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Guided Meditation: The Love of Non-Clinging

Hello and welcome to our meditation. And in the flow continuity of these six months where love has been the thread through all the teachings, we're coming kind of to the culmination of love in a sense. And one of the characteristics that relates to meditation is that the deepest form of love, or the most significant form of love that at some point arises through Buddhist practice, has a lot to do not with the presence of something but with the absence. You could say that it involves the presence of peace, deep abiding stillness, peace, quiet. But as soon as you use those words, as meaningful and inspiring as they can be, they kind of box us in. Oh, supposed to be peaceful, supposed to be still. It is this thing. And so the tradition tends to avoid that by focusing a lot on what is absent, what's not there, and trusting that what's left is meaningful, significant, wonderful. Sometimes it's described one way, sometimes another way—sometimes peace, sometimes stillness, sometimes timelessness, sometimes spaciousness, all kinds of ways. But that can vary from day to day. So the same thing with love.

And so the primary characteristic of this deep love is the absence of any type of clinging. And that might seem like not an inspiring idea in and of itself, but there's some kind of clinging involved in any ways in which we're agitated. Any ways in which we are reactive, any ways in which we have ill will or have greed, any ways in which we are anxious—where anxiety is different than fear. And so to have all these extra reactivities, extra unnecessary functionings going on that are all expressions of clinging, have clinging fall away. And then what's left there? Trusting what's left. Discovering there's a treasure in what's left without clinging. There is a kind of love that maybe defies easy definition, easy description, but it's a kind of love which is very simple. It comes without a lot of fanfare and it's a natural simple caring love. Loving care not because we have to, not because we're doing it, not because it's even a conscious choice exactly, but because it's what's left. And this deep sense of what's left when there's no clinging, and finding peace there but more importantly finding care.

So, to assume a meditation posture, a posture of confidence. The confidence in the value of being present and aware without adding anything on top of that. But to do that with a confident posture whether you're sitting, standing, lying down, adjusting. So the back, the chest, the head somehow become expressions of confidence. Gently closing the eyes.

And to begin without doing anything or doing next to nothing. If you start thinking about things, you're doing something. Can you intuit it or orient yourself to simplicity of being that maybe is prior to all the doings of the mind? A simplicity of being, stillness, a peace, a simplicity that's deeper within you than any place that reacts, that is driven, that is attached. A place of being, of attention, that's closer to just being. Beingness of awareness rather than a doing. Being here with the closest thing you have to doing nothing but being aware.

Part of the alertness that allows you to do nothing, next to nothing, is to be alert to what arises in awareness without your involvement, without your making it happen. Simple acts of perception, of knowing the spontaneous arising of sensations, sounds, thoughts. The movements in the body of breathing.

When you're able to do next to nothing, even if it's only for a moment or two, and you sense, feel in your body what's left. What is left? What's there? And if that itself is a doing, can you go deeper and deeper to where there's no doing? Just being and sense and feel, maybe a moment at a time, what that is like.

And if you can feel or intuit it, the simplest way of being below or beneath any activity, reactivity, thoughts, concerns you have, the simplicity of being that's always there. Is there something in there that is a simple love, a simple care? Not as an active thing, but almost more as an availability. An orientation of care that needs nothing, wants nothing, but is a natural care arising from where there is no clinging. Might there be a kind of love or care, tenderness or sweetness, that's present without any doing? Any doing diminishes. Quiet, peaceful form of care that is there without need or obligation, force, fear, without greed or clinging. Maybe a form of love or care which is so simple and so ordinary it's easy to overlook.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, to take a few moments to just feel how you are. As if you have permission to be just as you are. Making room to be as you are without picking it up, pushing it away, making room to be okay with whatever is happening. So that how you are is held in a wide awareness that allows things to be as they are. A wide awareness that includes a gentle care, a gentle love, kindness, friendliness, sweetness. Even if what you're aware of is not that way.

And then to expand that sphere of awareness, of space, of care out into the world. And for a few moments to hold the whole world in a wide peaceful awareness, like the photograph from the moon of the earth in space. Vast space holding... feeling this planet, this world in vast spacious care. Something precious, something tender, something special to treasure. The whole world. Evoking a simple ordinary care free of clinging. Wishing: May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (81) Care as Non-Clinging.

So hello and welcome to this next talk on care, on anukampā^[1]. I call it the most important form of love that motivated the Buddha, that was what he wanted to see. When people had matured in the practice that he taught, that they would have anukampā for the world and they would go out and care for the world with anukampā. And I translate this word anukampā as care, if we understand it to have within it all the meanings of care in English, which I think makes it very rich and encompasses a lot of who we are. It's a form of love in the family of what we call love.

But today what I'd like to emphasize is why this word anukampā, this idea of anukampā, is so significant for the Buddha, and why it's there with the maturity of practice. It is that, in and of itself, anukampā has no clinging. It's radical, it stands out, it comes forth—it's always there perhaps, but it comes forth more fully the less clinging there is. Clinging is the source for reactivity, for agitation, and that gets in the way of really feeling the deeper sensitivities that we have. It's like the deepest nerve endings in the hand are mostly on the palm of the hand. But if you hold your hand in a fist all the time, those nerves are not really available to feel and touch the world, to shake a hand, or put your hand on a friend's shoulder who's having a hard time. Putting your fist on a friend's shoulder is not going to do quite the same thing.

And so as we begin to open up the fists of the hand of the mind, the fists of the heart begin opening up to the deeper sensitivity of who we are because we don't cling. Clinging decreases the deep inner sensitivity, the places where the strongest nerve endings are, in a sense, for our interpersonal relationships, to our sense of care. Then care arises and care becomes one of the most prominent motivating forces in a person's life.

