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Guided Meditation: Awareness With Space

So hello everyone, and it's a special occasion whenever people gather together to meditate. And thank you for being part of this gathering and kind of a collective focus on meditation for these next 30 minutes.

I would like to suggest that you imagine something for this next meditation. Or perhaps if imagining isn't quite right for you, that you assume, or perhaps if this is something you already know, that you remember. And that is that your ability to know things in a simple way, to be aware, to be conscious of what's happening in its simplest possible ways—before interpretations and stories, reactions—just the simplest awareness is able to be aware. It has enough space, is big enough to be aware of things as part of being aware, part of the field of consciousness. As opposed to the tendency for consciousness, knowing, awareness to be limited by what it knows; that we kind of lean into the thing that we're focusing on. Whether it's thoughts, ideas, feelings, things in the world that we see, that consciousness gets narrowed down, contracted, and almost as if it lives inside of whatever it's focusing on. And it's limited by it, is trapped by it, caught by it, attached to it, preoccupied with it. And so then awareness becomes as small as what it knows.

But in fact, awareness can feel much more spacious. It has lots of room, or if you don't like the metaphor of space and size, then the awareness can always remain free of what is known. It doesn't have to lean into it. It doesn't have to be defined by it. We don't have to be caught in what we know. What we know can just be part of consciousness, part of what we know, but it doesn't become everything.

And that's closely related to the idea of identity. Because part of what can create the sense of identity is when consciousness, awareness, knowing kind of leans into, holds onto, narrows itself into particular ideas. Even if they're accurate ideas, we inhabit those ideas rather than ideas and thoughts and our experiences inhabiting awareness.

So the suggestion for this meditation is that whether it's using a single word that kind of precedes every act of knowing, every act of being aware, and that's the word with. When you're saying this to yourself, you're saying that you're aware with the inhale, you're aware with the exhale. You are aware with a thought, you're aware with an emotion. You're aware with a desire, you're aware with some aversion or frustration, you're aware with anxiety.

And the word with is suggesting to the mind, the heart, that whatever you're aware of does not define you, does not define consciousness or awareness, does not have to limit your freedom. And so the word with is meant to open you up a bit or loosen you up. It just implies, "Well, this is just part of the big picture." The mind doesn't have to make it the thing that we're caught in for right now; it's just part of awareness, just part of this world. It's consciousness with these.

And see if adding the word with creates maybe space in the mind, stillness in the mind, openness in the mind, spaciousness, a little bit of freedom. Or it could be simply less locking into things, getting glued to things. There's so much more here always than what awareness gets locked into. And by simply saying with, maybe it opens it up a little bit and unlocks the knowing. And also keeps things very simple, returning to a simplicity of knowing: just this, just this. Without being defined by it, leaning into it, or even pulling away from it, which is also kind of over-involvement in terms of collapsing into something. So I hope what I say makes sense.

So to start, giving some care to the posture for your meditation. Finding a posture that works for you, but also works to help you feel a little more alert, awake, present. A posture that's not way too comfortable where you sink into too much relaxation. It might be nice in the short term, but not in the long term.

And relaxing your eyes, relaxing your gaze, and perhaps closing your eyes.

Feeling the contact of your body and its weight against whatever surface it's resting against. And as you take a few long deep breaths, maybe there's a subtle way in which the pressure against that surface increases with the deeper breaths. And if it does, imagine you're becoming rooted to the present moment, here and now.

And letting your breathing return to normal. And spend a few moments here on the exhale, relaxing any place in your body where you feel tense, tight. Muscles can relax and soften.

And then becoming aware of your breathing. And for a few rounds of breath, you might even say the word with as shorthand for being aware with the inhale, being aware with the exhale.

Being aware.

And being aware intimately. Intimate awareness of breathing in and breathing out, but it's not the full picture, it's not the totality of awareness. Awareness holds, doesn't lean into or limit itself with it.

And similarly, if there are thoughts that arise in the sitting, or feelings, emotions, sounds, see if the word with can help you have the experience that the awareness is able to hold, contain whatever is happening, because awareness is bigger, or more peaceful, or less identified. Just awareness with thoughts, awareness with feeling. One breath at a time. Here, now.

