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Guided Meditation: Simply With Breathing

So good day everyone and welcome.

It is said that vipassana^[1] practice is simple. It's easy; what's difficult is remembering to do it. And so here, during a meditation period, we are remembering to do it over and over again. To help with this idea, it might be significant to separate out "remember" and "re-member." To re-member is to bring the members back together into the field of awareness so that all of us is included. All of us is here, and I know of no other way that all of us can be in some way complete or have a feeling of wholeness. Without this remembering, without being aware, we don't feel that all things are included and that they are all that we are.

So we remember to be aware. We remember to be present, and we train that remembering with the breathing. There could be other focuses for mindfulness practice, but a classic one is to not just simply stay with the breath and be with the breath, but rather to use the breath as the vehicle for this remembering. It is the awakening of an awareness that brings us into the present moment, a practice that keeps us in the present in a full way.

What's remarkable about this is that we're not asked to do things that are very complicated. We're asked to really just stay and do one thing at a time, or just be with what's predominant here and now. So we choose, if the breathing works for you as a meditation object, that this is the one thing that we give ourselves over to. It is the one place where we keep remembering to come back, to be here, to be present. It doesn't have to be sophisticated. There's not a lot you have to figure out or analyze. If you're able to just kind of follow through and see it through, just keep breathing. Trust your breathing more than anything else. A simple way of developing meditation, I think, would be to really trust your breathing more than almost anything else. Keep it really simple. Let everything else kind of fall away for these minutes and remember yourself. Remember your experience and awareness here, over and over again.

So stepping into a meditation posture, and if it's comfortable for you, closing your eyes. As a way of remembering that the breathing is the center of focus, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Really feel those breaths. Feel the body move, expand, and contract as you breathe deeply, and feel all the different places in your body that move as you breathe in deeply and as you exhale fully. All the places that move when you breathe—these are the places to remember. These are the places where we wake up the place of awareness, places for awareness to be aware.

And then letting your breathing return to normal. Perhaps as you relax your body further, there's a way of relaxing into the body breathing. Maybe relaxing the belly, so there's more room and space to feel and sense the breathing body. Let there be fewer restrictions and less holding of the breathing. Relaxing the belly, and perhaps there can be a relaxing of the chest, relaxing around the diaphragm. Maybe as you exhale, or maybe at the top of the inhale, relaxing and softening so the inhale can be fuller—not forcefully, but naturally. At the end of the exhale, let there be a relaxation so the exhale continues a bit.

Here and now, breathing, and allowing yourself to be simple. Simply be with the breathing for these minutes, trusting attention to your breathing as the one thing that you give yourself over to. Keep relaxed and full attention on breathing in and breathing out.

Remembering to be mindful of your breathing. Remembering that it's not just about breathing, it's also about the awareness of breathing. The awareness that receives and contains breathing. The awareness that arises out of breathing.

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, let go of focusing on the breathing and remember the world. Remember others in your life, in your communities. Even those in the news and those you read about. People you don't know, far-flung around the globe. Remember that we share this planet with others who also want to be happy and safe and peaceful. Others who have beating hearts and minds with dreams, wishes, and memories of life. May we open our hearts to them. May we remember them as part of our human family with all its diversity.

May we wish that our practice and our dedication to a mindful life, a liberated life, supports them in some way or another so that they can be happy, safe, peaceful, and free. May the strength and the goodness of this practice we've done help us to contribute to creating a better world, and contribute to supporting others to feel happy and well. May all beings be happy.

I don't have my bell here, so my bow can be the end of the sitting. Thank you.

Dharmette: The Dharmic Life (5 of 5) One Thing at a Time

So here we are at the last talk in this five-part series on the dharmic^[2] life, though perhaps all talks are about the dharmic life. I like the idea that a spiritual life is also a lived life. It is a lived life that's infused with dharma terms, mindfulness, awareness, intentionality, and a certain kind of sense of purpose. It carries an orientation toward a radical non-harming of oneself and others, and it's something we bring to all our life. To have the opportunity to live a dharmic life, a contemplative life where we infuse our daily life with our spiritual practice, is such a wonderful privilege. It's an honor to be able to do this in this human life that we have. It's easy to want to do this, but remembering to do it is what is hard.

Rather than having some high standard where you're supposed to be mindful and aware throughout the whole day non-stop, I think for most of us, if we just increase the percentage of our presence and attention to life, we'll get a tremendous amount of benefit. I suspect that if you were really mindful of what you're doing for just ten percent of the day, it would transform your life in big ways.

I want to offer another practice today that you could use to infuse your daily life with a sense of practice and live a dharmic life. And that is: when you do something, just do that one thing. Practice doing one thing at a time. In a world where a common expression is "multitasking," single-tasking is perhaps not valued as much. But try to really be present for whatever you are doing. Why is this useful? This is what we're trying to do when we meditate. We're trying to really be present for what's happening in the moment, just one thing at a time. Your attention might switch and become aware of something else a moment later, but whatever is happening, you have to be there for it.

In the process of doing that, we learn how easily we're distracted. We learn how easily we're bored, caught in desires, aversions, preferences, and fantasies. We have to learn to work with this mind that gets all entangled in these things and begin to shed them so they don't get in the way. In meditation, we learn to be simpler, and in that simplicity, we can relax deeply and get in touch with ourselves in a much deeper way than we can when we're spinning around in distractions. This remembering is a way to come home to ourselves, to really be here in a deep, intimate, and connected way that comes from having a somewhat simple mind. Not a simplistic mind, but a mind that is not caught up in many things.

