Upgrade to an Awake Operating System ~ Loch Kelly with Stephanie Nash

So I'm Stephanie Nashan, I am here talking with luck. Kelly hi lock. Hey, how we met at the International Dharma teacher gathering. That's right right. I love you. Swimming in the pond and the Lady Good morning. We did a wonderful workshop, there that gave a couple exercises. I really liked and I used for the next year that I come from Shenzen and it kind of used some of his things. But in another neat simple direct way I liked a lot.

And we're in LA now and lock just did a workshop that I attended yesterday and we thought we would talk about that and stuff. I do want to say the workshop was offered by compassion. La an it's a group here that offers workshops that work with compassion an awakening wisdom workshops and their website iscompassionla.org. So there's my plug for the People who brought him here and thank you to them for that work.

And so I just wanted to talk to you about what it is. We were doing yesterday with these exercises. I'm intrigued by your style of direct you not telling People to goaf and meditate for 10 hours and maybe at some point you can reach Nirvana or somebody or Oneness with the universe. You have some really interesting exercises and that work with open hearted.

In account what is open hard, yeah, so open hearted awareness so the nonprofit Institute that I'm part of his open hearted Awareness Institute. So they have a.com or don't work. We have yeah, we have website thatsundereffortlessmindfulness.org or lot kelly.org. I like effortless mindfulness and like anything effortless so the effortless is is not that you make no effort.

But that you discover that there's an awareness that's already effortlessly aware and that I think is kind of the missing piece in the map.

In western culture and is often in even Buddhism, another meditation systems. It's put off into kind of an esoteric or well. You really can't access that immediately. You gotta wait 3 years 30 years 3. Lifetime yes lifetime. You later flew. Meanwhile those who do have an awakening whether it's intentional or unintentional report back to us that.

It's already here and it's already available within us so that's the premise that I was told, and then as a curious American New Yorker, well wait a minute, then if it's already here and it's iaccessible. Let's check it out. Let's see if we can are there groups and approaches and People and teachings that start or do a little more.

Uh of accessing this recognizing and realizing this in the midst of daily life rather than going off to a monastery.

So that's the premise, yeah have you been to a monastery lately? Well, it's I mean? It's great. But we can't all do that? Yes. And for those who do that. That's another approach, but is there. Another approach and what I discovered in kind of traveling around and being interested in this world of meditation psychology, and eventually the talk. I gave it Dharma teachers was on neuroscience and Meditationen Awakening so.

You know really bringing kind of contemporary approach of scientific inquiry, which means what's true? What works what? What's actually happening are People really getting this? Is this an imagination or is this really changing peoples lives in a way that they're not only waking up. But they're growing up that's a kind of maturity integrity, compassion that is this possible an I think where I am now is.

That, it really is possible in the midst of daily life. It's almost like the next natural stage of human development and then yeah, so it's evolution and potential. It's not esoteric only in that means that it's it's not it's paradoxical.

Meaning it's not normal, the normal way we learn something by using our minds or informational is not the way you learn this. It's more like feeling how you write a bicycle. Did you come up with this way of presenting things or did you study with somebody? Who did it 'cause you have some simple exercises that like I don't think I've ever been to a workshop or a presentation where someone just said, OK, we talk, for a moment about stuff but then it's like OK. Let's try this OK feel that.

Feel that there was like an literally 3 minutes later. Everyone is reporting the adjectives are citizen. Teachers like a high 5. You know it's like everyone's reporting. All these adjectives of openness. Freedom peace various things I got just from trying something right there in that moment now. Did you develop? These techniques or in looking from the beginning for? What is the goal? What is the result? What is thing that People.

Call awakening or What is this? What is that about what does that give you? What is that mean? What changes what's absent? What's present you know, I started following that interesting.

Premise to see who it is that would was talking about this and so then I kind of went around from Zen to vipasana to Tibetan Buddhism. Both's auction and mahamoud rhe, which is really where I ended up kind of many of the practices, or based on mom will drive but summer summer ISM but there's you can see that threat and some are just and then once once you start.

I have a shift into this what's called recognition or realization, then it's kind of like awareness shows itself to itself.

So there starts to be this curious almost like.

Way that Oh well wait a minute. First time here and I'm contracted identified and then I'm open and then the openness. The body and then the openness is open hearted and then it's related but now I'm stuck in here, but now I'm stuck. I'm blessed in. I'm spaced out so How do I get from here to here and is there an intentional way or is that?