Whatever you're aware of, recognize that awareness is aware with it, so that your knowing doesn't become it. You don't become it; it's just a piece of the bigger picture. Whatever you're thinking or concerned with, it's just one aspect of life. With it.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, if you can appreciate your capacity to be aware with things, with experience.

Perhaps you can feel or know that knowing, awareness, being conscious can hold things without being caught in them. There's lots of room to know without leaning into it or without reacting to things. Without being defined by them in any way, or without implying anything about oneself. It's just known. There's lots of space just to know.

And perhaps at the end of the sitting, you can imagine or allow your awareness to become so large, so open, that you can receive the suffering of the world in whatever particular way that comes to mind, comes to heart. And to recognize that now you're aware with this suffering. You don't become the suffering. You don't lean into it or be defined by the suffering, but maybe you can make your heart as wide as the world.

And part of the wonderful benefit of not clinging to anything, not holding onto anything, not resisting anything, is that we can become the witnesses. We can become the eyes of the world, witnesses to what's happening. So important to have people know the suffering of the world.

Aware with suffering. With awareness as wide as the world, even bigger, can hold it.

And then from the heart maybe there can come the wish to live for the welfare and happiness of this world. And that all who suffer, may their suffering end. All who suffer, may they be safe and peaceful. That all who suffer, may they know that there is compassion and care, that they're not alone in their suffering. And may it be that all who suffer become happy and free.

And may we, each of us in our own way, contribute to that.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Citta (2 of 5) Greed, Ill Will, and Delusion

So this will be the second talk on the third foundation of mindfulness. And the third foundation of mindfulness is that of becoming aware of the general state of our mind or state of our heart, the mood or disposition that's in some ways more enduring than particular sensations we have in the body that come and go, or particular thoughts that we have that come and go, or particular sensations that come and go, feeling tones, pleasant and unpleasant, that come and go. And certainly, mind states also can come and go, but they tend to be more enduring. It tends to be a disposition through which we sometimes see the world, experience the world, interpret the world.

And the disposition, the state, the quality of the mind through which we're aware, has a huge bearing on how we live our lives, huge influence. And it's also something that's intimate and closer in than the changing details of the moment that might be here fleetingly. It's more close in to who we are in a sense.

And so the general instructions around this mindfulness of the citta^[1], mind state, is simply to know it as it is. To know the mind state in regard to the mind state. And what this means is that we don't have to add stories and ideas, interpretations. We don't connect it to a lot of things. Just know it in its simplicity, how it is in the moment right now.

And then it begins by knowing mind states, dispositions that are characterized by greed or the absence of it, with ill will or the absence of it, and delusion and the absence of it.

And in August, a month ago or so, we did three weeks on each of these: greed, hatred, and delusion. And in part, that was in preparation for this teaching on this third foundation of mindfulness. So those of you who were there, perhaps you are now more sensitized or ready to be mindful of greed, hatred, and delusion, and the absence of it. And so the idea is to become aware of it, but not as a fleeting moment of greed, but how it can appear sometimes as a disposition, as a general state or mood that we're in. The mood is that of desire, the mood is that of ill will or aversion, the mood is that of just being confused, bewildered, deluded. And so it's a little more persistent and more like the veil through which we see, the filters through which we see the world.

But what's very interesting is when the Buddha gives instructions here, he uses the word with. In Pali^[2], it's not a word, it's a prefix, but he uses this with. He says, "When the mind state is with greed, know that it is with greed. When the mind state is without greed, know that it is without greed." And the same for ill will and delusion. And so this word with is there. And now the idea is to be mindful, to know that it's there.

The marvelous thing about when we're really clearly practicing mindfulness, to be really mindful, really know what's happening, really conscious of what's happening, part of the mind is not caught in what is known. Part of the mind is not defined by what is known. Now, if we get distracted, if we get preoccupied by our thoughts, our fantasies that go on in the mind, our concerns, we can be so involved in it that it kind of becomes who we are. There's no outside of it. Everything is seen through that lens, everything is related to it. That becomes the be-all and end-all occasionally. So sometimes when there's desire, desire takes over and we become the desire and get out of the way.

Sometimes occasionally I can get famished, and I come home and my wife says you had a look in your eyes, and I'm kind of looking around the kitchen for food, maybe I'm like hunting or something. And it becomes kind of like my disposition is like wanting.

