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Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Feeling Tone (Vedana)

Greetings, greetings, and welcome dharma wayfarers. I'm delighted to be with you this week as Gil^[1] is taking a break, a vacation. I greet you warmly—actually, coolly this morning, as it hasn't become hot yet in California. I'm in Mountain View, California, with a virtual background of IMC^[2], and I figured since it's virtual, then I might as well say hello again this week to Patachara^[3] and sit with the beautiful Patachara. So here we are. It is lovely to be with you, and I'm delighted to be spending this week with the sangha practicing together.

For the theme of our exploration, of our practice for this week, the theme I would like to invite us to explore and practice with is feeling tone. Translated often as "feeling tone"—even though feeling tone is not a good translation, I like the Pali^[4] word, which is vedanā^[5] (v-e-d-a-n-a). Vedanā, which again is often translated as feeling tone or hedonic tone. There is a similar concept—not exactly the same, but a similar concept—in psychology: hedonic tone or valence.

My invitation for this week, as we explore this valence, this hedonic tone, is for us to explore it as if with beginner's mind. Whether you are a new practitioner and this will be a new concept for you to explore, or whether you're an experienced practitioner and you've practiced with vedanā before, I'm looking forward to all of us exploring new aspects, new dimensions of vedanā.

Just to say a couple of words about it before we get into the practice together: vedanā, feeling tone, is simply one of the building blocks of experience, and it shows up on many different lists, in many different teachings. And just to share with you personally, it's been a major part of my practice: working with vedanā, noticing, observing vedanā, being aware of the feeling tone. As I'll say more about later, it can really be perceived or thought to be a linchpin of suffering, or the linchpin of how experience unfolds, really, and how we get caught and suffer, get attached, push, or pull.

What it can be experienced as is described simply as noticing any experience, any object that arises in experience. Any object of sight, sound, sensations, objects of thought—any object that arises in experience, the mind perceives it. The mind perceives it with either a sense of pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So every object in our experience that's perceived, that's touched by consciousness, that is met by consciousness, is always perceived as either pleasant, unpleasant, or—since I don't want to say "neither pleasant nor unpleasant" every time—I'll just say neutral. But the Pali is "neither pleasant nor unpleasant."

By noticing that aspect of our experience, there's so much that can unfold, and we'll explore together this week how many things we can notice. But today, the invitation is, as we settle with the breath and the body—as always settling—later I will invite you, if you wish to start noticing, to open up to noticing. "Ah, this experience, this bird song that's arising right now, for example, outside my window... pleasant. Okay." Just noticing. Because usually we don't notice these things, and then there are many more things to notice about that. Just to say, don't force or push it. Many of the experiences might just be neutral, which means neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So this will be an opening exploration today, opening to this together.

Settling into Meditation

With that, I would like to invite you to please get into your meditation posture, whatever might be comfortable for you in this moment in time. If you need to lie down, or if you need to adjust yourself, perhaps in your seat—as I realize I need to, so that I can sit up more straight—allowing the base of my body, my sit bones, my bottom to land. To really land and hug the chair, the cushion.

From this stable, wide base, inviting the spine to rise up. Greet the day, vertebra by vertebra. Allowing the spine to be straight. As if there is a magnet on top of our head, an invisible magnet, ever so gently pulling up the back of our head so it's effortless. We don't have to do anything, it's pulled up gently on its own. And the rest of our body—our neck, our shoulders, our arms, our hands—all of our muscles can relax, can drop, can deeply drop.

Allowing our abdomen to relax, to soften. Receiving the breath, receiving the breath. Noticing the abdomen, the lower abdomen, the sit bones, gently noticing how the breath is received. And with each exhalation, landing more deeply into our sit bones.

In addition to the abdomen and the sit bones, inviting the chest, too, to receive the breath. Letting it happen naturally, not so effortful. It's not so much that we are breathing; the breath is breathing us. The body knows how to breathe. So letting the body breathe as it knows, and simply becoming aware the whole upper body is receiving the breath.

Inviting the forehead to soften and relax. The eyes to rest in their sockets. For the jaw, maybe opening the mouth wide for a moment, exhaling, and opening and closing the mouth again gently. Letting the whole face relax, drop.

Inviting the proverbial thinking muscle to relax also. It doesn't need to work so hard. And relaxing, softening the shoulders, arms, and hands once again, letting their weight drop onto your lap. The entire upper body soft, relaxed. With every out breath, letting go some more.

Now moving down to the sit bones. Landing, arriving again and again in your sitting posture. Inviting the upper legs, the knees, the lower legs, and feet to rest. Subtle. Arriving with the two feet, with the entire body, with the out breath, in this moment, right here, right now. This moment of being human.

And as we're resting, receiving the breath and the body, one breath at a time, practicing with the first foundation of mindfulness^[6]—the body, the breath—I invite you to open up your awareness. Just as you're resting, settling in, as if you were sitting comfortably in your home, in your chair, then opening the windows, the doors, to see what creatures might show up. Not moving from this comfortable seat, sitting relaxed, spacious, and yet with a sense of openness of heart. If nothing shows up, it's okay. You're resting with the breath and the body, content in each moment.

Maybe in a little while something shows up in the window. Maybe a bird or squirrel kind of shows up in the door of mind, or the ear door, or the sense door, perception and body sensations. These different doors of perception—as different objects show up, simply noticing them. And noticing if they appear pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. How are they perceived? So not just perceiving, noticing what object shows up, just recognizing, but also noticing the valence. Simply that.

No need to analyze why it's showing up. Just noticing. And if it's hard to tell for any object, don't worry about it. Let it go. It'll become easier over time. Remember to stay relaxed and present in the body, and let these perceptions arise on their own after you've dropped in the inquiry. Don't make it effortful.

Closing Practice

In the last moments of this practice time together, this sit, notice if there are any thoughts arising. Maybe thoughts of judgment: "Oh, I fell asleep," or "I was distracted," or "I don't know what she's talking about, this leads to nothing." If there are judgmental thoughts, notice if there is an unpleasant feeling tone associated with them. If they feel unpleasant, these thoughts, notice that, not just the thoughts.

Or maybe there is a sense of, "Ah, another sit with sangha. Nice." Does that thought, that object of the mind door, have a pleasant feeling tone? Notice that. Yeah, it's a little pleasant.

I'd like to invite you to appreciate that you showed up. That you practiced, letting go of attachment to outcome. Appreciating your goodness, your inner goodness, your highest intentions for having showed up and having tried to be of benefit to yourself in this life, and to be of benefit to all whose lives you touch directly and indirectly. Hence, all beings everywhere.

Thank you all for your practice.