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Guided Meditation: Upright Mindfulness

Hello everyone and welcome. As we begin and get ready for meditation, I would like to mention that yesterday I talked about openness—being open to whatever is happening in such a way that there's lots of room for experience. Experiences, thoughts, feelings, sounds, and occurrences around us when we meditate don't have to stick anywhere. We don't have to pick them up, we don't have to start thinking about them, we don't have to react. There can be a kind of openness, like an open window, to just allow things to pass through.

This is related to other kinds of teachings of meditation—of meditation being a radical acceptance of the present moment, being thoroughly receptive to experience. In that category or side of meditation, as important as it is, it's good to have it balanced with another side. The two can go together, they don't have to be separate, but as a way of talking, there is the side of being upright, the side of not collapsing.

Metaphorically, we're sitting upright and we're sitting uncollapsed. When we're finding difficult things that we're experiencing, thinking about, remembering, or feeling, we're not just bending over, putting our hand on our forehead, and feeling sorry for ourselves. We're not giving up on ourselves or giving up our ability to be grounded, firm, and stable in the moment.

On one hand, we're quite open to our experience, which might seem a little bit like we're just available to be victims of challenges. But the other side of it is we are not. We're being undefeated. We are not cowering, we're not giving up, we're not collapsing. We're not giving in to the inner forces that might be pushing us, driving us to run away, give up, collapse, feel sorry for ourselves, or get involved in angry thoughts of revenge. No, we're not giving up our presence and stability here because of some fantastically wonderful, pleasurable fantasy that we get pulled into.

This ability to be grounded and upright, grounded and just here in a strong way, goes together with this openness. The uprightness gives a kind of strength, grounding, and a freedom that adds to the freedom of just being open and unaffected by what happens. Everything just passes right through in a certain way.

That combination is certainly a preparation for the healthy things that might come, and one of those healthy things is our capacity for compassion and for love. So this is not an aloofness or pulling away. The uprightness means we're right here for experience. There's no question that we're really here. We're not avoiding anything.

So assume a meditation posture, closing the eyes. Call on your inner strength to assume a posture that's upright, literally or metaphorically, that feels like a strong stance of being really here. A strength that gives emphasis to: "Yes, here I am."

It might be finding a way that the chest is not collapsed or pulled in. It might be the position of the head and the neck, where the top back of the head gets pulled up towards the ceiling, or a little bit of space forms between the last vertebrae of the spine and the skull.

Then you might sway back and forth a bit, partly to feel the shifting pressure or weight of your legs, your feet, your bottom, and whatever is holding you up. And then bring that sway to stillness and feel definitively the way that the weight of your body is supported and received by the chair, your cushion, the floor, the bed.

Find within some place where personal strength resides. Maybe it's a small, marble-sized place somewhere in the torso, or in the hands or the feet. Anywhere. With reference to that place of strength, take some gently deeper breaths, almost as an expression of your inner strength. Exhaling and relaxing as a definitive way of settling in here, taking your place. This is your place to be.

Let your breathing return to normal, scanning through your body to both relax where there might be tension and release any place where we're contracted.

Breathing in and breathing out. As you breathe in, as your lungs fill and your diaphragm pushes down, let that be a clear establishment of stability, uprightness, strength.

Each inhale is an expression of taking your place here. Each exhale is a relaxing, a softening, an opening, a non-resistance in the exhale.

Gently, as you breathe, without resisting anything and without collapsing or giving up or giving in, be really here now in the present, breathing. Find in each breath strength, a definitive clarity of being here just now.

Stay open to your present moment experience with the support of inner steadiness, stability, a strength of upright embodiment of attention.

So then, as we come to the end of this sitting, gently, maybe even lovingly, feel yourself rooted here and now in your body. Rising out of whatever supports the weight of your body, feeling some inner stabilities, inner strength. And maybe for a couple of minutes here, embody that by sitting a little bit straighter, assuming a bit more of a posture of definitively being here.

When you are here in a strong, full way, upright, imagine that your love, your kindness, your compassion is supported by that strength, supported by that uprightness. Maybe like an antenna which is well-positioned to send out a signal far and wide, where you send out your care for the world, your care for others, whatever goodwill, wishing, and love that you have for the circles of people around you. Those who are close in that you know the best, friends, neighbors. Outward in circles into your community, and communities out into the world.

May our inner strength, may our ability to be upright and not collapse, not give up, not give in, but to really be here fully present—may it be a means through which our care and love for the world can flow.

May we be an antenna that broadcasts well and far kindness and friendliness, respect for others, care for others, appreciation of others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free of suffering.

And may we, with our inner strength and stability, be a caring companion for others moving through this life. May all beings be happy.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Attunement (3 of 5) Uprightness

Hello and welcome to our third talk on attunement. The practice of attunement is considered here to be one of the building blocks for compassion. Rushing to be compassionate before we've put the building blocks for it in place can easily lead to compassion being misguided, and can even be detrimental for those who are being compassionate. For a while now, it has been common to talk about compassion fatigue and compassion overwhelm.

