thought comes first, memory second, contemplation third

where do we start (?)

best to start at one's beginning,

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Good morning. What is the most important thing that we can do? Take a few minutes. Come to our senses. Remembering whom we are, where we have come from, how, why, when, where, the five W's in one H of Thomas Wilson. Just to be here now, to be aware of our humanity, of our good fortune. It's enough. Just to remember the capacity that we have, the possibilities that exist. We can see over the last several hundred years how incredible mankind is with its sentience, with its intelligence. At the same token, we need to be aware and careful. We don't get too far ahead of ourselves with technology and stumble with our lack of maturity and possibly hurt ourselves with the capabilities that we have with nuclear weapons, with our abilities to do different things, biological weapons, things like this. We can devastate or even wipe out mankind. We need to grow up. This is what's going on right now in many places in our world. You and I are part of this. It is that we are all bundles of miracles. And we're realizing this. Many of us with our greater sense of perceptivity are also aware and humbled because we realize in the scope of our universe we are just a very small part of it. And at the same token, realizing how things come about in this physical universe that we are part of, how lucky we are to even have life, have an ability to do what we do as Homo sapiens. It's again taking nothing for granted, or as little as possible, celebrating every day this miracle of our being alive here. Now, in this universe, what more need be said? We are so fortunate to be here. Think about these things. Where does this all leave us? If thought comes first, and memory second, and contemplation comes third, where does that leave us on our day-to-day basis? Where and how can we make better plans? Keep improving ourselves, keep making greater accomplishments, aspiring for more, to be of greater service to ourselves, our families, our communities, to mankind through an effort of self-improvement. Of course, this is what we're talking about. Mindful meditation. That's what we're doing. Where are you in your journey? Are you just beginning? Are you a journeyman? Come join the fun. Finding one's foundation is the place to discover what our aspirations are. What goals do we want to set before ourselves? This is why people meditate. People want to get to know themselves better, come to terms with particular specific aspects or in general about their personality, their relationships. This is what's going on every day. We're analyzing and coming to determining, making decisions every moment of which way we're going to go in the next moments as they keep cascading towards us. It's a lot. And we're a lot to handle. 37 trillion cells that are all clamoring and celebrating. There's a lot going on. There's a great racket going on in this universe, of which most of it we filter out. But within the conception of what we are as Homo sapiens, we have the potential to accomplish a lot. Well, how does one find a foundation for themselves? Well, what we think of as a foundation is something that rests beneath us, like the earth can be considered a foundation. Or if one is in a high-rise building, then you would consider your floor that you're on, the actual structure of concrete and steel or wood as being our foundation. Either works fine. It can be just sitting down on a sofa. It can be laying down, or it can be standing up and leaning against the wall. A foundation is a premise, a state of one's mind, place in one's thinking where we allow ourselves to find a sense of grace, a sense of ease, of rest, most likely solitude or quiet, where we can allow our thoughts to come to their own terms and fruition rather than being interrupted with other disturbances. So this is the first step is we find a comfortable environment, a posture that we like, where we are not only comfortable physically, but also mentally and spiritually, and we're undisturbed. So that we we have this opportunity to start putting things together, putting our house in order, so to speak, to prepare ourselves. So this in itself is not necessarily that difficult to do. But what comes next? Now we're in a comfortable posture and we're undisturbed. But what happens when our mind is actively oscillating back and forth and up and down over all of the things that we have the potential to be thinking about in our society, in our civilizations, in our family, in our relationships? It's just it can be overwhelming and oftentimes is. How do we go from being in this comfortable posture into a state of being totally relaxed and calm in this posture? How do we do that? By focusing our attention, which means focusing our energy. Because if we're paying attention to something, that means we're investing energy into it. We're inoculating it with energy. And this is the beginning of taking all the disparate thoughts that one might have that one is sharing with their brain, and focusing and concentrating, reducing, minimizing all of these different things into something much more coherent, like a flashlight beam rather than just the being in the sun. What do we all have in common? As Homo sapiens or sentient beings, we have our intelligence, we have our backgrounds that are similar. We all utilize the processes of circulation and respiration as a means of keeping ourselves alive. This is what evolution has given us as a means of existing. tools, So we can fundamentally, we want a foundation, right? Fundamentally, come back to these different processes that are part of our human nature. Something that is more potentially shareable and something we all have in common. What makes and keeps us alive! The music is going to continue for another minute. During this time, practice being aware of your breath. That's all. It's an easy homework assignment, and you can do it before we actually finish our practice today. During this next minute, just be aware of your breath. The totality of a four-part breath. An inhale, a pause at the top of your breath, your exhale, a pause at the bottom of your breath, and repeat this four-part process, noticing how this affects you.