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Guided Meditation: Mindfulness With Delight

So, good morning everyone, or a good day. Here in Redwood City, it's a beautiful, clear, crisp, cold day with blue skies. May we sit now and meditate with clarity and a certain kind of wonderful crispness. Perhaps, in the classic Buddhist language, we sit and cool down the fevers of attachment and preoccupation, and sit here and be delighted in having this chance to sit and meditate.

Certainly, delight is one of the doorways to the present moment. Many of our preoccupations can be far from any connection to delight, or to what feels happy or enjoyable. To sit and meditate with some connection to delight—some connection to well-being and happiness—is a doorway to being here in the present moment.

Take a meditation posture that works for you. Focus on what works for you to be alert, as opposed to what works for you to be super-duper comfortable. Excessive comfort in meditation is sometimes a hindrance to a deeper delight that comes with a certain kind of vitality of energy that courses through our system. We certainly don't want to be tense in our posture, but rather find the balance between alertness and relaxation. For those of you who are sitting upright, it maybe helps to sit with a slightly straighter spine than you normally would—just enough to add a little extra sense of engagement, presence, and involvement with the present moment through your posture. And gently close your eyes.

You might be coming to meditation with a lot of concerns, a lot of challenges, all kinds of things. That's completely okay; the way you come is great. And also, in the cracks of how you are here, if you spend a little bit of time looking for it, there can be some feelings or a sense of joy, delight, appreciation, gratitude, or relief. There can be relief and joy to just be here and quiet for a few minutes.

There can be a delight, maybe, in being alive and being in meditation, where the whole feeling of being alive can have an intimacy to it—a closeness, a subtleness. Our energies and our concerns are not a force flowing outwards into the things of the world, but if anything, they're flowing inward, or they're flowing up from the center, outwards into us.

So, you might see if you can become aware of some modicum of delight or joy that's here now. It could be something that you deeply appreciate, maybe something you often overlook. Maybe it is simply the delight that you can do this meditation, taking some time aside from a busy life, or maybe the delight of being in a virtual community sharing in this practice.

To whatever degree of delight you can feel, feel it in your body. Maybe feel it as a kind of pleasure, comfort, or subtleness in your body. Feeling this delight, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Perhaps as you breathe in, spread that delight outward throughout your body. The language of the Buddha is to suffuse these feelings throughout the body. Breathe in deeply, and then exhale, relaxing into the delight, into the heart of it.

Let your breathing return to normal. As you exhale, see if you can also relax the thinking mind. Soften the brain area around the forehead and the temples. Regardless of how the mind is, whether it's happy or not so happy, see if you can find a little spark of delight in being aware and conscious. Or maybe even a delightful surprise in noticing—really noticing—this amazing event of being conscious and aware. Do not take awareness for granted. It is an amazing thing that we have awareness, the end result of a long line of evolution and evolutionary change that we are the recipient of. For us, this can be the very simple act of being aware and being conscious.

Perhaps there can also be some modicum of delight in being here and aware that softens the mind, settles the mind, and helps put the mind at ease. Then, let this soft mind, this spark of awareness, receive the experience of the body breathing. The physical experience of the inhale is part of the phenomenal little sparks of light of knowing, of being conscious. The particular sensations of the exhale are little sparks of light of consciousness that knows the sensations.

As you exhale, take a few moments here to relax your body more, maybe even delighting in every little teeny softening of the body you can do. Relax the face, relax the shoulders, relax the belly, and relax the muscles that are involved in breathing. Trust that the breathing will take care of itself.

Once again, can you allow yourself to discover, to evoke, some modicum of delight? Find something delightful that you feel through your body that's here and now. Perhaps there are challenges, but there might also be right next to them something to appreciate, to be grateful for, and to take delight in. If you can feel that in your body, let that be a door or an encouragement to be present. Maybe breathe with the delight, breathe through it, even allowing the breathing to partake in some of this delight. Meditating, staying close to the present moment experience of well-being, may it be suffused through the whole body.

Perhaps you can turn up the corners of your lips a little bit in a half-smile or quarter-smile, and have that support you in sitting with some delight in the field of appreciation and gratitude. Maybe it is the delight to just be able to sit quietly in meditation, the delight in breathing mindfully, or the delight to notice that your mind has wandered off and that you can, for a few moments, bring it back to the present.

As we come to the end of the sitting, can you once again discover something delightful here and now in yourself, something you take delight in? This doesn't have to be dramatic; just different, lighter, more happy, more joyful, more appreciative. Amidst some of the challenges you might have, find something that really gives you a sense of being at ease, to be alive, and to be happy.

Reflections

Then, turn your awareness now outwards into the world. Think of the people you know, and people you don't know personally but who are in your neighborhood, your towns, and your communities. Send your awareness out into the wider world, across your continent, and across the globe. Take a few moments to appreciate others, and maybe even be grateful for them.

For most of us, our lives are so interconnected that there are thousands upon thousands of people who we don't know who make it possible for all that we need for our lives to function. They transport food, grow food, keep the electricity going, and plow the snow. Appreciate, and maybe even delight, enjoy, or rejoice in how much others do that makes your life possible.

Imagine that you could express your appreciation. Imagine that all those thousands upon thousands of people were standing in front of you. Maybe you would say, "Wow," having had no idea that there were so many people who contributed all the things needed for you to go through your daily life. Say, "Thank you." And more than "thank you," perhaps you can rejoice in the good fortune we have in receiving the benefits of what other people do.

May it be that your appreciation, your delight, your joy, and your rejoicing spread from you out into the people of the world, so that they can appreciate it and have the benefit of knowing that their work is appreciated. May it be that all beings have the occasion to feel delight and joy in this life of ours, that they have the ability to experience joy for what is joyful, and delight for what is delightful. May that fill them with nourishing happiness, a buoyancy, a confidence, and an inspiration.

May all beings be happy and joyful. May all beings be delighted and safe in their delight. May all beings be free to experience the blessings and gifts of this life. May all beings everywhere be happy.