Being with Being
Philosophy, contemplative practice, and the physics of nature's flow — for finding your own way. For those who don't need the added pressure of another's way, but are curious about ways of understanding, perceiving, and living that mesh with each other — and that only you can make your own.
Each episode is a complete live recording — typically around two hours — opening with a 15-30 minute inquiry into the session's theme, moving into an hour-long guided practice, and closing with comments and discussion. These explorations grew from years of my own searching — trying to fit into practices that promised relief, never quite finding home in any tradition, and stumbling upon a rational basis for getting traction on ways I don't have to try.
As your fellow explorer, I'm Mackenzie Hawkins — researcher in philosophy of physics, contemplative practitioner, and co-author of several books with physicist and Tai Chi Master Dr. Wonchull Park. Drawing from his nowflow philosophy, these series-based explorations use philosophy and physics as ways of understanding and perceiving what's here already.
Not ways to follow, but ways that might help you find your own — for anyone looking to explore beyond the pressures we put on ourselves.
Being with Being
Laying Down to Reality: Nature’s Flow - Simply Settle Series
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What’s it like to simply settle into that there is space? To simply settle into that there is the flow of change? The space and the flow of change don’t need our tweaking. They don’t need our adjusting. It’s just the way of nature. And we can simply settle into it.
Gradually we let our perception of this sense of the flow of nature, our own inner feel of it, begin to become finer and finer. And then we see where all that may take us. What is it to abide in something that’s ever changing? What is it to simply settle into flow itself?
Simply Settle Series: A Practice That’s Not a Doing
Two words from Patrul Rinpoche’s Self-Liberating Meditation — simply settle — so resonated for me. Not from the perspective of a Dzogchen practitioner — I’m not one. More like hearing a piece of music where I couldn’t begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me.
What it evokes comes from over ten years of Taoist practice with Master Wonchull Park, who is also a physicist. He always starts with what is immediate, tangible, and in a way universal. And I needed that. I had such a tendency to over-try, to over-control, to really just torture myself with pretty much any practice. One of the practices that first opened up for me was something so basic — laying down to the ground. It gives me a starting place where I can know that way of nature is there. As much weight as I give the ground, the ground is going to hold me up. I don’t have to search for it, make it, go someplace else for it. I just get out of my own way and simply settle into the support that’s there. As Master Park says, it’s already laid down reality.
So this series takes that tangible metaphor as its starting place and asks — what else is a way of nature we can simply “lay down” to? What else could we simply settle into without having to create it, cultivate it, or alter it in any way, as Patrul Rinpoche says? From laying our physical body upon the earth to simply settling into the flow of nature, we can come to know a direction in practice that’s not toward what should be but is simply is-ward. A practice that’s not a doing. And then wondering what it would be like to apply that to both thinking and non-thinking, to the nature of mind itself, to whatever is arising in our experience.
Thank you for Being with Being.
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So, welcome to this. I'm of appreciation for this teaching from Patrol Rampochet. And I do always feel like a disclaimer is in order as we begin. So K Chen is very, very advanced and specialized, and to some degree, even very well guarded teaching. And there are living Tibetan ribaces who teach on this meditation. And when they do, there's many, many preliminaries, even for them to give the teaching of this. And so I think it's just really important as I share about this. It's almost like I got inspired by a piece of music. I heard a piece of music. It was this teaching of Pacho and Pochet, embodied and expressed by Salmonary JSR. And I'm very often sharing the links to that so that you can go and experience it for yourself. Inspi in many many ways. What I'm offering here is how you know, especially with my over ten years now background in Taoist approaches and tai chi and in my own personal need to find practices that didn't exacerbate my already hyper strong tendency to try. Almost like a piece of music that couldn't begin to know the mind of the composer, but I can share what it evokes in me.
SPEAKER_00How do we abide?
SPEAKER_02How do we simply settle into experience without altering it in any way? And as Pacho Rinpoche often says in his self-liberating meditation, and that is it, you know it's it sounds so simple, and clearly, since according to these teachings, if we uh understood it, got it, could live it, we would become immediately enlightened.
