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Guided Meditation: The Meeting of Sensations and Awareness

So hello everyone and welcome. Today is the last day of these five qualities, characteristics of the dharma^[1]. The last one has to do with what one personally can know for oneself. What is known for oneself, that has to be for oneself and no one else. There are such things that we know for ourselves. If you're hungry, that's something you're supposed to know for yourself. There are inner sensations that give you that message. If you're thirsty, if you're sleepy, and if you're cold, you might know that for yourself. Or if you have a clear enough mind.

So what we know for ourselves has to do with this meeting place of life, and the way we recognize it, the way we know it and are present for it. Something like knowing how to work your dishwasher, if you have one, is something you know for yourself because you've learned it. When you first got the dishwasher, it wasn't so clear. It was new, and you didn't know how the buttons worked. In the beginning, you did not know, you were maybe confused by it, and it took a while to get the hang of it. After some time, you know it for yourself. You don't think about it; it's second nature.

But the place where you can know something for yourself, that place where there's that inner understanding and knowledge in your relationship to something in the world—now you know it. Even if it's second nature, it's not the instructions and it's not the dishwasher. Between the two, there's a clarity, there's an ease, there's a confidence, and there's an understanding that operates. This place in between—that place where in the midst of being aware of something, there's something there that we can know for ourselves.

For today, what I suggest for this meditation is that it has to do not just with being aware of things, but a certain kind of clarity, a confidence, a dynamic something that exists between your capacity to be aware and the sensations within you that you can be aware of. This rich dynamic between them, the relationship that arises between them, doesn't only arise because the two of them meet. It isn't just plain mindfulness. Boring mindfulness is just being aware of what we're trying to do here: "Oh, that's an in-breath, that's an out-breath." That maybe is boring. And it's not just the breath by itself, like, "What's the big deal?" Rather, it's in between the two. There's a relationship, there's a connection, there's an attunement, there's something that begins happening that only you can know for yourself.

Sometimes in a close relationship with another person, there's you, the other person, and then the relationship that gets created between you. That relationship is dynamic and changing, and you can be attuned to it. It's kind of invisible, maybe.

In that way, when you sit to meditate, what is that dynamic, rich place that arises in the connection between mindfulness of something and the sensations you're mindful of? Even if you're not so clear what it is, the fact that it's what you know for yourself—where is that place that knowing for oneself can occur? In the form of a clarity, in the form of a confidence, in the form of a receptivity, in the form of an openness.

Stay close to that. Stay close to this dynamic place of something there. Don't look for anything. Don't try to engineer it. Rather, just stay close to that place where you would know something just for yourself, like you'd know hunger.

So assuming a meditation posture, to know and feel your posture from the inside out is to be attuned to sensations that you own. You have to know for yourself. You can't go to a manual, you can't ask another person, "What am I feeling here?" Feel and sense your posture from the inside. Are there any messages, any sensibilities that it would be good to adjust your posture in any way at all? Or to adjust it in ways that the posture participates in helping you be aware, be awake. The posture allows for a kind of dynamic relaxation that also is enlivening.

As you feel yourself into your body, scanning your body, is there some place in your body, some sensations that kind of give you the message, "Here, come here, attend to this, feel this, be with this, because this is the place where you can settle"? This is where you can relax more. It's here that you can stabilize your attention in the present.

If there's a place inside that calls your attention to stabilize, to come center yourself, to breathe from that place, or to breathe through that place in some way, let your breathing, the sensations of breathing, accompany a place of stability, steadiness, relaxation. And as you exhale, allow for a calming throughout your body, throughout your mind. What is it about breathing, being in your body, that only you can know, only you can feel from the inside? No one else can feel it.

In the contact of your mindfulness and the feelings, can there be a space, a dynamism, an aliveness, a clarity into which you settle that invites, "Here is the place of peace. Here is the place where the dharma is onward leading."

In that dynamic, peaceful space between sensations of breathing and the mindfulness of them—in that space between, is there any force inside of you that keeps you separated, pulling away or gripping on, pushing forward, contracting, that somehow interferes with resting in that quiet place in between the meeting place of sensations and awareness?

Sitting here meditating, what are the most tranquil or peaceful sensations within you that only you can know? That belongs to the deep personal world, below your thoughts, below your ideas and reactions to things, deep within the world of sensations. Does that tranquility, peace, or steadiness, however small it is, somehow belong to this different world? Not the world of sensations by themselves, not the world of mindfulness or awareness, but somehow between the two, in the place where it's a dynamic meeting place. The place where it's onward leading.

As you breathe and exhale, allow for the relaxing of any way that you're pulling away or reacting. Any forces that keep you swirling or distant from that deep place inside, where you know for yourself it's onward leading to greater peace, tranquility.

As we come to the end of the sitting, expand into wider and wider circles this wonderful middle place, the meeting place of the sensations of the world and your awareness of it, this dynamic place. What arises that only you can know, looking for what is wholesome, nourishing? Gaze upon the world from this nourishing, calm place. Gaze upon the world kindly, peacefully, softly, with a soft gaze, wishing well-being for all.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. Thank you.

Dharmette: Qualities of the Dharma (5 of 5) Personally Known by the Wise

Welcome, and this is the last talk on the five characteristic qualities of the dharma. This remarkable description is pointing to something where I like to render the word dharma as intelligence. It is some deep intelligence that's operating within that we can't appropriate or claim as "mine," but it's part of you. It's part of this whole system, but it's not part of the place for the usual thinking, engineering, and figuring out things. It's not the usual parts of the brain-mind where we're thinking, imagining, making assumptions, making up stories, and placing whatever experience we have in a narrative of past, present, and future.