It seems strange that anyone would ever be exhausted or overwhelmed by compassion. To be overwhelmed or fatigued by compassion would be like saying that the ocean is tired of being wet, or the warm day is exhausted from being warm.

Compassion by itself is not tiring. It is not exhausting. Compassion by itself does not make us victims and does not hurt us. What's difficult is when compassion is mixed in with all kinds of other attitudes, tensions, and attachments. These are often considered to be part of compassion, so people don't see the difference. But if we have these building blocks in place to be compassionate, then compassion can flow through us in a way that's even nourishing for us and much more beneficial for others, without the exhaustion. One of these qualities is attunement.

This week I'm offering five different aspects of attunement. Today, the letter 'U' in the acronym TOUCH stands for upright. When we encounter suffering, it's an occasion to make sure that we establish an uprightness.

What that means is we find our place of strength. Maybe it's an unfortunate term in the United States these days because of how it's been used in the news, but it's kind of like "stand our ground." We stand in our place, not to attack anyone, not to run away from anyone, but to really own our place where we are. We stand upright, firm, strong—not to be domineering, not to be aloof or distant, but so that the openness we have can be supported by strength.

This uprightness, for me, implies a non-collapse. Not giving up, not giving in. Sometimes when there's suffering, people want us to participate in their suffering on their terms, and do the things that they want or they think are important to do. It's not really clear that that's always necessary, or the best thing to do.

So, it's kind of like taking a sacred pause. Take time to be open and present, see the situation more fully, and establish ourselves in the presence of this in a stable, relaxed, and open way. It's a way that our inner strength can be embodied. The proposal I like to make is that when we are strong, our love is more valuable.

When we are really standing upright metaphorically, really embodied and present in a clear way, when we love someone, when we care for them, when we're kind, when we're friendly, it has more resonance. More is communicated through it. When we're open, and we stand our ground, we're not asserting ourselves. We're not dominating over people, we're not rushing to take care of them, but we are expressing care. "Caring for" and "caring" can be two different things. Caring for is what we do; caring is an attitude.

That attitude has more space. It can be bigger when we're really open, and there's a kind of inner largeness in space and awareness. When there's a stability and uprightness of strength, an embodiment that's really here for the situation, people notice it more. They feel it more.

If we are sitting quietly so as not to disturb anyone in the corner of the room, making ourselves a little bit small, and we're sitting there saying, "May you be happy, may you be peaceful," that might be nice to do. But it doesn't have the same level of impact, I think, as sitting up in the same chair, or pulling the chair out away from the corner so we're clearly in the room together with people, and then having an attitude of kindness. Then it's noticed, it's felt. It has more texture and aliveness. So, uprightness.

The first of these five qualities with the acronym TOUCH is 'T'—to talk with people, find out what's going on... No, no, think about it. That's tomorrow! Have some thinking, have some reflection: "What's going on here? How am I, and how am I receiving this? How am I present for this? What's the context for the suffering that I'm in touch with, or that I have myself? What's a useful way to be with it? What does it mean to be attuned? How do I come into harmony with it, or balance with it?"

Asking questions is a big part of thinking about it. It's not necessarily asking why something is happening, but thinking about how I can be present and attuned. To be open to experience is to increase our capacity to hold it.

Rather than fixing things, a lot of Dharma practice is about expanding our capacity to be present for our discomfort, for things that are difficult, for challenging things, without resisting and without collapsing. When we don't collapse, then we can be upright. So, we think, we are open, we are upright. And then tomorrow you'll see there's the 'C' to communicate—to actually talk to people about what's going on, before acting out of compassion. And so this uprightness, where there's non-collapse, is key.

A powerful concept that comes from the Buddha in these kinds of situations^[1] is to be undefeated. Do not be defeated by circumstance. Do not sink down into being a victim, but rather arise to the occasion to be strong. Arise to the occasion to be free. Arise to the occasion to be someone who takes a stance in mindfulness. Mindfulness is the home from which we live in this world with attentive, strong presence.

So, practice uprightness now. Not giving in and not giving up. Not belittling ourselves or diminishing ourselves, but also not aggrandizing ourselves. Simple, relaxed, definitively: "Here I am." Not needing anything from other people, not asserting myself to other people, not automatically giving in to what other people want. Just: "Here I am. Be present."

As you practice these things—thinking, being open, being stable and strong—it's often useful to start in areas where it's relatively easy. Because it's like building a muscle, if we just go immediately into some of the biggest sufferings that humans can experience, we might not be ready for it. You have to work out a little bit, become familiar with the territory, learn how to be, and build strength and confidence in these different steps.

I would encourage you to see if there are ways, peaceful ways, non-assertive ways, that you can be upright today, so you can really be present and take in the experience. See yourself and see the situation more fully without giving in to anything, without giving up on anything, without feeling guilt or feeling unimportant. There's a wonderful place in uprightness of neither feeling the conceit of being important nor feeling the conceit of being unimportant. If you are upright and present, being neither important nor unimportant, what are you? What is that like?

So thank you, and then we'll continue tomorrow.