Sometimes this form of care is understood or translated as compassion, and it certainly overlaps a lot with compassion. It can look like it, and some people use the word compassion when they feel this deep sense of care. But the difference between compassion and care is compassion is oriented towards suffering and the end of suffering. Care includes that for sure, but care, this anukampā, is more oriented towards the positive side of the welfare and happiness of others. It's a simple orientation to support and help the welfare, the well-being, and happiness of others. If suffering is not the predominant state that someone is in, it's not quite appropriate maybe to have compassion. But it's always appropriate to have care in the present moment. It's always appropriate to have an orientation to promote welfare, to promote happiness, to support that in the world.

And that, too, is a form of love. Very simple. Sometimes it looks like mettā^[2], loving-kindness, goodwill. Because it's not about suffering. But both compassion and goodwill, mettā and karuṇā^[3], are both a little bit more of a purposeful state. There's like a wish or a desire in it. Whereas care almost has no desire, almost has no forcefulness. It's just there in a very simple way.

The other day I was at a neighbor's house and the dog came over to put its nose into my elbow. It wasn't that I had goodwill for the dog. I had, of course, but I wasn't active. I didn't have compassion for the dog. But there was a very simple tender feeling of care. The dog was looking for something, wanting something, and okay, I just put my hand on the head of the dog and pet it a little bit to just kind of offer something, some care, some presence to it. I didn't want anything. I wasn't really trying to do much for the dog. I was just expressing, "Here I am. You're letting me know you're there, and here, let me know I see you. I know you. I'm present for you. I care about you. I value you." And I'll just acknowledge you for a little bit with that gentle, tender kind of stroking of the head.

In the case of the dog, that wasn't enough. But for those few moments, it was simple for me.

So we can care sometimes for objects, and some people can have a very loving relationship to an object—really care for it well, put it away properly. It's something we cherish and value and really care for it nicely, beautifully. It's kind of embodied or represented if you've ever seen a tea ceremony where care and love go into holding a cup. You don't have compassion for your cup, you don't have goodwill for the cup; it doesn't make sense. But there is a very personally beautiful feeling by offering this little care to the cup like it's precious, you're holding it carefully, tenderly, you're appreciating it. Then something happens inside where there's a shift from reactivity to greed, to aversion, to being busy, to this simplicity of just this ordinary care of an object that can feel peaceful and settled and quiet. And tea ceremony sometimes is supported by a peaceful, quiet setting for that to happen.

The important thing I would like to say here in this week's discussion about anukampā is it involves—the primary characteristic of what it involves is—the absence of clinging. There's a tendency in early Buddhism to describe the full potential of spiritual maturity not with the presence of something, but with the absence. Sometimes they talk about peace, but maybe peace is an absence of agitation, activity, busyness. A tendency to the full maturity of practice is to be an absence. Absence of craving, absence of clinging, absence of ill will, absence of preoccupied discursive thoughts.

The advantage of mentioning the absence is that it is not defining it in any kind of way where the human tendency to latch on to the definition occurs. If you defined it as peace, that can feel nice and wonderful, but soon enough peace becomes the object. Like you're holding it there, "I'm not peaceful, it should be peaceful." Or if you define it as love, then it's like it has to be a certain way. But when you define love by an absence, if you define freedom by an absence, then it can feel really wonderful and you're giving reality the gift of letting it be itself. You don't have to define it. It just feels healthy. It feels good. It feels right. And so here we have a love that is defined primarily by the absence of clinging.

In my practice over these years, I've seen that my relationship to love has shifted over time, and that at some point as my clinging diminished, I started having a love that I initially called compassion. But over time it grew and grew in such a way that that didn't quite seem like the right thing to call it anymore. I didn't know what it was until I learned about this early Buddhist idea of anukampā that's characterized by non-clinging. I could see, "Oh, non-clinging, non-grasping, non-craving, non-hate, that's becoming a powerful state within me." That becomes a reference point.

In there, there's a deep sensitivity that doesn't have to be acted on but is oriented towards very simple acts of care. It could be as simple as seeing the dishes in the sink and feeling that that's where the expression of care goes: "Let's clean the dirty dishes." It could be being with someone who's sick or someone who's suffering and sitting with them—just sitting with care and being very simple. We do not feel like we have to solve the problems of the world, but we can offer our care and presence. Sometimes it becomes a source for another motivation to really put a lot of time and effort into something that's worthwhile to do. But it always has this reference point of non-clinging.

This becomes, I think, one of the great turning points in Buddhist practice when the orientation towards non-clinging becomes stronger than the orientation towards clinging. It's more like non-clinging is water flowing downhill. Clinging actually is pushing the water uphill, which is a difficult task. Non-clinging just feels more and more the natural way of being.

And there's no need to give it up. What needs to be done in the world, what needs to be responded to, can be responded to with non-clinging. If we discover that in that space created by non-clinging the fist has opened up, and the sensitive part of our inner hand, the sensitive part of our heart, is now available and present for the world to care for it, then why not let go of clinging? Why not let this profound inner place of care be the source of our actions in the world? Whether it's the dishes next, cleaning the room a little bit, tidying it up, whether it's saying hello nicely to a friend, stopping to check in how they are. There are all these different manifestations of what care can be that's discovered moment by moment by the care instead of by you. When "you" belongs to that reactive mind, reactive tendency. It belongs to the world of clinging in some kind of way. When care doesn't belong to the world of clinging, care has its own way of meeting the world without clinging.

So, thank you very much and I hope that this makes sense for you and that maybe you could spend the day looking in yourself when there's anything like love or the absence of love, is there something like clinging involved in either? And is there some place deeper, quieter, subtler, maybe almost invisible where there is some kind of non-clinging that points to a different way of loving?

So, thank you very much.