Mindfulness vs. Awareness - with Susan Piver

We sit down with Susan Piver to get clear on what mindfulness trains and what awareness reveals, then we rethink what meditation is actually doing to the heart and mind. 

Visit Susan Piver's website: https://openheartproject.com/

We leave with a simpler technique, lower self-judgment about thinking, and a more realistic view of what students may experience as practice deepens. 

• mindfulness as attention training and awareness as insight 
• why awareness expands through receptivity not effort 
• simplicity in instruction and helping people discover 
• why you do not need to stop thinking 
• why meditation is bigger than self-help 
• how meditation amplifies the inner state and softens defenses 
• consistency over duration and the limits of “90-second” practice 
• a guided approach to posture plus breath plus mind 
• using silence and pacing as a teaching tool 
• eyes-open meditation for wakefulness and daily-life integration 
• attention as the most basic form of love 
• strengthening the human realm through teaching practice 
• practical tips for structuring a class and setting the room 

If you want to stay in touch, go to the Open Heart Project, sign up for her newsletter. It’s free. 

Visit Susan Piver's website: https://openheartproject.com/

Teach mindfulness without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. 

Learn about our Internationally Accredited Certification Program:  https://certify.mindfulnessexercises.com/

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix of:

• Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
• Conversations with respected meditation teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
• Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
• Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change

If you’re interested in:

• Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
• Trauma-sensitive and compassion-based practices
• Teaching mindfulness in an authentic, non-performative way
• Deepening your own practice while supporting others

…you’re in the right place.

Learn more at ...

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:00

All right everyone, welcome. I'm gonna go ahead and introduce Susan. Susan Piver is with us. She is the author of many books, but her latest is Inexplicable Joy on the Heart Sutra. She has been a student of Buddhism since 1993. She graduated from Buddhist Seminary in 2004 and in 2012 founded the Open Heart Project, which is the world's largest online only Dharma Center. She has an international reputation as a skillful meditation teacher and speaker, and we are super grateful to have her with us today here at Mindfulness Exercises. And I'm basically going to give it over to Susan to say more about herself if she wants to, and otherwise just lead us in practice and teaching today. So welcome, Susan.

