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Guided Meditation: Receptive Awareness

So good morning, everyone. For those of you who were not here yesterday, I'm at Spirit Rock^[1] in Marin County, California, about an hour and a half north of IMC^[2]. I'm teaching a retreat here through tomorrow, so I'll be doing the 7:00 a.m. from here tomorrow morning as well.

We have these wonderful rolling hills of the coast, lots of oaks. There might be lots of turkeys here, and it's possible that at some point we'll see the turkeys wandering around the background, or the deer or something. It's really nice for me to be doing this outdoors.

Also, in the Marin Headlands, these hills here, my early Buddhist practice was done at the Green Gulch Zen Center^[3], which is on the coast in these hills. When I lived there, I spent a lot of time on my days off hiking in these hills and mountains. The combination of the practice at the Zen Center and the walking in the hills was an important formative time for my meditation practice.

So here we are. As an introduction to this meditation, one of the premises that I'm offering you for what sati^[4] is—generally called mindfulness, but which I like to call awareness—is that it is a natural form of awareness that's always here. But we're seldom established in it, or seldom at rest in it, or abiding in it. Because the mind is busy in thoughts and desires, trying to think of concerns about the future and the past, and doing a lot of things, our focus of attention is not on this awareness itself. The whole momentum of doing mindfulness practices is to do those kinds of attentional practices that help us recognize, and then strengthen, and abide in—rest in—what we can call a natural awareness. This awareness is always here but seldom allowed to really show us its full potential.

When people are doing mindfulness practice, one of the things that might interfere with the naturalness of resting in this awareness and the simpler knowing, which doesn't require much effort, is that we're making effort in the practice. We're trying hard, and we're leaning maybe a little bit into the future, trying to make something happen, get something, get concentrated, or leaning into the future to see, can I really see here what's going on?

Another approach is to notice that we're aware, and then, in a way, just wait in the awareness. Do not wait for something to happen so much, and just give time for things to be seen more clearly. Do not rush off to the next thing, but recognize what's here. Recognize that we're aware of what's here, and then take a little bit of time to let what's here register more fully. It stands out more in relief.

Like here, I'm sitting in the fog in these rolling hillsides, and you see a little bit of the hills behind me. But when the fog clears, then you can see the higher mountains there, and there are more trees, and you can see things with greater clarity. The things stand out in relief, and then it's possible to take in more and more, to perceive more of what's going on. But not so much from trying too hard—not trying at all—but rather lingering and allowing each thing to reveal itself more fully because we're there for it. And it might not take long. We could do this with the breathing, where we're not ahead of ourselves trying to accomplish something, but more being with the breathing. So the breathing, the different qualities and characteristics of breathing, the movement, the pressure, the release of pressure, stands out in highlight, in relief.

So maybe we can try this today. Assume an appropriate meditation posture for yourself, and gently close your eyes.

Just not trying to do anything more, but to be. To notice what stands out in relief for you as you sit quietly with your eyes closed. Not thinking about something and realizing you forgot to turn off the lights in the living room or something. But what is here in your body at this time? In your senses? If you stay here, what you relax into stands out in highlight.

Open this awareness to your body. What is revealed? What stands out in relief in the range of things you can experience in your body?

In a moment, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Not searching for anything, not probing or analyzing. As you take some deep breaths, what aspect of deep breathing is revealed? What is received in highlight?

And perhaps note the contrast of taking some deep breaths to now going back to breathing in an easy, natural way. What stands out in contrast, or what is highlighted now? Not because you're looking for the contrast, but just how something else stands out clearly.

Often I suggest that you relax at the beginning, relax your body. For this exercise, become aware of any holding or tension there is in the body. Don't relax it, just know it. Allow it to stand out in relief. Allow it time and space to let it speak to you, to let it show itself to you. Maybe in the face, the shoulders, the chest, the belly, the hands, or the arms.

As if tension is the language of the body. The body is speaking to you, and you listen. Without relaxing or letting go of it, just listen. Just receive it. Let it stand out in relief.

Gently, can you be aware, notice a little bit what it's like to have an awareness that is more receptive than active? More allowing things to be seen, known, and recognized, rather than searching for something.

Settling into your body, breathing with awareness. Being more in a receptive mode than a searching mode or a trying mode. We receive. Almost as if you linger with each thing to let it speak to you, to let it reveal itself to you, only because you're available. You're not rushing. You allow each thing that arises and occurs its due, its time.

Things become known more clearly, including the qualities of a mind that's abiding and resting in awareness, resting in receptive awareness. It's as if every breath and all the sensations are the language of the body speaking to you, and all you do is listen. All you do is receive sensations.

