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Guided Meditation: Friendly Mindfulness

Yes, good day everyone, and welcome.

One of the orientations that I've been talking about these last two weeks is that of the wholesome and unwholesome, skillful and unskillful. We are learning to recognize when in meditation the mind is doing something unskillfully, something that's unhelpful and not useful. We also recognize the authority we give these unhealthy thoughts and ideas, the importance we grant them by being involved with them, and perhaps even perpetuating them. But we also recognize that there's an alternative. There are wholesome, skillful, useful, and helpful ways of engaging the mind.

Part of the healthy, wholesome way is not to be angry or upset about the presence of the unwholesome. Rather, it is to meet everything with compassion and kindness. This is not a compassion or kindness that accepts it in a way that just perpetuates it, accepts our involvement with it, or our entanglement with it. It does not accept the way we give it importance and authority. Instead, it is lovingly, openly, and kindly stepping away from it, either holding it kindly or focusing on something that is more wholesome.

In both circumstances, one of the most wholesome things we can do is to meet everything with friendliness. Friendliness is my translation today for metta^[1], sometimes translated as goodwill or loving-kindness. When we have unwholesome states of mind, we look upon them with kindness and friendliness—not to condone them, but not to condemn them either. We aim to end the ways in which we perpetuate these things, but to hold them kindly so they can relax, or so that we can relax around them. We can view everything in a friendly way, be our own friend, and be a friend to our breathing, having goodwill and friendliness towards all things.

It doesn't have to be so complicated to do so. We can tap into a very simple, basic human capacity for a simple friendliness toward our experience.

To begin this meditation, you might close your eyes and simply think about some person, animal, or location. Anything at all, where being with this person, being, or location makes it simple and natural for you to have a friendly disposition, appreciation, or a sense of friendliness. Imagine being in the presence of this person, or imagine a time when you had this friendly feeling for them. Feel it in your body, feel it in your heart, maybe even noticing what happens in your mind when you have this friendliness.

Then, maybe let go of the memory or the being you're thinking about, but keep the feeling of friendliness. Keep the sense of it, almost as if it's an open door, and then allow your experience to come into it. Allow your breathing to come into your simple friendliness. In a friendly way that's meant to support your body's breathing, take a few longer, slower, deeper breaths. Breathing in, breathing out.

To be with someone as a friend means to be present for them. Not too much and not too little, but to be present in a friendly way. Then, letting your breathing return to normal, continue to be with your breathing in a friendly way. Allow your breathing to breathe through or with a feeling of friendliness and kindness.

If there are any mind states that arise that are difficult, aversive, impatient, or in some way considered unwholesome, see what it's like not to condemn them or be upset by them, but rather to be friendly towards them. It's as if you're friendly with an angry person, and the friendliness helps the angry person to relax. Bring a simple friendliness to yourself, including what's difficult.

Allow something to relax to support that. Maybe you can relax parts of your body: a friendly relaxation of the shoulders, the belly, the muscles of the face, and a friendly, softening, relaxing of the mind.

There are many ways to be friendly. See during this meditation whether you can find your way to do it in a simple way, without a high standard, but just a "good enough" friendly disposition of goodwill, care, and kindness as an orientation for how to sit in this meditation.

Maybe during this meditation you don't have to bother being involved in unwholesome mind states. This is a time you can take a vacation or a break from your involvement with them. Have no involvement, except a basic friendliness to all things, including what's unwholesome.

One way to be friendly in meditation, friendly towards all experience, is whatever you're mindful of while you meditate, you might gently, quietly meet it with the word "yes." The word "yes" might protect you from unwholesome states and might evoke in you a wholesome state in relationship to what's present.

Then, as we come to the end of the sitting, turn our goodwill outward into the world. In a sense, gaze upon the world with kind eyes, in a way that might be easier or clearer when we're calm or settled.

One of the great questions is: why not be friendly? Chances are there are not a lot of good reasons to avoid being friendly. Being friendly doesn't have to be dramatic or require much of us. We don't have to do something, agree with people, or invite them into our homes. It just means that we have goodwill in our hearts, that we look upon them in friendly ways, even if we keep walking away. Always come back to being friendly, to learn the art of walking in the world in a friendly way.

Basic friendliness is a way of enacting the wish, supporting the wish, or contributing to the possibility that all beings be happy, that all beings be safe, that all beings be peaceful, and that all beings be free. May we remember to be friendly so we can contribute to the welfare and happiness of all beings.

[Music]

Dharmette: Kusala (10 of 10) The Wholesome Dharma

As we come to the end of these two weeks that I've been talking about kusala^[2], wholesomeness, and skillfulness, there is a story of a man who came to the Buddha to ask a question about the kusala dhamma^[3]—a question about skillful teachings, spiritual teachings, or wholesome spiritual teachings.

I love this idea that the dhamma, and the teachings that the Buddha offers or that people are oriented towards, is something wholesome, skillful, and beneficial. This is an alternative to someone coming and talking about what is the true teaching, as if there is some absolute, ultimate truth that we have to discover or see—the most profound, ultimate teaching ever. The Buddha regularly avoided that kind of language. He was always pragmatic, emphasizing what was wholesome and beneficial, what leads to the end of suffering, and what brings happiness and welfare.

It's a very different orientation from many religious teachings, where in philosophy and religion people are often looking for what's ultimately true. In Buddhism, it's more about looking at what leads to happiness and welfare, and what leads to the end of suffering.

