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Guided Meditation: Undoing and Non-Doing

Good morning everyone, and welcome.

A surprising aspect of this meditation practice is that it benefits a lot from not doing anything, or undoing a lot of the doings that we do. Stress is often a symptom of overactivity in the mind and the heart. It involves tension. Stress always involves something being activated. To be stressed or tense, something has contracted, gotten tight, overused, or exhausted.

It turns out that a lot of emotions—especially stressful ones—are not just sitting around. We're not just sitting doing nothing while they effortlessly glide through, stay for a while, and effortlessly leave. Difficult emotions are activities; they're processes. Maybe we don't say that we personally are involved in doing them, but something about our being is involved in doing them. We're activated in some way, chasing after certain thoughts, involved in certain desires, memories, aversions, and preferences.

So, a big part of meditation is undoing. It is beginning to let go of all the doings and activities going on. Some people who have a strong habit of doing will overdo meditation. They will transfer their tendency of "I have to fix something, I have to do something, and make something happen," and engage in an overactive way to meditate. That just keeps us agitated. An important part of meditation is learning the art of doing less. Sometimes teachers will say, "Do nothing, but be alert. Alert and nothing else."

For this meditation, we have to do some things. For example, sit down and assume a meditation posture. Ideally, take time to find a posture suitable for being alert, given whatever physical, mental, or emotional conditions you have, to promote alertness. Be aware in a way that feels clearly aware and remain that way. But remain that way mostly by letting go of all the other doings that take us away.

If we start thinking about yesterday, we're involved in an activity. If we're planning for tomorrow, not only are we involved in those thoughts, but they might be fueled by anxiety. That anxiety is not effortless; it involves something in our system being activated and doing. So what can we let go of? What can we stop doing? The ending of a lot of doing is not nothing; it allows this psychophysical system that we are to operate in the most healthy way possible. It's stress and excessive doing that interfere with the natural healing and healthfulness of this being of ours.

Assume a comfortable, alert posture. Begin with relaxation—a process of beginning to let go of certain kinds of doings, activities that are not only physical but express something happening mentally. Gently close the eyes. So that the relaxation can be a little fuller, you might take a deep, long inhale. In that deep inhale, really feel more of the body than you usually do. It's like entering more fully into the realm of your body as you breathe in deeply. With that connection to your body, on the exhale, let go. Relax.

For a moment or two, do nothing except let go, and let go with the exhale.

Then, letting the breathing return to normal.

I kind of think of the inhale as more of a doing, and the exhale is more of a not-doing—a letting go of doing. On that exhale, relax more of your body, recognizing that in doing so, you're relaxing something deep inside as well. Maybe you can even sense and feel how relaxing the body does something good for the rest of our inner life.

Relaxing the muscles of the face.

Relaxing the shoulders.

Relaxing the belly.

Relaxing the whole body in some global way.

On the exhale, maybe you can release the grip of anxiety you might be holding.

Maybe you can release the grip of resentment or hostility you're holding.

And maybe you can let go of any way you're holding onto, or leaning into, sadness and grief.

Then, settle into your breathing in a way of doing less. With breath meditation, maybe doing less is to imagine at the beginning of the inhale that the body is receiving the sensations of breathing in. You're not actively going out to feel the inhale; your awareness is receiving. Settle back, open up, and receive.

At the top of the inhale, allow the exhale. Allow the exhale to begin, get out of the way, and allow it to proceed.

Receiving the inhale. Allowing the exhale.

If the mind starts getting involved in thinking, that's a doing that's not needed. Maybe you can relax the thinking mind. Relax the reactive mind. Relax the stress in the mind.

Then receive the inhale, and allow the exhale. All you do is accompany this process of breathing. Stay there, accompany it intimately.

Be alert enough to notice when you're doing something unnecessary: unnecessary thinking, unnecessary acting, unnecessary stress. Either let go of it or lessen the intensity of it. Quieting the mind.

The receiving of the inhale can be expanded to sitting here doing nothing but receiving the present moment. Trusting there is so little to do but be aware of how things occur. Receiving it.

As we come to the end of the sitting, there is a wonderful reciprocity of receiving and giving. Not the giving that is willful, an assertion of self, or trying to do the right thing. Rather, it is the giving that wells up from this receptive, quiet, non-doing place with which we can be aware.

The simplicity of giving. They talk about the emptiness of the giver, the receiver, and the gift. This means the lack of a lot of assertion, judgments, and needs; the absence of reifying self or other, moving close to a natural welling up of generosity, care, love, and compassion.

May it be that on this day, you explore a little bit what it's like to be in a receptive mode. Take in the situations you're in more fully, without the assertion or contraction of self. To receive. Do less. Then see if there is a natural giving, caring, and goodwill that might be there as well.

May it be so. May this practice that we do tap us into the wellsprings of love, care, generosity, and goodness that is found within us, so that we can live this life contributing to a better world for everyone.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may we contribute to that.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Emotions (4 of 5) Restoration of Emotional Health

Continuing on the theme of emotions, I think us English-speaking people might have a lot of focus on emotions. Some people more than others. For some people, that's where their life primarily is focused. The reference point for their life is less about what they're thinking and more about what they're feeling. Some people have manifestos that they have composed, maybe in their head, about celebrating emotions, the importance of them, and really getting into them in a big way. Other people are afraid of their emotions, or they feel like they have to keep them very private and are reserved about showing anything or even knowing them themselves. They hold their emotions at bay.

