1 Introduction to the retreat

2020-01-evening-introduction.mp3 [00:00:00] So good evening. We are going to start this session, doing a very simple thing. Close your eyes. Don’t move your posture. Don’t seat in meditation posture or anything, just close your eyes for a moment… Just drop everything… all the tension… all the worries… all the effort… all the ideas about what is meditation… Just be here and now, just feeling your body. Notice how you are feeling in your body and your mind… just be with it…Release everything… all the tension in the body… all the tension in the mind… OK…Open your eyes.

[00:01:11] This is called drop meditation… This comes from a teacher who has worked for many years with Westerner’s and knows that we have very deep tiredness and ingrain in our body, and we are not able to release it. Until we are able to release this tightness, we won’t be able to meditate well, OK. So remember this just when you’re feeling uptight, just wherever you are, this drop everything. OK.

[00:01:48] So today is our first session: tomorrow we’ll start with the former retreat. I want to tell you a little bit about me. And then you’re going to tell me a little way about you. My name is Alma. Maybe you already know my means. So in English, I started meditating in my 20s. Then I came to Nepal took up a monastery to do a one month retreat. Maybe some of you have heard about that November course. Maybe some of you have done it. And then I just stayed for another retreat and another one, and very naturally. It became more like three years of doing retreats here and there in many countries. Sometimes solitary retreats, sometimes group retreats, retreats with friends, all kinds of retreats. I learned a lot about what is to do your own retreat and quiet all the obstacles you can face. So we’re going to use this opportunity of this lovely, wonderful place to do this retreat and learn how can you do retreat later. It’s my hope that when we come out of this retreat, you know to do your own solitary retreat, that, you know, you can do it anywhere in the world and that there’s there might be better places than others, but but we can always do it.

[00:03:24] So I started studying Buddhism. I did all kinds of meditations before. But then I started studying Tibetan Buddhism at Casa Tibet in Mexico, Mexico City. My first teacher was Tony Karam. He was a student of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche,,, maybe you know them. Also he was a student of Trungpa Rinpoche and Geshe Sopa not Lama Sopa Rinpoche, Geshe Sopa who was the tutor of the Dalai Lama. And he started this centre in Mexico City. He gave us a very intellectual approach to Dharma. He brought to Mexico at that time we didn’t have any anything, any contact. So we were grateful to need because him by and many teachers, we also had his way in the Dalai Lama coming for teachings and everything, but also, we organize like a meeting with other religious leaders in the Cathedral of Mexico. There was a very nice event; I participate in the organization there. It was very nice. Later we had visited of Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, of Sakya Dagmola who is also a very nice teacher. If you can read her book: “The Princess in the Land of Snows”, I think it’s called… She is a princess and she’s married with one of the top teachers in the sakya tradition. She gave us a Tara retreat and then we had to Pema Rinpoche and others, his brother’s way from the Nyingma tradition. We had teachers from all of the traditions, all the lineages, and also Western teachers like Jeffrey Hopkins, Alan Wallace and Mathieu Ricard…

[00:05:20] So we had contact with different lineages, different traditions, and that gave us a very nice perspective, not sectarian, where we could learn from all the lineages, and see their differences also. So that’s something we’re going to see here. Later I also studied a little bit of Zen, in the Zen tradition I did some retreats. In the Theravada, I’ve been in Thailand, in Myanmar, in many Theravada countries where also they have a rich Dharma tradition meditation.

[00:05:55] So we can learn about all of them, not just say one is best. And that’s very good. I also done the very well-known ten day retreat with vipassana with Goenka. So many retreats, I participate in the Samatha Project, at Shambala, a project with my own and some scientist from the University of California, Davis. They put a lab in the bottom of their building at Shambala Mountain Centre, in Colorado at the Rocky Mountains. And we practiced for three months and they did a study, a scientific study. They would measure us all the time in their lab, all kinds of tests you can imagine; it was very fun to participate with the science. Then maybe later I’ll tell you a little bit about that Samatha Project, it is very interesting.

