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Guided Meditation: The Mind at Peace

Hello and warm greetings for our time together here with the practice of mindfulness. As the practice of Satipaṭṭhāna^[1]—the practice of mindfulness—deepens, there becomes a shift that arises because we develop a reference point that tends to be very different from how life is usually lived.

In daily life, it's very easy for the mind to be racing around in thoughts, to be pushed around by our feelings, desires, and aversions. Thinking can have stress connected to it. It could have unethical thoughts or inclinations—all kinds of things that are not necessarily for our own well-being.

As we deepen in the practice, we learn through meditation a reference point of a mind that's possible to be peaceful. A mind that's possible to be spacious, non-reactive, that feels harmonious, that feels like a valuable place to come home to, to rest in. To be with a mind that is not stressed, not pushed around by the emotions, desires, and aversions we have, but a mind that can see it all, recognize it in a way that is not caught by any of it. A mind that doesn't cling to anything but sees everything.

And now when we have that reference point, when we see that difference, then we know something that's valuable. We know what direction to go. We know where to rest the mind or what to prioritize in the mind. To go back to picking up the resentments that we were simmering about, or the fantasies we were kind of lost in, is a diminishment or not the best place for ourselves to rest in. We know something better. It's not necessarily to be dismissive or aversive towards certain states of mind, but it's just that we know something better.

If you're walking down the road on a rainy day and there's a puddle of mud ahead with your clean new shoes, we know that it's probably a little bit nicer to keep the shoes clean. And so we walk around the puddle and don't get mud on them. It's that simple.

So as we sit today—today we'll just sit now, and I will finish speaking in silence. But see if you can find, either through a memory or through some hints or some clear connection, a reference point for a state of mind that is beneficial, that is valuable to rest in. A state of mind where thinking does not become obsessive, thinking becomes calm and quiet. Maybe even thinking becomes unnecessary because there's a state of peacefulness, ease, calm, openness, clarity, or non-reactivity. A state of rest for the mind. Whatever it might be for you, find some reference point and keep that reference point close by. Lean into that place, support that, allow it to grow. And as you're breathing, perhaps breathe with that reference point.

As you do so, two things might happen. One is that your reference point—that reference state of mind—might grow and develop and help the mind become more at home, settled, and calm. The other thing that might happen is that you can't do it, but you begin to see clearly what it is you're doing that maybe interferes with it or the direction you're going. That something is going in a different direction. You learn about your tendencies of mind and habits of mind. As you learn about yourself—the things that are taking you away from that reference point—there is no need to be upset, no need to be critical. Learn the art of seeing that clearly, peacefully. So with that, I propose that today we'll just sit quietly with no preparation. You've heard a lot of me for these months, and we'll sit quietly, and then I'll say the final words of dedication at the end.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, if you look back at the last minutes of the sitting: what states of mind have been prioritized by your mind, or by yourself?

Has the mind been in charge and taking you down the highways and byways of thoughts, ideas, and reactions?

Or have you taken charge in remembering to relax into a beneficial state, staying in touch with, staying in contact with a place of peacefulness, calm, or openness?

A state of mind which is not centered on thoughts, but rather is open and at ease. Which has your mind prioritized?

And might it have been possible for you to have more prioritized tuning in, being attuned to the place where the mind is peaceful?

One of the advantages of doing this is that the peaceful mind is the mind through which it's easier to have non-reactive goodwill, love which is generous but not needy, and a compassion which cares but is not troubled.

So as we come to the end of the sitting, with whatever love you have that's generous, compassion you have that cares but is not troubled, whatever goodwill you have that is easy and peaceful, dedicate the benefits from this sitting, the learnings from the sitting, the reference points that we've learned, to dedicate it for the welfare and happiness of others. Wish and hope that whatever we gain is shared with others, shared with the whole world, so it's not only us that benefits, but through us the world benefits.