So this man comes, coming a little bit to challenge the Buddha. He says, "It seems to me that if someone discovers a wholesome teaching, a wholesome dhamma, they shouldn't teach that to anybody else because it's an impediment to them. It's an obstacle. It just causes them headaches to have to go and teach other people. And after all, what can one person do for another person?" Implying that you really can't do much for other people. He asked the Buddha what he thought about this.

The Buddha said, "Well, let me reply with a simile." I think this is a very kind thing to do, rather than directly criticizing the man for his views or offering a direct alternative, positioning it as two clearly opposed views. He said, "I'm going to offer you a simile and I'll ask you questions."

It's important to understand that this man speaking to the Buddha is a large landholder. In the time of the Buddha, he owned a vast estate where many sharecroppers worked his fields, and they shared a little in the crop as their payment.

The Buddha says, "Imagine a visitor comes to you and says, 'You know, you should just keep all the produce that's produced on your estate for yourself so you can enjoy it and have a good life, and don't share anything with your sharecroppers.' If that person came to you and told you that, would that be a challenge or difficulty for your sharecroppers?"

The man said, "Yes, that would be a difficulty for them, a challenge for them not to receive any payment or any of the produce for themselves."

"Would that visitor who came be concerned with their welfare?"

The man said, "Oh, no, the person would have no concern for their welfare."

"Well then, do you think that person would have ill will for your sharecroppers, or goodwill and loving-kindness for them?"

The person said, "Oh, even more, ill will for them."

The Buddha said, "In the same way, if a person discovers a wholesome teaching, a wholesome dhamma, or a wholesome practice, and doesn't share it with people who could benefit from it, that's a challenge for them. It's an obstacle and an impediment for them in terms of moving towards greater welfare. It would not support or benefit them. Maybe it's more likely that keeping the teachings to oneself is a kind of ill will, a little bit of aversion that's there."

So rather than directly countering the man, the Buddha presented a simile of how he would behave under similar circumstances. When the man understood how he'd behave in a similar circumstance, the Buddha didn't have to answer the question directly. The man could figure out how the simile was applied to his own question.

The idea here is that there are wholesome, skillful dhammas, and it is a good thing to share them with people. It's a good thing to teach if you have truly discovered it and know it for yourself. Whether everyone should teach explicitly or be a teacher is another question. But the idea is that when we have discovered how to live in a beneficial way, we share it with others. We live it so that we can benefit other people as well. We don't live hermetically sealed off from others, but we live in a world to cooperate, to live in mutual kind regard and mutual support for each other.

We discover wholesome states of mind, wholesome practices, and wholesome ways of being. You could just keep it to yourself, but rather than necessarily teaching your family and friends, be sure to live it. Be sure to express it in how you live your life. Share the goodness and the freedom you've discovered. That's an art, a skill to be learned gradually and slowly by continuing to do it. Just because it's difficult or tiring to be kind or friendly to people at times, if we keep practicing it and doing it, it becomes easier and easier. It becomes second nature, and in some sense, it eventually becomes easier than many of the alternatives.

I want to end this series of talks by emphasizing what I've said repeatedly about the nature of the Buddha's teachings: they are pragmatic.

There were many people who came to the Buddha to ask ultimate questions—ultimate spiritual, religious, philosophical, or existential questions. Some people even demanded of the Buddha that he should answer these kinds of questions. Questions like: Does the soul exist? Will the soul exist after we die? Does the soul die when we die? Is consciousness something eternal, or is it temporary, only here when we're alive? Is the world eternal, or is it not going to last forever? Is the world infinite and goes on forever, or is it finite? All these kinds of ultimate questions, and we can probably add all kinds of ones that we've heard ourselves over time.

Some people really want answers to these things because somehow that reassures them or tells them they're on a good path. But the Buddha always said those kinds of questions are not beneficial, so he mostly just stayed silent. He didn't answer those questions because they are not beneficial for helping people come to the end of suffering and discover real happiness.

He taught, "What I teach is the practice, the orientation, and the view that supports people to discover what is really beneficial, what brings welfare, what brings happiness, and the end of suffering."

With this pragmatic orientation, the Buddha's concern is really with people suffering and overcoming it; that is the topic. Sometimes our particular Buddhist tradition is considered a "lesser" Buddhist tradition. And maybe that's a nice label we can embrace, because yes, it's lesser in the sense that it doesn't pursue all the grand, wonderful, cosmic, existential questions people can think of. Rather, it focuses on something very fundamental and root, which is suffering and the end of suffering, and the discovery of a lasting, really profound happiness and well-being.

With that end of suffering and this discovery of happiness, our relationship to these great existential questions—the meaning of life, and what happens when we die—changes. They might still be interesting questions, but they become a little bit more philosophical or abstract in nature. They aren't as weighty or important for us because we've discovered how to be at peace and very happy here. There is no fear driving those questions.

Wholesomeness, skillfulness—this is a really fundamental concept in the teachings of the Buddha that I find quite inspiring. It is simple, and it's meant to simplify things, to keep us close to what's most important if what we want to do is to become free of suffering.

Thank you very much. I hope that you will live a wholesome, skillful life for your own sake and for the sake of others. It is a great privilege and honor to be able to do even the smallest thing to benefit the life of someone else. So, thank you very much.