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Guided Meditation: Breathing with the Mind

Hello and welcome to this Monday morning meditation, where we begin the third foundation for mindfulness, for the cultivation and growth of awareness. This third foundation is usually called, in Pali, citta^[1], spelled C-I-T-T-A. In English, it is sometimes known as "mind state" in this context. Sometimes the word citta simply refers to mind, and sometimes we can appreciate what it is by the attitude of mind that is present—the general mood of the mind, the gestalt, feeling, sense, or awareness of our inner mentality. The whole of all the inner mental life, maybe.

In the West, we often point to the head as being the locus, the place of the mind. A long Asian tradition in Buddhism is to point to the heart as a center for the mind. I like to think of it as related to the quality of our inner life. That part of our inner life that may or may not be influenced by events around us, the circumstances of our life, and things in the deeper places of the mind. The deeper capacities of the mind are kind of how we feel, sense, and experience ourselves independently of our more private sense of experience when we are on our own.

So, we will just do a general meditation on the mind, and then tomorrow we will go on to other aspects of it. To begin, take an alert, relaxed meditation posture. Lower your eyes to maybe 45 degrees to the floor. And if it is comfortable, gently close your eyes.

Before doing anything else, notice: what is the general state of your mind right now? What is the general state of your inner life that may or may not be independent from the circumstances that are happening right now? Are you more on the agitated end of the spectrum, or more calm? Are you more settled, or more activated? Are you uneasy in any way, or is the inner state at ease? Are you comfortable with your inner life, inner state of mind, or state of heart? Or is there a discomfort about it?

Whatever way it is, let it be that way. But with breathing, right in the middle of it perhaps, or imagining that you can breathe accompanying how your state of mind is, your state of heart, gently take a few long, slow, deep breaths.

Breathing in deeply.

Breathing out.

As you exhale, relaxing your body. As you exhale, relaxing around the state of your mind, your heart. And letting your breathing return to normal.

Then maybe, if you continue relaxing on the exhale, begin by relaxing the mind, whatever it is for you that the mind is. Maybe it is the place from which you think, where there might be some tension, pressure, or agitation. On the exhale, let that relax and soften. Or maybe there is a pervasive mood that somehow is related to the functioning of your mind, your mental activity.

As you exhale, relax the body, settling around your mood, your attitude. Relaxing the face. The shoulders. The belly.

And then a gentle awareness of your body breathing. In being aware of breathing, there is a meeting place of the mind and the body. The body has its sensations, and the mind somehow knows it, experiences it. And what would it be like to have a balanced awareness, knowing the body's experience and aware of the mind knowing?

With irregularity, the constancy of breathing in and breathing out acts as a massage or as a gentle connection to your state of mind—the state of mind through which you are attending, aware of breathing. With the focus being on the rhythm of breathing. Breathing with however your mind is, however your inner state is. Just breathing with it so that you are not reacting to it, caught in it, for or against it. A regular breathing heat coming and going.

Is a general quality or state of your mind predominantly colored by desires, what you want, or the wanting mind? Or is it predominantly colored by aversion, wanting something different, something to go away? Or is it colored by confusion, uncertainty?

Whatever way it might be, breathe with it, with a gentle way of brushing against it. Not needing to fix anything or concerned with anything, but awareness brushing past, brushing through how your mind is. One breath at a time.

Whether your mind is happy or sad, elated or in the blues, eager or reluctant, whatever way it is, breathe with it. Breathe through it. Find a kind of refuge in breathing so you are less reactive to how you are on the inside, just accompanying it with the breathing.

Knowing the state of your mind, whatever it might be. And see if the knowing of it, or the feeling of it—whichever it is—you can know it with space, as if there is a lot of space surrounding it. So rather than being caught in the web of how we feel, the knowing is wider, more spacious. And however we are is within that open field of experience.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, familiar again with the state of your mind, the mood of the mind, the attitude: how has it changed from the beginning of the meditation?