So the Buddha uses this idea of with. And as I did in this guided meditation, it's possible to be aware, to know, when what we know doesn't make up the whole experience of what's happening. It's only part of it. And because of that, it's like we make room for it. We can allow it to be there because we're not defined by it and we're not collapsed into, not leaning into it. The knowing is free of what is known. The knowing has space to feel and experience what is known.

And this idea, I kind of very much like the idea of space for things. We have a capacity to hold things. We have a capacity to allow and to know. And part of what we're doing in mindfulness practice is increasing that capacity to know things. Not knowledge of things, but rather the capacity to be present for our experience, be conscious of it, without reactivity, without becoming it, without resisting it, without being defined by it, without entering into it and becoming it. And so we have capacity. So we can really hold and feel.

And practice really becomes different if we have things like desires, greeds, hatreds, delusions, fears, and we've learned how to open up, how to relax, how to make space to know it in and of itself. In relationship to our desires, greeds, we simply know it's greed, without a story, without justification, without putting a value on it even. Without kind of saying, "Well, I'm a bad person now because I have it, this is wrong, it's embarrassing, I should feel shame." Or getting involved in justification: "I'm supposed to have desire, this is important, this is a time in my life that desire..." It's just desire, just greed, just lust, whatever it might be. Anger, hostility, irritation, frustration, all the different flavors of hostility or ill will that might be there. It's just known in its simplicity.

And this is not necessarily easy to do, but this is the direction the practice is going. The third foundation of mindfulness. One very wonderful way of practicing these is to build towards this. So the teachings in the four foundations of mindfulness begins with mindfulness of breathing, with anapanasati^[3], the first tetrad. Breathing in, breathing out, experiencing the whole body breathing, and relaxing the body. It can be such a great place to begin, and to get settled, to get stable, to relax. And then it continues with mindfulness of the body, continues with mindfulness of feeling tones, how we react and respond to pleasure and pain, and learning how to be with that in a simple way and not be so reactive.

And as we learn the skills, the stability, the steadiness, and the clarity of knowing, then at some point we can become aware of greed, hatred, and delusion. That the mind is with it, not that the mind is it. And as I've said, if there's clear mindfulness, there's more to the mind, there's more to the mind state than greed, hatred, and delusion. We've created space, we've created a healthy kind of sense of distance or independence from whatever it is we know.

And so this is something you can experiment with next time you have a really good bout of greed, hatred, and delusion. Just stand still or sit down and see if you could come back into mindfulness of it, where there's space for it and room for you to be this way. You're not trying to stop it necessarily, but you're not participating in it. Mindfulness is not participating in it, not reacting to it. And you just know it, "Oh, here's greed, here's a mind state with greed, and here is mindfulness that is independent from it, is free of it." And it might take some experimentation to see what is it like to have a knowing, have an awareness, be conscious of something where that consciousness is not caught by it, reactive to it.

And the same thing for the absence of greed, hate, and delusion. And here it gets a little bit more interesting, because the absence of greed is not quite the same thing as the presence of greed. If the absence of greed is generosity, if the absence of hatred is love, if the absence of delusion is wisdom, then yes, that can be a mind with generosity, with love, with wisdom. And the same freedom can be there, the same spaciousness, the openness can be discovered. However, if the absence of greed is simply the absence of greed, if the absence of hatred is simply the absence of hatred, if the absence of delusion is simply the absence of delusion, then that absence kind of overlaps or shades into, or merges with the state of mind, the quality of awareness that's open and receptive.

And so to experience the goodness of the absence of greed, hate, and delusion, to experience the spaciousness, the freedom that's there, allows us to more and more develop or grow in this capacity for the mind to hold experience. Including the ability to hold the suffering of the world. And I'd like to think this is one of the directions, one of the tremendous potentials of this practice of mindfulness, is that it doesn't keep us aloof or distant or unaware of the suffering of the world. It actually increases our capacity to experience it without having it weigh us down.

So this is the beginning now, talking about these instructions for mindfulness of the mind states. And I'll continue tomorrow, I'll continue for the rest of the week as it develops and grows through here. And as it grows, we enter into more wonderful qualities or states of mind that are available when the mind is no longer identified or caught in what is known. So thank you.