Guided Meditation-Mindfulness as Action; Dharmette: Joy of Compassion (5 of 5) Joyful Action

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation Meditation as Action; Joy of Compassion (5 of 5) Joyful Action. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 25, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation-Mindfulness as Action

Warm greetings everyone. Welcome, and today's topic is action. It'll be action in relationship to compassionate action. But for the beginning of this meditation, I want to emphasize that action is a very important part of the Buddha's teachings. Sometimes he was called a kammavādin^[1], that is, he was a teacher of action.

And he has this wonderful statement that beings are owners of their own karma^[2], the owners of their action. They are inheritors of their action. Their actions are their source; they originate in their actions. Actions are their relatives, and actions are their refuge.

They say that actions are our refuge, actions are our relatives—it's like part of our family, it's that intimate, it's close. Actions are the source from which our life flows and develops. We inherit our actions; we inherit the consequences of our actions. We have to own our actions. The consequences are really our own to work with. It's a powerful statement, and can be a little bit frightening to think that we are the owners of our actions and we inherit the consequences of our actions. Because, are we careful with what we do? But actions can be our relatives, our cherished family. Action can be our refuge and our protection.

In Buddhism, there is a long history of meditation being considered a form of action. Since often meditation is associated with sitting still, laying still, being still, there's sometimes a passivity in the instructions or how people do it, where we just sit and be available and open and present and nonreactive. Just be rather than do. Sometimes it lends itself to reinforce an idea that we are the consumers of spirituality rather than the producers of it. That we are the victims of our life, not the agents of our life. And the teaching of the Buddha is that we are the agents. We are the initiators. In our actions, our life begins each time, each day we wake up, each moment that we walk into.

It's kind of a fresh beginning. And then, how do we meet it? What actions, what activity do we contribute to it? And so, meditation is an action where life begins. To only see meditation as a place to recover from the past, to recover and respond and deal with the past—if that's all we do, we're missing an opportunity of stepping into this moment with a particular kind of action. An action of care, respect. An action of awareness, of attunement, of appreciation, of aspiration. That we step into it with a certain fullness. That we count, that we're important, this is valuable what we're doing here.

And so when we sit down to have a posture of meditation, whatever posture that is—sitting, lying down, standing, walking, whatever works—adjust the posture in such a way that it's a posture of agency. A posture of a certain kind of action, and not a posture of only relaxing. Not a posture where there isn't some kind of engagement. And it could be as simple as where we put our hands. To put the hands maybe so they're together, or so the hands themselves are in a posture that expresses some intentionality, some "here I am, I'm going to do this."

And to then gently close the eyes.

There's a way of stepping into this moment, this time here, with a certain degree of agency, a certain degree of taking our place in this world, taking our place here and now, showing up. That what we do and how we are is important. Take a few long, slow, deep breaths to assume your place here and now.

And as you exhale, relax. Relaxing is a doing. And the balance between the engagement of breathing in and the relaxing of breathing out hopefully begins to blend together. So that the breathing in and breathing out is an activity within which we rest. An activity in which there's a peacefulness and an ease.

And letting your breathing return to normal.

And gently, maybe lovingly, enter into the world of breathing. So the attention, the action of attention, is something we're producing, not consuming. We're offering attention. The action of attention in which we look for our ease, look for a way to do so peacefully, gently, lovingly. Remembering our agency, without any urgency.

Calmly offering to yourself the action, the activity of being present and aware here and now. To breathing, the body, your feelings, your thoughts. And discovering how to do so so that awareness is a refuge. That the action of awareness is like a loving family member that you enjoy showing up here and now.

Meditation is an action in which we learn to let go of all unnecessary actions. All the extra things that we're involved with in the mind. Thoughts, feelings, tensions in the body. The activity of letting go of unnecessary activity.

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, turn our attention outwards into the world. And engage in the action, the mental action, the heart action of caring, loving, valuing, respecting this world that we share with other beings, other people. The beings and life and people for whom our life would not be possible without their efforts, their lives.

And to engage in the action of thinking how wonderful it would be if all beings could be happy and peaceful. If all beings could be free of affliction, hatred, anger, greed, delusion, and anxiety. And we can be the agents of change. To expect that other people will change the world is to give away our individual capacity for making this world a better place. And rather than giving that away, instead give the world your generosity, your care.

Beginning with your intention, your wish for all people to be well. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may I, may each of us, find ways to contribute to this possibility. May we act for the welfare and happiness of all beings, including our own.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Joy of Compassion (5 of 5) Joyful Action

So hello and welcome to this fifth talk on the joy of compassion. And today is the fifth aspect, the element that we contribute to create a healthy, beneficial compassion for ourselves and the world. And that is action. Usually, compassion is very closely associated with action. The action of care, the action of doing something to alleviate the difficulties, the challenges, the suffering of others or ourselves.

