Michael Shea ~ Fearless Living: Discovering the Essence of Atiyoga

Michael Shea is a distinguished expert in the realms of biodynamic cranial sacral therapy and meditation. Based in Juno Beach, Shea is a noted educator who teaches both locally and globally. He has a deep foundation in various disciplines of meditation, particularly Vajrayana Buddhism, contributing to a multifaceted spiritual understanding. His academic and spiritual journey has spanned decades, culminated in certifications, publications, and a lifelong commitment to understanding and teaching the intricacies of spiritual and bodily wellness.

Visit Michael: https://sheaheart.com/

Key Takeaways:

• Atiyoga's Core Concepts: Embrace the spontaneous present and the clear, primordial nature of mind, beyond concepts, plurality, and singularity.
• Approach to Meditation: Recognize the importance of resting the mind to navigate daily life's complexities and develop a strong foundation through practices like Shamatha meditation.
• Understanding Fear: The episode discusses how fear, often reinforced by societal narratives, can be managed through non-dual awareness and compassionate training.
• Practical Application: Listeners are encouraged to practice gratitude and rest in non-judgmental awareness, which can support a more grounded, peaceful existence.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Michael Shea Discusses Yoga, Meditation, and Mango Farming
• 4:06 Exploring Non-Conceptual Awareness Through ATI Yoga and Meditation
• 11:43 Exploring ATI Yoga Within the Context of Tibetan Buddhism
• 17:12 The Journey to Liberation Through Meditation and Compassion
• 29:05 Transforming Negative Thoughts Through Gratitude and Compassion
• 31:23 Transforming Suffering Through Meditation and Visualization Practices
• 41:39 Confronting Fear Through Meditation and Self-Reflection
• 50:01 Facing Fear and Embracing Life's Impermanence
• 56:09 Embracing Discomfort and Ultimate Reality Through Mind and Body
• 59:20 Exploring Biodynamic Cranial Sacral Therapy and Michael Shea's Work

Transcript

Todd McLaughlin: 0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. I'm really happy to have Michael Shea here in studio for podcast number where are we now? Something like 230 maybe somewhere around there. And this is our eighth podcast together, Michael over the last five years, we started back in 2020, you're on episode number #6,#33, #44, #50, #98, #139, #167 and now up in the two somethings. Thank you so much for coming back. I love this opportunity. I really enjoy speaking with you. I really, really, I'm grateful to have this chance. And for those of you that have not listened to any previous episodes, Michael lives here locally in Juno Beach. He's a biodynamic craniosacral therapist. He's an educator that travels, teaches locally and globally. There's a lot more that I could add to your bio. Michael, is there anything you think that's pertinent? You have been spending many years practicing meditation in multiple disciplines of meditation, but predominantly within the world of Vajrayana, Buddhism, but I know you've covered a wide range. Today, we're here to speak about Atiyoga, so I'm really excited for this opportunity. But to ask you again, is there anything about your bio that you feel is that you want to add in there to help our listeners that have not met you yet?

Michael Shea: 2:29

I love growing mangoes, and I regret that I forgot to bring some over to you today. So, but next time. All right, so I grow mangoes, and they're the best in the world.

Todd McLaughlin: 2:39

Yeah, Michael does have amazing mangoes. When you bring mangoes to me, you have little felt tip marker pen writings on there. Like, the name of the variety, a certain number may be associated. And I'm always I love sampling all the different mango flavors. Like, it's incredible how each variety has such a different flavor. What got you not to go too far off task, but just for a quick question on mangoes, what, what was like? How, what, why, where, when did you like decide I'm going to be a mango farmer?

Michael Shea: 3:07

Well, well, thank you for asking that, because it's always fun to talk about it. My mom loved mangoes, and when we moved down here in the late 50s, the variety was Hayden. And I got introduced to Hayden because my mother loved mangoes, and so I thought, in honor of her, I would start growing mangoes, but, but in a larger sense, I wanted a deeper connection with the natural world, and that's what I felt was missing. Because I, you know, I write books. I, you know, do have a lot of classroom teaching. I do all that. I'm in my head a lot. I'm in my body a lot, but I need to be outside a lot, and I got to tell you, growing trees, because the trees are one of the ways in which we can cure the ills of the planet in our atmosphere, because of the way they work with oxygen and carbon dioxide. So I just planted a lot of mango trees. I got a lot of mangoes, and I got to tell you, I had no idea they were going to get this big, so it's a lot of work, and I enjoy being outside. It's about the world of nature.

Todd McLaughlin: 4:06

Yeah, very cool. Well, can you give us a definition of what what is ATI yoga?

Michael Shea: 4:14

Well, if we start right away with a definition, I don't want to throw people off. I brought the definition that I kind of like a lot that my teacher read. I'm just a student of ATI yoga for the last three or four years, perhaps longer. And this definition is from masters of meditation and miracles lives of the great Buddhist masters of India and Tibet. It's one long run on sentence here ATI, yoga emphasizes the realization and perfection of the spontaneous present, clear primordial wisdom, the ultimate nature of one's mind and of the universe. So. Free from any concepts partiality, dimensions and designations of plurality and singularity, whoa,

Todd McLaughlin: 5:15

plurality and singularity, right? When you said, you know, free of plurality. That made me think, Okay, this, this, then, is a non dual philosophy, correct? But then to say plurality and devoid of singularity. Can you explain that part? A little bit of what you think that means. You