[00:06:49] So you hear me mention maybe some of these teachers, and their teachings and some of the places I’ve been in retreat and will get to know each other better, too. Today we will be starting like, let me to call it, like an expedition into the mind. And so we are all going to be together here for two months, more or less. We have to think of everybody here as a family, as our friends, even maybe we haven’t met each other, or maybe some of you already come together as friends or a couple or, you know from a previous retreat. But not all of you know each other. And now we started the silence. So you won’t have much chance to talk with everybody. And that’s something weird, because we normally talk too much and we see we missed many other things. So now that we’re going to be in silence, we’re going to get the opportunity to support each other in silence. And that’s something that is different from what we normally do. But we have to think everybody here is a wonderful person that is giving themselves the time to be in retreat like this with this weather, with the cold, with maybe far from your countries. So we have to feel admiration for each one of the persons that came to this retreat. And we’re going to do a lot of practice of loving kindness, compassion, the four immeasurables. So when you walk outside and see the all the retreatants, when one is in silence, it’s easy for the mind to start making up stories and then thinking that the other person look at me like these are like that. Or they maybe I think I’m eating too much food or they might be thinking I did this or that. And so the idea here is that we are completely relax, that we feel we’re in our home, that we can feel at ease and that nobody is thinking anything about us. Actually, if they think something about us, they’re instructed to release it immediately and just focus on their meditation practice. So maybe will be for a second, but everybody here when we see each other outside is going to be a great opportunity for practicing loving kindness and sending good wishes to that person. And so we all know everybody’s going to be going the same for us. And that feels good. And we are here together.

[00:09:33] We have to trust each other. We have to relax and we’ll get to know each other even if we don’t talk. I assure you, by the end of their retreat, you feel connected to everybody.

[00:09:45] So another thing when you’re outside. Some people like to be very concentrated in their practice and not making eye contact. And that’s perfectly OK. We’re going to understand people don’t want that and don’t feel bad because they don’t look at us and didn’t smile to us. But some people like to make eye contact and give us smile and say I’m here, I give you my support here, and that’s okay, too. So wherever you want and feel comfortable with, it’s OK.

[00:10:23] I think they’re willing to take some of your electronics or they already did. So that’s also going to be like her detox retreat. We are now very addicted to Internet and smartphones and the kinds of things. And they’re very useful, very helpful. But we are going to give ourselves the opportunity to see how we are without them, how we feel without them. So it’s not something that we have to feel bad about it or feel like it’s too strict. I mean, if we if we need to like something very important, we can go and ask. But the idea is what happens with a mind, to see what happens with our mind when we are des-intoxicating from stimuli, from all of these distractions… There’s something very interesting that is going to happen. You’re going to feel bore and boredom. That’s sure to happen. And it’s okay because that’s something we want to happen. We want to see what happens when we get bored, and we are there without trying to find something to do and distract us. Observe that boredom. Because after we pass that boredom, it comes a feeling of joy and our mind starts balancing. And so it’s okay if we feel bored. It means a sort.

[00:11:56] So we’re going to do a little round of introductions so that we will get to know a little bit about everybody. I’m going to get to know you better in the interviews, know more about where you come from, where you’re going to or not going to, just what you are doing here. And we are starting interview tomorrow, but now let’s just say our name, the country we are from, and if you have done any previous retreats, I’m interested to see if you have done like one day retreat, or no retreat, or three day retreat, one week, one month, one year, two years, whatever you have done. And if you can mention also the tradition or the score, the kind of meditation to did, that’ll be helpful, too, for everybody here, for some also too. Let’s begin over there. Do we need to give them a microphone so we can hear them from here?…

[00:13:10] Like anybody else missing? No.

[00:13:15] Okay. Is this busted? So we have here six sessions, but we’re going to secret more sessions. Here we start at 6:30 to 7:30, this session here in the meditation hall. Summers won’t be here 6:30 to 7:30 this session. I would like everybody to come to this session. And also another session at 14:00. Because it’s good also that we as a group are together in silence. They gave so good group energy and then other sessions we can do on our own. And also in the interviews we’re going to check with each one of you. Some adjustments to your personal schedule. What works best for you.

[00:14:14] Then we have 7:30 to 8:30 breakfast, 8:30 to 9:00. Karma yoga, 9:00 to 10:00. It will be class and guided meditation with me here… 10:00 to 10:30 tea break 10:30 to 12:00 will be another session. Day one is on your own. You can decide if you do it here or you do it in your room or according to what we talk in your interviews, maybe you need to do it in a slightly different way or maybe shorter time and have more time for yourself. We’ll see.