In meditation, we feel that simplicity and non-distractibility of the mind, just being here for this moment. We learn so much about ourselves in that process. We learn what makes us tick, we learn what to let go of, and we learn what it's like to connect to ourselves in a peaceful and wonderful way. We can do the same thing in daily life with most tasks, if they are simple enough to allow us to do just one thing, just as in meditation.

If you're washing the dishes, just wash the dishes. Don't have the news on at the same time just because you want to be efficient. People often think dishes are kind of mindless and have no great value, so they might as well listen to the news or a soap opera. But if you infuse washing dishes with the same kind of attention, purpose, and practice as you do in meditation, you just do the dishes. If you get bored, learn to work with that and let go of it. Sometimes boredom just means that you're holding yourself apart from the experience. Can you give yourself more to the experience? Just the washing of the dishes. Just you and the dishes. Wash with both hands, wash with your whole body present there. That kind of focus and attention will certainly reveal all the ways the mind wants to escape and do something else. But in the process, you also learn how to quiet the mind, how to let go of these preoccupations, and how to experience the benefits and the intimacy of coming home to ourselves by just being there for that one thing.

This can apply to all kinds of things we do. It can be cooking, cleaning, or driving. Just drive. Driving involves many different senses and considerations—your mind is moving around from the rearview mirror, to the side mirror, to looking forward. Just do what driving requires of you. Don't have the radio on. Don't be talking on the phone. Just do this, if you want to get the benefits of having the practice grow in your daily life.

Some people will complain and say, "Well, I have a lot to do and I need to multitask." If that's truly necessary, then please do it. But sometimes things are done more efficiently if you just do one thing at a time. You do it properly the first time, and it doesn't have to be done again. You do it fully, so you don't have to come back to it later, and you understand it fully. Just this. Just this.

What is one of the advantages of monastic life? The monastic life that I lived involved being given different tasks throughout the day where what is really called upon is to just do one thing at a time. When raking the temple grounds, just rake. When washing dishes, just wash dishes. I was a dishwasher in the monastery during my first summer there. It was just me in the dishwashing machine area, and rather than washing at a sink, I had this wonderful dance of completely being in the dishwashing shack. It was vigorous and active work; it wasn't calm and relaxed, but it was just beautiful. For me, it was a dance of putting dishes in and away and washing them. I just gave myself over to what was needed.

Doing one thing at a time does not mean that we do everything slowly, though sometimes it's delicious and helpful to do that. We do it at a pace that is useful. Sometimes doing one thing fully means we give ourselves over to it in a very full and active way. After I was in the monastery, I worked as a line cook in a very busy restaurant. I was doing a lot of different things—in a sense, I was multitasking by cooking different dishes at the same time and tracking them—but that is all I did. I was completely absorbed in this activity and concentration. Through that absorption, I would leave work feeling more relaxed than when I came in, all because I had given myself over to really do this one activity.

If you're protesting a little bit, claiming that you can't do one thing at a time, you might experiment with it and find out if it doesn't actually give you more ease and relaxation in your life. Maybe you won't have to spend as much time afterwards relaxing. Relaxing is a wonderful thing, but if you don't need to relax and can just continue living your life in a nice way, that's beautiful too.

There's doing one thing at a time, and then there is sustaining it and following through to the end. Many years ago, after I left the monastery and was living in a house, I discovered how easy it was to get distracted while doing laundry. Going from one end of the house to the other to move clothes from the washing machine to the dryer, I would get distracted by little tasks here and there, and it took a while to finally get to the laundry area. Sometimes I felt it was nice to realize that if my purpose was to go to the laundry area, I should just go there. That way, the body and the mind get the sense of what it's like to just do one thing, not bounce around, and not grab at everything that comes up.

Sustain and follow through. If you set yourself to do something, unless something genuinely important comes up, follow through so you can give yourself the pleasure and joy of just doing one thing. For practitioners, it's more than just pleasure and joy; it is doing the same exploration of our inner life as we do in meditation. We are learning to let go of what doesn't serve us and what is unhealthy. We are learning to wake up to the present moment, and we are learning to have some continuity in doing that. That continuity is so beneficial. It is what allows a dharma life to unfold and deepen.

I will end this five-part series with a principle that I think is quite simple. Yesterday was more complicated, covering the ideas of intention, commitment, and our sense of purpose—why we do things. Today, I am bringing it back to the value of something ordinary and simple. I hope almost anyone can do it. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence or sophistication: when you're doing something, just do it. Do it fully.

I'll conclude with a story about two Zen students, as it was told to me. Two Zen students were praising their own teachers. One of them said, "Oh, my teacher is so wonderful! She has all these psychic powers; she can fly through the air and walk on water!"

The other student said, "Oh, my teacher is really great too. Because when my teacher walks, she just walks. When she sits, she just sits. When she works, she just works."

The first student said, "Oh... your teacher is really great."

That is wonderful. Walk when you walk, sit when you sit, clean when you clean, and talk with friends when you talk. This is a great power, and it is a gift to the world when we give ourselves carefully to each thing that we do. Thank you.