[Rich Zubaty guides a 16 Step Thai Buddhist Meditation composed of the following 16 Steps:
Long Breath
Short Breath
Body Breath
Calming Breath
Rapture
Simple Joy
Knowing the Mind Conditioner
Calming the Mind Conditioner
Personal Emotional Inventory
Delight
Non Delight
Emptying Yourself of your Self
Impermanence
Dispassion
Cessation of Clinging
Abandon Yourself (to God)
[birds and Om Mani Padme Hum chant]
This is Rich Zubaty, the Rude Guy no more. Actually, that’s probably not true. The Rude Guy’ll be back—
[RG Voice:] You bet your ass he will, dipfuck.
Ohhh… Good grief…. I didn’t hear that, did I?… I really didn’t want to hear that. Not now.
[tweet]
Anyway, no time for dicking around with him today because, TODAY, I’m gonna walk you through a Buddhist meditation, I learned at Wat Suan Mokh, a Buddhist monastery in Thailand.
Buddhist meditation is the OPPOSITE of rudeness. It’s a way of stepping back, and objectifying life. Disengaging from the madness. And… it helps. When my inner apes are shrieking, and my fear thermometer has shot through the roof, meditation helps to calm the monkeys down.
What you are about to hear is a 16 Step meditation, that’s about 2500 years old. It’s worked for a long long time, for millions of people. The meditation is arranged into four groups, of four steps. 16 steps in all. But the main thing about it is, that it moves our awareness first to one extreme, then the opposite extreme, then settles us down on the Middle Path, which is the Buddhist ideal… the Middle Path… Up, down, middle. We’ll see that dynamic repeated over and over.
So… sit yourself down comfortably. In a nice chair or on a stream bank or something. Close your eyes. Try and put your hands on your thighs and turn your palms UPwards. If you focus on it, you can almost feel a connection, an interplay, between your palms and the heavens above. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. Just try and feel it.
Oh… I wouldn’t do this if you’re driving, because to me this is actually a type of self-hypnosis. You’re hypnotizing yourself to become calmer than you have been in years. Some people really zone out behind this practice. Enter another mental state. So if you’re driving, you could lose it.
Here we go… comfortably seated, in a quiet place. We start with Step One, the Long Breath. Take a deep slow long breath… And exhale, slowly… (audible on the mic) And another… You’re slowing down your breathing, which is slowing down your heartbeat. The whole movie is slowing down… Just think about your breathing. Nothing else. Deep, slow long breath.
OK… Now the first change up. Short breath. Breathe short and fast and shallow like you’re having a panic attack, or you’re running from a dog, or you’re overcome with anxiety… (audible on the mic) You’re running, you’re afraid, you’re breathing short and fast.
OK, enough of that.
Step three, the middle path, the Body Breath… Breath in, slowly, imagining the oxygen going to every cell in your body. Imagine it going into your head, and your chest and your arms and your fingers. THINK about your body. Think about the PARTS of your body. Imagine the oxygen going to your stomach, and your groin, and your thighs… and your legs, and feet. Then, exhale… and imagine ALL the carbon dioxide coming out. Coming out of every cell in your body. Flowing out of your feet and legs and thighs…your stomach and chest and fingers and arms. OUT with the CO2. Flowing out of your brain and blowing right out your mouth… Now do it again. Breathe in oxygen to every cell in your body. Think about the parts of your body. Focus on the parts of your body, drinking in oxygen. Then breath out again, ridding every cell of CO2. In with the good. Out with the bad.
Now, still breathing slowly, imagine your body as an hour glass full of sand. An hour glass full of sand. Then imagine you open a little valve in your toe and, like an hourglass, the sand begins draining out, starting from the TOP of your head. The sand drains out of your forehead, leaving behind emptiness. It drains past your eyes and your cheeks and your jaw, leaving behind emptiness. It drains through your neck… through your heart… through your stomach, leaving behind emptiness. Still breathing slowly. Through your groin… your thighs… your legs… your feet and toes… leaving behind emptiness.
Now do it again. Start at the tip top of your head, and let the sand drain out of your entire body. Leaving behind emptiness.
We will return to the Body Breath later on in this mediation. When I tell you to do the “hourglass thing” again, it means to trace the path of the sand as it drains out of your body… from head to toes… leaving behind emptiness.
Step Four, Calming Breath. OK… this is where we’ve been headed with the breathing. It’s time for you to design and perform your own idea, of a Calming Breath. Set your own pace for breathing in… and breathing out. It will probably be slower, rather than faster. But it’s whatever YOU feel comfortable with. This is YOUR calming breath. The idea is to develop a rate of breathing that will calm you down whenever, and wherever, you want, simply by remembering to do it. Breathing in… breathing out… Breathe Calming Breath… we will return to the calming breath, often.
OK, now for another big change up. Step Five. Rapture.