[00:14:51] And then lunch at noon, then 1:00 to 1:30 kamma yoga, 2:00 to 3:30 that is the second session of the day that you have to meet here with SOMO. And in the meantime, some of you will have interviews with me. It’s not going to be like a job interview. No worry. I like it. It can examination, but it’s going to be to get to know you better and to help you organize your retreat there and see how you’re doing. Maybe if you have questions that you want to share. So if you have interviewed you, go upstairs with me. If not, here in the meditation hall with everybody. Okay, that session, 2:00 to 3:30. Then we have 3:30 to 4:00 a tea break and then 4:00 to 5:00 we’ll have another class and gudede meditation with me here… 5:00 to 6:00 dinner, 6:00 to 6:30 kamma yoga and then 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. like today, guided meditation and questions and answers. We’re going to do written questions because so we do not have to break the silence too much. And so maybe some of them or all of them, depending how many.

[00:16:22] So we’re going to have two more sessions, one before the morning session and one after the evening session and this sessions I want them to be one after waking up the first one. When you wake up first moment in the morning before doing anything else to be there… is a very good time for meditation because your body is completely relaxed, rested, you’re not sleepy and your mind is has not gone in conceptual mode, already thinking too much. So it’s a very good time to just wake up and instead of moving and going into a lot of activity, just resting there and do a short session. So for some of you, this might be just five minutos, for others maybe one hour. We’ll see. That’s why we did not put a time here, because we’ll see according to your own meditation personality, what’s best for you.

[00:17:30] And then in the evening after 8:00 p.m., just before just going to sleep, actually, when you’re already in bed, it’s going to be your last session, at the beginning we’re going to do some shamatha practice, but then we will incorporate some of Dream Yoga, preparation for dream yoga meditation. So that one is also a nice session to try to finish there.

[00:18:00] In the morning, also, before we are we going to waking up activities, we want to set up the motivation for the day. Each one of us… and probably I’ll do a little bit of motivation at also 9:00am, but you already is like to be awake for several hours. So it’s good that you do your own personal motivation for the day in the morning, and then in the evening personal dedication of your day.

[00:18:36] Then maybe we can also incorporate in that last session of the day, a practice that is just a kind of remembering how your day want… we’ll do it together first and then and then get know how to do that. Just kind of a retro cognition of your day activities. Okay.

[00:18:57] So that’s for the schedule we’re going to have some boundaries of the retreat, of the place you can go; after lunch you have karma yoga, and then you have like half an hour to go for a walk or do something rest, or read, whatever you want. But I do encourage you at some point to try to go for walks, move a little bit the body or do yoga in the morning. Or if there’s any free time because it is also to move e little bit. But we’re going to set up some boundaries and the place that we will kindly ask you not to go outside of these boundaries; if you need to go or not to get a stamp on your passport or something like that, of course, you can go, you can ask someone and just notify that you have to do something and go out. But I was told that last year and some people were found in market doing shopping out the retreat.

[00:20:01] So let’s try to avoid that, because we’re creating a precious space here for our practice. And being in retreat means to retreat oneself from all these activities. So we saw today there is like a little bridge at the entrance, maybe everybody pass through their on the way here. So that’s one of our boundaries. So please do not cross the bridge. And on the other side, we have cable, electricity cables, like some towers with cables. That will be their boundary. And that is because after that, there’s a village with some houses. You will see people here in inside our imaginary boundaries. You’ll see people also, but very few. And then you don’t have to interact too much. But we don’t want to go to the city that, and there were place like too nice here, too many people. And then there’s a sign if you find another secret path around here. And as soon as you see there are houses and like a village coming up, then that’ll be our boundary. Okay.

[00:21:16] And then I worked today with someone there’s plenty of space for us. Beautiful to do a walking meditation. The landscape is beautiful. Also for just relaxing your mind, for opening your heart. Sometimes when we are in retreat for many days, we start feeling a little bit kind of claustrophobic or something. So is very good to have an open space and having a nice landscape. That’s why the yogis of Tibet they are always found their caves in very nice spots, with great views. They were very smart.

[00:21:55] So we’ll have those boundaries, our retreat. Lama Yeshe mentioned in one of his books that the retreat most have the shape of a mustard seed, like you’re start like relaxed, little practice to go increase the middle of the day retreat is where you are going to more intensity, deeper into your retreat and then just slowly coming out. So don’t worry, they’re in a retreat about the things that are coming. Will have maybe last week of the retreat to slowly come out of it and prepare, and start planning ahead. But this is a great opportunity for us to really, really see everything, all our concerns about our daily lives, or our to do list. Here, we don’t have to do list. We don’t have to plan ahead. We don’t have to put anything on the calendar. We’re just living day by day and allow yourself to live that experience of full immersion into retreat. Because it is very good and it’s very healthy for you, for your mind.