It's an inner world that has a lot to do with the immediate presence of now, where we experience things in the immediacy of now, here in ourselves. So it's what's directly perceivable in our senses, what is directly here, now, that is immediate, that is inviting inspection. It's like a feeling inside, "This is where to be. This is where to have attention. This is what's calling for attention here." But we pay careful attention that it's the right thing. It's not that our craving is calling our attention; that's more of an addictive kind of insistence. This is a deeper, quieter calling of our attention towards peace, towards the dharma, towards this inner intelligence where we find that we are not reactive, we're not caught, we're not imagining things. There is a place of something peaceful here, the deeper intelligence. We're being called to it, and maybe it's a quieter place than the loud insistence of our complaints, our fears, and anxieties.

It's onward leading. It feels like this place where we can live between being mindful and the sensations. The relationship between the two, what happens when they meet, is very different if we know things through the filter of our interpretations, assumptions, fears, desires, and hates. That produces a very different in-between place than if we just bring simple, full, ordinary, peaceful awareness together with the sensations. That is the place where this dharma intelligence can operate. Not the reactive intelligence, but the deep responsive intelligence of some inner depth within us, the profound intelligence that the Buddha is pointing to.

And now the fifth characteristic of this is that it is something which is personally known by the wise. Personally experienced by the wise. The word "personal" literally means "for oneself"—it's what the wise know for themselves. I think this is a wonderfully positive message because it implies that you are wise, or you have the capacity to be wise. It's not wise about ideas, not wise about how the world works out there, not wise about how the dishwasher works. Rather, we're finding our way to that deep inner place where there's a wisdom that's not related to ordinary intelligence or directly to our IQ level. It has to do with a deep inner intelligence, the dharma that's within us.

This idea that it's personally known for oneself—where can we stay where something is personally known? It's pointing back to these earlier qualities. What can be personally known through our senses? What can be personally known here in the immediate now, not hoping for something in the future? What can be personally known that is inviting attention, that's saying, "Here, this is a good place. That quiet, nourishing, beneficial place." Where can we personally give ourselves this very subtle feeling sense that, "Here, this is the place something is growing. This is the place something wants to be released or be relaxed. This is the place where understanding can grow."

This onward leading place—this dharma practice is not static. It isn't just accepting the present moment and putting up with it the way it is. There's something much more interesting and dynamic that happens where, yes, there's a kind of acceptance, a kind of willingness to just be open to things as they are, but for the purpose of finding our way to this deeper sensitivity, sensibility where a deeper intelligence operates. The intelligence recognizes what is beneficial, what is calling our attention, where the deeper need is. "Here is where you can let go. Here is where you can release." You don't necessarily engineer the letting go, but here, feel this, be close to this sense that something here wants to let go. Just feel that, be with it, allow something to happen, make space around it. "Here's where something grows. Here's where the samādhi^[2] grows. Here is where we get more steadied or more settled. Oh, I know this for myself. The steadying place, this deeper place."

So it's personally known by the wise in such a way that when we meditate, we're pulled into the world of the present moment. We're pulled into now, the dynamic, unfolding, opening dharma intelligence having to do with here, now. We have the intelligence, we have the wisdom now not to think we have to solve the problems of our life, to figure out how to make the dishwasher work, or how to have a conversation with someone, or how to have a better past by repeating it and trying to understand it. All those things might be useful, but for this dharma process, the dharma intelligence, we can feel it pulling us into a deeper and deeper intimacy, a connection here into a very personal world. That which we can only know for ourselves. That which you're not looking for answers from outside. You're looking for freedom, the growth of freedom within. "Here is the growth of freedom. This is where something comes."

We're becoming wise, not about economics, not about issues that go on in the wider world. We're becoming wise about what's really the path within us to heal, to rectify, to come into harmony, to come into a deep attunement. So we're not living in a reactive world, a resisting world, a pushing world, a tense world, a contracted world. We're living in a peaceful inner life, a peaceful inner world that prepares us in the best possible way for how to go out and figure out how to respond to the wider world. How to figure out making the dishwasher work. How to figure out what we need to understand about an election so we make better choices in the election. There are complicated things to know, but the wise stay closely connected to that place where only we can know, the place that only we can understand, so that we stay close to what is wholesome and learn how to navigate away from the unwholesome. Not picking it up, not participating in it.

This word "wholesome" and "unwholesome" is a quality that we can really feel and sense. What is healthy within us, what is beneficial, what is nourishing, what is supportive, what keeps us connected to the whole so that we don't become limited, divided, fragmented, or separated from this dharma intelligence within.

This deep inner intelligence that we can know for ourselves, that the wise know for themselves, has a lot to do with what's wholesome and unwholesome, healthy and unhealthy. That is something that arises in the meeting place between sensations and the knowing of them, the awareness of them. What happens between those? What is the rich dynamic world? Don't be preoccupied with the sensations. Don't be preoccupied with you as the agent of awareness. Rather, find this deeper path in the middle where the dharma gates open up and we can move forward, onward into a deep inner world of intelligence, of wisdom, of peace, and a wholeness, a unification, where all of who we are feels like it's coming into harmony with itself. This is the possibility of liberation and freedom.

So the five qualities of the dharma... The well-taught dharma of the Buddha is directly visible, perceivable. It's immediate. It's inviting inspection. It's onward leading. And it's to be personally known by the wise.

Assume that this instruction is for you, and that it's a recognition that you are wise. You have the capacity for wisdom. If you dip down into this deeper sensitivity that is deeper than your discursive mind, your thinking mind, feel your way deeply in.

Thank you. I appreciate very much this opportunity to explore this topic with you all. It's a very important one for dharma practice, and I hope that it guides you—not what I say, but what I'm pointing to—into your deeper dharma intelligence that is waiting for you inside. Thank you.