Guided Meditation: Radiating Awareness; Dharmette: Compassionate Action (4 of 5) For the Sake of the Whole World

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Radiating Awareness; Compassionate Action (4 of 5) For the Whole World. 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 03, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Radiating Awareness

Hello everyone, and welcome to our meditation. It looks like some people are saying they still have trouble connecting. If you are having trouble connecting, try refreshing the page or link you use at IMC^[1] to connect to the site. If that doesn't work, maybe you can mention it in the chat. Someone who knows about the technology parts of all this will probably see it, and we'll look into it some more.

So, good morning. Here is an analogy that I'm fond of. It can be done in different ways, but the way I'd like to do it is to imagine a cold place, or if you are living in a very hot place, imagine a hot place. In the cold place, imagine a small heater placed in the middle of a room, or in a hot place, maybe an air conditioner. That little heater works hard, and when it's turned on, the immediate space around the heater warms up, or the immediate space around the air conditioner cools down. Then, as it keeps working, the temperature slowly changes going outwards. It gets warmer and warmer until the whole room gets warm, or the whole room gets cool. If it goes on long enough, maybe the warmth or that coolness spreads out to other rooms in the house. It might take a while, but eventually, it spreads out. But it begins first close in to where it's closest.

In the same way, when we practice mindfulness with the classic instructions to begin here with ourselves in an embodied way—with the body, with breathing, with our own direct experience—it's a little bit like there is awareness within us. That awareness lights up, or warms up, refreshes, and meets what is closest to it, which is ourselves. In a sense, we begin filling ourselves with warmth or refreshing coolness. We become full in a wonderful way. We feel connected to ourselves; we fill ourselves out. And as it becomes fuller with attention and presence, when we become more embodied and connected to ourselves, the awareness naturally spreads out into the environment.

First, it contacts what is close by, maybe the people and objects that we're engaged with and have direct contact with. With time, it spreads further and further. There's this radiance or flow outward.

When we come to meditate every morning, I think of it as getting to start all over. It's an opportunity for a fresh start. Because the mind is often preoccupied by the past and future, and what's happening in our lives, it's maybe a little hard to appreciate how a daily meditation can be an opportunity for a completely fresh start. It's kind of like you've been forgiven everything. You can put down every burden and every responsibility, forgive yourself for every transgression, and start over again.

We start over again here, turning on the heater inside, turning on the air conditioner, turning on the flow. The classic language is more like a flow of water from an underwater spring in an underwater lake. Kind of turning it on and letting yourself become full with awareness. Let awareness take in and make contact with all the parts of who you are, here and now, so that it becomes a foundation where awareness can be ready for the world itself. Then, as you get ready for the world and go into the world, some of the issues of your life can return and be addressed in a much better way.

Thinking of meditation as a time to put everything down so you can start over doesn't mean the feelings, emotions, and concerns disappear. But we start over by connecting to what's happening here and now in our body and in our breathing. Then we start filling ourselves, making contact in awareness and presence with all of it as it goes.

So, to begin with a posture. Maybe think of the posture as a posture of starting over, almost like a ritual of establishing yourself here and now, in this place at this time. As if you can start over with no past and no future to be concerned with for now.

And then gently closing your eyes.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths to continue this ritual of letting go of past and future, letting go of concerns and thoughts the best you can, and re-establish yourself here.

Letting go on the exhale.

Establishing yourself here on the inhale.

And then let your breathing return to normal.

Continuing this movement towards letting go, forgiveness, and starting over. With a normal breath, as you exhale, scan through your body and find places you can relax and soften.

And softening your thinking mind. Relax the tension and pressure to think.

Maybe there's a way of gently quieting the thinking mind. Not taking it as a given that you have to think with the intensity by which you're thinking.

You can quiet and slow down your thoughts.

Direct your thoughts to being here in the body with your breathing. Direct your thoughts to be interested in your direct embodied experience in meditation.

And if you're following the rising and settling of breathing, the inhales and exhales, maybe there is a place in your body where the inhale begins. The first sensations in the torso of beginning to breathe in. That's where the heater or the air conditioner begins radiating.

And as the inhale grows, awareness spreads through the torso as it expands. The rib cage stretches, the belly expands.

Let your awareness spread through your body, through your heart, through your mind.

As if you have a fresh beginning.

Everything here in yourself, with a freshness, a newness, your curiosity.

Almost as if you have no past and no future, just this. Past and future can return later.

In meditation, there's nothing to solve or figure out.

Instead, we bring awareness to whatever is happening, as if we're filling ourselves with awareness, becoming embodied as a foundation for being with whatever is challenging, whatever is happening in the present moment.

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, imagine that your awareness begins with you, because that's where all your senses are: the sense of hearing, seeing, touching, smelling. All the sense doors are here in this body, feeling your body itself from the inside out. This awareness kind of radiates out as it hears the world around you, as it sees the world around you, smells, as it considers and thinks about the world around you.

And as you breathe in and out, spreading your awareness out into the world as if it can touch the whole world. And with whatever sense of calm or well-being or presence, whatever kindness or care or compassion that you find within, let that also spread out into the world.