[00:23:07] Just wake up and know what you are going to do that day and then be completely present. So that’s one of the good things about a retreat of this length because, you know, one week retreat, maybe the first three days, sure, your mind’s spinning with things your’ve brought from previous activities. And the last three days you’re already worrying about what’s going to happen. So you really have like one day or two days in the middle, to just release everything and before leave. So now we have a great, great opportunity to do this.

[00:23:45] The interviews will start tomorrow, there is going to be at least to where you are in?. So I’m going to have four interviews every day, about fifteen minutes, 20 minutes each interview. So we start tomorrow. Write down your name, and don’t worry in these interviews about “what am I going to say”. If it is right or wrong? We want to see how you’re feeling. If it’s too much for you. If you need more walks. If you need to relax. Mainly we’re going to learn to relax more and more in this retreat, because that’s something that in most retreats is not emphasize. Maybe one here has experience and maybe she like it space you, and so going to more retreats, but especially the Goenka retreats they can be very helpful, very good retreats. But as you know, some of them are very strict, depending on which country you are, but most of them, they’re good, but if you start with a lot of intensity in your practice, your mind get some good experiences, but then later you lose them because you don’t have a good foundation and relaxation. And that’s something that is very important to you to enjoy this retreat, to allow yourself to relax, not worry about achieving, because our culture is very much about achieving, about competing. So it’s not about who sits smart straight and without moving in meditation. Because maybe you are very uptight to do that and you put out a lot of tension. Body is about who gets more relaxed, that’s the one who is going to win. If you want to get into competitive mode, you have to be very relaxed, effortless. OK?.

[00:25:49] So there’s very few rules for this expedition we’re going to be doing: one is to come with punctuality to the sessions for respect of everybody here. Tried to arrive on time. The silent group meditation, with Tsomo, tried to be here the whole session. The other time in this space is open for anybody who wants to come and meditate. Just try to come in very quietly to not disturb, not talk around this area or any area. Please try to do that, to respect your companions. Even a very little whispering can be heard by someone. Please try to meditate.

[00:26:37] The center here, note quietly, maybe we are discussing the interviews that you’ll break the ghatika into shorter sessions. Or maybe you want to connect to our trade ghatika, so just go into a flow, so everybody might have different timing. So just come in and out of this meditation hall quietly. Yeah. And come to all the sessions please so that we know your well and you’re participating the retreat. Also for the classes, please come.

[00:27:08] I don’t want you to take too much notes or anything, because that can be also distracting. So if we’re having a class here, just sit and let you mind just absorb everything. Don’t worry about remembering names or dates or facts or anything. We can always give you that information later. We’re recording, but you can also ask me later and maybe I’ll give you, after works I can give you an outline or a document with my notes so that you have them. I posted somewhere, o sending a mail or something… but the important thing is that you just continuing the meditative mode even during the classes. I’m going to be recording them, the sessions, as I said. So if anybody who wants to volunteer with me to help me with their recordings, I’ll be great. If you have any tech skills, that’ll be great; and you can come SOMU.

