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Guided Meditation: Peaceful

Good morning my friends, and happy to be here with you again. I've been on retreat for the last week, and I'm surprised to find myself sitting here not feeling that there are many words for the moment. But I am feeling peaceful, feeling content, and happy. So we can begin. I'll say something once we're settled a little bit. I'll offer an orientation, a question for the practice.

To allow yourself to become quiet. To let your body become quiet. Or if quiet is not possible, let your body become quieter than it is. The quieting of the body. And a quieting of your eyes; maybe if your eyes are open, let them gaze down, or whatever direction the eyes are most relaxed. Soft eyes. And to maybe gently close your eyes, and to gently quiet your mind. A quieting.

Maybe a reminder that now not much is needed but to sit here quietly, peacefully. And if the breath, breathing, is a refuge for you, become aware of your breathing. Aware of the movements in your body as you breathe.

Then quietly, slowly, comfortably, take a deeper breath. Not too deep, just so it's nice. Take a few deep breaths, and as you exhale, a settling in your body. Releasing into your body. And letting your breathing return to normal.

And a quiet, gentle scanning of your body to find the places of holding and tension that, as you exhale, you can soften and quiet. As you exhale, maybe quieting the thinking mind. Maybe first by letting your thinking become slower, a bit more relaxed. And gently, if you're going to be thinking, think about your breathing, your body. Think about the here and now, your direct experience. Think about it in a very simple manner. Just thoughts of recognition: "this is an in-breath," "this is an itch," "this is a sound."

And might there be some even small hints of being peaceful? A peacefulness that is underneath or outside of whatever agitation there might be. A peace which is not opposed to anything. A peace which can hold everything.

And then, as we continue this meditation, you might ask yourself the following question. Maybe ask yourself this question three or four times in the time we have here: What is happening right now that, if you recognize it, you can be more peaceful about?

What needs to be recognized here and now so that you could be more peaceful about it? Maybe more accepting of it. Maybe more accepting of yourself as you are. What needs to be recognized so it can be held in the context of peace, non-conflict? For sitting here meditating, what needs to be accepted so you can sit more calmly, peacefully? Some degree of peace provides the atmosphere for whatever is happening.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting, tapping into whatever calm or peace there might be here. It might be around any agitation there is. And see if in your mind's eye you can gaze upon the world peacefully, kindly. Gaze upon the world with a vision, with an eyesight that can see the world peacefully, calmly.

There are places in the world where there is peace, there is calmness. Gaze upon the world kindly. Love everyone. What might you learn from meditation practice in holding everything peacefully that might help you to love everyone? Or to love a vast expanse of human beings. Looking upon them kindly.

May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings live in peaceful circumstances. May all beings have a peaceful heart. May all beings be happy. May all beings be free.

Wise to Emotions (1 of 5) Intro to Emotions

Good morning everyone, and welcome to this Monday morning. Nice to be back. Thank you, Meg, for teaching last week; I appreciate it very much.

What I thought of doing this week is to have emotions be the theme. Emotions are an important part of human life, sometimes for ourselves and sometimes for others. To be aware and wise about emotions is one of the potentials of this mindfulness practice, because we can learn to be mindful of emotions and see them in new ways, deeper ways, fuller ways.

So today I want to say some introductory words about this. Many of you know that I'm fond of the Latin roots for the word "emotion." "E" means "out" and "motion" means "motion." That which moves out. Why I like this interpretation, or this kind of etymological playing with the word, is that I like to think that whatever emotions are, they're changing. They're in flux. They're moving. And if we leave them alone, they move out. They move out, they settle out, they don't stay for too long. Understanding the conditions that keep the emotions going—that fuel them, that trigger them, that perpetuate them—is one of the things we can use the mindfulness practice to do.

It seems that more literally, the word emotion comes not first from Latin, but from French, where I think it means more "to be excited by something," a certain kind of excitement or agitation, to be stirred up by something. So it has a somewhat interesting history. But even more interesting, I think, is that many of us speaking English take this word "emotion" for granted, as if it describes something real or essential and important. And certainly it does in certain ways. But I find it fascinating that as an English word, "emotion" was not coined until around the early 1800s. It's only been around for a couple of hundred years in the English language.

There's a book on the history of emotions where the author says—kind of tongue-in-cheek a little bit—that it wasn't until 1830 that the word emotion started to get currency or was actively adopted into popular speech in English (I guess in England). The author of this book says that until 1830 or so, English-speaking people didn't have emotions. What they referred to having was "sentiments," or what he calls "accidents of the soul," or "passions." They had other words that they used for something in the range of the world of emotions, but they overlapped with different meanings. It didn't mean exactly the same as what many people here in English think of as emotions.

