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Guided Meditation: The Inner LIfe

Warm greetings from Redwood City, from Insight Meditation Center.

As we begin this meditation, I want to make a simple statement about Buddhist practice. Buddhist practice is to discover and wake up the inner life that we have, so that the inner life becomes the outer life. It shines into the outer world. Not everyone really knows they have an inner life. In Buddhist practice, we are meant to become the caretakers of our inner life, our inner well-being, the quality of our hearts, and not to make other people the custodians of our hearts and our inner well-being.

This requires a kind of deepening into what's really here. A lot of mindfulness practice is to become sensitive enough—you might say still enough, quiet enough, but sensitive enough—to begin and orient to this deeper inner quality of our heart or our state of being. Often it's easy to live on the surface of life, and it's easy to be concerned with the conditions in the world. We feel that the conditions of the world have to be just right so that we can feel at ease, at peace, at home, and in compassion here within. So we're lining up things in the world, reacting to things in the world, and trying to fix things in the world. Of course, some of that is necessary and appropriate. But to connect the quality of our hearts solely to the conditions of the world means we're constantly at the whims of how the world is.

To become the custodian of our own hearts, our own inner life—it changes the whole game. It provides stability, it provides a deeper sense of wisdom and compassion. It changes the whole nature of how we live in the world. The world is what it is, and we take care of it, hopefully, but our inner life is not so dependent on how things are in the world. It's a radical notion.

So in meditation, we are trying to become sensitive to this quality of the inner life, to understand it, and to be with it. The doorway for that is the body. The doorway for that is the breathing of the body. To really begin dropping in and finding out: if I listen deeply to my body inside, what do I find there as to the heart, to the quality of my being? And then to be present for it.

Take a meditation posture. Take a posture that you believe will allow you to become sensitive to the feelings, the emotional states, and the deep quality of how you are, whether it's difficult, wondrous, or just neutral. Take a few long, slow, deep breaths as a little ritual reminder that this here, now, in this body, is the meditation center. It is the monastery. It is the temple, the sacred ground of practice, here.

Taking deeper breaths, and as you exhale, let go into this place, this sacred ground, this body of yours. Perhaps releasing yourself a bit to the pull of gravity, allowing the weight of your body to connect you, to ground you against whatever is supporting your body—the floor, your cushion, your chair, your bed, whatever it might be.

And then let your breathing return to normal. The little ritual of relaxing the body at the beginning of a meditation is to support that movement to a deeper sensitivity, to settle in. So relax the shoulders. If the shoulders are tense, there's a pulling away from the inner life, from really being connected. Relax the shoulders.

It's very easy, when the belly is tight and pulled in, to be somehow pulled away from really being connected to what's deep inside.

Soften the muscles of the face. Many of the expressions that our face makes throughout the day can often be a reaction to what's happening around us or how we want to be in the world externally. Let the face come to a deeper rest, so you can be more internally sensitive.

And then, ever so gently, kindly, but also with some determination, allow your body to experience breathing. Allow the chest to feel the movements as you breathe. Allow the belly to feel the movements of breathing there. If the shoulders are moving as you breathe, allow the shoulders to experience the movement. If the nostrils are sensitive to the air going in and out, allow the nostrils and the top of your upper lip to feel the sensations of the breath moving in and out.

Allow the body to release fully as you exhale. The exhale is a kind of a release. Let the influence of that release allow for a fuller letting go. The beginning of an inhale can be allowed to begin almost as if you wait for a moment, a fraction of a moment, after the exhale, so you allow the in-breath to appear. Allowing the inhale to expand and fill you. Allowing the exhale to release.

As you're breathing, if there's any feeling or sensation of inner stillness or quiet, in spite of the thinking you might be doing—feel, breathe with that stillness, breathe with that quiet.

And then becoming aware: how are you right now? Feeling your inner life, the quality of your heart or inner being. With the sensitivity to how you feel in the depths of yourself, does it feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Settled or unsettled? Is there a feeling of safety, or is there fear? Is there contentment or discontent? Below the moods of the moment and below the concerns of the world, when you're quietly, deeply left to yourself, not needing to respond or react to anything outside, just you alone: what do you discover in there? How does it feel in there?

In whatever way that it feels, hold that kindly. Meet that with a gentleness and a supportive awareness, just to be aware. And perhaps as you keep breathing, breathe through that inner state, whatever way you are inside. Breathe with it. Allow it to be the way it is. No need to judge it or react to it, being for or against it, liking or not liking. You might have those feelings, but you don't need to really focus on them. Just gently breathe with your inner life. Breathe through it, feel it gently, quietly. Sensitivity to breathing body, connecting you to some depth within.

Can you allow your thinking mind to become quieter? Not just to make it quiet, but so there can be a heightened sensitivity to how you're feeling within—your emotional state, your mood, your state of being, your state of mind. Give yourself quiet, sensitive time to let yourself feel and be with what's going on for you within. If what you're feeling are common states for you, you might sense deeper inside, underneath them, or in the center of them. Because some of the ways we feel are symptoms of deeper things still. Only by this deeper sensitivity can we feel what's even deeper underneath.

As we become more sensitive to our inner life, we learn to breathe with it—meaning we learn to allow it to be and not react to it, pick it up, or complicate it. Breathing with it just means that we're staying fluid and relaxed with it.

Gently, quietly now, feel the nature of inner sensitivity itself. Not necessarily what you're sensitive to, but this inner sensitivity to your inner life, your inner quality of being. What's it like for you to be sensitive? Rather than being too concerned with what you're sensitive about, notice there's something precious and valuable with the sensitivity itself—the knowing, the recognition.

And then turn that sensitivity outwards. Let it shine outwards into the world, and allow yourself to be sensitive to all the joys and sorrows of the world, all the struggles and successes of the people in the world. Perhaps with that inner sensitivity, there could also be a feeling of care, or tenderness, or love and compassion for the world that we gaze upon, the world that we are sensitive to. If there is anything like care, goodwill, or well-wishing, allow these words of loving-kindness to be spoken from the sensitivity, from the tender contact with the world:

May all beings be happy.
May all beings feel safe.
May all beings be healthy.
May all beings be free.
And may all beings everywhere respect each other.