Breathing the Calming Breath, think of the very best, of the very best, of EVERYthing in the universe. Take yourself up, up… UP… dizzy with rapture. Everything is wonderful. You CAN imagine yourself, right into this frame of mind… Rapture. Your whole body is TICKLED with pleasure, tingling with glee and bliss. Rapture…
You feel so good you almost can’t stand it.
Actually… you CAN’T stand it… not for very long. That’s the problem with Rapture. It takes you way way up there, but it cannot be sustained. It doesn’t last, very long.
Which is why we move on to Step Six, Simple Joy. Simple Joy. Breathing the Calming Breath. Open your eyes and just appreciate where you are. Smile a little. This is not rapture or ecstasy. It’s just simple joy. Breathing the Calming Breath. Enjoy a few moments of simple wholesome joy. You’re not tingling or trembling. You’re just calmly drinking it all in. Simple Joy.
Step Seven. Knowing the Mind Conditioner… Knowing the Mind Conditioner… Breathing the Calming Breath. The object here is simply to identify what you’re feeling. Right now. Are you fearful, angry, lonely? Just make note of that. That’s all. Are you sad, depressed? Breathing the Calming Breath. Identify the feelings that are imposing themselves on your mind. For me it’s usually some kind of fear and anxiety, plus some sadness. On a good day I might find some gratitude and thankfulness mixed in there too… Take your time. This is YOUR meditation. You design it to suit YOU. Breathing the Calming Breath. Identify what’s bugging you.
Step Eight. Calming the Mind Conditioner. Not too surprising this one. Now that we know what’s bugging us, we want to breathe our Calming Breath right into the middle of it. Hold that fear in your mind, and breathe the Calming Breath, right at it. Hold that sadness up like an archery target, and breathe your calming breath, right at it… We’re getting somewhere now. We’re learning that we need not be slaves to our emotions. We HAVE emotions. We will not DENY our emotions. But neither will we be ruled by them. Because emotions are not very important. Emotions come and go… like the wind. Breathing the Calming Breath.
Step Nine. Half way done. Personal Emotional Inventory. Breathing the Calming Breath… We’re gonna take a DEEPer look at what’s going on with us emotionally.
Personal Emotional Inventory. I always start with the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride, greed, anger, lust, gluttony, envy sloth.
Breathing the Calming Breath. Am I feeling prideful today? Full of myself?.. Don’t dwell on it, just answer the question.
Greed? Am I worried about money?… Anger. Am I angry at somebody? Or myself?…
Lust. Am I boiling over with DESIRE?… Writhing in a snake pit of desire… Gluttony? Am I ingesting too much of something? Food, drink, sex, smoke?
Envy. Am I envious of someone or something?
Sloth. Have I been lazy lately? And not just physically lazy, but SPIRITUALLY lazy? Have I blown off my spiritual practices? Prayers, meditations, offerings… whatever I do, to address the GREAT questions of life. Have I been spiritually lazy? Just answer the question.
Pride, greed, anger, lust, gluttony, envy, sloth. The seven deadly sins… then I ask myself a few more questions. Have I been fearful? Yes or no. Fear, of course, is lack of faith. Have I been feeling shamed? Worthless. Needlessly beating up on myself. Shame is actually Pride in reverse. Shame and Pride are both ego run wild. In one you feel exceptionally GOOD about yourself, for no good reason. And in the other you feel exceptionally BAD about yourself, for no good reason. Pride and Shame are different sides of the same coin. The coin of ego. Obsession with Self.
Breathing the Calming Breath.
And then I ask myself one last question. Have I been grateful? Grateful for being alive? Grateful for all the amazing adventures I get to have. Have I remembered, to be grateful?
Do this mediation often enough, and you’ll be amazed how many different combinations of these mental states you inhabit. Sometimes you’ll be prideful and envious. Other times lustful and grateful. Sometimes all of them. Sometimes none of them. And yeah. It’s a real treat doing this meditation when you’re NOT feeling shitty about something. Do it when you’re not feeling bad, and it’ll help PREVENT you, from feeling bad.
Breathing the Calming Breath.
Big change up. Step Ten: Delight
Breathing the Calming Breath, I want you to make yourself feel absolutely delighted with everything. Everything is fun… Everything is wonderful… Everything is working out just the way you hoped it would… Life is perfectly delightful. And you feel warm and fuzzy and love every minute of it. It’s like Rapture, only not quite as intense.
Step Ten. Delight.
Bang! Step Eleven. NON-Delight. The opposite of delight. No, the opposite of delight is not wretchedness. It’s Acceptance. I call this step Acceptance. You accept everything, just how it is. Everything is exactly how it’s supposed to be. The universe makes sense, even if you DON’T understand it. The key is to accept everything and everyone, just how they are.
Breathing the Calming Breath. Meditate on Acceptance.