Effort ING kind of a doing that keeps you from letting go so those kind of curious questions. But I didn't approach it intellectually. I approached it like.

Palpable very experiential experiment like let's find out let's do it. Let's let's find the way to shift into it and find a way to live from it in the middle of for me in New York City. So if you can walk down the street there. You've got it, yeah, so now. I do it in the subway and it works, just as I said beginning of my practice New York. Yeah, it's a great opportunity.

So so you so you did put this together used up at one thing that I'm especially intrigued by because of physicality is something that I'm very active with the kind of embodied person and I do a lot of movement work with a lot of physical modalities in the posture for meditation and how we communicate with our body and how we can allow our body to move in certain ways that effects how we think and feel.

You know an you in this development as you.

We're pulling from all these ingredients and cooking your own stuff, you actually came up with kind of movements. It's a physical way you have a journey from being in here to hurt you just talked about that progression and then it's really you ended up having us do an exercise actually moving from here to here that the heart out you had physical movements. We did which I thought for me personally.

I thought there were 2 levels. This learning goes in. In addition, someone can say something, you can hear it. You can conceptualize it. You can even try moving your focus around but when you add this physicality for me. Once are physically moving. It's like a mood or something. It goes in my body in a different way with just a just using hands and arms to kind of help us bring us into it, but I liked that physical commitment to it, and the second was watching it, you'll be up there and I was thinking it's like he's conducting with this bot.

We flew it very now you doing that, you're even started. I know I feel like my friend anyway, but but you know 'cause. We hear things and that's one I was watching this site that one part of the brain, but then we see you do it and visually. We get an impression. So there's the physical the feeling we hear the words and then we see it and so I thought is a way of your whole approach is about let's just do this right now there feel it.

And so in it goes in in those 3 different modalities and see, hear feel is something that you know you know, I'm trained in those being 3 primary sense gates. So I was very impressed. But I liked. It was fun. It makes it is opposed to high. I'm going to go to get enlightened by 2:00 o'clock. It was really fun. I enjoyed this very much so in your personality is also you can get Woody Allen E sometimes.

There's no or other you had other comedy People, you were doing in there, but so if you want to talk about this physicality on me, yeah, I mean, you know like you. I've also been always been kind of physical and played a lot of sports, so I would say 1 little story would be.

One way that I discovered this was that I was in ice hockey goalie when I was very young how you need. Yeah, there OK. I think this sitting on the question you were with an ice hockey goalie, yeah, so I had discovered the way that I played best was would shift into another mode of perception.

And then I heard on TV somebody talking commentator talking about quarterback and they said he's got eyes in the back of his head and I was like 14, so I was like he's got eyes in the back of the head. How do you do that you get that so I literally started developing this way I thought OK? Well, I can go this far. Let me continue bringing my awareness. Around this way, and as soon as I brought my awareness around to this 360 degree.

Panoramic where NIS I opened up my panoramic and peripheral vision and then I dropped down into my body and their became this natural almost field of awareness where I felt like a cat and then I would just trust from there that I'd see see somebody take a slapshot but there be all these legs and all of a sudden. I just trust in my hand would shoot out and the puck would be in there and I figured OK, so rather than being.

Hyper vigilant and one pointed in this effort effort in mind learn how to relax, but not relax let go to sleep. But there's another mode of perceiving that's called you know that People now called the zone or being in the flow. So the flow state. This is 14. This is the 1413. You do this, yeah, well. See he's been doing it a long time. So so I felt this and then I was explaining it to a friend who actually lives in LA and is going to come over.

Open Roblox Oh and I was saying like well? How did you do that man and I started to put it into words and he was like Oh Cool?

Great pass before you wanna beer OK, they really want really want that information. I have no idea what you're talking about. I was just asking you like just say something normal but then but then one of the seniors on the team.

Over heard me and the next week. He came in and gave me this book. Zen and the art of archery, yeah, yeah. I said here kid. This is what you were talking about. Yeah, wow. At that age. She was new to read that yeah, Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance in opposite Duke in the art class. She never told us how to paint. You just sat there reading Zen in the art photos that there, you should go back and read it.

