This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Meditating with "No"

Hello everyone, and welcome to our meditation.

Yesterday in meditation, I recommended the word yes as an expression of affirmation and confidence in the practice. Today, I'd like to offer the word no. To say no to something—"not this"—can be done with love. Love for oneself, love for the situation. It is not done as hostility towards anything, but as a wise caring for the whole situation in the context of meditation.

Some of you have meditated for a long time, and you're probably very familiar with the movements of your mind, your thoughts and ideas, and maybe even certain attitudes that you have that don't really serve you or the world. They're not healthy, they're not helpful. In fact, they might be detrimental or a waste of time. So, to recognize that, and to say no. "That's not what I'm going to do now. No, thank you." Or, "Not now," or "No, thank you."

It doesn't have to be harsh. It doesn't have to be hostile. It doesn't have to be proof that you're doing something wrong, or proof that you're somehow a bad person because your mind has done what it does. The mind does all kinds of things that we don't have to identify with. But we do have the choice to say, "I don't have to be involved with that." There's no need to be. If we don't identify with them, we don't live in those thoughts, those attitudes. We can step back and say, "No, I don't have to pick that up. I don't have to be involved in that. Not now. No, thank you." Have clarity about this no, and then come back and be with the practice.

And when you see the mind going off to do these other things again, say no in a way where the attitude of the no is expressed in a way that feels healthy, that feels caring, that feels friendly to the situation. So that when you finish saying no, you don't feel like you're harsh or curt. You feel, "Oh yeah, that was good to not choose to go in that direction. There are more valuable things to do."

So, say no to a slumping posture by taking an upright, alert posture, or your equivalent depending on what posture you're in—a posture that evokes a certain kind of healthy alertness in the body. Not tense or stressed, but alert.

Lower your gaze, relax the focus of the eyes, and gently close the eyes.

As an affirmation of being here and now at this time in this place, you might take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Exhale, relaxing as you exhale. Then let your breathing return to normal.

It can be an affirmation of being present here and now to go through your body to relax it. Relax the muscles of your face. Relax the shoulders. Relax the chest, softening in the heart area. Soften the belly. Perhaps as you exhale, relax the whole body. Let the pull of gravity and the weight of your body become a gentle affirmation. Here, now, is a time and place to be.

Also, relax any mental tension or pressure to think. Offer a gentle no. "Not now." It is not healthy or useful to continue with the tension and the pressure of the mind. To whatever degree it's possible, soften and relax the mind. Then gently settle into the body breathing. Settle into the moment here and now.

When you find yourself wandering off in thoughts or having attitudes which are not helpful, see if you can find a loving way to say no. "Not now, not this." A no that protects you from pouring your life energy into those thoughts, those attitudes, maybe even those feelings. Instead, let this valuable life energy that we have go into awareness and attention here and now. Breathing in, and breathing out.

A gentle, loving no to step away from preoccupations, fantasies, and attitudes that are not helpful right now. Step away, and then offer an affirmation—a yes for here and now in the practice.

As we come to the end of the sitting, consider how our capacity to say no, or "not this"—this capacity to turn away from unhealthy and unhelpful states of mind and activities—how it protects other people from our words and actions that are harmful to ourselves and others. The ability to turn away from harmful tendencies gives us the opportunity to turn towards what is beneficial. To recognize benefit, and discover where we can meet the world with friendliness, kindness, care, and compassion.

So as we come to the end of this sitting, let us turn our attention outwards to the people we know and don't know out in the world. People suffering from poverty, war, oppression, racism, and hate. To all people, we wish them well. We wish them to be free of their suffering, internal and external. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may the influence of our meditation, collectively and individually, spread out into the world today for the welfare and happiness of all.

[Music]

Dharmette: Binding and Unbinding (2 of 5) Unwholesome and Wholesome Aversion

Today I'm going to talk about the second of the five bindings, the ways that we get bound up, caught, tied up, and the second of the five untyings, the things that loosen us and free us.

The second of the bindings is hostility. The second of what unbinds us—it's related, it's a complement to that—is to restrain ourselves, to avoid, to turn away from things that are harm-producing. Both of them can involve turning away from something. The word aversion—often in English we think of aversion as being a kind of hostility, but it comes from the word avert, which means to turn away from. So there are two ways of averting: there's a way to do it with hostility, and there's a way to do it with wisdom and care, and a recognition of what really is beneficial here and what is not. Both movements should be known.

With the hostile one, we should really be able to recognize how it's harmful to us. When we have acts of aversion which are hostile, or have ill will as part of it, it's considered to be a poison for ourselves. It's a way to burn ourselves. Like if you put your hand in a fire, you burn yourself. You put your hand in the fire of hostility, and you get burned. Sometimes hostility or ill will can feel justified. Sometimes it can feel good. There's power there, there's energy there. Sometimes there's a very strong affirmation of conceit, of self-concern, of identity in creating a strong sense of separation—like, "That's wrong, that's bad." An extreme form it takes is in racism, where there's hostility towards another race. Having that hostility is an affirmation of specialness: "I'm special, I'm something good," creating an identity in opposition to other people. So as much as hostility burns people, there's confusion about it. Some people go towards hostility or ill will because they feel it's justified. They feel a certain kind of pleasure from it, at the same time as they're being hurt by it and hurting others by it.