Michael Shea: 5:37

know, in Buddhism, there's so many ways to parse out different descriptions of reality and becoming clear and infrequently, like in Zen, they would say that emptiness, you know, the empty of emptiness of all self existence, is actually an interconnectedness. You know that we are interconnected with all beings. That's plurality. And when you say we're interconnected with all beings, that's a concept. So we're trying to move away from conceptuality. But then if you say we're all one, or that I have this spontaneous presence, you know, it's located in within me as a singularity, that's a concept as well. So it's if we're talking about in the essence being non conceptuality, you know, how do we get there? And we hardly use words, because the words point to an experience, but are not the experience. So we can talk as we go along about what that experience might be, or how you could get to that experience. Interesting. Yeah,

Todd McLaughlin: 6:41

a mind completely free of conceptualization, or is this a concept that we would need a conceptualization to operate in the world, but then when we're in our practice or our sadhana or our meditation, that's when we then dip over into non conceptualized awareness. Can you can you paint a picture of what it could look like to be alive and in the world and not hold any concept in the mind? Is that possible? No,

Michael Shea: 7:15

it's not possible. And that's not the point either. The the point with non conceptuality is to be able to recognize that you're being conceptual, and that's why we meditate. In order to recognize that you're being conceptual, you've got to have an ongoing relationship with your mind. And at the very basic level, the definition of mind is your thought stream. We think about 86,000 thoughts a day, according to science, and unfortunately, science says that 66% of those thoughts are negative thoughts about the past, thoughts about the future, that lead to anxiety and depression. So it's those thoughts then that build concepts. So that's why we meditate, is to start breaking down the concepts, see that their original nature is a thought process, and to recognize that there is a way to interrupt the thought process, not to eradicate it, but to interrupt it in a way that there are gaps of open space and open awareness, and then learning how to allow our attention to be focused on that open attention,

Todd McLaughlin: 8:28

nice, amazing in relation to experience without dimensionality, I think of okay, We live in what's considered like a three dimensional world, and then when we start speaking about quantum physics and potentially Akashic records or that, that would maybe be outside of the dimensionality that we experience within this realm, can you Talk a little bit about your experience with understanding our role and how dimensionality plays into our existence. Well,

Michael Shea: 9:09

we need dimensionality. I mean, if we're driving and you got, you got a red light, excuse me, they better stop. You better stop. Yeah, so we do need that that level of conventionality, and the conventionality that's being discussed here, though, is, again, it's just a spaciousness that doesn't have a reference point. So one of my teachers said you can practice this while you're driving. You can have open spaciousness, and you can be relating to this dimensional world as it appears while you're driving, and at the same time, you can have accessibility to the openness. Which means that as I'm driving, I'm relaxing my mind. I'm watching whether or not I'm getting angry at the driver in front of me for blocking my view, for going too slow, all the stuff that that mentally goes on while we're driving, and I think that's a very, very important consideration that we can also just simply rest our mind. If we have a meditation practice and it's been ongoing for a while, we have that capacity, most of the time, not all the time, to recognize it. Used to be called mindfulness. I don't like that word. You know that we can recognize that we're way into entertainmentville with our thoughts and headed towards a lot of concepts, but that conventionality disappears real quickly. I think the main thing just, let's just say this at a practical level, because it's getting very philosophical. And in that is, for instance, when I you because you're at the beach a lot. I'm at the beach a lot. In the teaching in Dzogchen and nata yoga is that when you're at the beach or outside, quit labeling what you're looking at, quit labeling what you're hearing, and simply rest in the color, the appearance. It's the color that represents a sense of wisdom based on the elements, and so that's really the essence there is to stop labeling what you're seeing, stop labeling what you're hearing initially, especially when you're outside, you got to give it up, or you're you're not going to be able to just enter into this open spaciousness, this awareness. Yeah,

Todd McLaughlin: 11:43

that's good. And so I like that practicality is ATI yoga, a branch or sect or philosophical stream that is connected to Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism.

Michael Shea: 12:00

It's considered to be the ninth Yana. So of the of the nine yanas broken down into three categories, the henayana, and then the Mahayana, and then the Vajrayana. And the Vajrayana having, I don't know the exact number three or four levels, but this being the ninth level, it's very important in Buddhism that you don't say this is the best and the highest and the greatest, although once you kind of get it, it's like, oh my god, this is pretty hot stuff. And you don't want to also put down Hinayana, you know, the people that are entering into the path of discovering their mind, of discovering an ethical way of being in the world, of discovering a way of knowing what real morality is, and having clarity about ethics and morality. So it's a very staged learning process. I was formally initiated as a refuge vow and then bodhisattva vow 1980 and 1981 and that's also when I began practicing shamatha meditation. And that's the starting point, you know, I started with Hinayana. You got to get your butt on the cushion and start looking at your mind.

Todd McLaughlin: 13:17

Is the for a listener that maybe is unfamiliar with this terminology, is I believe if I correct me, if I'm wrong, one of the translations of Hinayana can be like the lesser wheel and the Mahayana, the Mahayana the greater wheels, when you say we need to be sensitive to even using the term Hinayana. Is that, because that would be referencing like that person is beneath the Mahayana? Is that what you were referencing?

Michael Shea: 13:50

Yeah, it's that we would you can't use reference points like that person is behind me, or, or less than and all that, because you missed the point. Yeah, it misses the point. Yeah, great point.