SPEAKER_00So probably it's it's not so easy in a way, after all. And yet recognizing it for what it is, and so without trying to shift our experience, our experience shifts in a way, and for the last two times we've done that with the sense of literally the ground, the ground beneath our body, the ground beneath our feet, sources of support, physical, immediate, tangible support that we can both just physically and metaphorically simply settle into.
SPEAKER_02So it's even the word that you would you know tell school children to sit down, so it has that sense of of sit down, and of course, it has much, much fuller, broader meaning, deeper meaning, especially when it gets applied to mind, which we're not we're not beginning to touch on yet. We're just seeing what what it would be like to experience not trying to alter, improve, cultivate, concentrate, block out, adjust anything, but to simply settle directly into how nature is already flowing, as my Tai Chi teacher likes to say, it's already laid down reality. We practice laying down the burden, we practice simply settling into support, but each of us already is a hundred percent supported by the earth, it's really not up to us, and so in today's session, we'll and actually, in I I think in all the sessions to come, we will tap into that the felt experience of what it's like to lay down into laid down reality, where we can concretely and experientially have that experience of what it's like to not alter our experience, but to settle directly into what is, and that what is no matter what, no matter how much tension or holding I have in my body, it's already laid down reality.
SPEAKER_00It's just harder to feel when I'm all like this.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we can get that sense of what it's like to lay down to the physical support of the ground. It's always there, just the way it is, and then we could also kind of just take that sense of ground as like the Tao, as just like the way of nature, the way nature is always already, and see what's like to practice laying down into that, simply settling into that way of nature, without trying to alter it, manipulate it in any way.
SPEAKER_00So today we will begin to see what that's like.
SPEAKER_02What's it like to simply settle into that there is space to simply settle into that there is the flow of change and that the space and the flow of change doesn't need our tweaking, it doesn't need our adjusting, it's just the flow of nature and we can simply settle into it.
SPEAKER_00Maybe we'll see. We'll see.
SPEAKER_02And gradually we'll let our perception of this sense of the flow of nature, our own inner feel of it begin to become finer and finer, and then we'll we'll see where all that may take us. And so to begin, you're welcome to stay just uh seated, but there's nothing like fully just stretching out, laying down upon the ground to really let ourselves connect with that sense of this is a not doing, this is a a letting go of trying, since the flow of nature just doesn't need our trying, apparently, and so you're welcome to come all the way down if you have the space for it and it's comfortable for you, and always adjust and put a blanket underneath you, a bolster underneath your knees, whatever helps you allow yourself to rest more fully maybe just letting the the whole preamble just kind of sink to the earth or float away. It's really not necessary to think we're doing any particular thing or anything particularly special with this practice.
SPEAKER_00Maybe before we even begin more fully to turn inside and feel into our experience, it can be helpful in this case to start to start actually with understanding that whatever weight we're putting upon the earth the earth is matching that one hundred percent, as much downward force, there's just as much upward force all along our back body in that meeting place of body and ground. It's laid down reality before we feel it, before we release extra tension, before anything, it's just already the nature that it is.
SPEAKER_02To make happen, to create, to cultivate.
SPEAKER_00Into that way of mutual flow and abide with that. Quiet where you come to know what it is in your experience. There's a there's an experience of simply settling into the way something always is the nature that's always so yet is always specifically and uniquely having its own expression. If we can get a taste of it, a gist of it that's lying upon the ground, and that does become uh a gist, an analogous template, this unfamiliar direction that's not uh doing and altering, adjusting, trying, but uh recognition and feeling and settling into the way it always is and is right now.
SPEAKER_02And while we're lying here, just noticing the backs of your hands, or however your hands are resting on the ground, and noticing what it's like for your hands to simply settle into the support beneath What's it that you stop doing when your hands simply settle?
SPEAKER_00And it's not about answering that, just feeling that. Where the back of the hands are laying down to the lap, the palms are open face, and for today's session, may find it helpful to start with eyes closed, so can always come back to this and practice again with eyes open. And what is it like to sit, to sit down, to settle literally, and to feel that you're settling into that way of nature, the way that the ground meets your weight with just as much support without us having to do anything. Simply settle directly into support. Now there is not uh doing more for that. Maybe now as well, too, we can see how there's no extra downward focus needed for our hands to simply settle and for us to be that experience that so an invitation to feel right into the midst of hands and lap meeting, and almost feel like you can feel it from from the inside from right there.