Mindfulness Vs Awareness Explained

Simple Teaching That Actually Works

Three Misconceptions About Meditation

Can 90 Seconds Create Insight

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thank you. Thank you very much for that introduction. And yes, the Open Heart Project, my online community, is the largest in the world, but it's also the only one. So it's also the smallest. Thank you so much for taking time to show up for this. It's my favorite subject, basically, the practice of meditation. And I want to share some things that I have found personally very helpful. And I also train people to teach meditation. Training always starts with the things that I'm going to say to you. So I hope you'll find them helpful. I also want to say a few things, and then I'd like to guide us in a short practice, if you don't mind. And then there will be time for conversation as you wish. I'm so happy to know you all. And this may sound sappy, but I'm happy to be your friend in this endeavor, because anyone who's attempting this is automatically my friend, whether you want to be or not. So as uh Sarah May mentioned, I have been a practitioner since 1993. I'm a Buddhist practitioner in that what I teach is connected to the Buddhist tradition. And I took the refuge vow, which is the vow by which one formally becomes a Buddhist, about a year and a half after I started practicing in 1995. I've been a practitioner ever since uh definitely my adult life, a Buddhist. And I say that because part of my wish as a meditation teacher, and by the way, I did not become a meditation teacher until like 2006 or seven, close to 20 years of practice before I even became an instructor. And I was trained to be a teacher in my particular lineage. And the reason I guess I want to say that up front is because I know that you are training to be mindfulness teachers. That's great. And this whole endeavor is called mindfulness exercises, and you will be certified to teach mindfulness, and that's really wonderful. In the tradition that I was trained in, that is great. And it's 50% of the story. And I'll tell you from the Buddhist point of view what the other 50% is. So the practice that I do and that I teach and that we'll do together is called Shamatha Vipassana. Maybe you've heard the word vipassana, I'm sure you have. Same root, but different part of the world just pronounces it vipassana. Shamatha means the practice of calm abiding. Oh, who doesn't want that? And what that means is you have some agency over your mind so that you are able to place your attention where you would like it to go. An increasingly rare skill. And then when it strays, because guess what it does like a million times. Oh, you see, you notice that. And then you're able to bring it back. And you find that the place of calm abiding is not only on the beach in Mexico, although that's a great place, but is here. And you don't have to change anything to discover that. You just have to be mindful. Vipassana means the practice of insight or clear seeing. And in this practice, it's translated as awareness. So it's mindfulness awareness meditation. And whether you know it or not, I believe you are teaching that mindfulness awareness, because mindfulness and awareness cannot be separated. So mindfulness means you place your mind where you want it to go. As mentioned, that's an increasingly rare skill. And then you see that it's departed and you come back. It's very focused, it's one-pointed. You're either aware or you're not. You can really work at that. And I'm sure you are. Now, the other piece that happens in the practice, in addition to the cultivation of mindfulness, is the arising of awareness. And I say arising because awareness can't be cultivated. It just happens. And you know this as practitioners that as your practice progresses, whether it's a month or a decade, your awareness expands. You notice things you had not noticed before. Your sense perceptions become more vibrant, and your insights arise more readily. You see connections between things that had been there, but you had not noticed. Is that not so? In addition, you feel more. Uh-oh, no one told us that. And we'll get to that more when we get to these various misconceptions, as I call them, but you can call them whatever you want. So mindfulness, as mentioned, you can work at, and you are working at it. Awareness you cannot work at. It happens on its own, and it happens not in the space of effort, but in the space of receptivity. And as you practice mindfulness, the capacity for awareness expands. So the mindfulness, that's the part that science has studied. So it'll reduce the stress hormone cortisol and it will help with insomnia and it will lessen the chance of relapse into depression by 50% if it's combined with other therapeutic treatments. It increases activity in the left prefrontal cortex and decreases it on the right, or the opposite, whichever is the good one. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you, science. That's great. Now, this awareness piece, that's a different world. And that is where insight resides. Insight does not reside in mindfulness, it resides in awareness. Trauma resides in awareness. The feelings that increase as meditation deepens come from the awareness, not from the mindfulness. I mean, I'm making it a little binary. It's not quite that binary. But I think it's important to point out that as teachers, not only will your students or your patients or your clients or your colleagues be learning mindfulness, but their awareness will be expanding, and that is unpredictable. The inner state starts to change through the practice of meditation. So mindfulness awareness. Going forward, I want to share with you the three biggest misconceptions that I have witnessed over my many decades now as of practice. I notice them in myself and I notice them in others. And when I teach teachers, I want to be very sure to point these things out from the beginning. However, before I get to those three, I just remembered something else I wanted to say. The key aspect, if I may say, in teaching meditation is twofold. Simplicity has to be very, very simple. Not because anyone's dumb, but because people get in there and start to muck with the technique. Well, I'm going to do it this way, or I teach an eyes open practice, nobody has to do that. But people, well, I'll close my eyes. Well, okay, after you're Buddha, you can make those decisions. But until then, the tradition that you are being trained in, presumably, is ancient and time-tested and honed. And when we start mucking with it overly in early days, the complexity shuts the door to the magic. We want to at first just, okay, can I do it? Sometimes I teach classes where people show up and this is a Buddhist thingy, and they want to learn about so-called high practices. What is Dzogchen? What is Ati? What is Mahamudra? These very so-called, again, advanced practices from Tibetan Buddhism, because that's my the only thing I know anything about. I like to sort of say, well, let's first learn how to notice that we're breathing. Then let's go to the Dzogchens and the Mahamudras and so on. But let's first just can you breathe? Can you be aware of it? Because no matter how hard you try, and you too watching the recording, you cannot breathe in the past, you cannot breathe in the future. You can only breathe in the present. I think that's obvious, but yet we somehow don't then associate breath awareness practice as the practice of being present, which it is. And the practice of being present is the seed syllable, the door opening, the unlock icon for the whole progression of benefits. Don't take my word for that or anything. Investigate and see if that is consonant with your experience. That's very important. Simple. And then the instruction that I was given as a teacher that I try to reinforce at every turn to my own students and that I share with you for your consideration. Uh don't teach anyone anything. Help them to discover something. That's a very beautiful subtlety. Also, as I was trained, the only job of a meditation teacher is to help people come into the present and then get out of the way. Because their own wisdom is trustworthy. So here are the three biggest misconceptions I noticed with that big buildup. The first misconception about meditation that I've noticed, maybe this doesn't apply, but you'll have to tell me, is that in order to meditate, you have to stop thinking. What? In no place in my studies of the Buddha Dharma in my case and the practice of meditation did I ever come across the instruction that you should tell yourself to shut up. Only you would shut up. This would be awesome. That's not part of it. There's no off switch for thoughts. In the Buddhist view, again, I'm sure I'll say that phrase countless times. I just want to be clear, I'm not making this up. Thinking is considered a sense perception, like