Todd McLaughlin: 14:03

Fascinating. So now I'm just trying to put together. You said the first three yanas, Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, and then within Vajrayana sets three. You said there's how many yanas within Vajrayana, there's like, different schools is that we're referencing that there's the, yeah, the different schools, and that the ATI yoga is one of the schools. But would that be clumped into the Vajrayana

Michael Shea: 14:30

generally? Again, because it's such a big topic, you know, some authors are going to say that, that the xoch and the ATA Yoga is the ninth Yana in the Vajrayana system. Then there are others that say it's a separate Yana unto itself, called Buddha Yana. These distinctions are just academic and don't work well. They don't work at a practical level.

Todd McLaughlin: 14:56

Understood what is one of the characteristics. Of ATI yoga in relation to Obama sees, excuse me. Thank you. In relation to I feel like you've mentioned to me before that if we, if we think about maybe something that folks are familiar with is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, where there was a mapping of the eight limbs, and you have Yama, Niyama. It's like an ethical discipline as a foundation, Hinayana, Hinayana, that would that's what we're saying. Would be like the correspondent. And then we were moving to the third limb, Asana, Ford. Fourth limb, pranayama, or breath control. Fifth limb, Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses, the getting of Mahayana, interesting. So then sixth limb, Dhyana concentration. I'm sorry. Let me back. I messed up, Dharana concentration. Seventh limb, Diana meditation. And then eighth limb, samadhi, and sometimes, like in Samadhi, meaning liberation or freedom, or, you know, enlightenment, right, whatever term we want to use. And often, you know, there's, there's a debate about, is it a ladder that you start the first rung and you climb up to? Is it a vertical path, or is it a horizontal path, where all eight limbs are being experienced together at the same time and developing each as you develop, one the other develops. And there's this like growth process that happens all the at the same time. Where does ATI yoga kind of fall into this concept, these concepts in relation, if you were to pair it up, side by side with say that again, with it. Sorry. That was probably too much, too much in one question. Okay, so, so maybe in ATI yoga, I thought I heard you say once before that it's almost like you start at Samadhi, that you you come in. You had given me a book one time where there was this idea that you already are liberated. It's the if I think I'm going to work toward liberation, what's going to be the moment where I then realize I have reached liberation, whereas maybe in some of these other philosophies, you we could potentially realize in this moment, oh, I actually am liberated already. And it just was me requiring to see that I am. Did I met getting this right with ATI yoga, that you kind of start from the end point and from other traditions?

Michael Shea: 17:33

Well, I think that, I think that's a really slick marketing tool to get people on a spiritual path. Is like, Hey, you can start at the end of the path, right here. Why? Why go through all that trouble? Yeah, why go through all that trouble? You don't need to meditate. I mean, I love that, that expression that I hear. All right, no meditation.

Todd McLaughlin: 17:53

Thank you for calling me in I was wondering. Just slick marketing, all right. And we do see that. We do that. We do see that a lot, all over the place. It's important to, it's important to, I think, in my opinion, when I start to search for knowledge, to understand that potentially, the people offering the knowledge are looking to attract me in some way, right? Yeah.

Michael Shea: 18:19

Well, you know, Todd, the spiritual path, you kind of get towards the end of the spiritual path. I'm 77 I'm telling people now I'm headed towards 80 and and I'm beginning to realize and get what I've been told from the beginning. Rest, rest rest your mind. It's working too hard, you know, take care of your body. Do your yoga practice. Stay clear of concepts that lead to emotional upset and in all sorts of challenges. And this is what we're seeing in the modern world, because ATI yoga is basically saying you have to transform everything you're experiencing in this moment into its essence of non conceptuality. You have to let it be without any concept, without any judgment, and that's a tough one for the world we live in. I actually heard my Lama say, let Trump be. And I went, Wow, because I knew that it was hard for him, you know, with what's going on in our political structure, but it just means that we can't allow our mind to get worked up and create this duality of good versus evil. This is bad. He's not good. It's a construct within our mind that doesn't relieve us from taking care of our community, taking care of the things that we need to take care of if we are involved in a political structure, that doesn't mean we have to go be zombies and sit in a temple or whatever. It means we have to take care of our mind, and we have to stop our mind from this, this judging, this good, this evil thing in the mid but we've got to recognize it. And if you can recognize it, then with a lot of meditation practice under your belt, you know how to shift. You know how to shift your attention into simple awareness, into the into the bliss of the present moment. That's always there. Yes, I don't I've never liked that term bliss, but my teacher said based on a padampa Sangha saying this back in the eighth or ninth century, that you know, death is a treasury of bliss. Politics is a treasury of bliss. Illness is a treasury of bliss. People are a treasury of bliss. If we stop the conceptuality, we can see and relax enough that we can enjoy this thing as if it were magic, which is a common metaphor in Buddhism,

Todd McLaughlin: 21:02

amazing and a key tenant of Tantra,

Michael Shea: 21:07

liberation, yeah, liberation. And because there's different levels of Tantra, then it's the different methods that different teachers have in terms of how they prepare you the guru? The teacher is just supposed to point out your mind to you in the ultimate nature of your mind. And that's a very personal relationship, because, as the Dalai Lama said, there's 1000 different spiritual aptitudes. Your aptitude for liberation is going to be different than mine. So you might have to go through the eight limbs of yoga, specialize in two or three of them, whereas I might have be able to plug in at number six or number one. So it's depends on the aptitude, and we need help with that. We need help with looking at how do we develop ourselves in order to have this free, easy and clear state of mind and and to be able to recognize it, it requires development, and it requires a meditation practice in the Buddhist world.