And perhaps now at the end of the inhale, or as you begin to exhale, can the mind relax more deeply? Or can you relax deep into the mind, to where the mind maybe is quiet, still? Maybe where the mind is calm. Like the ocean, a few feet under the waves, the ocean is quiet and calm. Whatever the turbulence of your surface is, dropping down into your quiet place.

And then turning your gaze out across the world. And see if your gaze, your way of considering the world that you live in, is to look upon it kindly. Let yourself be still and gaze upon the world kindly. Having goodwill, well-wishing for this world. Wishing well, wishing happiness for those who suffer and those who don't. Wishing for peace for those who are not in peace and those who are.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (38) Mindful of the State of Mind

With this talk, I am going to introduce the third foundation for awareness, the third foundation upon which to cultivate and grow our capacity to be aware and mindful. With this third foundation, there is a real turning point in the Satipaṭṭhāna^[2] that begins at the end of the second foundation. That turning point is moving from being aware mostly of the body in some way or another, to the mind.

On the way there, in the second foundation, we are aware of feelings—the things that are pleasant and unpleasant that have to do with the sense contact that reacts and responds to whatever contact there is. We observe pleasure, delight, well-being, and sometimes what is unpleasant. It doesn't belong to any world of sense contact, but it is more like a welling up inside. The inner life responds to a deeper wellspring that doesn't have to do with the thoughts we think, the memories we have, or what is happening around us in the circumstances of the world. It points to the spiritual, things not of the flesh^[3], like the Dharma pleasure that can come with practice. This sets the stage for the third foundation, where now we are looking not at the body, and not at whether things are pleasant or unpleasant, but we are looking at the state of the mind.

The word for mind is citta, spelled C-I-T-T-A. This word and concept are referred to a lot by the Buddha, but it is never defined exactly what it is. It probably comes from a word for thinking, so it is related to the world of thinking, the world of mentality. But exactly what the inner life of the mind is, is not defined because it is not meant to be reified. It is not meant to be made into a "thing." The mind is some general, broad sense we have that is very personal. You can't exactly pinpoint, "This is exactly what the mind is." But maybe it is the gestalt of the mental functionings we have, and the impression, feeling, or sense we have of how that whole is.

The definition of that whole varies from day to day, and from person to person, perhaps. It is not so important to know exactly what it is, as to know what it is for you. Maybe for you, what you associate with the mind changes over time. But it is an inner reference point of something to be mindful of, to be aware of. What are the characteristics of what you call your mind, or your state of mind?

The state of mind is maybe a little bit more enduring sometimes than the sensations of the body. Conversely, sometimes the sensations of the body may be more enduring than some of the flickerings of the mind. But the general state or mood of the mind, the inner mental life—what is it like for you?

Whatever the mind is, it is colored or shaped by the activities of the mind. It gets colored one way if there is a lot of intense desire or greed, and the mind gets shaped by it. We look at the world through this filter of desire, and there is a searching for something, a wanting. It can be colored by aversion—not wanting, pushing away, resistance. It can be colored by confusion. It can be colored by generosity, by a sense of openness. It can be colored by love, by compassion. It can be colored by wisdom.

The mind itself is not a thing, but it is heavily influenced by what we are doing. One of the ways its shape or feeling changes is if we are really preoccupied with some kind of thought or problem. If we are really focused on it, the mind might seem very small and contracted. But if we are relaxed and at ease, the mind might feel very spacious and open. So the size of the mind, the feeling of the mind being open or closed, might vary depending on how preoccupied or unpreoccupied we are.

So in this third foundation, we start to become aware of the qualities and characteristics of this mind that we have. Becoming familiar with this provides a foundation for the fourth foundation of mindfulness, observing the operations of the mind. As you return to get a sense and feeling for the quality of our inner life, as we get to know the quality of our mind, then we can have some role in shaping it or seeing how it changes.

