Guided Meditation: Equanimity; Dharmette: Social & Communal Harmony (5 of 5) Aspiration

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Equanimity; Social & Communal Harmony (5 of 5) Aspiration. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Kodo Conlin at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 21, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Equanimity

Happy Friday. I'm not sure how it is for you. In San Francisco, the morning has just a beautiful sparkle to it. I hope wherever you are is comfortable. And if it's not, may you be well.

So today, to continue this discussion of social and communal harmony, we'll first sit together in mindfulness of the body for 10 minutes or so, and then move to the fourth brahma-vihāra^[1] of equanimity.

An alert, aligned, meditative posture.

This perhaps familiar beginning, to stop, to see.

Maybe a roll of the shoulders to relax the back, align the bones, and a few deep breaths to establish the connection between the sensations of breathing and attention.

Keeping a steady connection with the breathing body, refreshing that connection, renewing it.

Now a gentle shift, moving toward the fourth brahma-vihāra of equanimity. Let's first again generate just a touch of loving-kindness, mettā^[2], directed to ourselves. Holding yourself in a kind regard and wishing yourself well. Maybe even seeing yourself in your mind's eye.

"May I be happy."

"May I be healthy."

"May I be safe."

"May I live with ease and peace."

Repeating as you wish, and letting that register in the body, in the mind, in the heart.

"May I be happy."

Having invited loving-kindness, mettā, to arise, now call to mind someone with whom you have a simple relationship. A simple relationship. Holding them in mind, arousing equanimity, equipoise, a balance of mind with regard to them. Along with this, this wish for their true happiness. Wishing, "May you take care of your own happiness." And then noticing the heart's response.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

Whether clear or quite subtle.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

Much like the warm sunlight of mettā that reflects coolly off the moon, this equanimity can shine cooling, balanced. Arousing equanimity in this way, we can now radiate to the first quarter in front of us. To all beings in the forward direction.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

To the right. Letting the cool light of equanimity shine on all beings.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

Now behind. To all beings in the quarter behind us.

"May you take good care of your own happiness."

Now to the left. A cool light of equanimity.

"May all beings in this direction take care of their own happiness."

And below. To all beings in the downward direction.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

And above. To all beings above us.

"May you take care of your own happiness."

And finally, to all beings in the four quarters, and above and below.

Relaxing any effort in the method, just registering the state of the body and mind now.

May all beings everywhere be happy, peaceful, safe, and truly free.

Dharmette: Social & Communal Harmony (5 of 5) Aspiration

A group of practitioners, it's a rare and wonderful thing.

So for today, I have a few reflections to offer, and I would also like to hear from you. But to begin, let's say this week in our consideration of the Buddha's teachings on social and communal harmony, we started with Right View^[3], of course, that our actions have effects and that we can discern, we can choose. Then we practiced this tool of repeated reflection, which gave us an approach to discern how to move forward skillfully with both our challenges and those joys in our life. Then we looked at good friendship, a form of friendship.

And the question I would like to ask on this last day is, having looked at all these means or methods or approaches, what is our aspiration for a harmonious community? What does it look like, and what is it for?

In the Zen teachings, there's this image of orienting toward the North Star. There's this distant North Star that we direct our—in this case, a boat—direct your boat, and you sail in the direction of the North Star. The North Star, of course, is our vision, it's our aspiration. And we move—interestingly, as folks who sail know, you don't go straight at the destination. You have to tack left, right, left, right, and respond to the particulars of the challenges, the terrain, I guess. All in all, making this vow, this perseverance, a dedication of moving in the direction of this North Star.

So in this discussion of the week, we've been talking a lot about how to meet the waves, how to move amidst the waves, approaches, how to row. And I'm really interested today in what's the North Star about. I may have more questions about this than answers, and I'm curious about what comes up for you too.

But just briefly, to say a couple of things as someone who, for maybe nine of the last ten years, has been living in Dharma communities—a fortunate life. I've noticed a couple of things about these different spaces. One is, the first Dharma community I lived in had a very particular strength. It was kind of amazing to witness, and that strength was its singularity of purpose. It was so clear to everyone who was there that the community was set up for the practice, and the practice was absolutely first priority all the time. It was amazing. It was amazing.

One of the best examples of this that might sound a little drastic in our regular day-to-day life: there were three times every day for one hour that all of the work on the property stopped completely, and everyone went to the meditation hall. Everyone. Can you imagine? It was so still, and we got into this rhythm, this rhythm as a community. In a way, we kind of harmonized. Now is the time to go to meditation. There was no deliberation about it, but they had this real strength in this community of the singularity of purpose, the clarity that shined like a bright light from a distance.