Todd McLaughlin: 22:08

Yeah, amazing. Well, what sort of in the Atti school? What type of structure have you come across in relation to the Sun folding process? Like, as you mentioned, there's 1000 different aptitudes, aptitude spiritual aptitudes, more or less, right? Yeah. So with your spiritual aptitude, what have you noticed has been a couple of key stepping stones to appreciating this particular approach. Well,

Michael Shea: 22:49

the aptitudes are generally broken down in Buddhism to slow learners, medium fast learners and really fast learners. So in other words, a fast learner could go right to ATI yoga and get it. I didn't get it till a couple of years ago, what the view was. And then I've been practicing yoga and meditation since 1975 1975 so it took me, and I'm a slow learner. I get that about myself so and I've always wanted things to go faster. And if I want things to go faster, it's a disaster. It ends up in a disaster or a great deal of discomfort. So the slowing process in the Buddhist world is you've got to do some meditation, and shamatha is the base practice. You got to know your mind. I did 30 years of shamatha before I even engaged in these upper levels of tantra in Inti yoga practice, because your mind has to be able to experience calmness and an evenness, and you have to be able to access that and Have techniques available to you to do that. Nice.

Todd McLaughlin: 24:04

I hear ya well, I'm sure, I mean, I think, right, when I hear that 75 to 2550 years of experience, and then, if I'm a new meditator, listening to this conversation, maybe my first thought would be, what 30 years of shamatha as the preparatory work for an additional 20 years of then further development. Whoa, but I like the fact that you'd brought up that what you came across at the very beginning now, 50 years later, is now, oh, I think I get it now, slowing down, yeah, being able to take that sort of slower approach, or, you know that that that's fascinating. So I guess what that alludes towards, what I'm pointing toward, is that you. Even if we are starting brand new right now, that we be able to reach the same sort of kind of realization,

Michael Shea: 25:08

yeah, sort of kind of, and actually probably much more rapidly, or more quickly, than I did, you know, entering the path. The important thing is, it's not just about meditation, because there's a lot of mind training in Buddhism. And so at the beginning stages in henayana and Mahayana, you're you're working on different contemplations. And in particular, you know, the primary contemplation in Buddhism is compassion, compassion for self and others. And the basis of all this is you. You have to be able to recognize your own suffering. Your spiritual aptitude is based on your ability to recognize how you suffer and the nature of the hallucinations that we in, in all the the mundane things that we throw ourselves at with our our concepts and the way we avoid reality. So these contemplations are very important. And the contemplation on compassion, bodhichitta, ultimate compassion, is very, very important. And the contemplation on suffering and the contemplation on death, in the last podcast, we talked about the four reminders, and always, and even in the new contemplations that I'm learning in ATI yoga, it's about the nature of the recognition of change process. You have to recognize how quickly and how rapidly every day we are changing. How many times during the day. Do we get irritated? You know, maybe count four or five times at the end of the Wow. Four or five times I got irritated today. Three or four times I felt relatively relaxed and I could just settle. This is an indication that we are constantly changing and that everything is impermanent. Our moods are impermanent. Everything. So these are important contemplations that take the place of our ordinary mind that is worrying about the past or worrying about the future and can stay in the present. So I just plug in Wow, that person is really suffering when I look at what's happening in the political structure of the world right now, and I do pay attention to it, I have finally realized the enormity of the suffering that is inherent in the human condition, and that this is no different than any other Epic that we've had in the history of the human race. No different. There's always been wars. There's always been this level of suffering, this, this, this, this injurious attitude of getting rid of other people and getting getting foreigners away from us, all of that. And at the same time, we have to be able to have our mind not judge that it's tough.

Todd McLaughlin: 27:59

Yeah, it's tough. Yes, great point. Super

Michael Shea: 28:04

tough. Super tough. So easy to talk about Trump being

Todd McLaughlin: 28:08

so easy to talk about, so difficult to put into realize, yeah, I mean, but maybe by me saying so difficult, but maybe not so difficult if I make up my mind, and you said 66 or so percent of the thoughts all day are negative, so then it's up to me To now steer my mind toward finding like just not letting it go that direction. So that sounds super tough, but if I just pick a practice, like gratitude practice, and so that the first thing when my eyes will open or alarm goes off, or whatever, awareness I'm awake, and if I can get my mind to go, what's your first thing you're grateful for? And start off in that zone at least, I think like if the 66 or how many, what was the percentage that

Michael Shea: 29:12

you said 66% of our thoughts are negative every day.

Todd McLaughlin: 29:17

I think like being aware of what my first thought is when I first wake up, kind of sets the tone for if it's going to be 66% positive or 66% negative, right? I'm noticing, like, if I can get that first thought, I'm grateful that I have eyeballs and my eyes are open. Like, I don't know what, anything basic like, because, like, right, when I wake up, the last thing I feel really clear about is what I'm grateful for. Because I'm a little groggy, right, like the alarm went off, I'm getting up early, and here we go. So I've been trying to just like Todd, just pick anything, like eyeballs, ears, knees, feet, bed, grateful have a clock. I don't know. Whatever it is, a wall, a roof over, a head. First thing I don't know, I think, I think though, then once we set our mind on one thing, grateful, then we keep going with that. I don't think it's impossible to turn that number around to at least 66% positive, which at least tips the scale over that direction, the first thing I think of when I wake up is like, Ah, poor Ukraine. I can't believe the amount of people that are being blasted right now. You know that that's probably maybe, well, I mean, that would be an element of empathy or compassion, but I also know that could send me down a fairly like, Oh man, I'm super depressed now that that that like, what's the even point of getting up all these people are suffering? You know what I mean? So I, I do believe it's possible. I don't think, I don't think it's that hard. I just think it requires making up my mind that I want to actually tip toward positive,