I've looked in dictionaries for different definitions of what this word emotion is, and most of the definitions I see don't really tell me much. I don't feel like they're very helpful for providing a clear definition. And this is one of the wonderful things about this word "emotion" in English: there's no real agreement on what it means. Even among psychologists, there are different definitions and different ideas of what it is.

Not having a clear, precise definition can also be seen as giving us some freedom around it. We don't have to have some fixed idea of what emotions are, fixed ideas of their role in our lives, their impact on us personally, where they're going, what's happening, what they mean, and all that. Whatever each of us individually refers to as an emotion—and we're allowed to have our own definition, and apply the word to what we're experiencing as we see fit—the practice of mindfulness can help us discover freedom in relationship to what we're experiencing. To experience freedom in relationship to emotions.

I'd like to propose that for some of us, this is a radical idea. Because it's not an idea that we need to do anything about emotions. Do we need to get rid of the ones we don't like? Do we need to bring on the ones that we want? Being free with our emotions isn't changing our emotions; it is changing our way of relating to them. It is changing the way we hold them, or the way we think about them.

This radical idea of discovering freedom in relationship to emotions means not being defined by them. Not being pushed around by them. Not assuming that emotions have meaning, a purpose, or tell us who we are or who we're not. All those things might exist together with emotions, but to discover freedom in relationship to them is to discover a peacefulness that can hold whatever emotion we have. It is to discover a wakefulness. To be awake to emotions as opposed to being overwhelmed by them. To be awake to emotions rather than being pushed by them or defined by them, or to have emotions without assigning meaning to them.

This ability to give freedom to our emotions is a tremendous gift to ourselves. And the place where that gift is safest to give, and the most productive, is in meditation—whether it's sitting meditation or walking meditation. It's a context where what we're doing is not acting out the emotion, not acting because of the emotion. We are not criticizing the emotion, and not needing to suppress the emotion because maybe socially it's unacceptable. In meditation, we look peaceful, the body is still and quiet, but internally we can allow whatever the energies are, the feelings, the sensations, the moods, the states of mind, and the motivations that are associated with some emotions to flow through us. To be present for us with permission. We give permission for it to be there.

We're not fighting emotions. We're not feeling ashamed because of having emotions. We're not justifying some emotions. We're not indulging in some emotions. There is an ability to be still, to be quiet in certain parts of us, and make space—create lots of space—for whatever the emotional expression is at the time. To be awake to it, to be at peace with it, to allow it. But we're not going to act on it. If we're angry with someone and we want to punch them out, we don't in meditation, because we're not going to move. We just feel the energy that's there. If we have a strong desire for something, we don't act on the desire. We just sit there and let the desire be there in that space of freedom. Just allow it to be there without making a story, meaning, or purpose out of it.

If there's a wonderful emotional thing that really feels wonderful and delightful—and this is where some people will protest—we don't indulge in it. We don't lean into it. We don't fuel it or encourage it. Some people say, "Why not? It's a good thing." It's true there are times when it's good to lean into and allow ourselves to really feel a lot of good emotions. But when we're trying to discover how to be free with emotions, the freedom of something has to be equally granted in all directions, to both the good emotions and the difficult emotions. So certainly we're allowed to feel the good emotions, but we don't indulge in them. We don't lean into them, savor them, or actively enjoy them. We just allow the enjoyment to be there, because we want to be able to do the same with the difficult emotions. To allow them to be there. Maybe we don't always lean into them, but we don't pull away, shut down, or attack.

To learn how to be free with our emotions is a huge gift from this mindfulness practice. It begins by recognizing what our emotions are. And you're allowed to have it your way in this recognition. Different cultures, different places in the world, different languages have a somewhat different relationship with what we might think of as emotions. Maybe different families as well. Here in this freedom practice, you're allowed for it to be your way, with your associations. A clear mindfulness of your emotional life, a clear recognition of what's there, can support you to hold it peacefully, to be aware of it without being pushed around by it.

What I'd like to suggest as we start this week is that you reflect some on your emotional life. Two things: One is, you kind of reflect on what are the different emotions that move through you through the day. You might at the end of the day write down a list of all the emotions you can identify that you've had for that day, from the subtle to the big. Once you have that long list of all the emotions you see there, look and see if there are any patterns. Do certain emotions appear more often or more predominantly?

And then reflect a little bit about what you've learned about emotions. What has your culture, your family, your religion, your society, or your languages (if you speak different languages) taught you? What have you learned about this emotional life of yours, how you identify it, and what you think they are?

That'll be the beginning of our reflections for this week. Happy to be back and happy to be sharing this with you. Thank you.