put into words what started to
change, but I really liked it. But I I'm
actually not sure I'm doing it
correctly. Would it be too much to ask
for a demonstration of how to do that?
All I got was how to do it on YouTube,
which I'm not sure was maybe as good as
it could be.
>> Yeah. Or you can do it and I can I can
give like the blowby-blow.
>> No, no. It'll be like a swimming match.
No, no. I can be the announcer.
>> He stands up.
goes into the bow.
Okay,
you do start standing up. Okay, your
hands are in this anali this uh kind of
prayer posture. Okay, going up to the
forehead and down to the lips, down to
the heart and
And then all the way down.
Hands up
and then back. That was the first. And
then again, head, mouth, heart,
bowing all the way down. Hands up.
Going up for the third.
And this is the Chinese and Korean style
where you don't go all the way down to
the ground, but just touch like that and
then come back up with the hands going
into these lotus blossoms.
All right.
I want to say go.
Was that explanatory?
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And there is a
video on on YouTube of Tube Chin Chan
doing it, which is where I learned it
from. Yeah.
Um it is. Yeah. Look up full length
Tibetan prostration if you want to learn
that full one. Ajin Kov is 56 every
morning. I do 28. It's a really powerful
way to kind of humble yourself and
orient. And it's a good workout. Um, and
just to say like if people do feel this
resistance to bowing, if you can find
something you feel worth bowing to, it's
it's a powerful there's a teacher that
said that once bowing disappears from
the world, Buddhism will have
disappeared from the world. Um,
and yeah, just
when the Buddha became enlightened, he
said, "Who one who dwells without
reverence dwells in pain? So now that
I've attained awakening, who do I dwell
in reverence to?" And he said, "The
Dharma." And it's just powerful to kind
of keep in mind. So,
okay, we do have to finish a little
early today. Um, but really also that
nine breath challenge that Ajin Kovilo
took, I hope people really take that on.
Uh, what are the words again? Buddha
me
gacha me
gang s n gacha me
to Buddha to dama to sa for peace
I return I go whatever
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