Question

Do you have some techniques to help me stay awake during the talks and guided meditations?

Answer

Sure. One of the things we often ask people is to develop more awareness of their body. If they feel that they are drifting off, to bring their awareness to their body, feel their body, and to actually put their hand down, so that the finger(s) is touching the ground, like this. Similar to the Buddha statue over there, in the "the Buddha touching the ground" posture. And to put a bit of pressure on this, so that there is a feeling of pressure to keep us awake while we are trying to listen to the talks or guided mediations. If we lose that awareness, then put some pressure on it again, so we can start to have a bit more body awareness that may wake us up again. I also suggest that you keep your eyes open when we are giving a talk. With the guided meditation, that may be more difficult, because you are trying to do some Reflections. But if you have worked with sloth and torpor with your own practice during Reflections, then perhaps you can keep your eyes open and keep reflecting, so this may help. If you don't like to keep your eyes open during a guided meditation, then after you feel you have reflected enough, open your eyes at that particular time so that you can have some grounding as well as having awareness of the body.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.