 Aloha, it is September 21st, Monday, 2020, and we are thrilled to have Kit Wynkoop joining us again to talk about some Tibetan Shambhala meditation. We spent a very brief time before talking about this topic, which can help all of us in our daily lives, especially now when we need it most. Kit, thank you so much for joining us again. Aloha, Winston. Thank you. Appreciate it. You know, I wanted to, right before we start, I want to put people on your website so that they can go for more information so they can follow along. It's a great website. What is your website? It's hoikaah.org that's spelled H-O-I-K-A-H-A dot org. H-O-I-K-A-H-A dot org. Correct. Hoikaah. And what does that mean? Well, literally it means return to the breath, but the calm down is breathing life back into. Breathing life back into. Correct. Okay, today our title is Steps to Living Aloha, Mindfulness Leads to Aloha. And our description is that, which I think is good and I'd like to read it, caring for everything that can be seen, heard, smelled, taste, touched, sensed, and imagined, as if it were the most important thing in the universe, had been lived as a spiritual practice in Hawaii from antiquity up to as late as the 1980s. Today it's called the Aloha spirit, but to the Hawaiians of old, living Aloha was part of the culture and didn't even have a name. Defeat a stranger passing by. That is pure Aloha. We need to start letting ourselves live Aloha once again, or more accurately, be lived by Aloha. This is what makes positive change in the world. Aloha is the spirit of all existence. It's the life force energy of the universe. It's the true nature of reality. It is the underlying consciousness of all that is. This Aloha can be discovered through Tibetan Buddhist meditation to connect with and live it. Living Aloha leads one to experience a life of generosity, loving kindness, compassion, and virtue, thereby bringing balance, peace, and harmony to oneself, the planet, and all sentient beings. That sounds lovely and a state that we should all be in. Tell us, if we practice this, what percent of the time can we live in Aloha like this? Do you think it's... Well, I mean, that's a very good question. I'm still working on it myself, so I don't have a personal answer from experience, but from what I understand and what I remember as a kid, there were still people alive back then who were living from Aloha. There's a gentleness that comes across. In fact, I met a woman recently who really exhibited this. She was very gentle. She was very caring and you could just feel her Aloha reaching out. And that's how she lives, you know? And there were certainly more people, a lot more people back in the 60s here that were living that way. But the Tibetan Buddhist meditation masters would say, it's totally possible. It's possible to work your way to 100% of living like that. And they would not use the term Aloha, but they would use Buddha nature or the true nature of reality. Is this the same as like a Christ consciousness or...? Yeah, nicely. Yeah, that's totally... And just so our viewers might be clear, you are what we might call local Howley. You grew up here, right? And you were honoured by a local Hawaiian family down the street. Is that right? That's correct. In my off time from my own parents, they didn't want me in the house a lot. So I just sort of ventured down the street. A very kind, bolder Hawaiian, native Hawaiian couple adopted me essentially and sort of taught me what Hawaii culture is all about and predominantly about Aloha and how to exhibit that and recognize it and share it with others. Did they teach you openly or was it just through example or both? It was pretty much both, you know. And it was the old Hawaii way of learning that if you were... If I was exhibiting, you know, a less than Aloha... You know, it was very gentle. Again, it was very gentle. It was like, no, no, boy, that's not how we do things here. It wasn't scolding. And it's interesting because the Tibetan Buddhist meditation is instruction and guidance is all about being gentle. The instructor is gentle with the students and the instructors indicate to the students that it's highly important to be gentle with ourselves. Meditation on the path to living Aloha is a path of becoming our own best friends. So it's important to sort of connect that way. That's a wonderful point. And, you know, starting with gentleness. So no one's going to come up behind you in your classes and smack you with a reed to sit up straight or anything. That was a question that we had. How is this different? How is Tibetan Shambhala Buddhist meditation different than other forms of meditation? Or is it or is it substantially different? And how would you say that it is itself? Well, I think it's very similar to other sects of Buddhism, Buddhist meditation. You know, there are five or six natural sects of Tibetan Buddhist meditation. And they're all very similar except that the Shambhala version sort of works one up to where the other sects kind of plot people right into. It's kind of like being pushed into the deep end of the pool where Shambhala is sort of like come down the steps in the shallow end will sort of guide you out to the deep end. So it's not so