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

And may we have a state of mind from which we can contribute to that as a possibility.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (42) Prioritizing Beneficial States of Mind

Thank you. Yesterday we had a shift in these teachings of Satipaṭṭhāna in the second half of the Third Foundation^[2]. It's a shift to a state of mind that is an outcome of cultivating awareness, an outcome of no longer prioritizing states of greed, hatred, and delusion^[3], or thoughts or attitudes of greed, hatred, and delusion, and all the subsidiary common ways in which we get caught in thought. We become limited by our thoughts and thinking when we are excessively focused on objects of awareness, objects of attention.

If I suddenly started thinking about how it'd be nice to replace a carpet at home, and then I'm very mindful of the carpet here at IMC—I'm focusing on it, and I'm studying it so much that I even lose touch with what I'm talking about to you, because that becomes the important thing. The object of attention becomes carpets. In that focus on carpets, I'm certainly present and mindful of it, but that's not really the arising of awareness. Free awareness is present for things but knows its presence, not lost and caught up in the activity.

As mindfulness begins developing stronger and stronger, the sense of awareness is not limited or bound by what the object of attention is. And as awareness keeps developing, that sense of awareness not being bound or limited, but being larger, is partly represented by a sense—an underlying feeling—knowing that we know. We know we're aware. The awareness is not submerged in something. The awareness is kind of like the lotus growing out of the muddy water. The lotus is not blossoming underwater in the mud; it comes out of the water to blossom. So the mind, the awareness blossoms and becomes spacious. The important point here that I want to emphasize is that the mind is no longer caught or preoccupied with thoughts, with feelings, emotions, with reactivity, with the world.

The mind now becomes much more infused with this wider kind of awareness, this presence, this attentiveness. Some people might call it a broad sense of being conscious of experience, where the sense of consciousness is broad and inclusive. So at some point, there's a shift in the mind of what gets prioritized. Rather than prioritizing our preoccupations with what we want to get, and what we're angry with, or upset with, or afraid of, we begin prioritizing a state of mind which is peaceful, calm, or useful. And in that calmness and that peacefulness, there isn't that kind of narrow, tight, limited attention on some particular thing. The awareness now feels broader, more expanded.

This shift in the Third Foundation begins when one knows an expanded mind as an expanded mind, and one knows a mind that's not expanded as a mind that's not expanded. So we begin to sense the size of the mind—that it can be a large sense of mind, or spacious, or even a boundless sense of the mind. Or, the mind is in fact limited and constricted, and preoccupied with something. The mind under stress is limited. Sometimes as the mind begins to open up, we can feel the places where the mind, or the body, or the brain is tense. You can feel how that creates a limit, a boundary, or a constriction for this open awareness, this open presence and consciousness.

So at some point, there's a shift where we have this as a reference point—this possibility of a calm, peaceful, more expansive awareness. And that's a nice reference point, but even better is to begin prioritizing it. Especially giving it at least slightly more priority than the mind's inclination to prioritize the unhealthy states of mind that we go into. You might say, 'I don't prioritize it,' but the mind will do it for you, and we get pulled into this world of preoccupations and concerns that can be quite stressful. What about prioritizing the peaceful mind, the calm mind, or the open mind?

Not to hold on to it, not to make it an object, not to constrict yourself around it, but rather to kind of rest in, open to, or allow it. It would be a little bit like someone who wants to go swimming in a wonderful pool of water, but maybe they're on their cell phone having some animated, engaging, or upsetting conversation. They're completely absorbed in the conversation, and so they walk right into the water. The water gets deeper and deeper, and maybe suddenly there's a ledge and there's no more ground beneath them. But they're so concerned with the phone call that they're not paying any attention to floating, and so they drown. As we go into the water of consciousness, we have a sense that there's also floating, swimming there. And so we prioritize floating enough—just like that person on the phone should probably not have the phone in the water, but would at some point need to prioritize floating in the water if there's no bottom. And so we prioritize this kind of wider state, this peaceful place.