Michael Shea: 30:54

yes, and the tipping towards positive in the Buddhist perspective, is that I want to be compassionate for the people that are suffering. I don't want to dwell on this, you know, the war and the bombs and the drones, and I want to be able to visualize at the level of the Mahayana. I want to visualize the pain and suffering of these images that we see on television or wherever. I want to be able to visualize that. I want to be able to bring it into my heart. I want to be able to transform in my heart that suffering into a bright light, into a clear light, you know, the essence of who we are in our sacred divinity. It's just a bright light and and then radiate that back out to those people as a compassion practice. That's that's Mahayana practice. So amazing. In the the tantric practice I do. The first thing I do in the morning, it's good to hear you've got a gratitude practice, but the first thing I do is, I like to do my Guru Yoga practice. And it's gratitude for my teacher, that I had, a teacher that was that was willing to save my life, that was willing to point out the nature of my mind, and it's, yeah, I get shivers now thinking about that. So it's a Guru, Guru Yoga practice, which is, you know, typical in in the Vajrayana or tantric tradition, because it involves visualization practice. And one of the reasons you do meditation practice is that you can do these compassion practices, and they lead to a visualization practice. So if you know how to meditate, you can do visualization practice and sustain it longer if you have a meditation practice, because you can recognize when the visualization is being interfered with. So there's multiple reasons why you want to meditate, because in the Vajrayana, it's about visualization and then recognizing very clearly when you're off the beaten track, when you're into that conceptual mind or that negative mind space. You can't get rid of it. This is who we are, but you can recognize it. Yeah, yeah,

Todd McLaughlin: 33:48

I hear you. Michael, oh, man. Well, I think it's important that we keep things relatively simple in relation to our conversation about it. Because, like, I'm glad, like, right in the beginning, you're like, Well, this is getting a little philosophical, a little too little too hot and heavy, too quick. And I think that it's super important to keep it you know, where we're like, okay, I can grasp this. I can understand this. This makes sense. I can I can apply this in my personal practice. Is there other components of this view that you have found very helpful. The

Michael Shea: 34:35

excuse me in the ATI yoga tradition, there you end up learning two practices. There are preliminary practices, you know. And the preliminary practices in any of the Buddhist Tantra is going to be about purification, cleansing, purification, preparation for the state of mind that you want to evoke. And these are involved with beautiful visualization practices, but when you get to the last two, one is called trek show. Trek show cutting through severance, and it's deceptively simple, and I don't mind just giving this right now. I mean, I'm not telling a secret. Yeah, as a matter of fact, they saw they call the Vajrayana, the secret Yana, and you're not supposed to give any of these secrets away. But there was a big meaning several years ago of all these hi hat Lamas in in Bhutan, and they said, we are such a sick planet, you got to give everything away. Get. People involved in this, no more secrets in a relative sense of the word. You have to recognize if somebody that you're about to give an instruction to might not be able to handle it, and we have to have trauma informed. You know, mindfulness around this, but the trek show practice the cutting through. It's a meditation. You're just taking your eyes, and you're lifting your eyes above the horizon, and you're looking at space without labeling it, which I said a couple of minutes ago. And you're hopefully doing this practice outside. You can do it inside as well, but you're looking above the horizon, and it's called the view of a corpse. You just imagine that you're a corpse. Your eyes have kind of rolled up a little bit, and you're just looking at the sky in a thoughtless kind of way. It's called the view of a corpse. And in this way, you get into a deeper sense of the elements, the five elements in the Indo Tibetan system, the five elements are space, wind, fire, water, earth, but these five elements are basically encapsulations of the clear light of enlightenment, of the enlightened mind. So the element themselves is a color. If you're looking at the sky, you're seeing blue, but you don't label it. You just be and you watch and make sure you're not labeling. So you just really be with that color, the cloud formations. It's just and just to be able to sit there and not label and just enjoy the appearance of color and and then you got to deal with the ocean, but you don't label it. Ocean roaring. It's just a sacred sound that you're hearing, and you don't have to label it. So it's about the labeling, and it's about coming into a deeper relationship with the five elements as they are, because they're encapsulations of light, and at a deeper level, they all have their own manifestation of universal life energy that called the mandala principle, that each of the elements being an aspect of enlightenment itself. And the way you get into that is the non thought aspect of labeling your that what's appearing, and then appreciating the color, and then allowing the color to transform. And that leads to the second teaching, which is called Tokyo. Tokyo is called Night yoga, and it's called Night yoga in in the Kalachakra tradition. So I had the empowerment of night yoga in the kalashakra tradition. Haven't had the empowerment of Tokyo, but it's similar. And it's also called Yankee yoga. Y, A, N, G, T, I yank to yoga. And these are also called Dark retreats, where you go on a retreat, and you're in pitch dark for three days, one day up to 40 days, and you're given practices, visualization, practices to visualize the elements becoming colors, the colors then becoming mist like and then the colors manifesting as the feminine deities, dakinis, tauras, you know that all that kind of stuff in those traditions, and then a direct empowerment from that deity that you're manifesting from your own heart in this dark retreat is then giving you an empowerment and teaching you, Wow,

Todd McLaughlin: 39:23

amazing. Let me try to see if I understood. You're sitting in meditation, and you connect to a specific deity. You invite the deity to come into your body, and you then let the light of the Deity shine out from from within you. Correct,