seeing and hearing and so on. And just like seeing and hearing and so on, there's no off switch. If you look out through your eyeballs right now, or hear through your ears, if you're visually impaired, try to not see anything. I mean it, or try to not hear anything. That's how crazy it is to tell your brain to stop thinking or your mind or whatever it is. Just stop that. Not necessary, basically not possible, and useless. Because when you go out into your life, you don't want to have no thoughts. And you don't want to place your attention on your breath. You want to place your attention on your experience and your feelings and your world. So the breath is the stand-in for all of that, assuming that you are using breath awareness. So the idea is not to become great breath followers, because the truth is that does not matter at all. It doesn't matter if you're good at meditating, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you practice with coming back so that when you go into your life, you can practice putting your attention on that. And the breath is just a stand and it's like scales on the piano. Find scales when you sit down to meditate. Some days it'll be easy, some days it'll be hard, doesn't matter. Your skill level increases not a pace. So the only thing you have to stop thinking is that you have to stop thinking. Here's my funny little joke about not having to stop thinking. You don't have to clear the mind of thought. When I hear that, I actually get angry because what that is a recipe for is self-aggression. You shut up and contraindicated to the highest degree. The second misconception, I believe, is that meditation is a form of self-help. I don't think it is. I mean, it will help you with all sorts of things. Obviously, science has proven it. All sorts of research has shown that it will help you in countless ways. And I believe that all those ways are true. But when we look at it as something we do for ourselves within ourselves alone, I would say that 80% of the magic stays on the table. I wasn't there. But when this practice was first taught by the historic Buddha more than 2,500 years ago, and through the millennia, until it got west, it wasn't taught as a way to get better at something. It wasn't predicated on go in your house, shut the door, turn everything off, try to stop thinking, retreat within. It was the opposite. It was learn to work with your mind so that you can see reality clearly, so that you can connect with the energies of the phenomenal world of air, of water, of earth, and so on, because you're part of that. And to withdraw from that, sometimes obviously we must, because it's crazy out there. Was not the point. The point was to open to the world, which has a tremendous cost associated with it. No one can tell you any different. What else are you going to do? So it's only with us in the West that it has become a self-help technique. So I think that's interesting, something to think about. Now, that doesn't mean it's wrong. I think it's right. And it's part of what we as Westerners bring to the development of the practice now that it's in the West, very young, 50 years maybe, we can add that piece. But if we limit it to that piece, it's not a mistake, particularly, but it obscures what is actually going to happen for your students who may want to get a better night's sleep, may want to be more patient and be better leaders and parent more lovingly and all of those things. Those things will happen. But other things will happen too. And as teachers, I think we need to be ready. And those things that happen in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition anyway are called the three qualities of the awakened mind. They just happen. The awakened mind is wise, which doesn't mean smart or knowledgeable. It means clear, incisive. The awakened mind is compassionate, feels and cares. When Buddhists say mind, they point here. The awakened mind is powerful, which can be off-putting to Westerners. But powerful here means fierce, courageous, authentic. You know when you're with a real practitioner because they seem like a real person. They're not like somewhere elevated talking down to you, no matter how great they are. And I have been fortunate to know actual masters. And they are humble and funny and completely without claims to anything special, but you can tell. So wisdom, compassion, power, or authenticity, these things will happen for your students. And as teachers, you can be aware, oh, they're becoming more clear. They're feeling more, and therefore they're becoming more kind, and they're realizing who they really are, and becoming more authentic from that realization. These are spiritual benefits. Nothing to do with religion, obviously. But it's not self-help. That's the second misconception. It's a spiritual practice, whether you call it that or not. Don't ask me why. You sit there, you do nothing. There's nothing that can be subtracted from the meditation technique. Your body, and we'll practice together soon, so we'll do this together. That's gotta be there. Your breath, your mind. That's all you're working with. Body, breath, and mind. Take a posture, you rest attention on breath, you notice that you're thinking, you let go and come back. Now you cannot take any one of these components out of the practice. You'd have to chop off your head or something. So you know, it's so essential. And that's why simplicity is so crucial, because it is that simplicity of just body, just breath, just mind that awakens these three qualities of wisdom, compassion, and courage. Don't take my word for that. Check yourself. So when we try to add things, well, let's combine these two techniques, or you can do it when you're riding your bicycle instead of sitting down, when you're Buddha. But prior to that, it's very simple. And that is the magic. Because if you ask yourself, as I've asked myself many times, how does it happen that I'm sitting here doing nothing and wisdom, compassion, and courage seem to expand? But I'm sitting here doing nothing except having a body, a breath, and a mind. How does that happen? Don't tell me if you know the answer. Because I think it's a mystery. It's magic. It's spiritual truth. Let's just say that. So the third misconception is that meditation will make you more peaceful. And I'm sure you know from your own practice, well, maybe sort of, but it actually does the opposite. It doesn't make you less peaceful, but meditation amplifies the inner state. It doesn't quiet it or change it, both of which are gestures of aggression. It amplifies it. It doesn't make it bigger, but you take all this stuff out of the way and you see what's really going on inside of yourself. You see how your mind works, you see how your heart works, you see what you care about, you see what is blocking you, you see all sorts of things about yourself and about others. And I'm not just talking about you see gossipy kinds of things, but you feel because when you sit down to meditate, whatever happens is okay. You notice it, you let go, you come back. The wall that we all have around our hearts starts to soften because we're very hard on ourselves. Don't do that, no, don't do that. Oh, you've kept this up. Why did you think that? Oh, you had this problem, if only you could fix it. In meditation, all that's called thinking, and you just let go and come back, and this starts to soften. The wall comes down a little bit, goes back up, comes down. We're humans, but when it comes down, anything can come in and does. That's not a formula for being more peaceful. However, it is a formula for being more genuine. And as teachers, I suggest to you that the most magnetizing aspect of any teacher is their genuineness. You can be a brilliant academic, and I'm sure some of you are, and that's great. You can know everything. You got aced all the tests and read all the books and explained things very, very clearly. But without your presence in the instruction as a genuine human being, the practice falls flat. So those are the three misconceptions I want to mention. You don't have to stop thinking. It's not a form of self-help, and it won't make you more peaceful. Who doesn't want to sign up for that? No, I'm just kidding. But we are so much more interesting and deep and nuanced, as are your students and future students. Just trying to calm down is not the best that we can teach people how to do. We can teach them to navigate much deeper terrain than tight ceremony. And that's again, I'll just mention, and I'm sure you know this, why trauma sensitivity is so important. Because practitioners become more vulnerable, not more staunch, not more guarded, less guarded. So it's very important to be very aware in yourself, because almost all of us have trauma, and certainly in your students, clients, whatever they may be to you. So do you have any questions about this so far? Flori. Hi.