To begin to recognize the impact that ill will has on ourselves is one of the great possibilities of meditation. Resentment is a kind of ill will towards others, and when you sit and meditate, you feel how much it harms oneself. In fact, when you're sitting in meditation simmering in resentment, clearly you're not causing any harm to the person you're resenting. In some ways, if you've been hurt by someone else, you're enabling that hurtful behavior to hurt you even more, because you're repeating and reinforcing the pain of resentment in a way that continuously hurts. I don't want to diminish the importance of care and attention to things like resentment. I don't want to diminish the fact that people do things that are wrong, that cause us to have ill will or resentment or hostility towards others. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't justify the wrong; rather, there's a better way of living a life than one motivated by hostility and hatred. We can take care of ourselves and take care of the world just fine.

One of those ways is to avert ourselves from doing harm, to avert ourselves from the internal movements of mind that are self-inflicted hurt. For example, the fire of hostility harms ourselves. Sometimes hostility is directed towards ourselves, and people can be very critical of themselves. This kind of behavior is something to avert oneself from, to say, "No, I don't need to do this. This is not useful, helpful, or healthy to do. No, thank you."

One of the ways in which this healthier averting is done in Buddhist practice—which traditionally has a very strong emphasis on it—is the practice of restraint. We hold our tongue. We hold our body in such a way that we don't punch anyone out. We don't do anything physically with our body that will harm anybody else. Restraining in this way requires mindfulness, and it strengthens the mindfulness muscle. It can require a lot of commitment to track oneself, stay present, and not speak or blurt something out that's hostile. "No, I'm not going to speak. I'm not going to say that."

This practice of restraint is the practice of avoiding, of abstaining. If we feel like we're going to break one of the precepts^[1]—that we're going to kill or steal, engage in sexual activities that harm other people, lie, or intoxicate the mind—that's where averting and saying no comes in. Restraint, avoidance, abstaining, averting. "No, I have better things to do. This is not useful. This is not going in a good way." There's a lot of inner strength that can be built up in restraint, in avoiding, in turning away. It could start as simply as avoiding opening up the refrigerator to have a snack when you don't need a snack. You've had plenty of snacks, it's not useful to have more. Develop that capacity to say no, to change directions, to avoid getting involved in an unhealthy direction. This develops a lot of inner strength. An inner strength that is not punitive, it's not harsh, it's not critical. Done the right way, it actually strengthens our love, our goodwill, and our care for ourselves and others.

We have to be a little bit careful with the language in Buddhist English using the word aversion, because sometimes people believe that any averting away, any saying, "No, not this," is somehow a negative form of aversion that should be avoided. They think that somehow in Buddhist practice, we're supposed to just practice accepting mindfulness of everything, be present, hold things, and not ever say no to anything, but just be with things. Certainly, there's a time and place for when mindfulness is strong. When mindfulness overrides the tendency to get involved with unhealthy states of mind, it can be very powerful and very significant to just hold it in accepting mindfulness. But we do it because we know that we're not going to act on these impulses. There is definitely a time to say, "No, not this, not now." In fact, the practice of mindfulness increases our capacity to recognize what is not useful and not pick it up. Don't be involved in it, don't go down that road. "Don't need to do that."

So there are potentially two very powerful movements of averting: one towards hostility, and one that is an expression of kindness and goodwill towards oneself and others. There can be power in hostility, which is why some people love it, but there can also be power in this healthy averting. Some people are afraid of that power, that strength, but this is one of the things that we can develop in this practice. It's easier to develop that power and strength if we know what kind of averting is healthy and helpful for oneself and for others. Then we can say, "Oh, no, I'm not doing that."

As we become stronger, it becomes easier to not get involved, not pick up things. As we become stronger, we're not so easily influenced by the impulses that we have. We still might have them, but they don't land anywhere. They don't get picked up anywhere because of that strength, because we have something else going: the strength of mindfulness, the strength of care.

For this next day, look upon all the movements that you have that are averting movements—where you're turning away from one way in order to do another way, or just turning away from one way not to do it. See if you can recognize the distinction between when it's done with hostility, frustration, ill will, or irritation, and when it's done with care, with maybe even love or wisdom, with a clear sense of doing what is helpful and beneficial. Hopefully you'll see the difference between these two forms of averting, and you'll see that the healthy averting feels good. It's beneficial in and of itself to do that movement, to act on that.

I hope you enjoy a day of healthy averting, and the study of how this works for you. Thank you.