As we do so, and it develops and gets stronger, at some point we can know a mind which is unsurpassable and we can know a mind which can be surpassed, or a mind that's ultimate and a mind which is not ultimate. What this refers to are the states of enlightenment, states of realization. This movement into this open awareness, calm, peaceful states, can grow and develop, and at some point, it feels like, 'Oh, this is ultimate. There's nothing better or higher than this,' because in this state there's zero suffering, zero stress, zero tension, zero fear—nothing that limits it. There can't be anything more ultimate than this because it's so peaceful. There is nothing that disturbs it. There is not even a self that we're preoccupied with, caught up in, or contracted around. There's not even any ripple of self-concern. It feels so ultimate. This then becomes another reference point. Not just a peaceful mind, but now a mind that is so free of suffering that it becomes a powerful reference point where we know what's possible. We know it's possible to live this way, with this kind of radical freedom.

The next section says one knows a steadied mind as a steadied mind, and knows an unsteadied mind as an unsteadied mind. This is knowing that there is a mind that is peaceful, that has no ripples on it, that is so peaceful, and the mind knows when there are ripples on it. So after some very deep realization experience, practice still continues, but now there's a reference point of what it's like to have no ripples. We're much more sensitive to the subtlest little ripples in the mind, or the big ones, and how there's subtle prioritization of preoccupations, concerns, and where there's still a little bit of attachment.

And then the last thing it says is that one knows a liberated mind as a liberated mind. My understanding of this is that this is a mind which is fully liberated. All roots of attachment have been pulled out. There are no more attachments, no more tendency for the mind to cling, and that can be known. So this is the ultimate, the final goal of Satipaṭṭhāna: this kind of liberation.

This Third Foundation does describe the whole path of practice in a certain way, and then we'll go on to the Fourth Foundation^[4], which presents that path from a different perspective. The Third Foundation is from the perspective of the mind states that we have.

One of the things I'd like to leave you with in this Third Foundation is the idea of reference points and the idea of prioritization. What reference points do you have for a state of mind that is valuable for you, really precious, that is certainly better than some of the alternative ways your mind functions in your life? Maybe something you attain in meditation or experience in meditation or at some other times. How can you beneficially use that as a reference point? One way is to give a certain kind of prioritization to that state of mind. Don't take it for granted. Don't think that it's only available in certain rarefied^[5] states like meditation. The more you experience it, maybe there's hints of it, maybe there's the smell of it, or small clues of it. Maybe it's always present to some degree.

So maybe you can prioritize it, let it inform you, or let it support you in being free, relaxed, and present more often than you do. An interesting exercise is to go through the day, or at the end of the day review the day, and write the autobiography of the day based on what the mind was prioritizing. See if you had to prioritize that, was that really in your best interest? Could you have done a different prioritization so that something else could have blossomed, so your lotus can blossom out of the muddy waters? Thank you.

Announcements

Next week we'll start the Fourth Foundation. If you didn't follow this Third Foundation well enough, the Fourth Foundation, as I said, does a similar thing from a different angle—through the angle of insight.

Finally, for the next few days until Monday, IMC is doing a fundraiser for the refugees from the war in Ukraine. I think it's quite a powerful thing when a group of people gather together to support and raise funds for people suffering in the world. I believe it's beneficial for them, but it's also beneficial for others to see this being done—to see that there are caring people who are engaged collectively to make a difference.

If you're wondering how you could support the people of Ukraine with the tremendous suffering they're experiencing right now, I invite you to join IMC's effort. The way you can learn about it and do that is to go on IMC's website. On the homepage, there's a section called 'What's New,' and there it says 'Fundraising for Ukraine.' You can click on that, and that'll take you to a donate button specifically for making donations to Save the Children, a wonderful charity foundation that's supporting people in Ukraine. One hundred percent of what we receive we'll give to Save the Children, and they will use it to support their efforts in Ukraine.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to starting again on Monday.