SPEAKER_04 18:38

Hi, thank you for this. I'm gonna be very black and white. I know it's not this black and white, but to explain it. If you go on media currently, you see it's almost like there's this departure from meditation, because meditation's not easy. So you can be mindfully present in the moment. 90 seconds spurts. And I'm struggling with the how do you find insight in 90 second spurts? Yeah, I don't think you can.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah. If you get lucky, but no, and it's not the duration, it's the consistency. If you meditate for 90 seconds 10 times a day for seven days, that's great. If you meditate for 90 seconds on the weekends, that not so great. But five minutes a day, seven days a week, great. That's better than 35 minutes once a week. It's the consistency that is important.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

But when we talk about you share the three qualities. So if I understand what you're saying, you can actually cultivate. It's maybe not the right word to use, but the three qualities in those little spurts versus formally sitting. Sharon Salzberg kind of defuncts it and she says, I heard her in a talk say, you do have to do formal sitting to some degree consistently. I agree.

Guided Practice Body Breath Mind

How To Hold Silence As Teacher

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Okay. I agree. Totally. But it can be five minutes. And it's better than nothing. 90 seconds is better than zero seconds. There are things that are meditative, like swimming or running or cooking or driving sometimes on a country road or something. Those things feel meditative, but they are not meditation. Meditation is not a life hack. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for asking. Mine is an eyes open practice. That's what I'm going to instruct. You don't have to do that, but if you want to give it a try, you can. So there are three things to be mindful of in mindfulness. And the first is your body. You want to take your posture intentionally, and it helps to build it from the ground up. They're just easier for people to imprint when you instruct from the feet up to the head. It's not a magic formula, but it's easier to imprint. So the legs can be crossed loosely in front, or the feet flat on the floor. Sitting on a cushion or a chair. Chair is equally spiritual as a floor, so just don't worry about that. And give your weight to what you're sitting on. Sometimes I have a feeling like, oh, I'm hovering over my life. Let there be this sense that someone very strong and very kind gently lifts you a tiny bit from the waist, like a half an inch, and then just lets go and you settle and land. And it's good to feel heavy from the waist down, rooted, firm, like a mountain. And from the waist up you can feel light and open and receptive. Spacious. The hands rest on the legs, palms down. Oh you can please moderate technique as you have been studying it. And sit up straight. That's probably the most important aspect of the posture. Not because you're trying to look like a meditator, but because you are like proclaiming your dignity. And sitting up straight rather than sort of hunching, even a little bit, reacquaints you with that feeling of elegance. Soften the belly a lot. And when you feel like it's relaxed, relax it a little more. There'd be a real sense of spreading. In the lower abdomen. Let the shoulders relax. The shoulder blades can almost imperceptibly move in toward each other. Like when a bird lands, the wings sort of tuck into the body. They ruffle a little bit and then they settle into the body. And you can have that kind of sense in your own shoulders and shoulder blades of settling. Landing. And you could just relax the shoulders. The mouth is closed. But the lips and teeth can be slightly parted just because it helps the jaw to relax. And you can really afford to relax all the muscles of speech. The tongue, the jaw, the throat. Because you don't need them right now. You can be silent. That is a luxury. And if you look inside, there is no one talking. It is quiet. So you can re-inhabit your own quietude. Quite nourishing. Breath is natural in and out through the nose, unless you have a cold or allergies or something. But breath is natural, just means you're breathing for your whole life. From the second you were born, just keep doing that. No breathing technique. As mentioned in this practice, the eyes are open. You don't have to do that, or you could give it a try. Either one's fine. But if you want to experiment with eyes open, the gaze is cast down to a comfortable spot in front. Four to six feet, say, or two, two and a half meters if you're in a meter place. And it doesn't matter what you're looking at. Your gaze just rests. And there's a sense of vision streaming from the eyes. Like the rays of the sun and like the rays of the sun. Your vision mixes with space. Rather than targeting that one thing in space. It mixes. And if you try to find where your seeing ends and what you are seeing begins, you can't. It's more interesting than that. Let the brow relax. First mindfulness, a body. Second is a breath. So just bring your attention, let your awareness rest on the rhythm of the breath. And this means feel that the body breathes. In this case, it does not mean observe the breath or notice the breath. It means feel the breath. There's a very interesting nuance between noticing and feeling. And we want to feel the expansion and the letting go. Expansion and letting go. And you can let your attention rest on this wave as if it was a hammock that was sort of blowing in the wind. Sways out on the exhale and in on the inhale, and your mind finally can just rest. Rest. That's mindfulness of breath. Finally, mindfulness of mind. Your mind keeps thinking thoughts, no big deal. No big deal. We want our focus of attention to be breath, and thoughts sort of fall to the background as a kind of ambient accompaniment. But in the foreground is breath. Thoughts, blah blah blah. It's just something that's happening. It's fine. If there's a lot of thought, no thought, doesn't matter. Now, if you notice that your attention has become reabsorbed in thought rather than breath. And what that means is not a thought, but a line of thought to the point where you have spaced out. You're no longer aware of your breath at all. You get a A because you just woke up in the middle of your own mind and saw what was going on. I'm thinking. I'm not meditating. So when you notice that, you can label that moment silently thinking and then let go. Doesn't matter if the thought is beautiful or violent or petty or anything, just let go. That's the fun part. Don't skip that part. And gently come back to this breath and begin again. And the amount of fresh starts that you're allocated in any given meditation session, whether it's five minutes or five hours, is infinite. No problem. So you can relax. And we'll sit together in silence for a few minutes. If you get lost, just come back. To bring your practice to a close, or just stop meditating. Just let the technique go. So I'm happy to have as much or as little conversation as you would like about the practice teaching, my favorite subject. Sarah. Hi Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Hey. I found myself wondering about your perspective from the teaching perspective and leading moments of contemplation or silent spaces. I've done it a few times at the edge of yoga practices, but I wonder what's happening behind the scenes. Are you making an agreement as you go in with yourself with a dedicated amount of time and space to remain silent? Is there any internal dialogue occurring that brings it to almost like a channel of should I say this? Should I not say this type things? And do you already just have a simple agreement with yourself to remain silent no matter the dialogue inside?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

That's a great question. I love it. So I gave instruction and then there was the silence. Are you talking about that silence? Like how long is that, or do you know it beforehand, or how do you make that call?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Do you agree with yourself for like two, three minutes of designated silence, or are you leading the moment intuitively? And then behind the scenes, what is that process for you? Everybody's different.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So the way I do it is just the way I do it. I operate a lot on intuition. That doesn't mean I'm smarter than anyone. I can tell you for a fact I'm not. And it doesn't mean that I have an inside line to spiritual things. I do not, but I just use my gut. So when we're sitting here, I looked at my at my phone right here, as one does. And I like, okay, let's see. I'm probably 15 minutes. That's what I'm feeling. For many people, it's the end of the day. I don't know. I'm just getting a vibe. And I teach almost exclusively online. So if you think, well, I can't, you know, I can't read or a Zoom room, you can. You get a vibe. And I like to leave silence. I think that's very important because that's when the person teaches themselves the practice. And you're not going to be there every time they want to practice. You're not going to be there for the rest of their life. That's when they teach themselves how to do it. And that's very important. Sometimes when I'm teaching others in a Zoom room or a room room, I can feel everybody's very ambitious or speedy. Like, okay, give me the facts. Let's do it. How do I progress? When will I be Buddha? You know, whatever. Okay, sure. We all have those. Let me just get this done. Let me learn it. I want to do it right. Okay. It's a speedy. You feel kind of speedy, yes. Or I'll come back to the speediness in a moment. You feel like everyone's just sleepy, not that interested, doing it because someone told them they should. They're there, but they're not really that interested. In both cases, as a teacher, what I have found useful is not what I say, but my own presentation. I picking up a vibe correctly or incorrectly, that everybody's speeding and wants to do it right and ambitious. Then I notice that I slow down my instruction, leave a lot more space, speak more gently. It just happens organically. I didn't decide to do that. Or if people are like falling asleep, I try to pick it up a little bit. Tighten. One first case, soften. Second case, tighten. In your pacing in your own energy, it's like a gas and a brakes for this thing that you're driving.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Oh, I super appreciate the response. For myself, sometimes wanting to bring through extra information or guide the consciousness to keep it in presence. But I was curious for somebody who's practiced a bit more, especially the facilitation side, is that calming down? Have you found ways? And I think that your response was an excellent response. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Intuition. And remembering you have no idea what's going on with someone. I cannot tell you how many times it's happened because I've given a lot of talks now. I've taught a lot of retreats and blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm like, oh, that was terrible talk and nothing good happened. And then someone will say, that was life-changing. Or I do something like, Yeah, Susan, you nailed it, and everyone's like falling asleep. So there's just no telling. But you hold your seat with your good-heartedness and your intuition, which is fallible, and your genuineness, and it will happen. It will totally happen. And then you'll learn from your mistakes, which will be few and far between, I'm sure. Thank you for your question.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Diana, hi. Hi. Can you say more about eyes open practice?

