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Guided Meditation: Happiness of Mindfulness

Hello and welcome. Today, the theme in this week's series is happiness. A particular kind of happiness that, in a sense, has no external reasons. It isn't that we've won a prize or some wonderful thing is happening in the world, but rather a happiness that comes with doing the practice. Mindfulness, the meditation practice, brings a kind of contentment, a warm pleasure that comes from being immersed in the practice itself. This is without any distractions, without any reference points of other things that we want or that we don't want to happen in the world, or our concerns about what's coming or what's happened before. It is the immersion here in this moment's experience.

I'd like to say this: what attention focuses on can have an influence on the mind. What the mind feeds on affects the health of the mind, the state of the mind. So, if the mind feeds on a lot of horror movies, then it might be no surprise that we spend a good amount of time being afraid. If we spend a lot of time with friends who mostly are angry, complaining, and cynical, and that's what we focus on, there's no surprise that this gets reinforced and we happen to be that way. If we spend a lot of time on advertisements, maybe it's no surprise that we end up strengthening our desires. If we focus on genuine or healthy happiness, that affects and influences the mind differently than these earlier examples. So what we focus on is food; it is an influence on the mind itself if we do it regularly and repeatedly. What we think about is the same thing.

It's helpful in meditation to lower the bar for what we think happiness or joy is. Maybe it's a very subtle contentment or a subtle sense of pleasure of simply sitting here and being here. To include that in the focus of attention, let that be a food that the mind feeds on or grows with. Now, mindfulness practice is often about being present for what is, whatever is predominant. So what I'm saying might seem contradictory: focus on something subtle and ignore the predominant desires that I'm caught up in or the anger that I'm involved in. It's a little different in that we definitely want to be present for what is, but we want to notice that being present, being mindful, being aware—and here I use the word "being" as a kind of deliberateness, a kind of conscientiousness, or a kind of conscious presence and awareness—that deliberateness, that engagement of awareness, that way of being aware, it's possible to find happiness or pleasure in that.

So if we're being mindful of our anger, mindful of our greed, or whatever it might be, the way not to have the anger and the greed be fed is to step away from participating in these unwholesome, unhealthy mind states. In stepping away, look at them. Be aware of them, watch them, and appreciate the watching. Appreciate the awaring of them, the awareness. Feel a contentment, a joy, a kind of happiness in being aware, as opposed to participating with them.

As we sit here today, as you bring up your mindfulness to being aware of the present moment in your experience, with a very low bar, a very low standard of what qualifies, see if you can be aware while there's a pleasure of mindfulness. The pleasure, the contentment for being aware. Maybe a delight. Maybe not something you're actively thinking about too much, but just the nature of being aware, the nature of mindfulness, contains within it some pleasure, some goodness, something that feels: this is good, this is valuable, this moment is content to be aware this way. To bring that along with your mindfulness, that is what feeds the mind, that's what influences the mind. It's a protection from being influenced by the greed or the anger, the unhealthy mind states and activities, while being aware of them at the same time. Hopefully, that's clear.

Assuming your meditation posture, and gently closing your eyes.

Slowly and deliberately bring a sense of gentleness into your body. Being gentle with what is not gentle. Being gentle with the tensions, the agitations, the emotions that might be in your body. A gentle awareness of them.

If you find your muscles being tense, almost as if you're not doing anything but being aware of the tension, allow the tension to release if it wants to release. Allow your body to relax if that's what your body wants to do.

And then allow awareness to gently be with the movements of the body breathing. Wherever that movement of breathing sensations are the easiest or most enjoyable to experience.

As you're aware of your breathing, maybe also be aware of any tension and agitation in the mind. If that tension wants to relax, allow the mind to soften, to relax.

Then again, becoming aware of breathing more fully. Where there's a light touch in the body. The light touch between awareness and breathing. Awareness touches the experience of breathing lightly but broadly. Not the fingertip touching, but the whole hand of awareness making a light contact with a body breathing.

Awareness floating on the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.

If you find yourself thinking, it isn't so much that you let go of your thoughts as you let go of your interest and involvement with them. So you can be more interested and more involved in the contact between breathing and awareness.

As you're aware, you might be aware of breathing, thoughts arising, sounds, sensations, emotions. All these things might come into awareness. See if you can also include a contentment, a happiness, a pleasure in being aware. What you're aware of might not be pleasant and happy, but in some way being aware deliberately, consciously knowing what's happening as it's happening, lightly, gently, openly. Whatever way that comes with happiness or contentment, include that as you're being aware.

Maybe you can let there be a happiness in the knowing, in the awaring.

