This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: A Kind Internal Gaze

Good morning everyone, and welcome. My name is Dawn Neal. Is the volume okay?

So, we will break with tradition and do some lightly guided meditation. Most of it will be in silence, but I'm just going to offer a little bit of guidance to help us settle in, and for the benefit of our friends online.

The invitation is that wherever you are, wherever you've come from, to settle in and acknowledge where you are right now.

Scanning through, noticing any energy that it took to get here, to sit down in meditation.

And acknowledging, too, the generosity, aspiration, or intention in your heart and mind that you're bringing to this meditation.

Feeling into that. Feeling it into your heart, your body, your heart-mind. And taking in the goodness of whatever that is.

And if you haven't already, perhaps taking two or three slower, maybe slightly deeper breaths.

Letting go on the exhale. Allowing, releasing... releasing any excess energy or tension.

And inviting in a sense of being nourished. Nourished by your life's breath on the in-breath.

And releasing any special way of breathing, any controlled kind of breath, and allowing the breath to be natural.

Letting^[1] your belly hang softly.

And inviting the rhythm of breathing to soften everywhere the sensations touch.

Sweeping through your body, inviting a softening there too. A balance of relaxation and alertness.

And inviting an openness, a kind internal gaze, to whatever arises in these moments of meditation. Non-contention.

Settling, settling in on whatever object of attention feels most soothing, prominent, or steadying for you.

(Silence)

If something else arises in consciousness—a flurry of thought, a sound—it's okay.

Acknowledging it. Noticing, "This too is a moment of awareness, of mindfulness."

And then return to this moment now. The anchor of present-moment awareness.

(Silence)

Taking a moment again to feel into what this was like, maybe with a kind internal gaze. Noticing whatever nourishment, goodness, or benefit—even little tiny glimmers—may have come in our time of practice together.

And the invitation then is to turn that internal gaze outwards. Dedicating this time of practice to an intention of goodness, kindness towards the others in your life.

May all beings benefit from our practice together.

Announcements

Welcome again, those of you who came in mid-meditation. Welcome to IMC [Insight Meditation Center]. Welcome to our friends online, also part of IMC. Before the talk, our manager, Bill, has some announcements.

Bill: Thank you, Dawn. Is this audible? Okay, yes. Two announcements: First, Mindful Parents is meeting in the conference room today—that's that room over there—from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM. Parents of children of all ages are welcome. Second, we're having our first potluck since before the pandemic next Sunday here, May 28th, at 11:00 AM. You're invited to bring a vegetarian dish to share with several others. If you are unable to bring food, please bring yourself and enjoy the Sangha informally after the Dharma talk. Thank you.

Dawn: Were there any other announcements? Thank you, Bill. And thank you, Mark and Joe, and everyone else—all the other wonderful volunteers here who help make IMC happen. It's quite a beautiful thing.

How We Move Through the World

This morning, I want to talk about some beneficial ways of moving through the world that both support and express the maturity of Buddhist practice, or spiritual practice more broadly. I'll do that through a series of stories or vignettes; we'll tease it out as we go along.

So, knowing that's where we're going: Once upon a time, imagine yourself back in ancient India. North India, the time of the Buddha, more than 2,600 years ago. It's the Bronze Age. The snow-tipped peaks of the Himalayan mountains jut up against a pristine, vast sky over plains and rolling hills. It's an agrarian society, heavily influenced by caste.

As we zoom in on these little proto-nation-states that were evolving at this time, the wind takes us to a country called Kosala^[2]. It's a good country, led by a benevolent monarch, King Pasenadi^[3]. His rule is proficient, skillful, and kind. Kosala is among many different proto-nation-states at that time that are jockeying for power or a place in ancient North India. At the time of which I speak, a neighboring king, the king of a country called Magadha^[4], decides to make an unprovoked attack on the good kingdom of Kosala. Suddenly, Kosala finds itself at war.

So far in this story, we're more or less in the realm of historical fact; all of this happened. Commentaries on the ancient Buddhist teachings—which I relate to more as ancient myths, with all the embellishments and the wisdom that myths have—have stories about this time. One of these stories is of a peasant girl, a young woman, the daughter of two flower growers. Her name, in English, means "Jasmine" or "Jasmine bud." And she, like pretty much all kids back then in agrarian societies, helped her parents out with the flower-growing business.