[00:28:13] And so as all of you know, there’s going to be a pilgrimage. You’re going to do a pilgrimage at the end of the retreat. As you know, what we’re going to do is in February 23rd we’re going to have a day off for relax and rest, more relax and more rest… all the retreat it’s going to be a relax and rest but also we will have a day to warm up. And then February 24th we’re going to a come up and clear the gompa. And then in the afternoon, we’re going to go to Norbulingka institute of Tibetan arts. On February 25th we’re going to celebrate Losar, the tibetan New Year and [00:29:02] new prayer flags [00:29:03] over visiting to Niyngma Monastery and the residence of the Dalai Lama. On at 26 we’re going to visit the Gyuto Monastery, and the Tantric college and maybe we’ll visit some lamas of the area, depending on their availability. On the 27th, we’re going to Lhundrub Chime Gatsal Ling Monastery, is Niyngma Monastery home of HE. the Ninth Khamtrul Rinpoche. And then on the 28th, we will visit Tashi Jong Monastery. A very beautiful monastery, from the sakya tradition, a very special place. Really, really precious place. If you have the opportunity to visited, it is about the one hour and 30 minutes from here. Then we are going to have lunch at Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery, DGL Nunnery, and a short meditation session in their compa and meet Jetsunma Tenzin Palmmo; we will have a meeting with her, which is like also very good opportunity to visit that great teacher. She is amazing. I don’t know if some of you have read the book of “The cave in the snow”. Very inspiring. She spent 10 years in retreat in a cave with snow. So this is that like a wonderful situation we have here for the retreat. And she really had a tough time there. So it’s a very inspiring woman, very inspiring teacher. She has done so much in dharma for Western and for Tibetan women. So if you can come to these, you’ll be very lucky. Saturday, turning in 9 February, we’re going to Tso Pema. You know, it si an amazing place full of blessings. There is the Lotus Lake. There’s a story of Guru Rinpoché (Padmasambhava). Everyone knows who he is. He was the one who brought Buddhism to Tibet. He was prophesied by the Buddha. And he is like the second Buddha. There’s many but very important teacher in the Nyingma tradition. And in this lake it says this story, that it was where he was born by the king of this region, he was put in the fire with princes Mandavara. The king, her father sends them to burn, and then they manifested like a miracle and transform this fire into a lake.

[00:31:51] So there’s many centres around this lake there and the Sikh temple and Hindu temple and Buddhist temple. And there is some big statue of Padmasambhava that Lama Wander built. He was amazing teacher. He had passed away recently. But he was an amazing, realized teacher. He told us that he said, I’m not a tulku or a renowned teacher. I did all the work by myself. I went into the caves up there into his cave. And I did all the work from the beginning, like the Buddha. And so it’s possible for any of you to do it also. You do not need to have previous experience. And so he was amazing. He built this huge statue of Padmasambhava. And we can go meditate in there. It’s beautiful. It’s a combined inside. And there is also a community of caves of yogis, mainly, mainly nuns, women. There’s a few men up of the mountain is full of caves. And they have doors and numbers… they’re like the last time I was there, I saw around 60 caves. And then now we see some friends in their caves. Very nice caves. Some of them are marvelous. Fix some of them very equipped with freezers, those with amazing practitioners. They’re all of them disciples of Lama Wonder. So he created a wonderful community of yogis there. They’re amazing energy at that place.

[00:33:46] And there is the Guru Rinpoche cave where we also can meditate, and very blessed caves. So these are very important places for the Nyingma tradition. And then on the second we come back after lunch. Much third is the checkout. So if you want to join us for this pilgrimage place notify because we have to know before the 20th, I think they need to do arrangements for lodging and food and logistics. So think about it is a great opportunity to see these places and meditate in them. There are places that are full of blessings from previous teachers and just being there creates a great amount of merit and good karma. Yeah.

[00:34:44] So I’m just going to mention a little bit of the things we’re going to see in the retreat. I don’t know if you have received any any printed material?. No. OK. Maybe we will give you some some charts and some printed material that I sent that week that we will study in detail. And that is going to be helpful just to have like this summary. But we’re going to put it in two weeks also. But maybe depending on how we go, we will change things a little bit. But at the beginning, we’ll go through an overview of the Buddhist teachings. Many of you already know who the Buddha was, but we will do a short recount of his life and what he had taught us. We will begin with doing some of the four thoughts that change, for my changing or for hopes that changed the mind. We will do some meditations of that, and also do some of the four immeasurable as well as we start our Samatha practice,.

[00:35:59] We will see the difference, we have to check first what is shamata, what is mindfulness, what is vipassana, because there seems to be a lot of misconceptions and confusion about these three in the modern world. So that we have very clear what is what and how we do each of them.

[00:36:21] And then we will explore different samatha techniques and we will study the progression status. I will give you some some charts with the stages. We will see how to integrate all these practices into a daily meditation practice… If you already have some daily meditation practice, we will integrate with all of these, so that you will continue with something that you have found that is useful and helpful for you. So you don’t have to.... It’s not that kind of retreat where I’m going to tell you to forget everything you know about meditation. Not everything is helpful. Everything you’ve done before. And we will integrate it. And then as we progress, maybe this will take a couple of weeks, and then as we progress, we will go into the four applications of mindfulness and vipassana practice more deeply. We will see different ways of meditating for vipassana practice. And then we will introduce Dream Yoga, at some point, during the retreat, I will be telling you things that you could incorporate, but then we will start doing some more formal practice during the daytime and the night-time to integrate Dream Yoga into the schedule, and then at the end we’ll have a little introduction of Dzogchen practice, what is it.