SPEAKER_02Immediacy of experience right in that place without an observer at headquarters peering down and getting busier doing something.
SPEAKER_00Just leaving the experience right where it is right at that meeting place, hands and laptop. Sensitive tips of the thumbs that touch the air just beyond them. And now feeling the very tips of the pointer finger on both hands, a place where finger meets air right at the tip and feeling all four fingertips, touching the air. Moving the pointer finger and the thumb tips so that they point a little bit more towards each other until you're feeling there's some certain amount of distance space in between those tips of your fingers still touching the air. And just a simple basic confirmation that we're feeling the distance, the space in between. See how you can make it a little bit wider. You feel it, you feel the space between getting wider. You feel that width of the space between, and then making it smaller, making that space between slightly smaller, and if that's helpful, you can keep slightly making it wider and smaller for a bit through here as a way to stay in touch with the immediacy of we're feeling that space in between directly, immediately, not abstract at all, we can just let the fingers come to rest, and either way, let's see what it might be like to simply rest in that space between our fingers to simply settle directly into that experience of space as it is. Or try to do anything particular with it. All the fingers now, letting ourselves feel the space in between all the fingers, making all those spaces a bit wider, all those spaces a bit smaller, and what might it be like to feel all those spaces just as much as you were. Experiencing the space in between your thumb and pointer finger. And even how the space between your fingers is part of the same space that your palm is holding part of the same space is a space just beyond each fingertip hand enveloped in three D space, and even the space inside your hand is part of the wholeness of all this space around the hand feel the space that your fingers all the way to the fingertips occupy and the space that fills your hand or that your hand fills. When you simply settle into space, how does it settle?
SPEAKER_02Let's even just go back to our hands, simply settling to the support of the lap beneath. We notice that some tension might have crept into the hands as we were feeling the space.
SPEAKER_00Oh, with this kind of simply subtle, there's a kind of tangibility. Or if we feel there is weighed down reality, mutual flow, way of nature, actually both directions, and we settle into that way of nature.
SPEAKER_02And that will flow away of nature again, spreading, fingers, feeling in between all the fingers, faces all in between, grounding each finger to the fingertip.
SPEAKER_00Part of that space held by the palm of the hand, the whole hand enveloped by space. Not only filling and wrapping around your hands and fingers. But filling and wrapping around the whole of your body. Inside your two nostrils, this passageway between the space around your body and the space inside your body. Help you feel that space inside your nose, its shape, its three D volume for each nostril. Abide here. Bask in it. Bathe in it. For the flow of nature to do its thing. And for us to abide in that experience as it is. Now for few moments here, dropping it all. Dropping everything. Not settling into anything. Not practicing anything, not doing anything, just for a few moments. Maybe even that experience helps to highlight how, yeah, as we are exploring this simply subtle in various kind of stepwise aspects of our experience, we're limiting it. Now we can easily set up another kind of trying in our practice.
SPEAKER_02Just send that signal as viscerally and as immediately as we can to our system that this is not about drawing.
SPEAKER_00And let the body receive the support from the earth. Since it already is.
SPEAKER_02I now know how to say your name. Thank you. Annette, hi, and welcome back. Well you might be a newer net. I don't know. I can't recognize that icon. Firefly. Oh, thanks. Really appreciate you offering this practice. Checked out the teacher's version you recommended last time and loved it too. So glad. So so very glad. She has many other readings, and she's just has such a real gift to be able to hear the words of the masters that she reads. I think if they were just you know words on a piece of paper, there'd be even that much. Farther, farther away. I put um so her name is um Salmonary JSR. I put her link there in the comments. David, thanks so much. This was wonderful. Annette's new here. Thank you. Alright. There's another Annette. Firefly, absolutely, and hope you continue offering these appreciations, explorations. Yeah, thanks for saying that. You know, I think especially with something like Dogchen, that's so um you know, even protected and needs to be respected, um, in terms of the the teaching, and I certainly don't want to infringe on on their um their teaching and claim that I have any knowledge of how they would interpret it. Um at the same time, I I just feel like there's something here for all of us. Some there's a wisdom here that is for all of us at whatever level we we uh are are relating to it.