One day, she's walking to the field for a day of work gathering flowers, and she has her whole day's worth of meals with her—all three meals in her basket. As it happens on that particular day, she encounters a group of wandering, mendicant monks on her way to work. The leader of these monks is so sublime, so radiant, has so much presence and kindness, that she spontaneously kneels down, bows, and offers all of her own food for the day into his bowl.

And the Buddha—that's who it was—smiles at her. She goes on her way, and he goes on his way. When she arrives and starts gathering flowers for the day, she just has this joy in her from her generosity, from the encounter with this radiant sage. She's filled with this sense of confidence and joy, and it kind of just bubbles out of her, and she sings as she works and gathers the flowers.

Well, later that morning—later that day—the good King Pasenadi was returning to the capital from a battle that did not go well. Tough day. He's riding his horse along the road, and he hears Jasmine—her Pali name is Mallikā^[5]—singing. Intrigued, perhaps pleasantly distracted, he rides his horse over to where she is in the fields.

Filled with that confidence, joy, and happiness, Mallikā doesn't do what a normal low-caste peasant would do when a king approaches. She doesn't hide, she doesn't bow down, she doesn't have her eyes downcast. Instead, as he approaches, she smiles. As his horse comes to a stop right next to her, she looks up into his eyes, gently grabs the horse's reins, and smiles at him.

And he is transfixed. Absolutely stunned. First words out of his mouth when their eyes meet are, "Are you married?"

"No, sir. No, Lord, I'm not."

And at that, he dismounts. As the story goes, he started to confide in her all of the tribulations, all of the troubles, his concern for his troops, his country, his people. Eventually, they sit beneath a tree, and his head is in her lap, and she's stroking his hair and consoling him. After some time, the king is consoled—it's a touching scene, right? He rises up and asks her, "Would you please accompany me on my horse?" She agrees. So he lifts her up on the horse, gets up, and together they ride to her parents' house, where he asks for her hand in marriage.

Isn't that a sweet Cinderella story? Right. So that is how Mallikā (Jasmine) became Pasenadi's first and most beloved queen. She wasn't perfect, but she was valued by her king and her country for her compassion, her strength, her wisdom, and above all, her concern for all people of all castes. Her care and compassion for the common people, and her lack of any pretentiousness or snobbery.

Themes of Joy and Generosity

Let's pause for a minute, and I want to just tease out some of the themes of this story so far.

Mallikā's actions—the spontaneous generosity, how she let herself really feel the joy of that giving. That in turn led to a confidence as she reflected on and absorbed her good actions. Joy, confidence, and self-respect went a long way towards the interaction with this king. All of these traits—joy, generosity (which is the layperson's letting go, a release, a giving up), confidence, trust—all of these are really beautiful mental qualities, internal attitudes, to turn back around and bring to our own meditation practice.

It's helpful to learn to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, our own good qualities and our own good actions in particular. This feeds and nourishes the relationship we have with ourselves and with our practice. This doesn't have to be anything complicated. If you're thinking, "Well, no, I haven't done anything good," it can be as simple as the aspiration to suffer less, to sit down to practice, to develop the mind and the heart through meditation. It can also be as simple as a single act of generosity through your day or your week, an act of kindness for a stranger.

A modern anecdote from science about this: there's a scientific researcher who has done a couple of studies on the effect of kindness and generosity on the giver. In one of these—I think it was his first—the study participants were recruited at an ice skating rink. So it's cold, right? Their task, if you can call it that, was to give away free hot chocolate to total strangers.

They followed up both with the study participants and with the total strangers receiving the hot chocolate. Some interesting things were learned. First, the study participants had no idea how good it would make them feel to do this—not just in the moment, but through their whole day. They also underestimated how good it made the recipients feel. Not just the boost in the moment of receiving the sweet treat, but the warmth and the kindness of being thought of at all, of being offered anything at all, rippled through their day too. And it turns out it made them more likely to be kind and generous.

So everyone underestimated the power of the kindness and the generosity. That kind of uplifting, warm effect on ourselves and others can be nourishing—nourishing to relationships, nourishing to practice.

