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Guided Meditation: Mindful of the Relationship to Feeling Tone (Vedana)

Introduction

Greetings, Sangha^[1]. Greetings from Mountain View, California, where I am. The air has been clear from the smoke from the fires nearby, and the weather is cooling off a little bit, so hopefully supporting the firefighters in California. Wonderful to be with you, and looking forward to continuing our exploration of vedanā^[2], the second foundation of mindfulness^[3], together.

For today's exploration, we will be noticing feeling tone, valence, or hedonic tone—all these different translations for vedanā in Pali. We will practice simply noticing when an object arises in the sense door, any object, and how, when there's contact with consciousness, there's always either a sense of pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant, which we say in shorthand as "neutral."

It's always together with the object. It doesn't show up alone. In the same way that the color of a book is always with the book—it shows up, but it's the quality of color—vedanā shows up with the object as the way the mind perceives it.

So today, the invitation that I'll have, after we settle with the breath and the body as usual, is to notice our relationship to pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The same way that a mapmaker or a cartographer goes out and surveys the land and just notices what is happening with awareness and mindfulness, we too notice and become aware of what our relationship is. When pleasant arises, how does the mind relate with it? "Oh, interesting. Okay." We are not trying to squash the relationship, just observing, gathering data, and becoming mindful.

For example, does it happen that if there's something pleasant, we get fixated and want more? If it's unpleasant, do we try to push it away? Let's become curious. If it's neutral, do we ignore it and become bored? Let's explore. Let's become mindful of our own landscape.

Guided Meditation

With that, I'd like to invite all of us to get into our meditation posture. If you need to lie down, or if you need to move and shift and sit up straight, do so. Closing your eyes if that works for you, or letting the gaze be very soft right in front of you, down below.

Relaxing the eye muscles. Relaxing the forehead, letting the forehead be soft. Letting the jaw be relaxed. Perhaps opening the mouth, taking an out-breath, relaxing the jaw, and letting the jaw close on its own. Inviting the neck and shoulders to drop. The chest to be soft. Your heart to be soft. Be gentle in this moment with yourself and with whatever arises.

Inviting your abdomen to be soft, to relax, and to receive the breath. Inviting the arms and the hands to let their weight down. Inviting the sit bones, your bottom on the chair or the cushion, to fully relax. As if hugging the chair. As if there are tiny little suction cups, landing and connecting to the chair, to the earth.

Letting the center of gravity of your thoughts, of your awareness, drop. Come down, down, down from our heads, down into the chest, to the abdomen, and further down into your sit bones. Lower abdomen, the sit bones, connecting to the earth. Receiving the breath.

The lower part of the body, our bottom, our legs, and feet. Letting the whole body be relaxed. In fact, let's take the next five out-breaths to let go of more tension and more holding with every out-breath. And if you think your body is completely relaxed, challenge yourself to see if there can be more tension let go of at the next out-breath, and be surprised.

As you land more deeply into this body, into the present moment, let your breath be natural, just as it is. Simply received by the body, the body knowing how to do this. No need for volitional control, just be aware that breathing is happening, that's all.

Now, as you are landed and present with the body and the breath, invite awareness to be available. As if you are sitting in the field of awareness that first holds your body and breath, it is also available to notice the feeling tone—whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—of what arises at the six sense doors^[4].

Not going out, but staying. Landing and present with the body and breath. As objects arise—for example, objects of the body door—a sensation arises. You notice the sensation. And then, is it pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral?

Allow yourself to notice the relationship of the mind to the feeling tone. Is there a sense of calm just noticing? Is there aversion? Is there clinging? Are there stories in the mind? Simply noticing the vedanā and the relationship of the mind to it.

As you observe, notice vedanā—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—and notice your relationship to it. If there's something unpleasant, do you try to make it go away? Push it away with aversion? Make it stop? Or if it's pleasant, "Oh, I want more of that," with clinging and wanting. Or if it's neutral, getting bored and checking out. Noticing vedanā and our habitual relationship to it. What do we do? Becoming aware of the habit patterns of the mind.

Reflections

And for the last moment of this practice period, bringing to mind appreciation. Gratitude for yourself for having shown up, for having sat, for the Sangha, and for the teachings that you have access to.

See if that sense of appreciation brings up an association of a pleasantness—an unworldly, eudaimonic^[5] pleasant vedanā. Not of the flesh, as it's translated. A sense of delight, gladness, and gratitude.

May our practice together serve for the freedom, awakening, joy, and ease for all of us, and all whose lives we touch. To be of service to all beings everywhere.

Thank you for your practice.