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Guided Meditation: Wanting to be Kind

Good morning everyone and have a good day. Welcome here to the start of our week, the start of a new theme. It feels nice to be here with you all, sitting here at IMC. And also, I kind of feel like it's a special Monday because I mark today as the end of three years of these YouTube meetings and the beginning of the fourth year. It seems quite significant. So thank you for being here.

As an introduction to this meditation, I would like to make some distinctions. The distinctions are a progression deeper and deeper into the source of ourselves. If we begin with what we're doing, whatever it might be, if we're doing something, a little bit deeper inside was a decision to do it. If we go a little bit deeper inside, there's the wish to do it, the desire to do it. So there's a desire, there's a decision, and there is the doing of it.

If we go a little bit deeper down below the desire, the wish to do something—for that wish to really arise well, there is a place deeper down where there's space for it to arise. There's room for it to appear. There is a source deeper in from which that desire arises. And that can be one of two sources: it can come from our reactivity, or it can come from something deeper, something that is the seat of our kindness. A very, very simple tenderness, or gentleness, or kind of feeling of nurturing, or nourishing, or tending. Both exist within us. There is the reactive place and there's the nurturing, tending place.

And within minutes, we can go from one to the other. We could be nurturing and tending a little kitten, and we could be yelling at someone who has driven their car over our lawn. It's a very different kind of response, a very different source within us. When we're sitting in meditation, it's possible to step back into these layers of where things come from. And especially, it's possible to do so when we're doing loving-kindness meditation, goodwill meditation, when we're bringing kindness or friendliness to the forefront. We're centering ourselves with a friendly attitude as the organizing principle of the mind, of the heart, while we're meditating.

It's possible to do loving-kindness meditation, and doing it might be awkward, it might be difficult, it might be easy. The doing can be complicated. But before the doing, there's a decision to be kind, a decision to practice being friendly, to practice goodwill, mettā^[1]. And before that, there's a desire to do so, the wish to do so. Before the decision of, "Okay, let's get to work here," I'd like to propose that the decision to do so is independent of how well we can do it.

Sometimes doing loving-kindness practice is so difficult for people, they say they can't do it, for whatever reason. However, the wish to do so is the beginning of love, the beginning of kindness. Simply the wish to do so, independent of whether we can. And to step back into that beginning place, just the wish to do so, the desire to do so, and appreciate that—maybe that is the beginning of a kind of goodwill or well-wishing to ourselves, or caring for ourselves, caring for others, caring for the world.

And then also, it's possible to step further back, to the place where there's space, room for that desire to arise. If we're claustrophobic with our experience, thinking a lot, or caught up, or pushing, or wanting something too much, there's no room. Stepping back before even the desire to have loving-kindness, to making room for our experience, that is precious. That's a place also of a kind of love, a kind of care, a kind of valuing, respecting what's here. And in making that room, there's a better chance for the desire to be kind, to be part of the nurturing, tending, caring, loving apparatus that's within us, rather than the reactive.

So we'll do some loving-kindness practice, but with this as a background. To sit upright in a meditation posture that is a posture you assume to care for yourself. As if the posture itself is a healthy posture for you to meditate in. And to gently close your eyes.

And take some long, slow, deep breaths. Pausing at the end of the exhale just for a moment or two, to make room and space and silence for the inner life. Deep breath in. Long release with the exhale. Pausing at the end of the exhale. Make room for things to get quiet, peaceful, settled. And to feel the natural urge to breathe in and allow for that. And then to let your breathing return to normal.

And then to gently see if you can find a place within you that has the wish for kindness to yourself or kindness for others, whichever is easiest for you. That wish is not dependent on being able to do it, not dependent on having active kindness, but it's just a wish. A simple, ordinary wish. What a good idea. It would be nice if only.

And in your own way, see if you can give thought, words to that desire. Gently, quietly, almost meditatively, give a voice to that desire. Or let there be an attitude, or maybe an emotion to appear that maybe is part of that desire. Deep down inside where the desire to be kind arises. It's very private, no one needs to know. That kindness can be there independent of justification, or rational reason.

Whoever you want to have kindness for, that desire can be independent of whether you or anyone deserves it. It's just a good place to be. It's a very simple, healthy source within you. Sit there quietly, breathing with it, giving space for it. Becoming quiet around the simple manifestation of kindness, which is the desire to be kind, the wish.