The Inner Reference Point

Now we're at act two of the story of Queen Mallikā and King Pasenadi. In this scene, the king and his young, fairly new, beautiful queen are up on the castle between two parapets. They're on some kind of porch or deck looking out. It's a glorious sunset, and they're looking out at the horizon, the mountains etched against the sky, the dusky indigo villages and fields. It's kind of a touching scene.

The king turns to his wife and asks, "In all the world, Mallikā, in all the world, wife, who do you love most? Who do you hold most dear?"

Some of the ancient commentaries say that Pasenadi expected his wife to answer that it was him, opining that it was because he lifted her out of poverty to the most powerful position a woman could possibly have in that day. I think of it more as a tender, vulnerable moment between two lovers, spouses—one feeling maybe a little shaky and insecure, turning to the other and asking about their affections. In any case, the moment stretches on, the silence thickens, and Mallikā finally answers. Holding his hands in hers, she looks straight into his eyes again with all that love and wisdom and says, "My Lord, it is myself I hold most dear."

Wait a minute, that's not how a love story usually goes, is it? He was taken aback too in that moment, maybe a little hurt, surprised. But they hang in there, and they stay in the conversation together.

With her luminous eyes, her hands still on his, she looks up and says, "My Lord, truly, who do you love most in this world?"

As often happens between them in these ancient stories, her words really give him pause. After some moments of silent reflection, Pasenadi turns his eyes back to hers, and still holding hands, he admits, "I do hold myself most dear."

I suppose there are people listening who might think of this as a somewhat selfish exchange, a cautious admission between two of the most wealthy and powerful people of their day. But I don't see it that way.

While it's impossible to know exactly what the cultural resonance or context was in ancient India millennia ago, from where I sit in Northern California two-plus millennia later, there's a modern psychological perspective to bring. Her love for herself, her regard for herself, could be the wellspring from which the love for her partner flows, and for that matter, for anyone else. She has the integrity to say that, and the courage to hear her partner and his perspective too.

That kind of mutual honesty breeds courage and integrity. That kind of honesty and positive self-regard are also very powerful bases for any relationship: to others, to ourselves, and to our practice.

King Pasenadi, though, really had this on his mind. He journeyed a little ways to consult the Buddha, the wisest sage he knows, the teacher to whom his wife has entrusted her spiritual life. He relates the conversation and asks the Buddha about it.

The Buddha sage nods and affirms that what Mallikā has said is indeed wise and true. Then the Buddha unpacks the significance of what Mallikā has said. He talks about how, searching in all directions with your awareness, you won't find anyone dearer or more central to your life than yourself. And it's the same way for others too; each person holds themselves as the reference point, holds themselves as most dear.

The Buddha is teaching that anyone who loves themselves, anyone who cares for their own life, shouldn't hurt others; they should practice non-harming. Self-love is assumed in early Buddhist teachings, and it's taught as the initial basis from which to cultivate love, kindness, and non-harming towards all.

For some of us, this is a challenging assumption. For many people raised in contemporary culture, another way of understanding it is to notice that for most of us, most of the time, our own perspective is the most central and primary. Even if we absolutely love and sacrifice for our kids, our partner, or the people we care for, there is that central reference point of self. Seeing this, being honest about it, helps develop perspectival empathy, compassion, care, and a true understanding and respect for other people, based on the notion that they too have this center point from which they're living their lives. All sentient beings do.

This is a basis for non-harming. At its most mature, it's an alternate way of understanding this notion of Buddhist conceit. Many of you have heard of this idea of being better than, greater than, less than, worse than, or even equal to. This is one of the last fetters, one of the last bindings that hold people back from waking up. Instead of that "greater than, less than, or equal to," this teaching encourages a sense of, "Wow, we're incomparable. We're unique." Each person, each life is precious to itself, and commonly bound together by the wish for happiness.

When the self is no longer at the center of things, wisdom arises. And when wisdom arises, especially in relation to others, kindness and compassion naturally flow in a field of responsive equanimity.

Wisdom and Non-Harming

This brings us to the third and final vignette in the story of Pasenadi and his wife Mallikā. There's one night, maybe sometime later, where the king had a series of many disturbing dreams. Sixteen disturbing dreams in all. There were these visceral nightmares that felt totally real, and in them he heard the moans and cries of suffering people, but they were inchoate^[6]. He couldn't make out what they were saying, just a syllable here and a syllable there.