[00:37:54] I’m not going to give you a transmission pointing out instructions or anything, but I will tell you quite a quite a certain Dzogchen practice and how if you want to continue on that path. We will see…there are different parts for different kinds of people. It’s not like there’s one right path. Right. So for some of us following the more study the developmental into intellect reasoning path is the best… for some of us, one that is more about going directly into meditation and discovering things by your own. And each ways is good, there are several ways of doing it.

[00:38:45] And at the end, we will discuss how to continue after here, with a daily practice, and how to integrate your jobs, your lifestyle into your practice, into your lifestyle or other way. How to also take time for yourself for doing your personal retreats, whether it’s a weekend to you have free, or sometimes you will be able to take a week or do a longer retreat. And so that, you know, you can do it, and you feel confident that you can do a retreat on your own.

[00:39:22] OK, so anybody has a question. Everybody knows what is a ghatika. We call it a ghatika a measure of time of twenty four minutes, which is like one 6 days of a day, which has, twenty four hours. So he said would measure of time, but some few might finally too long or too short. So you can silently do a little adjustment, but mainly you can do those three ghatikas, that will be good, I would encourage you to come to those sessions, the full session. But so in between she will maybe she would ring the gong, at twenty four minutes and then ringing again after maybe three or four minutes just to have like a little stretch. Or maybe going to the bathroom or something and come back. But I encourage you to do these two sessions every day.. At least we know you’ll be here for two hours and a half. It’s not much, but at least we know you meditated two hours every day. And, is there any problem for you to come?. Session 3 is on your own. So that one you can come and go out like a maybe you do twenty four minutes here, that there won’t be a gong here, if you want to stay from 10:30 to 12:00, the whole session here seating without moving. That’s great. If you want to come for four fifteen minutes and sit and then do the rest in your room, that’s okay. Or maybe we set up in yours interviews that maybe you need to take some of that time to go for a walk or to rest. Depending on how you feel you can come to that session here or do it on your own. Okay.

[00:41:27] But if you have a problem attending those sessions, let me know and we can adjust the schedule for you personally and I will notify some that you will be coming only for a class session or something. But if you can attend those who it’s going to be good for you. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah.

[00:41:48] Frustration in most areas. Reservation…

[00:41:58] Let me think about it. Maybe you can do them before the first session or in the evening, after the last session… so we can maybe set time for you to do that.

[00:42:10] Well, we’re going to talk a little bit about prostrations and underline that tantric path, so that every everybody of you have idea that’s also a path you can take if you feel like what is not the only path. And there are so many paths for different kinds of people.

[00:42:29] Well, this is a schedule we set up. But maybe we’ll do some adjustments or changes in the way if it feels like something we need to add or change. Don’t worry. Just see this schedule. Memorize it. I would like that you do a session before that. OK, but we’ll discuss personally even if it’s five minutes. But try to do a session before that. You probably as you go deeper into retreat, the body starts needing less sleep. So you’ll wake up naturally earlier and have time for a session. So if you go for lunch and then go for a walk, we don’t worry. You are going to go into my club again because you have a mandatory session too… say you don’t have time. And then 3:30 to 4:00 we have a tea break and then there’s another mandatory session at 4:00 here with me, a class and then dinner, karma yoga and then 6:30 p.m will be the last mandatory session here that we meet all together.

[00:43:43] Ok. And if we’re seeing the interpreters also again, I can… Not audible…

[00:44:00] Oh, no worry. We’ll seen the interviews that some of you are going very well in your meditation or you have lots of experience and it would be better for you to be in your room meditating on your own mostly. Then we can arrange that those two silent group meditations should do them on your room. If it would be better for you and you’re really going to be meditating, then maybe that’s the best for you in those two sessions.

[00:44:38] But for the rest of the group, it’s good to come to those sessions and see everybody else here seating together that will give you encouragement and give generates good energy for saving. Ok.

[00:44:55] Any other question before we go?. Maybe we can ring the gong for a little bit before each session, because that way people don’t have to be looking at their clock continuously.

[00:45:16] There would not make up on at 6 o’clock and always 10 minutes before the session. OK. They will live with 50 minutes before you don’t know the clock. Moment is 10 minutes before the session start.