And if you have no desire whatsoever for love, or kindness, goodwill, go deeper into the source. To where there is space, room, lots of room to feel the depth within us. The space and the room that doesn't judge, or doesn't pile on beliefs, attitudes, and reactions. Simple, spacious awareness that has room for everything just as it is.

And is there a place in that spaciousness, or space, for a simple, tender, nurturing feeling caring for yourself? Simple, now a simple desire for your own welfare. It doesn't require you to act or do anything, or decide anything. It's just a nice, simple glow of goodwill, kind regard. A wishing to be kind, a wishing to be loving.

That place deep inside where there's a desire to be kind, a desire to be loving. Before judgments, before decisions, before action, before right and wrong, good and bad, capable or incapable. Deep in the privacy of your own heart. The most basic kind of kindness, a wish to be kind. Gently say words that give expression to this, or half words, or silent words. An attitude to this simplest form of kindness. The wish to be kind.

And then to turn your attention out into the people around you, in your home, or your neighborhood, or your province, wherever you are. And perhaps you can have the wish that from this day, that you have goodwill, mettā, for them. And stay connected to the wish before actually practicing mettā for them. Just simply stay with a wish, a private wish, where it's good for you to have that wish. It's a satisfying feeling, an ordinary wish for other people's welfare. And in a way that feels nice for you, expressing some words in your mind, the wish for others' welfare.

Or more deeply still, not the wish for the welfare of others, but the wish that you had that wish. Wouldn't it be nice if you could wish for the welfare and happiness of everyone? And wishing for that wish, may that come out of you from someplace deep inside that is satisfying, simple, maybe cozy.

May it be as we come out of this meditation that we have more often the wish well for others. May the wish for wishing be a fuel and a support for wanting to act for the welfare and happiness of others. May our wishes lead to decisions to act, and may the decisions lead to action. May we in some way give expression to this great idea. The idea that others might be happy. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful, and may all beings everywhere be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love When It Is Hard (1 of 5) Where the Desire to be Kind is Enough

So, hello and welcome to the beginning of the week, and also the beginning of our fourth year of gathering together for these morning sittings and talks. I'm delighted that we've been going on for three years, and how much I think we've connected and supported each other and been able to explore the Dharma this way. And I'm very happy that we're able to continue now. The pandemic is over, more or less, somewhat, enough that I won't be here as much as I was during the pandemic when I was here every day. I'll be here still quite a bit, but we'll have now for the next year, I think, a fair number of guest teachers coming as well to teach. And these guest teachers, many of them are very happy to come and be part of this, and I think it's a wonderful, large, happy sangha^[2] we have with you all, with us teachers being here. And I'm happy we're continuing.

So for this week, we still want to continue with the theme of how to practice with the challenges that we have, but this week the topic is meeting challenges with love. And the question that I'd like to offer today for challenges is, when we're in challenges, to ask ourselves the question: "Where's the love?" or "What's the loving thing to do?" or "Where's the kindness? What's the kind thing to do?"

The nature of a challenge, I think, often is that we get preoccupied with it. We get narrow, and our focus gets concerned with what the challenge is. And sometimes there's not too much processing room, or thinking room, or reflection room to reflect on things when we're involved with a challenge. The more intense the involvement with the challenge is, the more our focus becomes narrow, and our world becomes smaller and smaller, to where we're just with that concern that is up. Some of these challenges, of course, are huge and tragic. But still, they kind of take all the attention out of the air, out of the room, attention out of the space, so that we're really kind of navigating this small little world of the challenge itself. And to ask the question, "Where's the love?" or "What's the kind thing to do here?" begins to open it up again.

Why leave love out? Why leave out the question, "What's the kind thing to do? What's kind here in this situation?" Sometimes, of course, the challenge doesn't give us time, it's not appropriate to take the time for that. But when a challenge is not immediate, like immediately has to be addressed, it might be invaluable to take the time to ask, "Where is the love? What would be the kind thing to do here?"