SPEAKER_05 32:00

Love to.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah. Did you try it or did you think, oh, that sounds awful?

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Or uh I noticed first I needed to move my view away from the screen. Yeah. And then I noticed I'm looking. It's like, do you really want to know? Yes, I do. I'm looking at, you know, the dust underneath my dresser and then the dresser legs and then the wall behind it. And and what you had said about the sun rays, like the vision being like sun rays that just combine with what I'm seeing. That was really lovely. Because I'm seeing so much, right? Like even as I'm focusing, not focusing, there's so much to see.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah. It's distracting.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah. And I notice after a bit, my eyes getting tired, reminding myself to blink, reminding myself to let go of focus and like let my eyes rest and not be looking or seeing. You know, just take a break.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Thank you. Very clear. I understand what you're saying. So, as you know, there's eyes closed practices and eyes open. Most are eyes closed. I have an argument. I mean, I've only ever practiced this technique that I just taught you, period, for 33 years. So with an eyes closed practice, there's a sense of withdrawing. Sometimes that's really important, really necessary. Then when your meditation practice is over and you open your eyes, you have to come back. And there can be a sense when you go into your life that you're leaving your meditative equipoise, as they call it, I'm not sure where that word came from, on your cushion. And when you want to get it back, you have to go back there, sit down, and close your eyes. Not always, this is a little bit black and white, but when you have an eyes open practice, it's a more seamless way of bringing mindfulness into your life because you don't have to come back because you never went anywhere. So the eyes open practice emphasizes the quality of wakefulness. Awake, here, present. And eyes closed emphasizes other things, but not awake. I have a wonderful friend, Michael Carroll, great meditation teacher, wrote many wonderful books about mindfulness at work. So if you're interested in that, he's the guy, I think. He says in meditation, we're not trying to get anywhere. We're trying to be somewhere. And it's easier to be somewhere when your eyes are open. You know where you are. So then when you go outside, you bring that with you. Now, it is completely understandable to think, well, it's easier to meditate with your eyes closed. Because it is. It's a lot easier. As mentioned, the idea of meditating is not to be good at meditating, doesn't matter. But if the object was to be good at meditating, this may be an overly long answer, we'd all be sitting here with our eyes closed. But we want to be good at being ourselves in our world. And that's why we practice. Don't practice to be good at meditating. It doesn't matter, as I mentioned. And then it's very natural and understandable for basically one of three things to happen in an eyes open practice in the beginning. First is your eyes get dry and you're like, what the I'm blinking enough or I'm blinking too much. Second is you start to become hyper-aware of your breath. Is that a good breath? I don't know. Or maybe I should be breathing in a different way. Third, you fall asleep when your eyes are closed. So it's much less likely you'll fall asleep when your eyes are open. But with these first two, hyper-awareness of eyes, hyper-awareness of breath, you'll find that in your students anyway, whether their eyes are open or closed. And my theory about that is let's say your attention span is this wide. In the course of a normal day, it's jam-packed. You can't put anything else in there. It's just jammed with inputs and ideas and problems and responses and smells and all the things. And then in meditation, you say everybody out. But this space remains. And it's almost a reflexive anxiety to try to fill it with something. But all we have to fill it with is our breathing and our eyeballs if you're sitting with your eyes open. So at first, you can be uh it's like anxiety. I'm not saying you have anxiety, Diana, but it's an anxiety response. It's like you left home and 20 minutes later you realize you didn't bring your phone. What am I gonna do? It's that kind of anxiety, and that absolutely dissipates on its own with time. So you don't have to do anything to fix that. That may be overanswering your question. But what do you think, Diana?

SPEAKER_02 36:27

That's great. I love your attention span. And I love hearing you just say, everybody out.

unknown 36:34

Everybody out. Later.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Yes. And you know, I've been taking notes, you know, as you're talking and just love it, eyes open, is a seamless way of bringing mindfulness into life. And that wakefulness would really resonates as well, is when you said we want to be good at being ourselves in our world. I think that is so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Yes. And don't you think that's why we're doing this?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Yes. And I can see myself incorporating it, just trying eyes open. I think I like to retreat with my eyes closed. That's my way of saying everybody out. And so everybody out with my eyes open is to shift. It's different. I do have a technical question here. When eyes are open, can I move my eyes around?

SPEAKER_00 37:20

You should like let your gaze rest. Okay. If you look around, you know, it can increase the sense of agitation. But when you let your eyes rest and focus instead of laser pointing with your eyeballs, like receiving. Right now you can try this. You're looking. See if you can direct your gaze into the middle distance between where you are and where I am. Like look in the middle distance. That's the looking that we're doing. It's a melding whip.