Michael Shea: 39:51

correct. All of this radiates from the heart. Yeah, the heart essence, Buddha nature, Christ consciousness. All of that is an emanation from our heart, the deepest part of our heart, and different teachers and different systems, whether chakras and so forth, will have different different colors. These colors are all spontaneous, and the colors are representing wisdom aspects. So it's not just about visualizing a color and then a deity, but there's a wisdom aspect that is trying to wake up within you that can manifest within you just a sense of wisdom, let's say just clarity, clarity about reality, clarity about how to recognize my own obscurations and emotional ups and downs. And I have a blackout eye mask. So I do this at night. So if I wake up to Pia, come back. To bed. I can't get to sleep, and I've got the eye mask on anyway, and it's a blackout eye mask. I then just start into the visualization. I roll my eyes up to the middle of my forehead. I see what color spontaneously comes first. And then I go through the process of visualizing my room filling up with that color the bedroom, and then that color then manifesting as a deity that might come through the bedroom door or might come through one of the walls. And there has to be a lot of preparation about around fear, because if you're laying there in bed, and you actually are able to visualize and the visualization comes alive, and a deity does enter your room. This is a practice of non fright. This is not supposed to scare the bejeebers out, if you so. There are practices, preliminary practices that I do, that I've had to work with around fear, so that if I recognize that there's fear, I stop whatever visualization I'm doing, and I go right into the fear, because that's enlightened energy as well. Yeah,

Todd McLaughlin: 41:50

is there? I think I know the answer to this, but I want to ask the question, is there any reason to fear? Like, could anything happen that could cause any kind of ill effect, or is it just the fear itself that is what is dangerous, if there even is any danger, practicing meditation, do you know what I mean? Like I build this up in my mind, the deity is real. I maybe have a moment of going, Oh no, maybe the deity realizes that I stole that mango off of Michael's tree. I'm just joking around a little bit, but just picking something like, you know, like that would that I did, that I feel bad about. And there's that fear, which would obviously be a really great learning lesson moment to kind of say, If I don't, if that's the first thing I think of that I took that mango without asking, and now I'm feeling guilty, because I get this sense that the deity saw everything I did all day long, and is now calling, calling my attention to it. Then, then that fear that I have, that I stole from you would just be me reconciling that I shouldn't do that in the future, because I can see how it's actually making me feel. Do you want to me? Because, like, there's certain things that we do each day that we just think I'm just going to do this, even though I don't really think it's a good idea to do it, but no one knows. No one's going to see, no one's going to know. I'm just going to do it anyway, and then our conscience kind of comes into play. So I guess my question is, is there really anything to fear?

Michael Shea: 43:30

No. Now, having studied Buddhism quite some time, and you know, my teacher wanted me to be a scholar, so I got a huge Buddhist library, so the literature says, yeah, there's reasons to be afraid. You know, there's these wrathful deities and other aspects, but I haven't experienced that yet. I think the world of fear is what's being projected in our social media dynamic, on the headlines of international news. So the fear is already out there. It's a mental construct. Fear is a mental construct. Yes, the other thing that that has to be said, you know, tree Levin's work, he's a psychotherapist and written a couple of books on mindfulness trauma informed mindfulness is that 20% of people that sit down and meditate have a negative reaction, their heart starts getting into tachycardia, or they start getting claustrophobic. So there has to be, and that's an anxiety or a fear response that's unconscious. So there has to be, you know, kind of this ability to where can you enter the path, and enter the path of non fright, and when fright comes up, do you have a practice to modify that? Because if that thought comes up, you know, like I did something wrong today, as they say in Zen, you're the only one watching you. There ain't nobody watching you but you. So it's up to you to figure this up.

Todd McLaughlin: 45:06

Yeah, well, that's so there's so much to think about here that's so amazing. I mean, I guess in relation to what I was saying that, Oh no, the deity saw me, and now he's calling She's calling me out on it, and then they referencing that. That's just my own mental it's just you, me,

Michael Shea: 45:31

that's your deity, that's your deity, that's my deity, that that is so it's your deity that's talking to you, but it's you that's talking to my

Todd McLaughlin: 45:39

own conscience. Yes, we could call it. Conscience. I mean, people wig out about this idea of a deity, maybe because they've been kind of fallen into that belief trap since childhood, training through religious education, about there's this one way to go, and anything else that grows this other way is like, you know, really dangerous. But even that's kind of a similar type of fear that we're talking about that like, Oh no. What if I get wrapped up in this other sort of philosophical, slash, meditational world that's gonna harm me in some way? I don't think there's any potential for that, personally, from my own experience. It's just I find it so fascinating every time I witness my own fear, and I can do what you're saying or try to do what you're saying, of recognizing I have fear this is coming from within me. I can rectify this. I can nullify this by just relax. Everything's okay. It's so amazing. I hear you. Michael, well, I mean, you're right. There is a ton of fear, I guess. I have a question for you in relation to fear coming at us through the social media dynamic, like you said, slash news, slash then, then it comes at you through the words that people that we speak with each day. If you meditate, if I'm if you and I go meditate on an island somewhere be devoid of any external information coming from anywhere but you or I. Is Is there going to be fear? I mean, I just wonder. I often ask myself or wonder myself, how much of my fear is coming from within me versus coming from outside of me. I because I do feel fear when I'm not influenced by external fear factors. Yeah, and sorry for that pun or reference anyway. Maybe no one got okay and but I, I um, I guess I just, I'm always wanting to look at fear and where is this stemming from? I guess, if okay, if I eliminate external sources. I'm in the ocean and I'm floating on a board, and I think shark fear comes up. Uh oh. Now I recently heard from someone saying that the moment that you think and feel fear is attracting the shark to you, or if there is shark swimming around, shark can feel fear, but if I could tune love, I have a greater chance of deflecting the what I'm fearing. Do you any truth to that?