When you are not receptive and open in awareness, chances are your mind has been activated in thoughts or concerns. Relax the activation. Relax the effort of thinking, and relax back into a receptive mode of awareness. Trusting the mind's ability to listen, to see, and to feel experience as it comes and goes in the present.

As we come to the end of the sitting, what stands out for you as beneficial from having sat these minutes here and meditated? Are you a little bit more settled or calm, more peaceful? Are you more self-aware of aspects of yourself? Maybe aspects that are difficult, or aspects that are helpful? Are you a little bit more connected to your heart? Are you inclined to be kind, compassionate, and friendly?

If there are any ways that you have benefited from this meditation—or if you haven't—perhaps you can dedicate any benefits, known or unknown, from having meditated to the welfare and happiness of others. Rather than keeping this for yourself, it's like you're opening up your mind, your heart, your hands in a wonderful, delightful way that says, Here, you can have it, please.

It's such a pleasure to release and open up and just give it all away. May it be that the benefits from this practice today be for the welfare and happiness of others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Again, I don't have a bell with me here, so I'll bow to you all, and that bow can be the time that we end the meditation. Thank you.

Satipatthana (58) Investigation Factor of Awakening

So good morning, everyone. This week, the topic is the Seven Factors of Awakening^[5]: mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. These seven are qualities of our inner life, of the mind perhaps, that grow and develop as we do mindfulness practice. As we do the practices, the different exercises that are taught in this text that we've been doing these last weeks.

To some degree, these get awakened. The Seven Factors of Awakening—I think of them as: as we become more awake, more present, these begin to become strong. They're ordinary faculties, ordinary states of being. I like to use the analogy of waking up from a very nice afternoon nap where maybe the sunlight is streaming into the room. Waking up content, happy, and relaxed, the mind is kind of clear. We might lie still on our back with the eyes open, and nothing needs to be done. There's nothing we have to figure out or do. We just continually lie there, maybe looking at the ceiling or looking at the light streaming through the windows, and there are dust particles in the air. We are just watching the dust particles, or looking at the texture of the ceiling.

Things are seen clearly, not because we're looking intently, but because we're not preoccupied by other things. We're just there in a simple, ordinary way, and awareness is present. It isn't like we're trying to be aware. In the wakefulness after a nap, we're just aware, and there's a clarity to the awareness where we can see and look at the details in the room—the details of the particular texture of the ceiling or the dust in the air.

There's a kind of delightful energy that's not driving energy, not trying. We're certainly not about to fall back to sleep. There's a clarity in the energy that's just there to do this wonderful gazing around the room in this after-nap reverie. It might feel kind of joyful to do it. Maybe joy is too strong a post-nap experience, but maybe it's a sense of well-being, just being there, content and cozy.

There's a level of tranquility, a calmness. We feel tranquil, almost like the body feels it doesn't have to do anything. It's just there. Maybe there's even some degree of concentration present. We're studying the dancing dust in the sunlight, and we're just kind of absorbed in that. That absorption in the dust and the dance is the concentration. And then there's equanimity. Like right now, all kinds of things can happen that normally we would be concerned with, but we don't care. The mind knows it, but it's not so concerned about it. Maybe there's some messiness in the room, and the messiness is not something to be concerned about—it's just something to marvel at, just seeing and being with it.

As we settle into this practice, the Seven Factors of Awakening become stronger and stronger. The second one is usually called investigation in English. The Pali^[6] term, the ancient Buddhist term that's translated as investigation, is a differentiation of dharmas^[7]. It involves a differentiation of things, a distinguishing of things. I think of it as how we begin to distinguish things as there becomes more and more clarity.

Those of you who have been here from the beginning today see that the fog is beginning to clear, the sun is coming out, and now there are more details to be seen in the hillside behind me. You even see the faint outline of the higher mountain behind the first hill. As the fog clears and the light appears, the eyes, without studying or working too much at it, just notice more details and can distinguish them. Right now, I can distinguish a row of trees behind me, and I can start distinguishing different trees from each other. I don't have to work at it; it's just obvious they're different colors and shapes a little bit. But before, when it was so foggy, I just had a sense there were trees there, but it was just a row, and I couldn't distinguish anything between the trees.

It might not seem like an important thing to be able to distinguish things from each other, but this is what comes with greater and greater clarity. This word dharma that we're distinguishing can mean different things, and I'll say what that is in a moment. But I just want to emphasize that it's this capacity to distinguish things, to see things in their clarity in and of themselves, distinct from other things, that begins to free the mind from the fog of attachment—the mist of clinging, wanting, aversion, and the preoccupations we have.

