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Guided Meditation: Giving Birth to the World

One of the profound statements, if it's understood well, is the simple statement: "Here we are. Here I am. Here you are." To be rooted here in a deep way, to be clear that we're here. And part of the value of really being here is that, in Buddhism, the word for world has two meanings. It means the wider world that we live in, but for practitioners, the world is the world that arises and spreads from our own experience.

In a sense, our world begins every day, and it begins with ourselves. We are the origin of the world that we experience and live in. It's easy to argue against that—that it doesn't quite make sense depending on how you mean world—but still, to appreciate it in some way. If we want to live in a better world, a good place to begin is with oneself. To let the better world arise and be in us.

If the world begins with us, then how we are is essential. This is one of the teachings of Buddhism: how important it is to care for and pay attention to the actions, the words, and even the thoughts that arise out of ourselves, so that we can make a better world, beginning with ourselves.

And so, one of the important principles of Vipassana^[1] practice is to sit mindfully, without conflict towards anything. That doesn't mean that we're passive in the world. It means when we sit to meditate, we learn that very deep place of non-conflict that teaches us and shows us where the world begins. So that when we do act, we act with what is wholesome, beneficial, and helpful for ourselves and for others.

To sit here in the deepest place of non-conflict means non-conflict to how we are conflicted, how we are challenged, and whatever it might be. So, to take a meditation posture and to think of the posture you assume as an integral part of this world—the new world that you always are creating. How would you want to sit? Maybe you'd want to sit with a little confidence. Maybe it would be good to evoke some sense of strength and encouragement in the value of being present here for these minutes.

Close your eyes. As if you could reach deep inside, can you reach deep inside of you, to maybe the deepest place you know where there is peace? Or, if that's too high a goal, where there is non-conflict? Reaching deep inside for a place of stillness or openness that is not agitated by the winds of the world^[2].

If you cannot reach such a place inside, that's okay. But perhaps it'd be okay to imagine such a place within you. Imagine a place of abiding peace, non-conflict, and a soft, fluid stillness that will be the beginning, the origin, the source of wise, wholesome action in the world.

From this place inside, maybe allow the waves and the tides of breathing to wash across it. Maybe allowing the waves of breathing to flow out of it through your body. And as you exhale, to relax, soften, and settle into just being here for a few minutes. With no future and no past, just here.

The important part of this non-conflict is how you are aware of things, how you're mindful. Sometimes the idea of stepping back away from it so you can see things at a distance can help the awareness just be aware without conflict. Sometimes it's going close and being intimate with what's happening that allows for the kindness and compassion that frees us from conflict with what is.

As we sit here, see if you can allow your attention to breathing, to allow the mindful breathing—the waves of coming and going—to be continuous. As if you're being caressed, massaged, or reassured with each stroke of the breath through the still place within, throughout the body. Just here for these few minutes.

Perhaps let go of whatever you're thinking, so that you can better feel and sense into it. Maybe even imagine a place of peace within, a place where there's no conflict. That might be the beginning of the world—the beginning of the world that you create through what you say and do and think. To sit there at that peaceful place allows you to be wise in all that you do.

Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, one way to think about this meditation practice—just one way of many—is to think of it as preparation for the real practice. It's the practice that prepares us to practice in the world. The real practice is how we act, live, and speak in the world itself. So, as we come to the end of this sitting, we're really coming to the beginning of when our practice will start.

For the Buddha, at the heart of his teachings is how we act and how we live in the world. To live with wisdom, to live doing what is wholesome, helpful, and beneficial. To have the freedom, the agency, the strength—but really the freedom, not the obligation—to always choose what is wholesome and to avoid what is unwholesome.

We might have feelings and impulses which are unwholesome^[3], but to have the freedom to let them be, and the freedom to act on what's wholesome^[4]. So that, if we want a better world, it begins with us. Always beginning with us. Never lose confidence that the world that you live in always begins with how you see it, understand it, and how you act in it.

To have the freedom to act for a better world—for yourself, for sure, because you care for yourself. And then, with your freedom, it's natural to care for others. May it be that flowing out of us is the desire, the wish for all beings to be happy, for all beings to be safe, for all beings to respect each other, care for each other, and for all beings to be free. And may that possibility begin with each of us, every day.