Michael Shea: 48:19

Well, I think absolutely there's truth through it. I mean, I talk about the what's called necessary fear and unnecessary fear, but you really we can't exclude in a spiritual conversation the neurobiology of the amygdala and the brain stem and the so called fear centers of the brain. We have an orientation around and a sensitivity towards that which is not safe. We have an orientation around protecting ourselves, because we have a instinct for self preservation. And anybody that swims in the ocean that doesn't say, I wonder if there's a shark out there is kind of foolish, because everybody thinks that everybody that goes in the water in the ocean goes shark. So, yeah. So the the idea is, again, it's a thought, and it's a physiological process. How do you manage it and how? Because it'll change. Everything changes. So however, it is that fear is manifesting. It will change. Really, really important. I mean, I when I go through a cycle of fear, for example, I got a call by my medical doctor yesterday because I was having some bowel issues, or actually liver issues, did a stool sample, and within three hours of getting the stool sample, he calls me. I need to talk to you about your stool sample. Oh, yeah, and cancer, cancer, and all night long, and like, and I'm having to work with afraid of getting bad news of cancer, but it allowed me, and it's not that it was something, it's relevant, but not, you know, catastrophic, but it helped me realize, because I work with a lot of cancer patients, oh my god, they're they're waiting for the bad news. They've taken a test. Am I going to get cancer? And sometimes they have to wait seven or eight days in this state of fear, and I had to do it overnight, and I'm like, Oh my God. And the relief I had this morning when I talked to the doctor and he was cool, no, doesn't sound like it's a problem. Blah, blah, blah, and I'm like, okay, but, but it allowed me to see that I suffer. I suffered myself, and how other people suffer with this fear that's thought based. Mm.

Todd McLaughlin: 50:42

Yeah, that's amazing. Michael, I mean, isn't it fascinating, the way our culture in the West typically tries to hide death from us as much as possible, whereas I was reading about a Tantric Yoga in India going to he would go to the shmashan, which is where they do the funeral pyre and the bodies. And that's where he'd do his practice in the late night and bodies are burning, and he would go to meditate with the burning bodies and really connect in with this is where I'm headed. So if I can understand where, what my future, what my true, we know our future is, that's where we're going, that then I can really, truly live life. And it seems like in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, there was either this idea of going to the cemetery and meditating in the cemetery on a dark night to really, I mean, to really do some of these fear practices to try to overcome the fear like you might get really good at laying in bed at night and going, I sense fear. I have nothing to fear around me. I'm in a safe environment, therefore, I'm okay. But if you and I tonight decide to go float out into the ocean a couple couple feet offshore, and the moon isn't full, and for another couple days, I bet you, you and I are going to have a moment of like, okay, let's fear. And it's interesting when you have a partner to deal with fear with, isn't that a fascinating component too, when you're around others, and how much fear we pick up off of them, and how much of a role we plan helping to nullify their fear. Like, that's a really interesting thing to look at, too, with our spouses and our family members and children and or the our co workers. And like, the moment we sense, I wasn't feeling any fear until you started talking about, you know, I was, I was, your deities were all good, and now I'm nervous that, like, the deity is gonna, like, right, take me out while I'm asleep, you know? So, you know, isn't that? I mean, there's so much work to do just within our environment right in front of us, right? Like, isn't it amazing? Like, or sometimes falling into that trap of thinking, oh, what? Now, I got to go to India and I got to meditate at the funeral pyre, and that's the only place I'm going to actually be able to work through my fear. There's so much opportunity for personal and spiritual growth, like, right here in this moment, right like, would you? Would you agree it's all right in front of us? Yeah, it's

Michael Shea: 53:09

all right in front of us. And that's, that is the essence of ATI, that it's, you know, spontaneously present clarity is right here. But I want to reflect on on what you just said, because the primary fear that we have is fear of death, and it's very relevant. And that's why the the first contemplations in Buddhism, well, especially in the Vajrayana and in nata yoga, is you really got to look at the at fear of death. And what you talked about is charnel ground practice. They say you have to go to 108 places, 108 charnel grounds, or 108 places that scare you. Well, honey, just turn on social media. I mean, you could find some really, really 108 scary things, scary things right away. You know, when you hear, yeah, it's a great point. You can hear it, because I it's like, oh my god, that number of people got killed with, oh my God. You know how scary that is. And then it's like, oh my God, I hope that never happens here. Blah, blah, blah. So the fear of death is really primary, and that's why it's important to do volunteer work at like hospice, volunteer work with death and dying, which you've done, yes, and to do work in palliative care. I've got a interesting dear, dear friend, several dear friends, that are dying of cancer. And then another dear friend wanted to talk to me, and I had no idea she was in late stage and in hospice. So I called her last week, and it's and even though I do this, it's still before I pick up the phone, my own fear, oh, my God. What am I going to say? What does this feel like? You know, where? What is my fear like? And I'm afraid of talking to someone that's dying. And I went, Michael, you're afraid of talking to someone that's dying. Get a grip. Talk to her. Be natural, whatever. So we had a wonderful conversation. She has a sense of humor. So we actually did some laughing.