He woke up in the morning perturbed, really shaken, and reached out to consult some brahmin priests who happened to be nearby. These brahmin priests interpreted his dream for him as a calamity; a massive catastrophe was coming to the realm. Pasenadi was shaken by that, too. The brahmins assured him that a large-scale sacrifice would prevent this horrible event from happening. Somewhat reluctantly, but wanting to do the best for his people, he agreed. It was a large-scale sacrifice, not just of animals, but for efficacy, they were supposed to involve four innocent human beings too.

Mallikā hadn't been around, and she returned to the castle to see all this activity, with all these brahmins preparing, gathering animals and people, digging pits. She goes to her husband and says, "Dear, what's going on? What's happening?" He explains. Moved by compassion, as well as perhaps some wisdom, she tries to persuade him to call off the sacrifice. He's reluctant; he doesn't want to kill, but he also doesn't want to harm his realm. She does persuade him to journey to see the Buddha and ask for his interpretation of the dream.

The Buddha's interpretation is ethically based. It includes the Buddha's acknowledgment of the king's sensitivity and concern for his realm, but puts an ethical lens on the whole dream. Pasenadi is so moved by this that he becomes a follower of the Buddha on the spot. When he comes home, he agrees to Mallikā's wish for non-harming and calls off the sacrifice. Many lives were saved.

Even after they both became followers of the Buddha, the king and queen supported many different religious sects and faith followers. In a gesture of generosity not long after this, they dedicated a park in their realm to the Buddha and his followers, and in that park, Queen Mallikā had a hall built for the purpose of interfaith and inter-religious dialogue, peacebuilding, and tolerance. They were big supporters.

The themes here: the concern for the well-being of others, but when that is dominated by reactivity, it can lead to interpretations that aren't necessarily so helpful, or leaning outwards for knowledge in ways that aren't helpful. Mallikā's compassion and wish for non-harming broadly did not arise from reactivity. The wise person—perhaps in this story, the Buddha—acts with concern for what's best for oneself, others, and all concerned. This is one of the definitions of wisdom in the ancient teachings.

To summarize so far, the traits and behaviors exhibited and evoked in these stories could be described as practices belonging to the Buddhist developmental basket of Sīla^[7]—ethical ways of moving through the world, concern for other people. These include the joy of generosity, layperson's letting go, confidence and self-respect that come from appreciating our own good actions, trust, kindness, positive self-regard or self-love, honesty, compassionate regard for others, and non-harming. All of these are also deeply beneficial ways to relate to one's own mind, heart, and practice. Some of them will be more accessible at times than others, and even just the wish for them is a helpful energy to start to bring to the practice.

Looking After One's Balance

Here I'll transition, because we're moving now into talking a little bit about meditation, the Samādhi^[8] basket in the Buddhist developmental schema.

There's a famous discourse—many of you have heard of this—about an acrobat. A master acrobat and his apprentice, whose Pali name translates to "Frying Pan," of all things. It's a little bit of a playful story, and it's got a lot of truth in it.

In ancient India, acrobats used bamboo poles to do their tricks. The deal was that one acrobat would be on the ground, standing or walking around, balancing the pole either on their forehead or on their sternum. The other acrobat's job was to be on top of the pole doing their trick. Quite a precarious act of balancing, right?

The master, being the more experienced, was in charge of holding the pole steady. Right before their trick, he says to his apprentice, "My dear Frying Pan, here's how we're going to do this: I'll look after you, and you look after me. That way we'll perform our tricks safely, finish up, and collect our fee."

The apprentice considers this for a moment and, despite being younger, less experienced, and a woman in that society, she says, "I don't think that's the best way to go. I need to look after my own balance, and you need to look after your own balance. That way we will both be safe, perform our trick, and collect our money."

Well, they did. They were safe, and they collected their money.

At some point, the Buddha heard about the story, and the first thing he said was that the apprentice is right. Mindfulness is a way of looking to our own balance, looking to our own heart, mind, life, and body. That not only helps us move through the world in a way that is more harmonious for ourselves, but it also protects others.