[00:45:40] And that will give you some preparation. Wherever you are, when you hear the gong you know a session is coming or something, or if you forget the schedule, you come to see what’s next.

[00:45:53] Who is ringing the gong?. Ok. If it’s too much for you, we can have another volunteer. OK. Well, you are welcome to ask for. Thank you. Anything? Yes, that’s OK.

[00:46:13] Anything else you guys have written? We have about paper pieces of paper in the bag and more than now.

[00:46:29] Ok. So everybody heard that there’s some piece of paper in the bags and some pencils and you can write down your questions and put them here on the table and we will address your questions. OK. Well, I think that’s all for today. We’ll meet tomorrow at 6:30 with SOMU at 9am. With me. Yes. OK.

[00:46:57] Let’s take a moment. Close our eyes again. Drop everything. You’re doing and this just dedicate however your practice. We’ve been doing in the last days for the beginning of our retreat. We set our intention on motivation for tomorrow. Start practicing formally since we wake up until we go to sleep. We feel grateful for having this wonderful group of people to be here together and just set up the intention of putting a pause to your life before coming here to this point, releasing all the concerns about your home, your work, wherever you left behind: your loved ones, and just open this space for yourself, for your practice… For being full present with your mind, with your body right here, and dedicate all this time to explore your mind, your emotions, your feelings… feel grateful to yourself for giving yourself this opportunity to be here. And with this in mind, we go to bed tonight with the best of our intentions… Open your eyes, and see you tomorrow. If you can start practicing from tomorrow as soon as you wake up, from tonight.

[00:48:52] Let start from tonight, wait, wait. Before you fall asleep going into your bed and then just do a little session right there in savasana or supine posture. Just lay down in your bed, facing up. Relax. We’re also going to do some sessions here and you can bring a a mat, there are so many mats here. There’s already mats here. So any of you who want to lay down in this supine posture and do that session here, too, is a very good posture for relaxing the body. There is to fall asleep. But now we’re not going to worry because we also want to fall asleep. So just lay down in your bed. Set an intention that you may be lucid in your dreams. Just say may be lucid in my dreams. Don’t worry if you’re not. But just setting the intention every night starts having an effect. Do that, and then just release that thought. Think of the previous days since you arrived here and feel grateful for everything, and then just focus on your breath or just feel full body awareness, which is release all the thoughts of the day wherever feels good for you as a pre-slipping meditation practice. So just stress there. Let your body, your mind relax completely. When you start feeling sleepy like it’s about time to sleep, then turn around your body intentionally making in your mind the decision that your meditation finished and then you’re going to sleep now, and then just turn on your side and fall to sleep like that.

[00:50:44] There’s a complex dream yoga posture, you put some fingers in some parts of your ear and you put your hand. They know their effect to kind of induce lucid dreaming, but we’re not going to do that. It is says that on your right side is better. But I want you to do the test. It goes maybe on the left side is better for you in this English retreat. So just start to one side sometimes to the other side, sometimes and say what happened in your dreams…

[00:51:18] And in the morning when you wake up, try to fall asleep as conscious as you can. So it’s a bit tricky because if you tried to be very aware, when you fall asleep, you might be waking up too much and then having trouble sleeping. So let yourself fall asleep, but a little bit of awareness if you can continue and bring it into the dreams. It requires a little bit of practice. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen in the beginning or in the middle during it, but just do it.

[00:51:55] And then in the morning when you wake up, as soon as you wake up, stay there without moving, make a quick recount of your dreams. If you start moving, the dreams will vanish very fast and you will forget them. So try to just remember, maybe you do not remember anything. Maybe you remember a color or a name or a face or or a smell. Something very vague. It’s okay. Just become aware of that. And if you recall a whole dream or many dreams, just kind of remember them, make sure you remember kind of the whole thing and then just stay there meditating just without moving. Just be very present and give yourself some minutes before jumping out.

[00:52:52] If you want, if you wish. You can start recording your dreams like have a little notebook in your night table and just write down a few words of your dreams. Not like the whole story. You can do that later on the day. But like just a few words, like clues that remind you of what you dream like, it helps later to remember the whole dream. So they’ll be good. And then I’ll tell you later what we will do with that dream Journal. Okay. It’s not necessary to do it now, but if you wish to start. Okay. And then also said before jumping out of bed, set a good intention on motivation for the day. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Transcribed by: Miguel Angel de Anquin