Mingyur Rinpoche – BHNN Guest Podcast – Ep. 83 – Present Moment Awareness

In this practice-steeped dharma talk, a hilarious and engaging Mingyur Rinpoche invites the audience into an array of guided meditations and thought experiments around relaxed open awareness.

Born in 1975, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a much-loved and accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. From a young age, he was drawn to a life of contemplation. In addition to extensive training in the meditative and philosophical traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, Rinpoche has maintained a lifelong interest in Western science and psychology. Rinpoche currently teaches throughout the world, with centers on four continents. His candid and often humorous accounts of his own personal difficulties have endeared him to Buddhist and non-Buddhist students alike. Learn more about Rinpoche and find his worldwide teaching schedule at tergar.org.

Rinpoche Question Session

Continuing last episode’s 2010 dharma talk hosted at Spirit Rock, aptly titled, The Neuroscience of Meditation, Mingyur Rinpoche picks back up answering audience questions on using meditation to work with fear of pain, if he would like people to pray for him during his next three-year retreat, and how to meditate properly with disabilities or physical difficulties. From there, he naturally and hilariously shares a smorgasbord of guided meditations and experiments highlighting open awareness.

“This experience is like watching television. It’s what I call ‘inner-television.’ It’s very good price, zero dollars; and big screen; and it follows you everywhere you want to go; and no need to worry about cables and monthly payments. But there’s one problem: the programs are quite old.” – Mingyur Rinpoche

Listen to the first part of this Mingyur Rinpoche talk, The Neuroscience of Meditation, on Ep. 82 of BHNN Guest Podcast

Breathing Meditations, Open Awareness (7:30)

Prompted by the audience, Rinpoche leads a handful of slightly variant practices around connection, meditation, concentration, and the breath; relaying the effortlessness of the relaxed, open awareness style of meditation.

“If you’re more relaxed, you have better concentration.” – Mingyur Rinpoche

Mingyur shares his transformative story with Raghu and Krishna Das, on Ep. 289 of Mindrollling

The Golden Gate Park Sourdough Police Experiment (16:14)

Rinpoche leads a hilariously Americanized thought experiment to highlight the flowing, relaxed, effortlessness of open awareness—the meditation of non-meditation—compared to the intense rigidity of a tightly policed meditative concentration.

Fear & Pain, Thought Meditation, Inner Television, (19:04)

Responding back to an earlier question about working through fear of pain, Rinpoche leads an open awareness infused guided meditation similar to the earlier breathing exercises, aimed at using our thoughts as leverage for meditation.

“The thoughts are coming in and out, like your breath. If you can use your breath as support for your meditation, why not with thoughts? Same as your breath—you’re watching your breath in and out, now you can watch your thoughts coming in and out.” – Mingyur Rinpoche

Mingyur Rinpoche explores meditation, open awareness, and overcoming the monkey mind, on Ep. 73 of the BHNN Guest Podcast