How many times have you or have I met someone we've known from before, and carried with us the ideas of who they were, the past experience of them? And in fact, they had changed, they were different today. It took a while to realize that, because I was living in the fog of my memory of them. I was projecting onto them. To not bring the past with me, and to be able to see something clearly for itself in the present—a person, a friend—then we have a chance to distinguish what's unique and what's really happening in this moment with them, as opposed to missing it because we're still living a little bit in the past information.

Part of the distinguishing is to distinguish what we perceive, one perception from another. If you have a dim morning light without the light on in the room, you can't distinguish very much. You see rough objects, but you don't see the details of the objects. Turn on the light, and then, without any work on the part of the mind, you see all these details. If I take off my glasses and look at certain distances, it's all blurry. But if I put on my glasses, it's all clear without having to work, and now I'm seeing the details.

In the same way, as mindfulness gets clearer and clearer, more subtle to present-moment awareness, the details stand out. As the details become clearer and clearer, one of the things we distinguish is the difference between our ideas of an object and the process of perception—the ways in which things are actually impermanent, arising and passing. The river of perceptions that flows through us in this relaxed, open, receptive mind breaks up the solidity that is always going to be there with clinging. We hold on to things, want things to be a certain way, or push them away because they are a certain way we don't like. We begin to differentiate the process of change that's constantly going on from the ideations of constancy, fixity, or ideas we overlay on top of things.

The other part of this differentiation of dharmas is that dharma can also mean action or activities. We start seeing that how we practice influences the practice itself. If we're striving and pushing, we feel the tension of that. The clearer we become, the more receptive we are in the present moment, we become clear that striving and pushing actually hinders the clarity and gets in the way of the practice. We see that there's a better consequence if we don't strive, if we relax and open up.

If we spend a lot of time analyzing or judging, after a while we differentiate. We see clearly, Oh, I've confused thinking with mindfulness. I thought that if I spent a lot of time thinking and judging my experience, I was present for it. But in fact, there's another way of being present without the judgments, without thinking about things so much in elaborate ways. We're distinguishing how we're practicing, and discovering ways that are more conducive for peace, relaxation, calm, openness, and clarity.

In that dharma also means action, we also become more and more aware of the consequences of our actions in our daily lives. Sometimes we start seeing that if I live with dishonesty, breaking the precepts^[8], that has a very deleterious effect on me. That consequence is not good. I feel the aftereffect of it. Seeing the aftereffects and consequences that are not so desirable helps us to clean up our lives and live a better way. Not so much because it's a moral thing to do, but rather because we see clearly it's beneficial. We distinguish better and better what is beneficial and what is not.

As the dharma practice deepens and unfolds, people get more refined, subtle, or clear about what is beneficial and what is not. It's not a judgment. It's not a moral thing. It's not a statement about our personal worth. It just means, as a matter of fact, you take your hand off the hot stove. You don't begin gossiping about someone because it just feels like you take your hand off the hot stove. It doesn't feel good to gossip or demean someone.

So this differentiation of dharmas: when we translate it as investigation, some people think they have to probe and peer deeply, and kind of analyze or figure out what's going on. It's not that way. It's more like we ask the question, What is this? and then we allow it to reveal itself to us. There's almost like a lingering in awareness that gives a little time for every experience to show itself a little bit better to us: Oh, that's how it is. The perceptions can be clear, and can take in more fully what's happening. Investigation is that receptivity of the mind that takes in everything with greater clarity. In the clarity, things become distinguished, they become differentiated. Then we're on the path to wisdom when we start seeing with greater and greater clarity.

You might experiment with this as you go about your day today. Find times during the day where you're not rushing on to the next thing or the next thought. Rather, take some time to just stay there, and take in the experience of the moment as if you're going to discover something new. Even with something you do every day, maybe take some time to just stand or sit there with it. Look around and relax. What can you see that's new? Is there anything new here that you never noticed before?

Stand in your kitchen and just look around. Let it reveal itself to you, and see if you can find something new. That ability to see something new in a relaxed way utilizes this differentiation of the dharmas, the second factor of awakening. As you do that investigation, that differentiation, see if you can notice how your mind is. See if you can have a beneficial mind state as you receptively feel, look, and perceive around you to discover something new that you've never noticed.

So thank you. And as I'm talking, I see that it's getting a little more and more clear behind me. There is wonderful fresh air, the birds, and the workers came—I don't know if you could hear them—to begin their morning work on some kind of a construction project that's going on. Thank you all very, very much. I'll be here one more day tomorrow, and then I'll be back at IMC. Thank you.