And then in another community I was living in, I saw a different strength. This community had many functions, many arms, we'll say, and their strength was responsiveness. This community was such that there were many people asking many things of this community. And there was a way that, in contrast to just having this one thing that we focused on, instead it was trying to meet the needs of a varied, a varied and very large group. And this was a function of its location, its people, even its teachings. I heard a story of one of the well-known projects for support of the unhoused that's associated with the Dharma community. The teacher who initiated this program said, "Oh, I never intended to start this program, but I saw a need, and I responded." So responsiveness.

Purpose, responsiveness. These were our strengths, but what were they for? What were they for? I really hold this as a question. I wonder what it is for you.

In the Buddhist teachings, of course, he holds forth that the whole purpose of the teaching and the community is for the sake of liberation. It's an inspiring possibility. And I think I've seen the way in our Dharma communities that they perform a function for so many people. They can be a home for rites of passage, important ceremonies, they can walk us through these big transitions of birth and death, and change of job, and so many things. So many things under the umbrella of Buddhist practice. So it's interesting to contemplate, what's the purpose, what's all this for?

One way I help myself get grounded is actually to look smaller, and I ask myself the question, how would people treat each other? What do the interactions look like? You know, someone says this thing I've heard, that the mind is not our own, but we are responsible for it. I feel a little bit that way about our communities and our relationships, too. They're certainly not our own, but we belong to them, we give ourselves to them, we're responsible for them, we're responsive in them. And what does that look like?

The Buddha has this beautiful teaching you may know about, the six principles of cordiality, that to me pretty beautifully encapsulates what a harmonious community can look like in terms of relationship. He's teaching these monastics these six principles of cordiality, and they're meant to produce cohesiveness in the community. They're conducive to non-dispute, to concord, and to unity.

And the first three are all variations on one, variations on loving-kindness. The first three of six principles of cordiality, he says that a person in this community maintains bodily, verbal, and mental—body, speech, and mind—acts of loving-kindness toward the others in their community. And that this produces respect and concord, and affection, and unity. What's interesting about this is that the acts of loving-kindness can be done openly or privately, which means they can be things that others know about and see, and they can be things that they don't see, that they don't know about. But even still, it's conducive to respect and affection, cohesiveness, and concord. So the first three, variations on loving-kindness.

The fourth is that one shares what one has. We often reflect in these talks on the power of giving and sharing. It's no surprise.

The fifth is possessing in common with those in your community virtuous behavior, that kind of sīla^[4], the commitment to the precepts—in short, the commitment to non-harming. And that this shared in common with others in your community is conducive to concord.

And then finally, we come right back to the beginning. The sixth principle for concord, or for cordiality, is a variation of Right View. Here we are with Right View again. It says a monastic dwells both openly and privately possessing in common with fellow monastics a view that is noble and emancipating, which leads out for one who acts upon it to the complete destruction of suffering. This too is a principle of cordiality that creates affection and respect, and conduces to cohesiveness, to non-dispute, to concord, and to unity.

So maybe, maybe this is what specific interactions look like, can look like in a harmonious community. Well, my hope is that over the course of this week, we've covered a fair amount of territory, a fair number of teachings about social and communal harmony, and I hope that it gives rise to some reflection about what you would aspire to for a harmonious community, for your harmonious community, ours. What might that be for us? I hope we feed that reflection.

Reflections from the Sangha

And then in our last two minutes—and I'll stay a couple after—I'm interested. You know, my connection with you is the YouTube chat, but I thought maybe I would ask, what is it, what might it be for you from the week that you feel like you're making your own, that you're turning or considering or applying or seeing or recognizing in your own life, in your own relationships, wherever you are in this global Sangha? And I won't be able to read them all, but if you put some in the chat, I'm happy to, without the names, read out a few so that this can be part of our time together. I'll just wait here.

I see one that says, "I've sown within, grown within, in my own within, not alone within." Thank you for all our unity.

One says, "Responsibility for our own authentic path."

And someone's reply, someone's making use of the Rāhula^[5] questions, repeated reflection. Ah, yes, the clutch of mindfulness.

Respect and loving-kindness. Very nice.

Times of silence to work with the process. Hmm.

Supporting. Great.

I'll stay and read some more, and I will bid our YouTube recording farewell. Thank you for this week in practice. May you be nourished, may your practice be nourished, may all beings everywhere be free.