Attention As Love Beyond Self-Help

SPEAKER_03 37:48

I have a question. If you could please say more on meditation, not as something we do alone for ourselves. You said something about X percentage of the magic is gone when we think of it as something we do for alone. And so I'm thinking, well, as a teacher, individuals are coming to me, but maybe what are some ways that I can encourage this expansion? And maybe it's just as simple as like dedicating the practice when we're done with the practice or a focus on integrating the practice. What can I do as a teacher? Like people are coming to me because they want the self-help. What can I do to encourage them to broaden the practice, so to speak?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Into what?

SPEAKER_03 38:38

To see the practice not as something that is them by themselves alone, but maybe has a benefit that extends beyond them as individuals. I'm not trying to be a smart ass here, but why do you want them to do that? I personally want them to do that because in my experience, it's that effort in broadening out that helps me feel better. So I would like to introduce that experience to others.

Strengthening The Human Realm Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Got it. That's lovely. And I can feel your good heartedness in that query. And even maybe sorrow. You can't. The key phrase was in my experience, and we don't know what their experience is. However, we can know, I do anyway, that 2,500 years in the Buddhist world, practitioners have said it happens anyway. It happens. And our job, I feel, as teachers and friends, is to be alert to such things and not encourage or discourage, but just appreciate people's expanded heart. That will communicate much more than what I or you might do to encourage, because we don't have to. It will happen. For some people, it looks like they just are crying all the time. They don't know why, or they get angry at you. Mostly that doesn't happen, very rare, but they'll say things like, I just noticed, I'm not sure how this is happening, but I notice that I'm not as triggered by things that normally trigger me. Can you explain that, Sarah Bay? And then you have to say no. But that's awesome. So that's what we're looking for. And further to that point, I think, people will want to know if they're doing this correctly and when will the benefits come in? What I say to people is they're not going to happen while you're meditating. While you're meditating, you're going to be going, what's for lunch? When is this over? I don't like this. I hate myself. I love myself. That's what we're all doing. But when you go into your life, you start to see you're more patient. You're less triggered. You have better ideas. That's where the tell is. And so this expansion of awareness of others, which is I think what you're longing for, I know I am. It will happen. One reason why I think what you're doing and what all of you are doing is so important. Because this is not a way to perfect anything. It is a way to love. The great Zen teacher, John Tarrant Roshi, also a poet, said long ago, I know because I read it in Oprah, like 25 years ago, I never forgot it. Attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and are blessed. That's what we're teaching. That's what we're practicing, working with attention. So you can say, I am working with teaching people how to love. Because without the ability to pay attention to someone else or yourself, you're telling a lot of stories. As long as you're teaching people to work with attention, you are teaching them this expanded awareness, I believe. Thank you. You're welcome. I know, and this may be a little long-winded, but I'll keep it short, and I won't keep you past your own interest as far as I can discern it. There's a lot of understandable wish in meditation world and other worlds to work with the extreme anxiety of the present moment on planet Earth. If you're not feeling that, I'm happy for you. And it's not just in America. The quote about attention and love, yes, attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and are blessed. And I'll tell you the author, John Tarrant Roshi, I believe he's Australian Zen teacher. Probably kind of old right now, but so what? In Tibetan Buddhist iconography, I will make this short, I promise. There are six realms of existence. See, there's like six pieces of a pie there. This dude with fangs holding it. These are called the six realms or the wheel of life. Some people say these are real places. I don't know. Some people say psychological states, some people say both. There's three so-called higher realms and three so-called lower realms. We don't have to talk about the lower realms right now, but they're hungry ghosts, maybe you've heard that phrase, just can never get enough. These are beings, I know I said I wouldn't mention it, but they're tiny little mouths and skinny little throats and huge bellies that can never get enough. So we've all been there. We all know what it's like to be a hungry ghost, but in this Buddhist view, that's an actual place. And the animal realm, love animals, but they don't have a lot of wherewithal to become enlightened. They just got to eat and sleep and protect themselves. And then hell realm, this is the third of the lower realms, and there's multiple hell realms in Tibetan Buddhism, like cold hells, hot hells, and so on. Anyway, the three higher realms are called the God realm, which is, oh, everything's great for those people. They live a really long time, they're beautiful, they can fly, they're psychic, they want something, it's there. There are people like that on planet Earth who have that. They're beautiful, they're rich, they have everything, they want something, it appears. But the bad news in the God realm is it is said they die a very long and painful death. And then they have to come back because they didn't get enlightened. Because why would you study the Dharma if you're in the God Realm? There's no impetus whatsoever, there's no suffering. I see tech support entered the waiting room. I don't know if you know what that is, Saramei, but I'll just leave it to you. Then there's the jealous God realm. This is going to come Back to our topic in a moment. The jealous god realm, Asuras, as they're called in Sanskrit, they're not gods and they're really pissed off about it. And they're warring, constantly warring with each other. And there's no moment where the battle is won. Even if they win, oh, there's another battle to fight. I want what you have, and I'm going to do everything I can to take it. And I don't care about you. We see that every day. People who are just want more power, more whatever it is they want, jealous gods. They're not going to get enlightened either because they're too busy fighting. Then there's the human realm. That's us. That's the best one. Because we have suffering and we have ease. They alternate. Some people don't have any ease. So they're in a hell realm. But most of us here, we have enough wherewithals that we can study the Dharma. And we're motivated to because we have had suffering. If we didn't have suffering, we wouldn't be motivated. But we have something over our roof and over our heads and food to eat. So that's the good realm. Now, getting to my point here. We're witnessing a jealous god battle. That's how I would say it. And we can't fight it because we're not jealous gods. Our weapons, weapons of the human realm, logic, legislation, verbal skills, psychological insights, they don't give a shit. When we go into a jealous god realm with our weapons, we just dissolve. And that's better than trying to pick up their weapons. So my point here is, and highly so welcome. I cannot defeat my enemies right now, the jealous gods. I don't have the weapons, but I can strengthen my friends. I can strengthen the human realm, people who enjoy the things that I mentioned, logic and legislation and academia and psychological skills and verbal skills and loving kindness and compassion, that those things don't mean anything in those other realms, but they mean something in our realm. And one thing that we can do as meditation teachers is strengthen the MF human realm by teaching this practice. And that's not just a nice thing to do, because someday we will defeat our enemies, so-called. Yeah, I'm not talking about politics. I'm just talking about power grabs. And it's on both sides. We'll be strong when it's our time. But if we spend all our time trying to fight jealous gods, or however you would phrase it, with no weapons, when the time comes to speak up and speak out, we will have no energy. So my suggestion to myself and to my own students is please focus on strengthening the human realm. You can actually do that. You can do it today. You can do it in ways big and small. And as meditation teachers, it's big because you're teaching people to work with their projections. It's very important. I'm happy to conclude there as you wish. If you want to stay in touch, go to the Open Art Project, sign up for my newsletter. It's free. It goes out every Monday. And I've done this for 10 years. I send a video. It's free. And there's a little talk on something like the Joe's Gods or keeping your eyes open, whatever it might be. It's usually less than 10 minutes and then a 10-minute guided sit, just like what we just did. And you are welcome to be there. Thank you, Dorothy.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