such a jolt. In difference with other meditation techniques is that those techniques are very much a concentration as opposed to the Buddhist meditation technique, which is essentially letting go. And so we're letting go of, you know, what we're holding onto about ourselves in the world, in our attitudes, but other more modern meditations are pretty much about concentrating on something. You know, some form of mantra or something of that sort. So when we meditate, is it that we want to be detached from our what's around us or engaged with what's around us or maybe both? Or how would you, what's the purpose of meditation? Because a lot of people I think in the West struggle with this idea of meditation of people say, I can't meditate, but you probably heard that many times. Yes, yeah, I can't meditate. There are too many thoughts in my head. You know, I don't have enough time. Meditation is actually being able to live with all of that and without those thoughts or that lack of time dictating how we live in the world. So meditation, again, is essentially letting go of control and it is grounding ourselves in just being fully human. So we're not zoning out and we're not sort of getting into a, you know, what some people may say is bliss out or blissful state, but more along the lines of observing and strengthening our mind to really be able to allow all of the distraction and chaos to happen around us without, without us grabbing hold of it or being attached to that and reacting. So sort of just letting life be, letting life come at us as it does and then being able to deal with it as best as, in a more fully present manner. Yes, and it's also allowing all of our sense perceptions to come in and working with those as a path to allowing ourselves to see what we hear, what we see or feel, you know, all of that into our lives and allow it to just be and observe it from the place of equanimity or the middle way. Totally present in a place of equanimity. Yeah. Okay, because I think that's, a lot of people maybe think of meditation as, I don't know, it's an interesting thing that's maybe escape or something. How many times would you say you meditate in a day? Do you meditate for 30 seconds at a time or for 30 minutes or all over the map? Well, I personally have two formal meditation periods, one in the morning and one around 5.30 in the afternoon and the one in the morning is about an hour and a half. But I do a basic meditation, the kind of what we're talking about. And then I have another practice that I do on top of that, turn it into a basic meditation. And you also teach meditation. Tell us about what, what you, how, what meditation you do and also what other services that you offer that people might find useful. Well, I teach Shama to Vipassana, which is literally mindfulness awareness meditation, as taught by the historic Buddha to Dawa Sanko, who was the king of Shambhala at the time. And he wanted to practice that he could take back to his kingdom, which was pretty much in the same social disaster as we are right now. And he was able to live in the world as opposed to becoming a monk. You don't have to be a monk if you meditate. So we can live in the world our full lives and still meditate. And we can actually take that meditation up off the cushion into our daily lives. So the first part of the journey has really been building a foundation of this mindfulness awareness meditation so that we can easily pull that into our awareness throughout the day when things are chaotic or, you know, stressful. And we can sort of just drop into that meditation, still be aware our eyes are open, and we're actually engaging at the same time. Do you teach a technique to be sort of Pavlovian in response when, when so stressful when you start to feel wigging out that you, oh, this is the time I can start meditating. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's a training where we're training our mind no different than going to the gym to be aware of when we're about to have an emotional response to something. And it's almost like an aha moment as we go through this path of meditation. It's like we get better and better, we get stronger and stronger at being able to do this. But we can actually start to feel ourselves being pulled or hooked into a reaction. That might not turn out very pleasantly for ourselves or other people. And then at that point, when we notice that arising, we can actually make a choice, whether we want to continue down to that pathway or just let that emotion course through our bodies and out as opposed to just holding onto it. So being, maybe being able to be response able instead of just reactive. That's a very good way of putting it. You know, a question about this. I think that can we be, can we be active people engaged in our community? Maybe it's not necessarily to get rid of emotions certainly or not feel sadness or anger or loss. That's not what it's about. Is it? No, not at all. In fact, that's a natural part of life as human being. You know, we can't get rid of our thoughts. We can't get rid of the distractions or chaos or emotions that arise in relation to things that people say or things that happen around us. But what we can do is work with our