Instead of giving yourself over to your thoughts, give yourself over to being aware here, now. Sensitive to the slightest pleasure or happiness that comes with being aware.

Anywhere physically, emotionally, is there a way of lightening up, gentling how you're aware of it? Opening up the awareness so that awareness of it has a contentment, or pleasure, or happiness, or a feeling of rightness. This feels right, to be aware this way.

As we come to the end of the sitting, imagine that how you're aware of the world is offering medicine or food for the world. If you're aware of the world, if you know the world from fear, or from anger, from greed or lust, you're putting into the world something very different than if you're aware of the world with contentment and happiness, with joy, pleasure, love, kindness. At least the kind of pleasure or contentment that can come from being aware itself. The awareness that allows us to see clearly and honestly what is here in this world without being entangled in it. To be aware in a way where the awareness itself contains a joy, a happiness, a pleasure. The joy of non-clinging. The joy of being present.

To be aware in this way provides a healthy food, a medicine for this world that we live in. May we bring the joy, the happiness of mindfulness into all our encounters. Even the ones which are unpleasant, even the ones that we have other emotions, but at least we have the subtle pleasure, the happiness of mindfulness itself.

May our mindfulness be a healthy influence on this world that we live in. May it contribute to the welfare and happiness of all beings. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

Dharmette: The Gladness Pentad (4 of 5) Nourished by Happiness

This is the fourth talk on the gladness pentad, and the fourth of these five qualities is happiness, sukha^[1]. Because sukha is sometimes translated as "pleasure," there are two conclusions about the kind of happiness we're talking about. One is that pleasure is something we mostly can feel through our body; there's a physicality to it. So this is a happiness which has a sublime or pleasant pleasure somehow in the body. It's not excited, it's something settling and quieting. The other is that this sukha, this happiness, is not to be happy about anything, but rather it's the happiness in doing, in the activity. It is to be immersed in an activity, just the immersion, the absorption, the giving yourself over to it. I like this idea of giving ourselves over to really be there. Not to forget ourselves, not to disconnect, but in mindfulness to really give ourselves over to this, immerse ourselves in this world of practice.

As the strength of the practice builds, that immersion in the practice is not something that we will—that we say, "Okay, now I'm going to do this"—but rather something we enter into, we settle into, that opens up for us with the strength of our practice and our strength in not being caught in thoughts. There's a momentum that builds through practice that begins with faith, with trust, with inspiration, and the practice itself.

So we want to practice. We sit down, we're glad to be able to practice. We're glad that, "Wow, I've been busy running around like crazy all day and it's so good to finally sit down and sit quiet and not be so busy." Or, "This practice is so important for me and I do it every day, but this is like the center of how I want to live my life. It is what comes from this practice. So I'm so glad to be back here at home in this practice." For each of us, it's going to be different, but there's a gladness. That gladness is a little bit of an encouragement, a cheerleader to start really giving ourselves to doing the practice.

We sit down to meditate and we find ourselves interested in the challenge we have with a neighbor. Our neighbor is not being right, or being unfair, or something, and that might be an important topic, but we sit down and that's not what this meditation is about. You're finally here at home, you have something you love doing, and you're so happy to be able to do it. The concerns with the neighbors can wait for another time.

So there's a momentum in being glad to do it. With that gladness, we start doing it, and we start feeling hooked in or plugged in to being mindful. You feel like the practice has a life of its own, it's doing itself for us now. It's not constantly coming back, constantly applying ourselves, but we're kind of on the conveyor belt. Now we're kind of coming along. And that conveyor belt feeling of being in the practice, in the engagement, the engagement itself starts feeling like a delightful joy, a kind of very subtle pleasant thrill or a little bit of excitement: "Oh yes, we're here, we're present."

That's a feeling that maybe is felt in the arms and the chest, sometimes in the face. It feels like maybe something's vibrating, or something's energized. There's a lightness, or a clarity, or a tingling, or a sense of flowing pleasure to that immersion.

And then we're so happy to be doing it, something relaxes and lets go: "Oh, I'm here, I can trust this. I can now relax more fully." So there isn't a need to apply oneself so much in meditation. Something about the application of attention relaxes, and the body relaxes and settles. With that settling, quieting, and tranquilizing of the body, the gladness and the joy transform into a kind of happiness, a kind of contentment. It is an embodied pleasure that is not hedonistic pleasure. It just feels so satisfying that it doesn't feel right to call it pleasure. Maybe it feels better to call it a happiness that feels light, that feels quiet, that feels still. It feels more subtle and gentle than the joyful immersion that came earlier in the practice.