I'm stuck on thinking about what you just said about the realms and whether or not it's a myth of mindfulness meditation can it change the world?

How To Structure A Meditation Class

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Oh, yes, it can. As a spiritual practice. And it happens through the relationship of teacher and student, meditation teacher and student. It doesn't happen by you being an expert or being great meditator yourself, because none of us are. It happens by teaching people to work with their minds with an open heart. What else can work? What else could we do? I know there are people say, we're just sitting there doing navel gazing. Maybe you should go out and do something else. But okay, do something else, but do this too. Because the change is going to have to come heart by heart, person by person, because it's beyond legislation, it's beyond war, it's beyond peace. Because we're on this treadmill of war and peace. And I believe, knowing nothing, that as person by person has to lay down the weapon.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

Can you talk a little bit about how to approach structuring a class or a series of classes? You know, a light chair, I was the keep it simple, but for all of us kind of starting up in the realm of teaching, meditation, and mindfulness, just anything you could share would be really valuable.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

So you're talking about you, we're gonna give a class on how to meditate.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

Not just a one-off, because one-offs are easier, right? But if you were to create a session, my question could be should it be four, should it be six, you know, like kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 48:22

That really depends. You know, if you're teaching 12-year-olds, should probably be one. If you're teaching 112-year-olds, probably also should just be one. If you're teaching people at work, if you're teaching people who are healthcare providers, you have to make the call. But the shorter the better. One's probably not enough. Ten's too many, three, four, something like that. May not sound like it's to your point, but to me it is. First pay attention to how you arrange the room. It should be clean, it should be orderly, it should be elegant, it should be inviting, not because we're persnickety, but because we want people to feel confident. I was taught that when you're offering a spiritual teaching like meditation, your first job is to establish confidence in the mind of the student. And how do you do that? By offering something real. And what is real is what you know. It also helps if the room is not a mess. Because you see things like that, you're like, someone's not paying attention here. So establish an environment that communicates someone is paying attention. And there are places for people to sit with bigger bodies, and there are a place for people to sit on the floor, and there's chairs and there's room and there's sensitivity to being inclusive. I think it's always good to tell a little bit about who you are, so people know who's talking to them. And then you use your judgment. It's good to say a few things up front, like this is what I was trained to do, this is what I teach, this is why I think it's useful. I like to start myself with the misconceptions. And I think that puts people's minds at ease and also raises and lowers the expectations at the same time. I like to say that what I teach comes from the Buddhist tradition because I'm not trying to hide anything. And then practice. And then use your intuition as Sarah and I were talking about like, should this be five minutes, should be twenty minutes? Probably ten minutes is good. And it's important to leave silence because we're not babysitting anyone. Our job is not to take care of anyone, cannot take care of anyone, but you can care about everyone. And that's an important distinction. And I think sometimes, especially women, feel like, well, I feel the people's anxiety, and because they are anxious, because you sit there and do anything. That drives the person crazy. But you don't want to fill the space with things because they have to go into that. You don't want to aggressively push them or or try to m mitigate it, but leave the space and then ask for questions. That's where it always comes to life. How was that? What do you think? And then you could give a little homework for the next until we meet again, let's say it's a week, try to meditate five days a week for five minutes, Monday through Friday. And if that doesn't seem doable, then look at your own schedule and go, well, I could probably do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And decide that and don't do Tuesday. And want to avoid aggression. So just live up to what you think you can do. And then in the second class, it depends on who you're teaching and what your subjects are exactly. But if it's at the library or something and it's just your community, not just, but that's great, then you have to use your intuition to see what's going on. But you can trust that people will tell you what to talk about. Sarah, hi.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

I wanted to shine back a little bit of confirmation about the meditation before we jump off. What I experienced during the meditation at some point when we were just allowing that space to be created and practicing that like stillness focus, relying on the breath, the mind and the body, I think were the three. Space was being created, and then there were inevitable gaps to be filled with the increase of space. And what I noticed within myself in my experience of the meditation was an increase in the breath of victorious breath coming through, or you can hear victorious breath sounds like ocean breath that was filling some of the created space within the meditation. What I initially thought during the moment was a sense of gratitude for what came to fill the gap was in a healthy aspect and amplification of the breath, one of the points we were supposed to be using within the meditation, instead of more of a distractive quality coming through in whatever way that would have shown in the environment. I think that speaks to the potential we have for mindfulness and meditation, strengthening the human realm, fortifying for what we're able to do, fortifying and protecting ourselves in a way of holding our focus and bringing it through three enforcements instead of weakening at a vulnerability. And then the other point I wanted to tie in was at the very beginning when you made the point of these meditations are practiced, ancient lineage, and how you stated the term interstate a few times within the session. I really like that thought, viewing it. I don't know if you meant interstate, but we went with interstate in my mind of driving, I mean the highway, but in the thought of meaning highway. Almost as if the path has been found, the roads have been paved, the lines have been painted. And to that extent, the turns have been acknowledged, the signs have been seen. And so when a facilitator is able to follow these ancient lineages of meditation, you're setting us on a route in some sort of way of thinking where those inevitable turns and signs will pop up. How the victorious breath came through in my case of experience, that was a noted right-hand turn that is along this path of practice meditation by all those that we follow. I just wanted to shine back my experience and say thank you.