own minds in those situations to be able to come to a place of peaceful abiding in observation, almost like going to a movie, seeing it for what it actually is without a conditioned response of habitual speaking or acting that we've been carrying all our lives. And that's actually what's happening in the world today to bring it to such a chaotic place is that, you know, people have, you know, lived their lives as they always have. And yet they're not aware that most of those actions, most of the words that come out of their mouths are habituated from very early on. And certainly everybody has had a moment where they say, oh my God, I think I just sounded like my parents. And that's just a small tip of the ice. I wanted to follow up on that idea of classes. We have a question from a viewer who just beamed in and said, do you teach students via Zoom? And if you do, is it harder? What are your classes? When are they offered? Are they different levels? Do you do private classes or are they group classes? And how does that work? Yeah, I do it all. And it's all via Zoom right now. I have one student who's a close friend who comes over and we sit like eight feet apart and wear masks. So I guess it's meditate, yes. But predominantly my classes are on Zoom. And it's essentially an hour and a half to two hours of time where we sit and we meditate. And then there's a lesson. And then there's a discussion. And this can happen on an individual basis or with a group. I have them all. So it's quite, you know, from an individual, some people just want to be on their own when they're in a learning environment, which is totally cool. And then some people like being in groups. And from a group interaction, there's certainly more wisdom that arises out of the students that share their experiences. And this can spark deeper learning for other students in the sessions. Do you have an ongoing class right now? And if so, what are the requirements for students? Well, I don't have an ongoing class. It's sort of a successive learning path. So we would start with one, to go to two, and go to three, and so on. So I'm always looking to start new classes. If there's anyone that wishes to do that. And what was the other part of your question? What do you require of students? Oh, just simply a commitment to sit for 20 minutes every day in meditation and do those studies, which are not very much. I usually send out a few articles to read each week, their weekly classes, and then be open for discussion about what they lean out of the lessons and any questions they may have. Is, you know, given our, we've had a lot of, maybe called new age or new thought, permeate our consciousness in America since probably the 60s, I'm just guessing, as a response to both globalization and also people wanting something different than perhaps they were raised with that wasn't fitting their paradigm. And certainly, we didn't have a lot of Tibetan, Buddhist, Shambhala teachers, or people that had experienced that. But I do know that the apartment house of Yogananda filled the Los Angeles Colosseum back in the 20s or 30s. I mean, this was, you know, tens of thousands of people coming out to see this Indian Guru, and that was across the United States. I think he came for the Conference of World Religions. So that's the autobiography of Yogi. And it's really interesting that it started, and there's, I think, been Americans have been open to a certain, you know, curiosity about Eastern religions and mysticism and all of everything else going. So it's, is this, but my question is, given our times, we wake up in the morning and somebody may still be president that's just extremely, you know, frustrating for some percentage of the population, or maybe for others, it's that somebody else was the president that they didn't like. And now that's over, but they're they're dreading what could be next. When we're confronted with this sort of onslaught of daily assaults to our psyche, to our well-being, or a mental, emotional, psychological, social structure, and it's coming so fast on the internet unless you're completely disconnected. And even then, we're living in COVID time. So we can't even get together with our pals, even if we're not on the internet, go down to the park. How do we stay engaged in the world, but stay balanced? Or can we be engaged in the world? Or do we just have to pull back from it and put Facebook and put TV and just meditate? Or can we do both? Can we be engaged? And can we be angry? And can we be challenging what is really, we find morally or ethically offensive and still remain engaged in a Buddhist contemplative or even just meditative practice? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I recently on speaking Facebook saw a meme where there was a yogi and there was a student and the student said, what is the problem with the world? And the yogi said, you've disconnected from the source. And that's absolutely the very issue, no matter what you call source from your beliefs, believe traditions. We've, you know, I call it aloha in the tradition of pilahipaki. You know, it's, we've forgotten how to be with that all, all knowing all pervasive energy of the universe. The even quantum physics has proven that, that's, you know, at the sub molecular level, it's pure life. It's pure love. And we have forgotten how to vibrate or at that frequency. And we've gotten so caught up into our own egos that we have been lost in how we are out in the world. And Tibetan Buddhist meditation in other techniques, I mean, Yogananda touches pure love, you love, you know, love each other, gets to back to that place. We're trying to get back to the true nature of reality, which is that place, which is aloha. And we can do that through meditation very easily. It takes practice and it takes dedication to keep it up. But very quickly, people notice that they start to connect with that aloha and it is so beautiful that that is what inspires them to continue meditating and continue to follow the path of meditation. You know, we got another question coming in from a viewer who asks, says, I have aphantasia. I'm not sure if I'm getting that right, aphantasia, an inability to visualize mental images. So it's hard for me to do typical meditation, like visualizing myself on a beach and just breathing. Do you think I can do this type of meditation? Oh yeah, absolutely. Again, a hard thing back to what we were talking about earlier, because it's not concentration. Those visualization techniques are a way of concentrating. So because Shavit of the Passion is all about just finding one thing to be mindful of, and that would be the breath, and allowing ourselves to let all the distractions come in and not be bothered by them as we, I don't want to say focus, that's too strong a word, be aware of our breathing. And of course, at the beginning, it's a little challenging, but very quickly within a week's time, people start to see success. Could we, you know, we don't have many minutes left. Could we do a three-minute meditation and take us out of the, is that, is that appropriate to do something like that, to just give people a sense of what we can get, even in three minutes? Yeah, I think so. So it's a seated meditation, so we would be seated, and our eyes are open and they're gazing at the floor a few feet up from us, about four to six feet. And our hands are on our thighs. I'll mind the time. And just become aware of your breathing, how your body moves when you're breathing, how your body feels. Follow the in and out breath. Now just follow the out breath only, and really look at it. Notice how it starts in your lungs, and it comes out through the esophagus and the nasal passageways, and it flows out of the body and dissolves into the space around us. Feel that, and follow it, and if you can, become the out breath in your imagination, feeling it, following it, flowing out of the body and dissolving into space. And you might be, mind might spark with the sound or because of the visual in front of you because your eyes are open, and it'll label it and categorize it and have an opinion about it and lead you down some storyline about it or something else can be different, and all of a sudden you're not even here. When you notice that, simply acknowledge it by saying thinking, and come back to follow the out breath, relaxing outward. Every time you're distracted, just simply come back to the out breath, acknowledge the distraction by saying thinking, and come back to the out breath, relaxing outward. One helpful hint in these meditations is thinking of thoughts as clouds, and as they arise we acknowledge them by saying thinking, and then just watch the clouds dissolve right back into a vast open sky. So Winston, this is really just a very touch into a full meditation. I usually take about a half an hour just for meditation instruction, but we're acknowledging the thinking, the distractions, the smells, everything we sense, there are sense perceptions, we're acknowledging that it's happening, and yet we come back to this out breath, feeling a peaceful abiding of just flowing out and dissolving into space. And as we do that, we're building, we're strengthening our ability to be mindful of one thing and saying, yes, these other things are there, and yet this is, this was my aim, I'm following this breath, and thank you other things, but the more we do that, the more proficient we become at it, and the more we can live our lives in peaceful abiding. And aloha. Even just a short time, your voice is very calming for me, so I could just, it's almost hypnotic, but it just gets me in a calm place right away. I think for folks, everybody needs this, there's nobody who could not benefit from this, especially now. I will refer them to your website, koikaha.org, k-a-h-a.org. Kit is a marvelous teacher, he's the real deal and been there and done that, and can lead you to a greater sense of aloha within sight of yourself, and so you can deal with everything else around you that's come in so fast. I want to thank you for being with us today, Kit. You're going to come back again, and maybe we can just do a show only that's just meditation, so we can get more there. That would be awesome. Thank you, Winston. Thank you again, and everyone, I hope you've enjoyed the show I have. There's so much to explore here and unpack. Please go to Kit's website, and we will look forward to seeing you another time here on Out and About Something.