A Grounded Eyes-Open Meditation With Susan Piver

Speaker 1 · 0:00Susan Piver is with us. 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.

Speaker 2 · 0:14Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 · 0:15Mine 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, or well, you can please moderate the 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're like proclaiming your dignity. And sitting up straight rather than sort of hunching, even a little bit, reacquaint you with that feeling of elegance. Soften the belly a lot. And when you feel like it's relaxed, relax it a little more. Let there 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 reinhabit 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. And as mentioned in this practice,

Speaker 2 · 3:32the 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 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.

Speaker 2 · 4:25First 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 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.

Speaker 2 · 5:22Finally, 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. Can sort of relate with them like people talking down on the street or in the next room or 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.

Speaker 2 · 6:58And we'll sit together in silence for a few minutes. If you get lost, just come back. To bring your practice to a close, 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.

Speaker 2 · 7:22Sarah. Hi Sarah.

Speaker 3 · 7:24Hey. 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 2 · 8:14That's a great question. I love it. So I gave instruction and then there was a 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 3 · 8:26Do 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 2 · 8:40So 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'm 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 eat, 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

Speaker 2 · 9:33very important. Sometimes when I'm teaching others in a Zoom room or a room room, I can feel it'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. And 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. 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 3 · 10:45Oh, 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. Like intuition as well.

Speaker 2 · 11:11Intuition.

Speaker 2 · 11:12And 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. But 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.