Letting Go And Other Obstacles

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Thank you for shining that back. I appreciate it. May I shine back to your shine back? In meditation, everything you're saying may be completely true. Probably is. But while you're meditating, those are thoughts. Even noticing the breath, the ocean breath, even the ocean breath is a thought. Anything that is not breathing is considered thinking. So those are very important insights and very worth investigating, but they not on the cushion, and the meaning is yet to be determined. Always. So when you decide it means this, then the door closes. But when you see, oh that's interesting, that happened. That door opens wider. To what? We will never friggin' know. In Tibetan Buddhist thought, there are three primary obstacles to meditation. I'll just tell you one of them, although I'm happy to talk about all of them. The first one is called laxity slash elation, like two sides of the same coin. Laxity is uh it's never gonna work. Oh yeah, okay. I'd said I told some Buddhist lady I'd do this for five minutes, so I'm gonna do it, and I'm kind of phony at it. Elation on the other side of the coin is it's working, and it is. But while you're meditating, both of those are considered thinking. You let go, you let go, and you keep letting go. And even if the Buddha walked into your house and sat in front of you and said, Sarah, you are the future Buddha, you would call that thinking. Let go and come back. Breath, breath, breath. The letting go is the essential gesture.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Oh, I appreciate the nuances of identifying thoughts and letting go. I zebra appreciate the responses. And I think those are some of the magic qualities we speak of, the different thoughts and interpretations that we experience and how it seems to show up sometimes in a group, multiple points. So I think for my particular share, I think it's a practice of allowing communication and not telling ourselves, shut up, or like keep it in, because we don't know what is medicine for another or for ourselves. And so I'm not necessarily resisting the idea of thinking, I'm inviting the thinking, but I appreciate the space to go through the battle of will I want I internally and get to the moment of I will, and then be received in a way that feels constructive. So I just appreciate the practice, and I'm not sure I can bring together a thought to boil it back into a closing point.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

No problem. I appreciate getting to know you a little bit and how your mind works and your obvious warmth and enthusiasm and excitement. That's gonna make wonderful teaching.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

I'd like to shine in on the shining. So beautiful. I'm like following you. I come from the Christian tradition, and there's scripture that says, look for the ancient path. When you find it, walk on it. And what you shared just really resonated with me. And thank you. Um, because there are times in my practice where I feel it's like an entryway, these are thoughts, right? But it's an entryway to walking on that ancient road. And I just love it. I love look for it, call out for it and walk on it. So thank you for sharing that, Sarah. And also coming from the Christian tradition, the teaching that without love, no matter how wise or brilliant we are, without love, we sound like a clanking gong. Yeah. I know. Susan, thank you for it. These reminders, I just love it. Like opening the heart, opening the heart, lowering the walls, opening the heart. And it's not like my effort that lowers those walls. It's just the willingness to participate in this beautiful gift.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

I appreciate what you're saying and the emphasis on the importance of love, which always begins with self-love. And then who can do that? Most of us can't. But that doesn't mean that self-love goes away because you have love for yourself as someone who cannot love themselves right now. So there's no problem.

unknown 58:23

Right.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

Yeah, I was reading a Diana Winston's book. She says, What would this moment be like? There was no problem. I love that. I love that too. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

We're lucky that we found this. Very, very, very lucky.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

I sense it. Yeah, I'm a therapist and I sense it in people I work with a craving for something just deeper, deeper access to their being, and like you were saying, the mysteries and the beauty of just being and being alive and just this craving, that deep connection. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Books Dedication And Closing Invitation

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Something real. Yeah. Meditation can be very helpful. So in the open heart project, my online community, there's so much going on. It's like a hydra with seven heads. Anyway, we also published books. I just finished writing our next one. These are small books in a series called Buddhism Beyond Belief. And book one was called Inexplicable Joy. It's on the Heart Sutra, a text that is very important to me. And the next one, which will be out in like a month, is called Inexplicable Magic: Meditation for Mystics. And it's about meditation in the context that we have been discussing it here as a kind of magic and a path of transformation beyond concept.

SPEAKER_03 59:36

Dorothy asked if you were comfortable sharing your email, or maybe people can just contact you through that website.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

They can contact me through that website, but it's very simple. It's Susan at SusanPiper.com. Again, I'll just want to appreciate you for doing this. And traditionally, Sara May mentioned this, dedicating the merit is the traditional way to end, which means you, each of us, rouse some sense of what happened. I felt good, it was boring, I was confused, I was excited, I didn't care. Whatever it was, is fine. You have some sense of bringing that all into a little ball or something, and then offering it so that it can benefit all beings. Dedicate the merit. You rouse the aspiration that what we did here together can somehow benefit all beings. We don't know how. That's okay. We don't have to know how. We have that aspiration. So if you'll indulge me, I'll say my traditional dedication of merit. Doesn't matter if you have one or you don't. The important thing is to give away what you got to all beings, which includes you. So from the first 15 years of my practice, I thought I meant all beings except me. By this merit may all attain omniscience, may it defeat the enemy wrongdoing in the stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death, on the ocean of samsara. May I free all beings, especially you. Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me, Sarah May. I appreciate it. I enjoyed it a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:02

Thank you. Thank you for practicing, teaching, and just being with us.