We can talk about it that way, as if emotions are a thing. I find it fascinating that if you go back and try to search in the language of the Buddha^[1] for a word that is equivalent to the English word emotion, it's hard to find. Maybe you can squeeze something out and say it's similar to the English word, but the fact that there is no direct translation points out that maybe the English word emotion is just a convention. It's a label. It's a way of categorizing a certain realm of human experience.

If you take the pie of human experience as a whole, it can be sliced into many different kinds of slices, many sizes, with different choices about where the lines of the pie's pieces are made. The whole human experience can be divided and looked at in different ways, and maybe different cultures have different slices they take out. For some reason, here in the English-speaking world, we have this slice called emotions. But it's not something that's inherently a set thing; it has vague boundaries regarding what actually is an emotion.

When we do this practice, one of the things to look at is not to have a clear opinion or a policy around emotions. Rather, we should always look more closely. An emotion is kind of like a pointer that just gets us into the territory of something, and then we need to study it more carefully, be more present, and explore it more deeply.

As we explore it, one thing to notice is what emotions come along with stress. What comes along with attention, tightness, contraction, or something that feels unpleasant? What emotions come along with the whole realm of what can be called dukkha^[2] in Buddhism: stress, tension, unpleasantness, pain, and suffering? And which of them come without it? When in your life is there an emotion that is kind of stress-free? A state of mind, a mood, or a feeling that comes without any stress, tension, tightness, unpleasantness, dukkha, or suffering?

Which are the ones that are more painful? Which are the ones that are more pleasant and enjoyable? The ones that are stressful are sometimes called "afflictive" in Buddhism because of the pain they cause. It's not necessarily a value judgment that they are wrong or bad; it just means that pain is what they come with.

When they are afflictive, when they come with stress, the interesting question is: does the stress need to be there? Is the stress in addition to the emotion, or to what's happening? Is the emotion itself something we're having in addition to what's actually happening, that covers it over or overrides it in such a way that we're not really in touch with the deeper wellsprings of what's happening in our life—the wellsprings of wisdom, receptivity, and clearly seeing what is occurring?

Probably what you'll find is that there is a lot of extra "doing" when we are involved in these reactive, afflictive emotions—these uncomfortable or stressful ones. If we can see it as a doing, as an activity, then we can put a question mark at the end of it and say, "Does this doing, this activity, need to happen?"

Sometimes even pleasant emotions, enjoyable ones, or ones that are celebrated, are not stress-free. This is because attachments, clingings, agendas, wants, desires, or fears can come along with a pleasant emotion as well. Becoming sensitive to the stress and the unpleasantness that comes along has great value because then we can begin addressing it. Or, maybe "undressing" it is a better word. We can begin undressing the extra layers of activity that we put on top of situations.

It takes a fair amount of trust to not do. It takes a fair amount of trust to settle back, allow ourselves to feel and sense, and step away from the doing, the activity, the straining, and the directing of attention and feelings. The gift of that is that this psychophysical being that we are moves towards health when it's not stressed out. It moves towards deeper sensitivity and deeper wisdom about our life when that wisdom is not overridden or eclipsed by an overactive, overstressed, and agitated mind.

I have certainly had an overstressed, over-activated, over-agitated mind. At least in me, I could see that it fools me. It pulls me into thinking that what I'm thinking about is really important, that what I'm concerned with is really important. It tells me I have to be involved in it, I have to be chasing after it, fixing it, and doing something. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle: as I feel stressed, I feel uncomfortable, and then there's a reaction that I have to fix this discomfort. So I have to think more, get more involved, and make something happen. That's part of the call of stress—it says, "something needs to happen here," and so there's a pull into being more stressed.

But if I go and relax, settle down, and meditate, then I find that I was actually tricked into thinking all this stuff out. The stress had a huge impact on how I saw the world, myself, and the situation. It was not wise, and in fact, it might have been a little bit deluded.

So, it is valuable to be able to undo. Not to address something, but to undress something in the mind. Just quiet down, settle down, become more peaceful, and practice meditation as an undoing, rather than a doing. Rather than addressing the issues of our life, it's a kind of undressing the issues of our life.

Then, something begins to flow, move, or arise that restores us to emotional health. It is a restoration of a deeper sensitivity, understanding, and wisdom that can only be there if we're settled and peaceful. Or, to say it differently—so we don't overemphasize the importance of being peaceful, which can be dangerous if you hold onto it as the way to be—so much of this ancient Buddhist wisdom is not about being something, even being peaceful, but has to do with trusting not doing.

Not doing greed. Not doing attachment. Not doing hate. Not doing delusion. Not doing stress. Not pumping up anxiety. Not doing our emotions by leaning into them and feeding them with our stories. There's this deep undoing.

Through this deep undoing, there starts being room for the blood to flow more freely in the body because it's not contracted by tension in the muscles. There's more ease for the neurons, perhaps, to flow more smoothly. I don't know exactly what happens with them, but everything flows more. The feeling of flow is a very common experience as people settle in deeply and well.

As we relax—as we talked about on Monday—we learn to recognize and respect these emotions that we have more deeply. Then, at some point, we can begin to allow and trust in a deep way so that we don't have to do so much. It becomes an undoing, a non-doing. And this non-doing is not inconsequential; it allows the wellsprings of some of the best qualities we have to come forward.

Your best qualities don't come with stress, feelings of unpleasantness, tension, or contraction. They don't come with forcefulness and assertiveness. The most beautiful qualities are not assertive, but they are powerful and they are freeing. The restoration of a healthy emotional life is one of the great things to do.

Thank you very much, and we have one more talk on emotions tomorrow.