Todd McLaughlin: 55:16

Yeah. Amazing, amazing. Oh my gosh, Michael, how does time go by so fast? I try to keep my episodes not too far over an hour, and we're coming in at 53 minutes and 47 seconds. You have a couple of notes, yeah, and couple of notes. So within the next six minutes, can you can. You filter through your notes and touch upon, I feel like we've done a great job of explaining ATI yoga to some degree or another, and we definitely touched upon fear, which is a huge subject right now and extremely important. What else do I need to know?

Michael Shea: 56:01

I think the important thing in ATI yoga and Samadhi, the eighth component here is, is very much what's called the view that we need to contemplate as frequently as we can, the nature of the view the of ultimate reality. And one of the things I brought was this short reading on wellsprings of the great perfection. It's the chapter on the father Tantra view of vastness called the Great or the grand Vista. All things have no identity. Are insubstantial. So cultivate the notion of intangibility. All things have nothing tangible to grasp at. So cultivate the notion of their non duality. All things have no observable identity. So cultivate the notion of their pure and lucid emptiness. All things have no identity to cultivate. So cultivate the notion that transcends all reference points. All things have no identity of fixed positions. So cultivate the notion that transcends all notions. And finally, all things have no identity within the known. So cultivate the notion that transcends all effort and the ultimate view here is just relax with things as they are and quit labeling them good or bad. Just quit the labeling and have an ability to rest in this present moment, so that when you're having an upset with your partner at home or your business, that you can actually not avoid it, but realize that it has the potential for bliss. It has the potential for this energy. Let me stay with it here in my discomfort, you have to be willing, with this view, to stay with your discomfort and notice if you're trying to avoid it.

Todd McLaughlin: 58:05

Amazing. Hi, I did need to know that. Thank you.

Michael Shea: 58:13

Well, you know we, you know you and I hear this all the time. This the community we live in. It's all in the present moment. It's all it is all in the present moment. And it's vast and it's deep, and it's a function of your mind. And the pathway to this ultimate view is through the mind from the Buddhist perspective, but there is also a pathway through your body, through yoga practice, through what's called karma, mudra and so forth. So we have to balance our body and our mind to stabilize and to relax and to just recognize, recognize, rest, relax. You know, in this moment not easy. I make it. I don't want to say that this is easy, but this is something to contemplate on. Can you stay in your moment of discomfort with your life circumstance on a day to day basis, knowing that it's going to change, and just stay with it, investigate it.

Todd McLaughlin: 59:11

Oh my gosh, Michael, thank you so much. If somebody wants to study with you in person, when's your next course? I know you teach courses in different subjects, predominantly within the biodynamic, craniosacral world. But when is your next course? Are you traveling to Europe? Or, yeah, it's in Europe. It's in Europe, yeah, which country?

Michael Shea: 59:33

I've got three courses in Germany and then one course in Vienna. Wow. Yeah.

Todd McLaughlin: 59:36

So we could travel to Europe to see you in person, or if you want to come visit here in Juneau beach. I'll set up a meeting time, and we can, we could travel over and hang out with you, Michael, maybe, if someone goes as far as to actually wants to meet you and physicality person. But can we just close our eyes and meditate tonight and visualize you hanging out with us? And it'd be just as good. Maybe. Well,

Michael Shea: 1:00:00

you know, if you, if you visualize me walking in your bedroom late at night. You know, you might get scared. That's

Todd McLaughlin: 1:00:05

a deity that's like the Who let him in. Super scary by right. Here he comes. Oh my gosh, yeah. Well, um, you know, I think he gave us a ton to put into thought and practice here. Michael, thank you so much. Our eighth podcast together. How fun? Yeah, no, I know we'll have eight more to go, you know, over the next course of how many years so. But is there? I feel like you already closed really well. But, yeah. Have any final statement for for our

Michael Shea: 1:00:44

session today? Well, just to shameless marketing, I've got a brand new website. Oh, cool. It just, you know, launched last week Shay heart or shayhart.com Cool.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:00:55

You got a remodel, a whole remake over Yeah, yeah. Okay, awesome. We'll have that in the link so people can click Yeah, in the description. Shayhart.com and you have social media channels, YouTube and Instagram, your mango man on

Michael Shea: 1:01:10

mango bill and mango villain. Yeah. You know, everybody says, I have to get more professional. So we're gonna, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna retune that. We're gonna revise. We're all

Todd McLaughlin: 1:01:21

trying to get more professional, and I have a new book coming out. Well, tell me about that.

Michael Shea: 1:01:25

Yeah, the biodynamic heart, somatic compassion practices for clear and vital heart.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:01:30

Oh my gosh, you worked on that for a while. So this actually coming to full like publication,

Michael Shea: 1:01:34

full blown August 12, as it's being released, there's a place you can pre eight places you can pre order it on my website. Congrats. And I've about to sign a contract for a brand new book on biodynamic embryology. Wow, right,

Todd McLaughlin: 1:01:49

wow. So yeah, whether you want to learn about human anatomy, how to do palpation skill, your courses are incredible. I've gotten a chance to take several of your biodynamic craniosacral therapy courses, which are all so fascinating, but we can read, we can catch up with you in all these different avenues. So thank you, Michael, so much for You're welcome taking time out of your day again, and I really appreciate it.

Michael Shea: 1:02:19

Thank you, Todd, always a pleasure. Thank you. You

Todd McLaughlin: 1:02:26

the native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com, and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time Bucha for your name.