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Guided Meditation: Entering the Present

So I'll start over and say good day and warm greetings.

In this Buddhist meditation practice that we do, the mindfulness practice involves a great appreciation of the present moment—certainly an appreciation of the potential here, but also of the richness of this experience now. Of course, the past is important. Without any connection to our history, our story, our past life is pretty truncated. I see it now that I spend time at a memory care center, seeing what it's like for people who have no long-term and sometimes short-term memories. And of course, the future has its role. Anticipating the future, imagining the future, is a huge, important part of human life and has its important place.

But compared to the importance of the past and the future, they pale in significance to the present. It's almost as if the present moment is three-dimensional, and the past and the future are two-dimensional. To really enter into this three-dimensional, four-dimensional kind of rich area of the present moment is kind of like stepping through a gate into a new garden, into a new place, and you really get into it fully.

So, to really appreciate the present moment, and to have the skill, the ability, and the focus to do it for a period of time—like for these minutes we're going to do meditation—in some ways it makes the past and the future richer. When it's useful to be involved in thinking about them, it enhances them rather than detracts from them, to really be in the present moment, to really know how to be here and now.

And of course, you'll get pulled into thoughts about the past, thoughts about the future, fantasy, and reflections. The art of it is to really recognize—and I can't underscore enough how important the recognition is—it's almost like waking up. Oh, wake up! Oh, this is present moment phenomena. I'm thinking about the past in the present. I'm thinking about the future in the present. I'm fantasizing or having abstract ideas in the present. It's like a wake-up. Oh! Is that powerful? Oh, like you open your eyes: Oh, that's what's happening. And in that present moment, that's what's happening here. Then we're no longer swept into the future, swept into the past, or into fantasy. This is where the whole beginning of waking up occurs. In that clear recognition, we find some of the qualities of great awakening. We find qualities of letting go, not clinging, not holding on.

So perhaps in this sitting, we can begin. Maybe you can gently, without striving or being too agitated about it, give yourself a greater appreciation of being here. It turns out you are here anyway in the present moment; this is actually where you are. So join it. Really be in it. Feel it, sense it, breathe with it, moment after moment.

So, taking an alert, relaxed posture.

And gently close your eyes.

And gently, slowly, take some longer breaths in, and a long release with the exhale.

Long, slow inhale, and release with the exhale.

And letting your breathing return to normal. Relaxing more of your body on the exhale. But a relaxation that is in your mind. Maybe you think of it as relaxing into the present, into the present moment experience here in the body.

And then letting go of relaxing, and gathering yourself in the present moment with the breathing.

With the breathing as the center of your universe, more so than your thinking mind.

That kind of gathering of attention around the experience of breathing.

And here, the breathing being a touchstone to the present moment. In the present moment, a touchstone to our direct experience, our lived experience.

The experience we have moment to moment that is a manifestation of being alive. And here and now.

Staying close to the present moment-ness of whatever comes into awareness. The present moment-ness of thinking about the past and the future; see it all as present moment.

Your breathing is always in the present moment.

Riding along with your breathing. Breathe with whatever else is happening. Breathe with the mind thinking about the future, about the past. Breathe with your emotions. Breathe with it, so that the present moment experience of breathing keeps you in the present.

Are you recognizing that you are in the present moment? That your thoughts are present moment experience?

So, one of the wonderful things about the present moment is that we all arrive there at the same time. We share this living, vital lived experience of here and now, if we're present for it, if we allow ourselves the opportunity to really be here.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, this deep allowing of the present moment, allowing ourselves to be there, becomes a way of being present for the people in our lives. It's a way of being present for others as well. To be present for others without being caught up in the past or thinking about the future, about what we want, but to really be here to feel and sense and know another person, and to know ourselves in the presence of another person. Then there is an avenue for care, for respect, for kindness, friendliness, for appreciation, and for caring for each other.

May what we learn in meditation about being present be applied to being present for and with the people we encounter, or the people we communicate with in whatever way we're in touch. And may it be that where we are present, we offer the world our respect, our appreciation, our kindness. So that our way of being with others manifests or enacts, even in the smallest ways, the wish that others may be happy, that others may be peaceful, that others may be safe, that others may be free.

May all beings live in this present moment life, free and happy.

Dharmette: Stories - The Monastery Within

So today I want to tell a few stories from a little storybook that I wrote called The Monastery Within. Many of the stories have to do with the abbess of the monastery.

The first one I'll tell is that the abbess one day called together all the new monastics of the monastery who'd been there for less than six months. It was at a time when maybe they were starting to get a little bit restless or a little bit wondering why they were there. Or maybe they had gotten used to the routine and were starting to get on board, but were remembering their life before the monastery and its allures and pleasures. She called them together and said, "Pack your bags, because I'm going to take you on a pilgrimage to the holy sites of Buddhism."

Now these monastics knew about the holy sites in India—the place where the Buddha was born, where he was enlightened, where he first taught, and where he died. These are considered the most holy places for Theravadin^[1] Buddhists, and people do pilgrimages there to visit. So they thought, Oh great, we're going on a trip! They packed their bags ready for travel, climbed onto the monastery bus, and off they went.

First, the abbess took them to a hospital where they visited the sick. They were surprised by all the different kinds of sicknesses that people were struggling with there, some pretty severe. They had a chance to go through the ICU and even the emergency room, and it was almost mind-boggling to see the extent of injuries and illnesses.