But this and then I did send in the art of archery of that is so interesting well, what was you know. This panoramic vision and that is key to do what you do, but then the dropping down into what made you at the age of 14 because you just had to do something basically that's why you start to. I felt I felt that shift that when you open and then are doing something physical that all of a sudden the feeling is as if you're in every cell of your body.

And the center is more like your gut your dantian or your heart.

And you actually are you know optimally functioning without thinking about thinking right so all that information is processed in and then I then I realized OK. People talk about it in certain activities like sports or art, but can we do this in everyday life in relating an creating because often you'll see sports stars who get in the zone when they come out of it, there actually the opposite.

Or you'll see artists or writers who can get in the zone and then all the sudden there life is a mess because the rest. They don't feel the way they feel not so you almost become compulsively addicted to that? Which.

Take Sheldon Argus so I know I there are many actors who when they're acting they feel so alive and they will wait tables and do things for the rest your life just to get another few minutes of that hit of that high and when I try to save the meditation teacher. That's available in each moment that they think now I have to be on stage. They get that zone experience 2 things come to my one was the way I understood that samurai were trained.

Was that they're not looking at where their opponent is or where the weapon is they actually go into a broad focus where they're not even looking at them, they're literally just kind of you go into an almost feeling of the environment and it's this kind of broad focus and I remember playing with that myself and realizing that there were times in which I was doing that driving can be once sometimes in driving. I'm just watching the kind of movement of everything the flow of.

Visual field but what naturally happens is this extension out into space in a way where I'm part of the space. Yes, you know, I'm just one of the elements moving in, it, but this relational experience with everything it's like we're all one Organism and on one part of this larger Organism, but this getting back and bringing it into the body part. I do, find that wonderful is that mindfulness is coming into the Western World and it's.

The Revolution Innocence is starting there and that's my hope for our planet at this time, but often the way in. It is we our minds. You know it's how we're thinking and the embodied aspect of it is sometimes just left out, yeah, and that's something that's so important to me and one of the reasons one of the reasons. I adore what to do it's just you know what you do is really like most style. I love it, but that you.

You have said every time you'll say you talk about that. Panoramic awareness and then bringing it into the body and you know, I think of it is including like you know, kind of the way I just described it, but it's wonderful that you make that in your journey that note. It's gotta happen. And so could you just talk about that progression a little more so often? When People start with mindfulness, which is wonderful for stress?

Relief and for kind of traditional preliminary practices and relaxation aspect in the body. People will like that's right. But some of the tools of the initial primary practices, or actually one pointed focus using using attention of the moving mind. And yet effortless mindfulness or more advanced practice. You're actually have to learn the other set of skills.

You have to learn not only opening your awareness so that you're in the zone and trusting this non conceptual intelligence that is not checking with thought constantly and it's not a quick mind. But actually is mind that is made of more spacious awareness, so the 10:00 or even then.

Big Sky mind you know this kind of thing and that the small sense of self, which is made of or the ego center, which is made of thought, referring to thought and creates a little character. Looking out of your eyes that feels like. It's looking at your eyes and feels like it's an entity. He does a lot of funding graphs on that.

That that you know that is one way of functioning that's one way of operating but it's the little thought based ego center is just too small to deal with a full emotional life of full life of intimacy and.

You know joy in the world, so we're not just so I realized that often the first step of stepping out of this.

Ego center and into kind of either meditative state or even a bigger pure awareness is only part way there.

But often important so the usual progression is com use focus to calm or com to focus and then that will come. The chattering mind and then to open up your meditative awareness or discover that there's kind of a bigger, more open mind. Open hearts, which is literally. The feeling you get not an intellectual idea, and then.

You're kind of so the way I have People move is actually the feel like awareness can unhook from thought and then open to the space unhook from thought he always puts it that way. and I like that very serious like is there not just unhook. It's very it's just like you just visit and everyone goes Oh OK perfect. One of strange premise is that I realized that didn't even realize that was doing in the beginning, I thought in the beginning well.

OK, but, yeah, the one who's unhooking is not the doers not the ego that's unhooking but then I just kind of kept going and then I realized Oh. I see what I'm doing. I'm actually act asking the awake person.

The awareness that they already are that they've already been to unhook awareness from thought and that that awareness or that awake empty. Lucid clarity has a life already and actually has the ability to move and has a kind of intention aliti. It isn't just passive.