And now Step Twelve. Which is what we’ve been building up to, the whole time. Emptying yourself of your Self…. Emptying yourself of your Self.
The object of this step is to empty yourself of all emotions, and leave you in perfect peace. When we’ve completed this step I’m gonna ask you to do the “hourglass thing”. Remember the hourglass thing?
Start at the tippy top of your head, and pretend you’re an hourglass of sand… and let the sand drain downward past your eyes and cheeks and neck, and all the way down through your body, and out your toes, leaving behind emptiness. Just wait. Not yet. I’ll tell you when.
Breathing the Calming Breath.
Step Twelve. Emptying yourself of your Self. Theoretically, you could do anything, here, to achieve emptiness. You can make this part up yourself. As long as you ARRIVE at emptiness.
What “I” do is chant an ancient Sanskrit chant, that’s probably several thousand years old. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum.
I USED to know what it means. It’s something about the universe coming together over us, or something like that. I think. But that doesn’t matter. Because what this chant is REALLY about, is the vocalization. The syllables themselves. These particular syllables… Om Mani Padme Hum… set up a certain vibration in your chest, that is really really calming. Really therapeutic.
So that’s what I do. I chant this chant, and when I’m done, I wrap it up with some Sanskrit syllables. Aum, Ahhh, Hung. Actually I got these from a Tibetan monk. Aum, Ahhh, Hung. One sound resonates in the mouth, one in the throat, one in the belly. Sounds stupid, but it isn’t. It’s amazing the peace and emptiness you will experience — if you chant along with me — when you get to these last three syllables. And once we’ve said them three times, we’re just gonna stay quiet and hold that feeling of emptiness as long as we can. Hold it as long as we can.
Ready? Just hop in at some point. No the neighbors aren’t listening.
Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum.
Aum, Ahhh, Hung. Aum, Ahhh, Hung. Aum, Ahhh, Hung.
[long silence]
Well. That’s as long as I can hold it. That feeling of complete emptiness.
Now… do that hourglass thing. Start at the top of your head, and follow the sand downward, past your eyeballs, and cheeks and neck. Your throat and heart… Your stomach and groin and thighs and legs… and through your feet and out your toes. Draining out the discord, leaving behind Emptiness.
Step Thirteen. The first, of the LAST four steps.
Breathe the Calming Breath. And meditate on Impermanence. Impermanence. ALL things are impermanent. The clouds, the rocks, the birds… are impermanent. And you… YOU are impermanent. Breathing the Calming Breath. Meditate on Impermanence. Everything we see and touch and feel is impermanent. The only permanent things in the universe are timeless and invisible. Out of reach of our senses. And this is what we seek to contact in our meditation. Electrons have been around for ten billion years. Our bodies have been around for less than a hundred.
Impermanence.
If you’re IN a crappy mood, KNOW that it will pass. You WILL feel good again. And if you feel good right now, enjoy it. Because it too will pass, and you will encounter more suffering, down the road.
Breathing the Calming Breath. Meditate on Impermanence.
Step Fourteen: Dispassion
Breathing the Calming Breath.
This is the step I used to love to hate. Dispassion. NOT feeling. I used to think that if I wasn’t FEELing SOMEthing, I wasn’t alive… But nothing could be further from the truth. I can get rid of ALL my feelings, and I’m STILL here.
Dispassion. If I’m feeling up, I try to bring my consciousness down. If I’m feeling down, which is often the case, I try to raise my consciousness up. Up to the middle path, the middle place. Dispassion. Where my feelings are gone, but I’m still here. Breathing the Calming Breath.
Step Fifteen. Only two more to go. Step Fifteen. Cessation of Clinging.
Breathing the Calming Breath.
Stop clinging. To your life, and your health, and your kids, and your job. Stop clinging to EVERYTHING. Forget about your agenda, and hopes. Allow yourself to let go of it all. Breathing the Calming Breath. Stop clinging.
Breathing the Calming Breath.
Step Sixteen, the last step. Abandon Yourself… Abandon Yourself… And here, because I am a Buddhist, Sufi, Hindu, Native American, Jewish, Christian… I say something no self-respecting Buddhist would ever say. Abandon yourself… to God. To God… Empty yourself of yourself, and let God fill the vacuum. For me emptiness is not enough. I want to fill that emptiness with everything that is good. Eveything that is God. I want to be God’s instrument. God’s pencil. God’s paintbrush. God’s podcaster, [Rude Guy laugh: ha ha ha.]
And to close the meditation, I say a few more things to myself. Then I just stay with the emptiness, the calm, the quiet, for as long as I feel like. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe more. I’ll leave that up to you.
[tweet, maybe]
Breathing the Calming Breath.
God… please let me do your work today. Not my work. Let me do the things YOU want done, not the things I want done. And please… let me always remember to be grateful.
[birds]