And especially when there's a challenge, there might be a lot of protest. You know, "That's not what's needed now. That's not appropriate now. The situation doesn't call for it. No one deserves it. If someone else is involved, I certainly don't want to be kind to them, I'm angry with them and I just want them to suffer." But if we take the time to step back, back into ourselves, and appreciate there are layers of responses that exist within us. Begin appreciating that, rather than being at the surface response, go deep down. Reactivity is always on the surface. I mean, it might have deep roots inside, but the reactivity is always a kind of surface response. And one of the reasons we meditate, to be mindful, is to drop below the reactive mind. To relax the tensions in the body, relax the tensions in the mind, so we begin having access to something else besides reactivity and the strong authority that sometimes reactivity can have over us.

So to drop down, ask a question, "Where's the love? What's the kind thing here?" It creates a pause, creates a kind of questioning, an inquiry that helps us maybe get below the reactive state of mind and begin to look more deeply at what's going on here. It might not be possible to love. "Where's the love? I don't know, it's not available." You might think, "What's the kind thing to do here?" and that might be too hard to really have an answer. But simply asking the question, if it allows space for other information to come in, then we can have maybe a different approach to the challenge we're having to address.

So as we ask this question, take the pause, the inquiry, then we can go down the layers. If the top layer is what we do, below that is a decision for what we do. And below the decision, there's the wish for something. We can wish without deciding to pursue it. And so with kindness, with goodwill, we might not have goodwill to act on, we might not have made the decision that we want to have goodwill, but maybe deep down inside we could find a place where, yes, it would be nice if there was goodwill. It would be nice if there was friendliness here. It would be nice if it was in this system and the approach to what's going on here. And what would that look like? Who are we being kind for?

If you're having technology problems with your computer, then I don't know if it makes sense to have kindness for your computer. But how about kindness for yourself? What is overriding? What's the sense of urgency, what's the sense of frustration that gets in the way of the value of love, of kindness, of wishing that we have love for ourselves? Wishing we can be kind. Just that begins changing the ecology of it all.

If the challenge is with someone else, do we have nowhere deep down inside any desire for their welfare and their happiness? Could we imagine a context where you would have that for those people? Are they beyond the pale, no way, nothing is possible? Or is it really all the time? Or is the challenge with them contextual? Is there a different context where you might feel some basic, ordinary human goodwill for them and care for them? And maybe there's the desire to be able to do it.

Even if you can't do it, the desire to do it is a form of kindness. It is a form of love. And to appreciate the desire to do it, the desire to have love, the desire to be kind, appreciate that as a form of kindness. I know it's hard to be kind all the time. It's hard to have it. It's hard to want welfare for others sometimes. But can you at least want to be able to do it?

This is valuable for yourself. It's medicine for us to be able to come back and find that place of basic goodness, basic care. Because if we're not connected to that, we're estranged from ourselves. The chances are we're living a little bit too much in the reactive world and the projected world and the fantasy world of ideas and concepts and hurts. We don't want to lose touch with this deep place that can't be hurt, the deep place that is not transactional, that's not dependent on anyone being anything, even you being anything. But rather, is something before all that. The simplest rudimentary wish. The desire to want to love, to want to be kind, to want to care.

Take the time to find that. Maybe if you find that, it's easier to breathe. Maybe you find there's a little more space in the challenge. Maybe if you find that, the challenge is still the same challenge, but there's a little bit more space for you to address it, to be with it, to not be battered around by it as much. "Where's the love? What's the kind thing to do?" And then to back up inside, as deep as you can go, where you find something, a little inkling, some little impulse towards love. Even if it's not love, it's towards love. That's not dependent on any condition in the world being one way or the other. It's just what the heart does.

So this week I'd like us to reflect on this topic of love and kindness and goodwill in times of challenge, and learn to bring that into the picture rather than have blinders on. With a challenge, that often happens, that we see it from a very narrow perspective. How do we include the perspective of love, of kindness, of goodwill?

So thank you very much, and I hope that as you go about your day today, that you can find that space within, that pause, that quiet, that you can recognize an impulse to want to be kind, to want to be loving. And maybe you can't take it any further than that, and there's no need to feel guilty or feel like you're not loving. Just the impulse towards love, the desire to love, is plenty beneficial. Appreciate that, and appreciate it in the privacy of your heart so it doesn't get complicated with all the issues of life, of people, who should you or shouldn't you, or of course you should, when no one needs to know. So thank you very much.