SPEAKER_00And I love your soothing and calm voice.
SPEAKER_02Oh, thanks. Thank you, Emily. I feel that consistency consist consistently practicing with this group is gradually helping my overworked nervous system to learn that it's safe to settle little by little and simply be yes, yeah. You know, uh as someone and we've talked about this, Emily, before, but as someone who uh worked with chronic illness, you know, it's just the body continually feels uh the alarm system, something's wrong, and then there's so many layers of emotion and having to navigate life and grieve what we can't do. There's just there's just so much and for many years, I actually wrote about this in one of my um Substack articles because for many years I kind of knew I should meditate, and sometimes I would feel a little bit better when I meditated, but I also it was hard to move closer to all of that, hard to you know feel embodied when the body feels so full of distressing signals, and it's it's been a a journey of the last 17, 15 years, last ten years with Master Wan Show Park and Tai Chi to kind of piece together for me the practice that does send that signal to my nervous system most fully that yes, we use some some techniques you all know. I I use some techniques of like the feeling the space between things, um, and yet it doesn't rely on techniques, it has that sense of the it's just the way of nature, and you get to learn how to settle into it, and along the way discover the many, many subtle ways that we still have pockets of tension, we're still trying, we're still manipulating, trying to control something.
SPEAKER_00That's all part of all part of the discovery.
SPEAKER_02Fireplayer says, I'm sure it's intimidating, but you're doing a great job and tuning and and turning more people into the community on to these practices. Oh, thank you. Yeah, appreciate that. David, these are all so fresh and new to me. I'm all for learning like this. Yeah, yeah. Today I was a little more somber. I'm not sure why. But I think that that's you know, the like, oh just the joy of getting to explore and discover something like this, and it says, yes, simply be David. My alarm has been a bit too loud today, and needed to be calmed like this. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and I have experienced what it's like to live with an alarm bell going off in one system. Yes, I can relate to that journey, like you say. Thank you for sharing your lived experience. Yeah. I can help shorten some of the I think we all have to learn, we all have to find what it is that works for us. End of one. And my goodness, if I can help help people feel like there's more of a repertoire beyond some of the more mainstream mindfulness and some of the more esoteric um non-dual practices, that there's something that's yeah, not about trying, but also tangible and immediate and practical. Emma, I think this might be your first time here. Welcome, welcome, Emma Hurst. Thank you so much, and that yes, my mind tries to take control with this calming practice and connectedness. I can let go. Yeah. Oh, I see. I missed a butt. My mind tries to take control, but with this calming practice and connectedness, I can let go. I see Andrew, I think I saw uh Vagabond Nemo, and it is just special when we can practice here together, come back and back, Alex. Your voice immediately calms the mind. Aspire to have that soothing effect on others one day. Well, I'll just say uh well, you guys know me. I don't I don't take praise very well. So, first of all, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you and um and also I'll share that I'm glad to hear my voice is uh uh is uh soothing.
SPEAKER_02I used to have such a pet beef. Oh my goodness. Maybe this is part of my sensitivity to trying. This is partly why I became a student of uh Master Park, because whatever he does, he doesn't, you know, try and put on any airs. But um oh my goodness, those kinds of breathies. Welcome to I'm laughed.
SPEAKER_01Don't just be like hyper, you know, don't be too touchy feeling with me. Like that was kind of voices for just kind of send me the over the edge of this especially I see when see you back. This is especially like uh 17 years ago and this is um uh again more in like 2000, even 2003, 2005 a bit.
SPEAKER_02It was a gradual introduction for me, but I had a lot of resistance when I started and what certainly wasn't mainstream more like it is today.
SPEAKER_01Um yes, thank you. I'm glad I'm glad my voice both feels authentic to me and I can feel soothing rather than trying to be soothing, but uh in case I didn't see you before, and uh welcome to uh we have several new people here as well.
SPEAKER_02And if you haven't said hi in the chat and just know that you're welcome here, and uh we'll be uh joining back together. Uh Jordan, I think that you might have come back um before anyway. It's great to get to know y'all a bit and share this exploration time together, and I believe I'll be back on Wednesday. So till then, take care all.
SPEAKER_00Take care, bye. Yeah.