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Guided Meditation on Ease

Greetings, my friends. Happy to be here. This morning is also the last morning for this four-week series on the Four Noble Truths^[1]. As a conclusion to all this, and as instructions for this meditation, I would like to say that sometimes there's the idea that we have seeds within us. It's a wonderful metaphor. In terms of the Four Noble Truths, we have the seeds inside of us for peace, the seeds inside of us for happiness, or a deep satisfying sense of well-being and ease. To begin recognizing that seed, to begin watering it and tending it, and letting it germinate and grow to become a seedling and a full plant, is one of the tasks of this practice. In this kind of metaphor, we're not really importing something from the outside—importing teachings, beliefs, or ideas. Rather, we're nurturing and nourishing something inside that can grow and develop.

In terms of the Four Noble Truths, we often use the word "suffering"^[2]—the suffering, the cause, the cessation, and the way leading to the cessation of suffering. "Suffering" is a big word. Sometimes it's useful to use the word "unease," and to recognize that we're navigating our life between ease and unease. The possibility for ease within that seed of ease is what we're looking for, nourishing, and making room for. We are not holding onto it, but opening to it and nourishing it.

One of the ways to do that is to recognize any and all ways that we feel unease. If we do feel unease, then to experiment with how to be aware of it with ease. We can't necessarily fix, control, or change everything that happens, but we can begin experimenting. See if we can hold it and be with it with ease. The awareness is with ease. With that awareness, maybe then we can breathe with what is uneasy.

If the breathing is not quite the right place to feel a sense of ease, some people just rest their awareness in the body. This wide awareness of the body can hold whatever is difficult with some modicum of ease. If that's not possible, some people find it helpful to find ease in their hearing, just listening to the sounds around them where there is some ease. With that ease, we can include within it what is uneasy, without needing to judge it, define ourselves by it, or see it as a problem. Hold it with ease, and maybe then things relax. If they don't, what we're doing is nourishing the seed of ease: recognizing it, breathing with it, feeling it in the body. I think that becomes strong.

Meditation Instructions

So then, for this meditation, take a posture that allows you to be alert with a sense of ease. Maybe that means to sit up straighter. Maybe it means to relax more in your body, in your posture, to settle back.

Perhaps if the circumstances where you're meditating have some modicum of quiet, or you're being undisturbed by other people in the room, recognize that sense of being undisturbed in the room you're in. Whatever unease you have, there is a kind of ease in the undisturbedness of sitting quietly.

See if you can take a few conscious breaths. I often say take some deeper breaths, but make your subconscious breathing a little bit more intentional. See if you can do so in an easeful way, as if you're easing into the experience of breathing. With the breathing, ease into your body.

Then, let your breathing return to normal. If there's any sense of ease in your body anywhere, feel that ease. Feel the relaxation or the quiet, a place in your body that feels undisturbed or cozy.

Take a few moments to relax some of your muscles, relaxing around your body, settling in a teeny bit more to whatever ease is available here.

Become aware of your breathing. If your breathing feels easeful and comfortable, enjoy that. Hang out with that. Be massaged by the breathing. If any part of the breathing has unease or discomfort as part of it, see if you can be aware of that. Hold it within a wider field of ease, not making it a problem, but letting it be part of the larger landscape so that you're easy with it—at ease with feeling unease.

As we continue sitting here, if anything occurs that takes you away from the breathing and there's any sense of unease with that, keep searching for how to hold that with ease. Just hold it in a field or landscape of ease. It's not a problem. It's that capacity for ease that's the important thing that's happening here.

Gently, easily, easefully, keep opening to where the ease is—the ease in the awareness of all things.

If you become distracted with thinking, see if you can be at ease with that. Be easy. Look for the ease, and then let go of your thoughts. Easefully begin again with your breathing, with that sense of ease. You're not regularly coming back to breathing; you're regularly beginning again with the ease of awareness with breathing. Slowly, that ease of awareness, like a little seed that's germinating, can become stronger and bigger by the repetition, returning to easeful awareness of breathing.

Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, I want to evoke again the idea that there is within us the capacity for ease, for peace. When we can feel a sense of inner ease, it's a lot easier to love. When we can be at ease, and have some ease with how we're uneasy, it's also easier to love.

Our capacity to love, our compassion, and our care can sometimes come with some kind of feeling of unease. But to keep opening to the ease, to keep holding all things from a place of ease even if we're uneasy—maybe that can be one of our gifts to the world. To the degree to which we're at ease or in touch with our ease, we help others feel at ease. One of the gifts is to support people to be at ease with how they are and who they are. Because in being easy with how we are and how all beings are, it's easier for what's good inside of them to come to the forefront. It's easier for them to love, to be happy, and to care.

Coming out of this meditation today, in our wish to support, help, and contribute to a better world for all beings, may we let our ease be a gift to help others be at ease as well. In whatever mutual ease there is, perhaps there can be a greater recognition, respect, and maybe even love between people. May all beings be at ease.