And the master was right too. The loving, concerned regard for others that expresses as ethical comportment (Sīla) is a way that we take care of each other. So they're both right.

Together, these are powerful ways to move through the world that support a deepening of meditation, and they can blend together.

One last short anecdote: the Buddha is often depicted in these ancient teachings as traveling from place to place, often from one group of monks to another. A group that turns up particularly often is a group with a famous monk named Anuruddha^[9]. This particular group is a joy to visit. The suttas^[10] talk about how pleasant they are to be around. They're described as being like milk and water blended harmoniously, viewing each other with kindly eyes.

This group of people living that way were enacting what it becomes clear is holding themselves in mindfulness and looking out after each other. This enables the harmony to happen. They're supporting each other with—and I'm quoting here—"mental, verbal, and bodily acts of kindness."

When these conditions are in place, it's possible to go with the flow pretty easily. This kind of restraint, consideration, and non-contention lends itself to a cohesive community, whether at home, work, or the neighborhood. And turning inwards, it lends itself to a deepening of the meditation practice.

Now, getting there isn't always seamless. I would say it's not seamless for any of us. It's helpful sometimes to consult a teacher; indeed, the Buddha was the consulting teacher that this group talked to. It's also helpful to consult the teacher within your own heart. Take time, metabolize, turn inward to meet everything that's unfolding—the good, the bad, the ugly—with patience, kindness, and a kindly gaze of curiosity and interest.

With that kind of internal gaze upon our internal weather, our systems naturally move towards wholeness, integration, healing, and awakening. Discernment will develop, and eventually this inner congruence, discernment, and letting go ripen into deeper levels of spiritual maturity, wisdom, and unfold towards awakening itself.

So those are my thoughts. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Q&A

We have about ten minutes for questions or comments if anyone would like to offer them. I think it's easiest for all concerned if you use the microphone. The floor is open, and if you're comfortable saying your first name, that would be great.

Audience Member: Hi, my name is Sasa. I just wanted to point out, Mallikā does not mean "Jasmine"; it means "Queen". Her name already meant queen, and she got the title.

Dawn Neal: Thank you. The Pali-English dictionary gives "Jasmine bud" as one of the definitions of mallikā.

Audience Member: I'm from Nepal. That's not Nepali.

Dawn Neal: It evolved, right? I'm sure Mallikā came to mean queen probably because of her, or maybe not. These myths conflate and blend names like that. I had not seen "queen" in the dictionary, but in the Pali dictionary—P-A-L-I, not Nepali—one of the meanings is the flower, jasmine bud. Appreciate it. Any other comments?

Audience Member: Hi, I'm Sol. I'm kind of new to Buddhism and I really loved your story; it was very touching. I'm just wondering if there is a good introductory book that I could find and read more about it to find out more stories like the ones that you told?

Dawn Neal: Most of the introductory books don't have those stories in them, but they have more of the principles and the ways of practice in them. Are you more interested in the stories or learning about the principles and the practice?

Audience Member: Maybe both.

Dawn Neal: Fair enough. A great place to start with the practice is a dhammadāna^[11] book freely offered here called The Issue at Hand. It's a series of short essays that unpack the practice in a really relatable way. They're by Gil Fronsdal^[12]. Another good practice book, of which there are many, is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana^[13]. That is in the library on the other side of this wall here; you're welcome to check it out.

As far as the stories go, the stories that I conveyed in this talk are all in an anthology that was translated by a man named Bhikkhu Bodhi^[14], a very famous and revered translator monk. It's called Great Disciples of the Buddha. Some places to start. Thank you.

Any other thoughts, quibbles, questions, comments?

(Silence)

Okay. In that case, I have an invitation for you. We have about seven minutes left of formal morning program, and I'll stay around for a little while. We'll gather some chairs in the parking lot for twenty minutes around 10:45. Meanwhile, the invitation is to turn to two people near you and welcome them here. Even if it's your first time here, give them a warm welcome and maybe mention something that stuck out for you in this talk that was helpful, resonated, or reminded you of something. Please don't overthink it; just turn to a couple of the nearest people. Ideally someone you don't know super well, but if that's who happens to be here, that's fine.