Then, back on the bus, they went to an old age home. They saw what, for them—most of the monastics were young—seemed like the ravages of old age: people who could no longer care for themselves, some who couldn't walk anymore, and some who had all kinds of challenges and decreased capacities of all kinds. It was pretty impressive for these young monastics to see.

Then they went back on the bus, and the abbess took them to a hospice where they saw people in the stages of dying. Some of them were scared of dying, some of them were kind of disconnected from the whole experience, and some of them were not really present anymore, semi-aware and semi-conscious. They saw all kinds of challenging ways of dying. They even spent time next to a bed where a corpse was lying, a recently dead person.

Then the abbess took them back to the monastery. The monastery had an infirmary where there was one old, sick monk. They spent time with the sick monk, who seemed very present. He had a certain tiredness from the illness he had, but he seemed very calm and very engaged in his Buddhist practice that he'd spent years doing. He was just continuing in bed, and they could feel the sincerity and the intentness of his engagement with his practice in his life. He seemed like he was just as content to practice in bed as he was anywhere else.

Then they went to visit a very old nun, ninety-six years old, in a wheelchair. But there was a sparkle of joy in her eyes. When they looked closer, it seemed like her eyes were marveling at the mystery of it all, and the light of it. It was almost like she was surprised to be alive and delighted. She had no fear and no regrets; she just was there in a content way. This deep contentment was palpable for the new monastics.

And then they went to the hospice of the monastery. There, in fact, was a monk who was dying. There was such peace. It was clear the monk was in some pain, but there was so much peace. They entered into the room, and it was so peaceful and so calm that everyone got quiet, and everyone felt like they just should bow deeply. There was something reverent and profound about the presence of this person who'd spent decades in the monastery practicing, and the level of peace. There was no iota of fear.

Then the abbess took them back to the courtyard of the monastery, and they sat down there under a big tree. The abbess said, "Now you have seen the sacred sites of Buddhism. Knowing these practices well, plunge into the monastic life, plunge into the practice you've come to do, and you too will become the sacred sites of Buddhism."

So that's one story. It kind of sacralizes something that's common in almost every day: sickness and old age. That can both be a catalyst for practicing—for really getting to the bottom of what it means to be alive, and getting to the bottom of the origins of our suffering that we have in this life that we live—and it can really also be the catalyst for waking up and finding our freedom and our peace.

The second story involves a monk who was known for having a very deep, seemingly deep peace and acceptance of life, and a deep trust in life itself. This monk one time went off to the edges of the monastery, the edges of the wilderness and the forest away from the others, where the monastery had a few meditation huts and monastics would go out there to meditate for weeks at a time. He went out there, and there was a clearing in the woods with a grass meadow in front of his meditation hut.

One day he heard a deer crashing through the woods and collapsing on the meadow in front of his hut. Clearly, the deer was injured and just kind of collapsed there. But soon behind the deer, there came a lion. Ah, said the monk, I guess maybe that's why it's injured. It was attacked by the lion, and the lion's going to eat it. The lion came along, and the deer seemed completely relaxed, at ease, and just kind of there, accepting its condition. It almost just sat there and could see the lion but was not afraid, was not trying to get up to run away, and seemingly just was there. The lion came along, and the lion proceeded for the next two days to stand guard over the deer to keep it safe from other predators and whatever else was there, so the deer could heal well enough to get up and to walk away.

That was a pretty impressive thing to see. So the monastic said, "Oh yeah, this is an affirmation. This was like proof that my practice of deep acceptance of everything [works]. If I just accept life as it really is, then life will provide, the Dharma^[2] will provide, things will arise. The art of it is to really accept."

Some weeks later, there was a nun who was staying at a hut not very far away, and for some reason the hut caught on fire. The monk saw that and he said, "Oh, look at that." First it was just a small little fire on the roof, and then it got bigger. Because he was into this acceptance thing and just allowing things and letting things arise, he just watched. He was a little curious, but just watched what was happening.

The fire got bigger and bigger, and then he saw the nun come out of the hut and try to get some water and try to put the fire out. She got a little injured in the process, but to no avail, and the whole hut burned to the ground and was just ashes when it was over. It happened very quickly. By the time that it was burnt, it was only after it was burnt that the monks, nuns, and the abbess came to see what was going on.

So the abbess came to the monk and said, "What happened here?" He explained what happened.

And then the abbess said, "Why didn't you help?"

"Oh, well, I was really inspired. I saw how profound it is to just accept things." And he explained what happened with the deer and the lion.

The abbess got angry and basically said, "It's time for you to leave the monastery and return to the world. Sometimes it's important to be the deer and just accept your condition, and sometimes it's important to be the lion. So you have to leave and only come back when you know how to be the lion."

So, naive acceptance. Sometimes we have to accept the fact that we are lions here to protect the world and care for the world with our strength and our power and our abilities. To have a policy of just acceptance and allowing and just being at peace with everything is really to live a truncated life, and denies a whole part of who we are. In a sense, we're both the deer and the lion. Don't be afraid to be either one, but have the wisdom to know which one is appropriate at any time.

So, may you discover your monastery within, meaning your wisdom inside, your place of practice. And may that be a gift that you give to the world. Thank you.

Looking Ahead

Oh, and then for next week: right now I'm thinking that in some ways I'll continue with stories for next week, but a whole different genre of stories. That is stories from the Buddha's life that are teaching stories, or the context for the Buddha's teachings. So I thought maybe we'd pick some of these stories from the Buddha's life in which appear some of the important teachings that he gives as a way of combining the teachings and the ancient stories from the canon^[3]. That's what I'm thinking now, and I look forward to our time next week.