Simply knowing it—this power of mindfulness, of being present for something—is not a non-influential act. Without trying to change anything, things shift a little bit when we are fully present for them. If we are fully present for a mind that is agitated with desires and wanting, and the knowing is clear enough, there is a space holding it. We see that the mind is not only desirous; there is also the mindfulness, which is independent, wider, separate, or distinct, that knows the quality of desire in the mind. The same thing applies with aversion, and the same thing with delusion.

The mind can know itself. In the knowing, if the knowing is clear enough, the mind is more than whatever desire, aversion, or confusion it might have. The knowing of it creates space, openness, or breathing room for how the mind is. Then we find we are not so contracted by it or caught in it, and we can see, "Oh, it's a quality of the mind," but we don't have to identify with it or say, "This is who I am."

Some people have a vague idea or feeling of "I am," the "I am-ness," who they are, or the fact that they exist. For some people, that is closely connected to the mind as well. Buddhism doesn't emphasize that there is a self or this sense of "I am," but whatever that is for you, this fits a little bit under the category of mindfulness of the mind. It is possible to bring attention and awareness to hold the quality, texture, feeling tone, or experience of this sense of immanence—the sense of just "beingness" that resides someplace within. I think that fits into the category of mindfulness of the mind.

We start getting familiar with how the mind changes and morphs; it is different at different times. Over time, especially for meditators, we learn that the mind is flexible, fluid, and changeable. We learn that stopping, being present, and knowing—not just barreling ahead with our concerns and preoccupations, but pausing and taking a good look to recognize what is there—begins to have a wonderful influence on the contracted or agitated mind. Something begins to shift and change in that regard.

We start becoming familiar with what it is like when the mind is not preoccupied. When it is not desirous, angry, or afraid, the mind is more open, generous, and loving. We start feeling some of the wonderful ways the mind can be. In the Buddhist tradition, the wonderfulness of the mind is sometimes referred to as the "beauty of the mind." The mind can be experienced as something amazingly beautiful.

I would say that for me, I've been to many beautiful places in the world, seen beautiful art, and all kinds of wonderful things, and I would say the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen is the purified mind, the bright, clear mind.

We can start getting a glimpse of the beauty of the mind. It is not necessarily beautiful because we've done wonderful things in the world or that everyone loves us. It is a beautiful mind in and of itself, independent of what is happening in the world around us.

We are cultivating this beautiful mind by discovering how not to get caught by the unwholesome mind—the mind that is challenged by desire, greed, fear, agitation, restlessness, dismay, sadness, grief, and all kinds of things that catch the mind. Of course, those things are there, and we are not denying them. The practice of this third foundation is to know, "This is how the mind is. This is what's going on in the mind." Just know it.

It can be hard with the mind, but this is the radical and, I would say, revolutionary movement of the mind: whatever state it is in, discovering how to simply know it. "This is how it is." And in that simple knowing, not being wedded to it, caught in it, or reactive to it. It is almost like you step back a couple of steps, turn around, and see what the mind has been up to. We have been enmeshed in the mind, and we pause, we breathe, we take those backward steps, and then we look back and see it in a whole new way.

We have some spaciousness around it, some openness, and that spaciousness becomes part of the quality of the mind's beauty. Some of the beauty of the mind has to do with the clarity of the mind. That clarity of the mind sometimes becomes a feeling of brightness. The mind becomes bright and luminous, and is no longer defined by the particular thoughts, concerns, and attitudes we have. As a result, it becomes like the fog has cleared, and there is a brightness and clarity in the mind that can be beautiful.

So that is the topic for this week: the third foundation for awareness, cultivating awareness, and developing this aware mind. What is poignant about this is that as the awareness of the mind develops, the awareness and the mind at some point don't become so separate. Awareness kind of becomes the mind, or the mind becomes mostly a field of awareness. It is not all of what it is, but at first, we might feel like we are aware of the mind, and then the mind almost becomes the awareness. It shifts. We will see how that goes by the end of the week.

So thank you. I look forward to this time and continuing tomorrow. Thank you.