This momentum begins happening, and this is one of the great things about practice, to find ourselves on the conveyor belt of practice. Some people at this point in practice will talk about how it isn't that they're doing the practice, but they are being practiced. It's almost like the practice is doing us, rather than we're doing the practice. A big part of the practitioner's role at this point is making sure we don't mess it up. We don't get in the way of it, we don't get caught up in thoughts or control, or trying to make it better, fixing it, or holding on to it. It's mostly just kind of staying out of the way. If there are too many cooks in the kitchen, it doesn't work, and the extra cook is you. So you have to stay present for sure, but you mostly have to kind of stay out of the kitchen.

One of the ways of understanding this pleasure to make it more accessible—because it might seem a little bit much, this idea of being on the conveyor belt and being carried along—is to feel how subtle it can be, how small it can be, and be content and happy with that. One of the ways of doing this is as we cultivate mindfulness practice, get used to it, being aware and being present, being in the moment here and now, recognizing what's happening, offering our presence and our attention to what's happening here. If we're drinking tea, eating food, opening a door, being with our breathing, or listening to someone, there's a heightened attentiveness, a feeling of deliberateness of being present and receptive to what's happening.

Then we begin feeling and recognizing that there is some pleasure, some goodness, something healthy, some happiness and joy in being aware itself. Some of this might be evaluative, like all these different steps of the pentad. It might be the happiness of being inspired: "I'm getting to do this practice. Look at me, it's like riding the bicycle with no hands. Look at this, I was aware of three breaths in a row. Look at this, I was listening to my friend. My friend said something difficult, and I didn't habitually lash out. I just stayed and was present. Wow, this is good." So that's an evaluative gladness. Then you keep listening, and it just feels good to have this ability to be attentive and open. You see that your friend who's complaining about something, something shifts in them because you're just present in a non-reactive way, and you start appreciating your non-reactivity in a deeper way.

And then it allows you to relax into it. In that relaxing, you feel a subtle happiness in the awareness itself, not evaluating it, but rather in the tone of it and the texture of it. There is some happiness, some contentment, some pleasure. To stay gently aware of that pleasure, that goodness, what's healthy about that kind of awareness is very useful. What we pay attention to is what influences the quality, texture, and state of our mind and heart. If we're only aware of and focus on what's painful and difficult—with our anger, grief, sadness, conceit, discouragement, and all kinds of things like that—if we get too absorbed in it without being aware, then that is cyclic. It influences the mind and heart, and we feel worse, and then we become more aware of it. We have to step out of the loop of these things affecting us negatively. One way to do that is to have enough awareness that we feel the goodness of being aware, the goodness of not being lost in something, influenced by, or in the grip of something.

Feel the subtlest forms of contentment, happiness, joy, and satisfaction that come along with being aware—just keep the bar very low. If you're being mindful of something difficult, and while you know the difficulty, you also know the satisfaction of being mindful, then your practice is really getting strong. Then you're not somehow glued or being influenced by the difficulty. The mindfulness is protecting you from being influenced by the difficult mind states you might have. Not only is it protecting you from being influenced by difficult mind states, it's also feeding you with the goodness of the practice itself, the happiness and satisfaction of the practice itself, of being mindful. Even if it's very, very small, it's a fantastic food. It's fantastic for our heart, our mind, and our body to appreciate and feel that.

So as you go about your day, you might experiment a bit or notice. There might be one or two times during the day when you get really absorbed in something: some irritation, some anger, some desire, or some fear about something. Maybe it's not imminent, not right in front of you, but more like the mind projecting and thinking about the future, or some person somewhere else, and you find yourself caught and involved in that in a strong, intense way.

Turn your awareness to the way that you're caught in something like this. Theoretically, this could have a very negative influence on you if you imagine you're being fed a diet of this. Turn around and be mindful of it, really know that it's there. See how clear the mindfulness has to be, how much you have to step back or open up an awareness to really know: "This is what's happening. I'm really angry here. I'm really afraid here." Step back until you come to that place where there's a satisfaction. Maybe the satisfaction of not being caught. There's a joy, the joy of having this wonderful practice to do that's an alternative to being caught. Or the happiness that can come where you're so content: "Wow, this is so good that I'm being nourished now in my mindfulness, even though I'm present with a difficult state."

So it's a homework assignment: noticing the difference between being immersed in something and lost in it, almost influenced by it, versus stepping back until you find the happiness of mindfulness.

Some of you maybe won't know until after it's over that you were really caught up in something. It might be interesting, even when you finally notice or are reviewing the day, maybe you can do the exercise there and find where that happiness is.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to the conclusion of this pentad tomorrow.