The Four Noble Truths in Context: Guided Meditation

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video The Four Noble Truths in Context: Guided Meditation - Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Ajaan Thanissaro at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on September 10, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

The Four Noble Truths in Context: Guided Meditation

Close your eyes. Get into a comfortable position, and start with thoughts of goodwill^[1]. Goodwill is a wish for happiness—true happiness. Because true happiness comes from within, there's no conflict when you wish for your own true happiness and that of others. In fact, when we develop the resources for happiness that we have inside, we have more to offer to others.

So start with lots of goodwill for yourself. Tell yourself, "May I be truly happy. May I understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them."

And then extend the same thought to others. Start with people who are close to your heart—your family, your very close friends. "May they find true happiness too."

And then extend those thoughts out in ever-widening circles: to people you know well and like, to people who you like even though you don't know them so well, to people you're more neutral about, and to people you don't like. Remember that the world would be a much better place if everyone could find true happiness within.

Spread thoughts of goodwill to people you don't even know. And not just people—living beings of all kinds: east, west, north, south, above, and below, out to infinity. "May we all find peace and well-being in our hearts."

Now bring your attention to the breath. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the process of breathing in the body. Because when we talk about breath, it's not so much the air coming in and out in the nose, but the feeling of energy that flows in the body, allows the air to come in, and lets the air go out. Wherever you feel that most clearly, allow your attention to settle there.

And then ask yourself if it's comfortable. If long breathing is comfortable, you can keep it up. When it gets uncomfortable, you can change. Try shorter breathing, deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower. Experiment for a while to see what rhythm of breathing feels best for the body right now.

If thoughts wander away from the breath, you don't have to wander along with them. If you find that you are, just drop them, and you'll be right back at the breath. If it happens ten times, a hundred times, just keep dropping the thoughts and come back to the breath. You don't have to erase the thoughts. You don't have to tie them up into neat ends. Just drop them mid-thought and come back to the breath. Each time you come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially good. That way, the mind will be more and more inclined to want to come back to the breath.

If there are any pains in the body, don't focus on them. Focus on the parts of the body that you can make comfortable by the way you breathe.

Now, as the breath starts feeling comfortable, there's sometimes a tendency to focus on the comfort and to drop the breath. In which case, you lose the foundation for your concentration^[2]. So to counteract that tendency, the next step is to breathe in and out aware of the whole body^[3].

And it's good to build up to that first, section by section. Start down around the navel. Locate that part of the body in your awareness, and watch it for a while as you breathe in and breathe out, to see what rhythm of breathing feels good there. If you feel any tension or tightness in that part of the body, allow it to relax so that no new tension builds up as you breathe in, and you don't hold on to any tension as you breathe out.

Bring the focus of your attention up to the solar plexus, the area right in front of the stomach, and follow the same three steps there: One, locate that part of the body in your awareness. Two, watch it for a while as you breathe in and breathe out, to see what rhythm of breathing feels good there. And then three, if there's any tension or tightness in that part of the body, allow it to relax.

And now bring your attention up to the middle of the chest and follow the same steps there.

Bring your attention to the base of the throat.

And now to the middle of the head. As you breathe in, think of the breath energy entering not only through the nose, but also through the eyes, the ears, in from the back of the head, down from the top of the head, going deep into the brain. And as you breathe out, think of it radiating out from the head in all directions. Very gently working through any patterns of tension you may feel around the forehead, the jaws, the eyes, anywhere in the head, and gradually dissolving those patterns of tension away.

Now focus your attention on the back of the neck. As you breathe in, think of the breath energy entering there and then going down through the shoulders, the arms, down to the tips of the fingers, the spaces between the fingers. And as you breathe out, think of it radiating out from all those parts of the body into the air.

Then, keeping your attention focused at the back of the neck, this time as you breathe in, think of the breath energy entering there, going down the spine, through the hips, through the legs, out to the tips of the toes. And as you breathe out, think of it radiating out from all those parts of the body into the air.

That completes one cycle in the survey of the body. If you're meditating on your own, you can go through the body as many times as you like. But for right now, choose any one spot in the body that seems most congenial to stay focused on. Allow your attention to settle there, and then from that spot, spread out to fill the whole body. So you're aware of the whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out.

The range of your awareness may have a tendency to shrink, especially on the out-breath. So keep reminding yourself each time you breathe in: whole body. Each time you breathe out: whole body. Otherwise, there's nothing else you have to do, nowhere else you have to go. Just try to maintain this sense of centered, but broad awareness.

It's healing for the body, healing for the mind. Because it is centered and all around, it provides a good foundation for insights to arise. For the time being, don't worry about the insights, just make the foundation strong.

Before you open your eyes, remind yourself that even though you open your eyes and allow the visual field into your awareness, you can still maintain your sensitivity to the breath energy in the body. In fact, that will keep you grounded as you go through the day. It's like keeping the mind on a short leash. Except, the next time you sit down to meditate, it'll be right there.

Otherwise, if you allow it to go off on a long leash—it's like a dog on a long leash that wraps the leash around lampposts, and benches, and people's legs. It's a long, laborious process to get it back. But if it's right here, then when you sit down to meditate, it'll be right here. So with that thought, you can open your eyes.