Ep. 299: Sitting on 10-13-26 (more on being with our experience as it is)
Oct 14, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 11 segments
- Speakers
- BernieHost
Oct 14, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 11 segments
So, um, the last few weeks on Tuesday nights I've been doing kind of like a recap of practice.
Three, four weeks ago, I talked about the most basic part of following the breath, different ways of following the breath.
Uh, couple weeks ago I talked about noting or labeling thoughts.
When we get distracted by thoughts, we get carried away by thoughts, you know, we can note them saying, "Thinking, thinking," or in the case of particularly juicy thoughts, we can, um, label them even more, uh, explicitly like having a thought that my life is out of control or having a thought something's wrong with me.
Whatever.
Something like that.
Okay.
As a way of sort of really seeing clearly what the thought patterns are that are, um, sort of cause- driving our reactivity, our investment in certain pictures of the self.
Okay.
Um, and then last week I added this very important component, um, which is after we note the thoughts, we have to be with the sensations in the body that are sort of connected to those thoughts.
And often when we're having difficult thought patterns, when we're identified with di-difficult, painful stories, our body will feel it too.
It will, it will have a corresponding kind of pattern of activation, which is often very unpleasant and difficult to be with.
Um, and the more we can just learn to be with those sensations with equanimity, without reactivity, the less those thought patterns that are connected to them will have power over us.
Um, because it is precisely our reactivity, the kind of way we tighten up, um, fight the thoughts, try to do things to get rid, rid of them, that actually sort of fuels the pattern of reactivity that keeps us identified with those thoughts.
And as I said, one of the, you know, most common kind of defense mechanism against those thought patterns is actually a flight back into thought.
So we don't even feel the body.
We just like hang out at the level of the mind.
Which once you learn what it's like to be in the body, to really feel the, the sort of the, the body is alive, present, right, full of sensation, you realize that being up in the mind is actually quite painful.
[chuckles] It's actually a quite unpleasant place to hang out.
But when that's all you are used to, you actually forget that, and you think that's just what life is, is just being up with my thoughts, you know, being in my head.
Um, so, you know, sometimes when people come to practice and we do things like body scans where I ask people to bring their awareness to certain parts of the body, very common that people actually, um, don't feel sensations in a lot b- areas of their body because they've become, in some ways, disconnected from their bodies, you know.
Uh, and there's nothing sort of pathological.
It's just like so common, you know.
Um, and sometimes you can see it just in the way people move through the world.
You can see the ways in which people, like their center of gravity is like up here, and it's almost as if they aren't really fully inhabiting their bodies, you know.
So, um, the last few weeks on Tuesday nights I've been doing kind of like a recap of practice.
Three, four weeks ago, I talked about the most basic part of following the breath, different ways of following the breath.
Uh, couple weeks ago I talked about noting or labeling thoughts.
When we get distracted by thoughts, we get carried away by thoughts, you know, we can note them saying, "Thinking, thinking," or in the case of particularly juicy thoughts, we can, um, label them even more, uh, explicitly like having a thought that my life is out of control or having a thought something's wrong with me.
Whatever.
Something like that.
Okay.
As a way of sort of really seeing clearly what the thought patterns are that are, um, sort of cause- driving our reactivity, our investment in certain pictures of the self.
Okay.
Um, and then last week I added this very important component, um, which is after we note the thoughts, we have to be with the sensations in the body that are sort of connected to those thoughts.
And often when we're having difficult thought patterns, when we're identified with di-difficult, painful stories, our body will feel it too.
It will, it will have a corresponding kind of pattern of activation, which is often very unpleasant and difficult to be with.
Um, and the more we can just learn to be with those sensations with equanimity, without reactivity, the less those thought patterns that are connected to them will have power over us.
Um, because it is precisely our reactivity, the kind of way we tighten up, um, fight the thoughts, try to do things to get rid, rid of them, that actually sort of fuels the pattern of reactivity that keeps us identified with those thoughts.
And as I said, one of the, you know, most common kind of defense mechanism against those thought patterns is actually a flight back into thought.
So we don't even feel the body.
We just like hang out at the level of the mind.
Which once you learn what it's like to be in the body, to really feel the, the sort of the, the body is alive, present, right, full of sensation, you realize that being up in the mind is actually quite painful.
[chuckles] It's actually a quite unpleasant place to hang out.
But when that's all you are used to, you actually forget that, and you think that's just what life is, is just being up with my thoughts, you know, being in my head.
Um, so, you know, sometimes when people come to practice and we do things like body scans where I ask people to bring their awareness to certain parts of the body, very common that people actually, um, don't feel sensations in a lot b- areas of their body because they've become, in some ways, disconnected from their bodies, you know.
Uh, and there's nothing sort of pathological.
It's just like so common, you know.
Um, and sometimes you can see it just in the way people move through the world.
You can see the ways in which people, like their center of gravity is like up here, and it's almost as if they aren't really fully inhabiting their bodies, you know.
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