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Dharma Samadhi (3 of 5) Tranquility

So there are, in my mind, two themes for this week. The explicit one, the main one, is what's called the five Dharma Samadhis^[1]. These are five qualities of Dharma Samadhi^[2]. The word Samadhi here relates to the fact that this is not just an individual quality of heart and mind that arises, but really something that arises and moves through us. It is something that we open to, and it kind of fills us or becomes a little more the state of who we are. Samadhi is a state of being, more than it is a particular laser focus of the mind. So these five qualities can become more like the states that we abide in. These five states are what I'm calling gladness, joy, tranquility, happiness, and concentration.

These begin to have a life of their own. They emerge and have their own momentum through us, to fill us and be here as meditation deepens. So the first theme is these five qualities. The second theme is the way in which these are a natural function, a natural quality. We have this natural flow, an unfolding and evolving that can happen, that is sometimes associated with the Dharma^[3]. It's the Dharma that's moving through us. So much so, that I like to say that not only do we practice meditation and the Dharma, but we're also being practiced by it.

At some point, something kicks in; something is alive within us that begins unfolding, opening, and maturing us. This is not exactly our doing, but something we enable, which we make room for. It's phenomenally inspiring and faith-producing to feel this Dharma flow, this Dharma stream or current, beginning to awaken inside of us. Not to make it too abstract—I don't mean something supernatural—but some of this I really associate with getting out of our own way.

When there's a lot of stress, a lot of tension, resistance, and agitation, we actually interfere with this natural flow. Our hormones, our stress hormones, our muscles, our physiology, and our psychology work a lot better when relaxed and at ease. Agitation, resistance, and freezing up all gunk up the system. Part of what meditation does is begin to let go and relax the agitation, the holding, the resistance, and the bracing of ourselves. It allows us to come into a kind of natural wholeness, a natural fullness, where our system can operate in a healthy way. This feels phenomenal, especially because many of us spend a lot of time not there. We're preoccupied, caught up, afraid, anxious, greedy, planning, and lost in fantasy, feeling it is never enough and wanting more.

Meditation allows us to let go of all these desires, fears, agitations, and stresses that often preoccupy the mind and have a negative influence on our body. It allows us to experience what feels much more like a natural state of being, which feels so good in itself and can bring a sense of gladness and joy.

To give you a slightly reductionist idea of this—because it's such a simple thing, not a complicated thing—consider this example. If you take and hold something really tight for a really long time, your hand clenches around the object and gets very tired and sore from holding it. When you finally release the hand, it certainly feels good to have that release. But not only do you feel the relief of it, you can also feel a wonderful flow of blood, energy, tingling, and warmth that just feels delightful. It has been freed up, something else is moving, and it just feels so good and delightful. There's a joy, a gladness that is there in the hand.

Similarly, if we go for a long hike in the mountains and get really tired, and finally stop walking and sit down, the body experiences a certain relief from no longer working. The muscles begin to relax. As the muscles relax, they sometimes just feel happy and delighted to finally not be working so much. There is a natural feeling of delight, joy, and gladness that comes when our chronic tensions begin to settle away and quiet down. It releases, just like the energy in the hand is released when we open up. There's a release of energy in our whole system, a release of a unified feeling of being that begins to flow and just feels so good.

Being engaged in this process of deepening, relaxing, and opening to this capacity for natural wholeness can feel so good. It can be inspiring. You can feel the Dharma moving through you. Even to know you're in the neighborhood of it can make you so glad: "Oh, finally, I'm here in the neighborhood. Here I am sitting down to meditate. This is where the Dharma is found; this embodied Dharma is found within us." So a gladness arises. A joy can arise, and a joy that develops more and more the more we are unagitated^[4].

Pīti^[5], the second part of these Dharma Samadhis, is often associated with the mind. However, when it is strong, it is often felt very physically in the body. There might be a lot of tingling, energy, and all kinds of wonderful sensations in the body. As we settle more in meditation, as we open more, and as we are more present for experience, the physical side of this pīti, of this joy, begins to abate and quiet down. This is a further deepening of returning, coming into this deep or natural state.

Joy is a little bit of an agitated state. It may be much less agitated than how we live daily life, but it's a slightly energized state. At some point, as the joy is there and we're content, happy, feel safe, and feel like it's so good to be here, the mind is not so inclined to think about or be concerned with other things. Because it feels so satisfying to be here, that acts as a condition for the body to begin to relax in a very deep way—deeper than ordinary relaxation. Then there can well up a feeling of tranquility.

In these Dharma Samadhis, it is specifically called the tranquility of the body. Often it feels very physical, and different people will feel it at different places in the body. But there can be a kind of flow of warmth, a glow, or an ever-so-slight, delightful presence of pressure or something that just feels so tranquil and peaceful. I sometimes feel it coursing down my arms and through my forearms a little bit. Sometimes I feel it very much in the area just above my diaphragm—a very strong, physical feeling of tranquility. There is a very strong feeling of being embodied. Words like peace, undisturbed, tranquil, calm, and relaxed all apply. "Relaxed" is nice because there's also the verb "relaxing." "Tranquil" has "tranquilizing," but that has an unfortunate medical connotation. "Settling" and "being settled" are good too.

When this third step in the Dharma Samadhi arises, it's quite compelling. There's no doubt that this is tranquility. It feels like drinking something sublime, like drinking refreshing, cool, wonderful water on a hot day. Or, in the middle of a busy, hard day, lying down in a soft bed and just being, where the body becomes so relaxed and at ease, like waking up from a nap. There's something that approaches that kind of tranquility.

The food, the nourishment for this kind of tranquility, the Buddha said, is tranquility itself. So begin tuning into where you feel calm. It's very easy to become so concerned with what we're thinking about, what we're focusing on, and what our concerns are, that we miss parts of what's going on. Perhaps there's more calmness in your body than you avail yourself of. Maybe it's not so difficult to touch into a place where you're settled or calm. Or maybe you can calm yourself just a tiny bit, relaxing your shoulders and your belly throughout the day.

You might want to see if you can make tranquility and inner peace a theme for your day—a theme to keep coming back to over and over again. Find it, come back to it, and relax yourself. Take the chance for the next 24 hours—one day in a lifetime—to really make this day the day that you specialize in, explore, develop, and get to know this capacity. Familiarize yourself and become a good friend with your capacity for being calm or tranquil. I think it will probably be a day well spent, and you have many more days after this to be agitated if you want. But maybe for one day, make this your theme and stay close to it. If you have a friend, maybe you can share it with them and see what you learn about this whole process.

This will be a preparation for happiness. There is a way this flows: gladness flows to joy, joy flows to tranquility, tranquility flows to something called happiness, and happiness flows to concentration. I look forward to being with you again tomorrow. Thank you.