But to have the joy of it, to enjoy the activity of compassion, is sometimes in short supply. Sometimes we don't consider that that activity of compassion—whether it's a simple activity of being a listener for someone or offering well-wishing for someone, or whether it's a big thing that we do, and maybe it takes a long time to really care and tend to someone who's sick or something—we don't often think about looking at the activity that we're doing as a source of joy. As something that will generate a sense of well-being or a lightness, or that somehow we feel more at ease in doing it.

Sometimes the reason for that is that the need for compassion, the catalyst for it, the suffering is so great. It's so challenging. There's so much injustice, there's so much oppression, there's so much poverty, there's so much suffering, there's so much unfairness that we're trying to care for and support people who are experiencing these things. And we could feel our own despair, our own anger, our own sense of urgency, our own sense of overwhelm. All kinds of things come along. And so those feelings influence the way in which we do the action.

Those feelings come along with the action. But to trust the action, think of it almost like stepping into a new phase, a new dimension almost. Where, yes, we can have these feelings for sure, but the action we step into is like stepping into a new activity, a new room, a new world in doing the action. Not to deny what we're feeling, but to not be held in check by it, not be unduly caught in it. And to feel like, "Okay, now that I'm prepared to offer my compassionate care for some situation, this is what's important. This is what's valuable. I've prepared myself well. I've brought a lot of awareness to myself and to the situation, studied it, got to know it. I've become attuned to it. I'm in harmony with it. I'm not stressed around it or aversive to it, or indifferent to it, or not really connected to it. I'm connected and I'm at ease. I'm in harmony in a certain kind of way with this. I'm attuned to what's happening. I understand the others really well enough. It's not just my projection and my preoccupations which are driving me."

And there's an appreciation of the people I'm going to support. It's not only the horror or the distress that I feel around how terrible it is, but taking the time to really respect these people. And what is respect, what is appreciation here? What is valuing these people, whatever being that is? There, at least we're equal. I'm not there to help or to fix; I'm there to serve their welfare, to support. And then there is an aspiration, which is a beautiful part of a human being. So those are the foundations.

And then when we get ready to act, to enter into the action as if the quality, the way in which we act, is part of the message. That we act in such a way that people appreciate the activity, the ease, the calm, the generosity, the love, the well-being. So they don't feel our actions as being like a heavy burden we're carrying, or we're stressed, we're pushing. But they feel something very different. And people can be nourished by the ease, the well-being by which we do things, and they can be troubled when we're troubled.

So to engage in the action, not to look for the joy in the action—whereas you can look for the joy in awareness, or attunement, or appreciation, or an aspiration—but with action, not to look for it, but rather to generate it. To step into the action and try to find a way you do it with grace, with ease, with peace, with a nice way of doing it. Don't have a sense of urgency. Sometimes we have to act quickly, but we don't have to hurry.

There's a difference between quickness and hurrying. I think of hurrying as losing ourselves to do things fast. We don't have to lose ourselves. We can stay present to do it in a way that is an enjoyable way of doing it. "We enjoy doing this. We like it." And is it okay to do this? Do we have permission to do it? The proposal is that it actually makes the compassion richer, more valuable for the world and for ourselves. It helps make the compassion sustainable over time. It helps us to appreciate, "It's really good to be compassionate. I enjoy it. I want to do it. There's more value in it than just how we're helping people. It's also value for me. I feel better, I feel lighter from doing it."

And so when we act compassionately, as I said, don't look for the joy. Act in a way that brings joy or brings enjoyment, brings lightness, brings ease. And then, as I've said, it's sustainable over time, and so much more comes out of it. One of the things that comes out of it is that if you're doing something in contact with someone, so you're in touch with them, I think that the relationship becomes richer. There's a spark, there's a love, there's a joy. There's a sense of rapport between you that's really nice.

Sometimes I've done compassionate actions for something, and I was so dutiful in how I did it, and so matter-of-fact that I did it, that I didn't actually take the time to have a rapport with the person I was doing it with. And I've done it at times where I've done things in a different way. Not out of duty, not out of an urgency, but I took my time to do it in a respectful, kind, enjoyable way. And I could feel that the rapport then grew or developed or became more wonderful with the people that I was supporting.

So to care for those that we love, care for those who suffer, in a way that they don't feel that we're working so hard that they're obligated to repay us, or that they feel indebted because it was so hard for us and heavy and difficult. To offer ourselves with ease and freedom and joy, and to offer ourselves in that kind of way, even with our love for people who are going through some of the most difficult times.

This world is a challenging place to live. Human beings are challenged, life is difficult, and one of the things that can support it is that we care for each other. Care for each other with respect, with kindness, with the ability to listen, with appreciation. It's a beautiful thing. It's an important thing to do.

And may this practice that we do be a support for us to bring our compassion and our care into the world. I think it's a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice, because as we let go of all the blocks, all the barriers, all the defensiveness, all the preoccupations, we're left with a sensitive, caring heart. And what else would we do but care for this world?

So thank you very much. And so we've probably now completed this series on compassion, and I'll start a new series next week. So I'm thinking of doing a series on speech: wise speech, mindful speaking. So thank you all.