And that often it's been defined as this passive you know recognition of awake awareness that you just sit in a meditative state and it's lovely and free of suffering, but then one day back to work from a long wait day retreat and you have the only option. You have is operating from ego center, so this is really about upgrading the operating system.

A little tech jobs shield everyone, but literally stepping out of the current little small sense of self opening to space and then discovering that the awareness actually is discovering and aware mind? What's called nature of mind Big Sky mind.

A pure awareness that is already aware and has already been aware both outside and then before you go in and there's someone could never have. I just want to say this. This isn't just like hi. I put it on the spiritual both for 12 years ago and now I'm trying. Chapter #17 someone could walk in and have never done anything and go through this. So it's appealing kind of directly in that way.

But one thing I want to say about when you type up Big Sky might there's a space. I want to just kind of emphasize the speciality of it were here. No, we're not you really get the sense that no you are so that sense of that extended space of self. I just wanted for someone could just walk in there and go.

My awareness is that big how can that be an again, he takes you right there experiential E into second so now continue on you go out just to say what you're saying 'cause. It's the most important point is that this awakeness that's both embodied and open hearted is already here and it's a consciousness. That's already installed in US, it doesn't have to be developed or created.

But we haven't known how to access it so that's been my whole projects like wait a minute. Why do you have to do this and this and this to get to hear because once I'm here?

Let me feel what it's like to lose it and then let me go back and shift back into it. Oh well, I didn't have to do those 8 things to get back. Let me see what is what is the map of consciousness experientially and then? How do you navigate it and then? How do you translate it to somebody and make the language more contemporary and more experiential so that that's kind of what I've been doing is like translating translating translating not just text. But like what's your New Yorker direct get it is it here.

Get to the point. Let's go? What's needed, and no more, yeah, and do it like you learn, you know take care of your consciousness, the way you learn to eat or whether you go to the gym or you do yoga posture. It's like. Sometimes they called the yoga of awareness so but the interesting thing is which is what I'm coming back to now is that what it is. That's moving and what it is that knows this ground, which is pure awareness.

Is only awareness and that's why most People have missed it?

Is because we're trying to effort it? We're using our will?

We're using our mind and we're even using attention of the mind, which we actually can't see it nor can mindful witnessing see the pure awareness, so even that which pulls back and is able to observe thought can't turn around.

It's actually has to be that which is already made of the non local awareness. That's locally attached for identified that can drop that can open from thought and then discover itself as kind of.

Non local awareness and be aware.

Of itself without thought and without senses just from it just doesn't have to do it. That long it doesn't have to be a long retreat or half hour meditation. It just needs to plug in or surrender or tune in to that which is already been aware and then as that which is aware the next important move is the intention aliti realizes Oh.

Form is emptiness now emptiness is form.

So the awareness realizes it's aliveness and the feeling of the ocean appearing as waves of consciousness is where you drop back in and you have a?

It's like you've shifted figure ground of what's awake, what you're aware of then you can be aware of all your thoughts feelings sensations, but you're aware from this huge loving supportive inside outside is the same and you're free of the anxious perpetually dissatisfied commentator.

So we could just stop right now.

Yeah, yeah, got everything and then one more one more thing is that so then when there's no SIM bodied kind of continuous field of awareness that's primary. The anxious anxiety is gone about anxiousness and the judging but you still have your full range of emotions. You're not detached. But you just was there anything in a flow state, which more optimally function and you've dropped not only into your body but.

You've dropped from head to heart mind so it's a feeling that People even if I don't describe it. They say, and I love the term Hartline juicy? what I was going to just say 2 things real quick, one was when you just described at 9:00 plotted but you talked about the loving supportive and I remember I came up to him after an intermission. Or maybe it was after the Friday night thing you did, and I said when he was describing it and I thought you know.

When I first learned Buddhism in airtight refuge. I thought that's what they were talking about it because I thought that is the ultimate roughing yes and it is the ultimate refuge that even in Buddhism. You start with Buddha and then you start with or you start with your guru or your teacher take refuge in the Buddha. The Dharma the Sangha and then you start with and then you realize Oh the teachers outside. Oh no, the teachers inside and then some. Tibetans do like Oh, there's a DD, but on the DD melts into you and then.

Your eyes is that so ultimately, it is in the systems. Ultimately, the refuges. The Dow or the Buddha Nature true nature or if it's like a direct path to the ultimate.