With the idea that it would be marvelous, wonderful, for all beings to have a deep connection to themselves and to the world in such a way that it provides them a source of happiness, well-being, and safety. May it be that this practice that we do, maybe the way that we live our lives in known and unknown ways, and intentional and unintentional ways, may it be for the welfare and happiness of everyone.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may we support this possibility.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Compassionate Action (4 of 5) For the Sake of the Whole World

I'll be right back. I think I have to push a button on a different machine. Nope, now it worked.

So hello, and welcome to this fourth talk about compassionate action. It's maybe worth repeating that these talks about compassionate action are building on a whole series of talks from before that focused on the role of developing awareness as a foundation for compassionate action, developing attunement with others and ourselves as a foundation for compassion, cultivating appreciation of others and a deep respect also as a foundation for compassionate action, and cultivating the appropriate aspiration—a wish as part of compassionate action. With all that, we're ready to act compassionately.

So we don't want to be impulsive in compassionate action, or unconsidered, or necessarily think just because we identify something like compassion or a desire to help people or to stop suffering that it's wisely considered. To consider wisely is an important part of Buddhist practice. To consider profoundly, to have a profound consideration, means to stop, feel, and have access to some sense of a profound source within. Take the time. What do the depths of your being say? How does that inform you, or how does that help you understand the situation?

I like this expression, "depth of your being." Some people might say whatever is heartfelt, but even the heart might not be the fullest or the wisest place from which to act in the world. But to take time to come from someplace deep within. This deepest place, maybe, is a place where we don't have divisions for our care. We are not partial; we don't have distinctions between those people deserving our care and compassion and those who don't. The deepest place inside has quieted this divisive mind that many of us can live in, where it's partial, it's preferential, and some people are excluded from our care because we don't think they deserve it. In the depth of our being, it's possible to care, to be concerned with the welfare of everyone.

The Buddha refers to this as being concerned for the welfare of the whole world. He talked about being concerned for the welfare of oneself, concern for the welfare of others, concern for the welfare of self and others—which is what we've talked about the first three days this week. In addition to that, he talked about being concerned for the welfare of the whole world. Certainly, the whole world is a big task, to consider the welfare of everyone, but to let the awareness, the care, the compassion, the compassionate concern have no divisions, to have no "us versus them," regarding who justifies our compassion and who doesn't—that's what I understand "the whole world" means. There's no separation.

Certainly, we probably care for the people close to us because they are close to us; we see them, we know them. We don't have to go out now and donate to every non-profit that does good work throughout the whole world, but there's no division, no separation of our care. This is phenomenally important, that no one is cast away from our hearts. That when we engage in this complicated interpersonal life, we're concerned about what's best for everyone concerned.

This was a very important approach I took when I was the chair of an ethics committee, and we had to deal with lots of conflict, and sometimes with transgressions and harms that were done between people. I would talk to everyone carefully and tell them that my concern was a search for what's for the welfare and for the good of everyone concerned. It was a little bit hard for some people to appreciate when they felt that other people deserved punishment or deserved something terrible. Certainly, some kind of serious consequences sometimes are needed, but to understand how those consequences work for the welfare of everyone, for the good of everyone.

So it isn't just punitive and that's the end of it. It's: yes, there have to be consequences, there has to be accountability, something has to change, but here is why it's helpful for you, here's why it's good for you, here's why you need to do this. It gives you an opportunity to grow, to change, to come to terms with all kinds of things. Generally, I've found that everyone involved in these conflict resolutions that I was involved in came to appreciate that we were looking for the greater good for everyone. It didn't mean that it was compromising the good for someone who needed more. It was really looking for how to benefit everyone where it's not a win-lose situation.

To do this, it takes a lot more attention, a lot more reflection and thinking, and getting a sense of the whole picture and everyone involved. The quick decision that "this is wrong, you're bad, and we're cutting you out," or "we're somehow casting you from our heart," or treating you in a punitive way, does not take into account the humanity of everyone involved—the fullness of their heart, their minds, their psychology, and what the impact of everything will be. Just take time to be in conversation with people, find out what's going on for them, and what really, in a deep way, is their need so they can really grow and develop and become better people.

That was my task when I dealt with these ethic challenges, and I think people came to appreciate it a lot. Even people who were hurt or felt like they were wronged in the conflict they were in, I think they came out as better people because they understood that they were being taken care of well, their situation was cared for, and the proper resolution was made, but that the welfare of everyone involved was taken into account. Sometimes "everyone" is not necessarily only the parties in a conflict, but also involves the people around it who know about it and are indirectly involved or connected to the parties involved. So how do we care for everyone involved?

I learned a lot about this in doing these conflict mediations and issues for many years. But also, I think it's a natural byproduct of a liberated heart—a mind that is liberated from divisiveness, liberated from attachment to "it has to be one way," or attachment to oneself, or attachment to one's family or one's tribe, or whatever it might be.

So when we're involved in compassionate action in the world, to be considerate about it is to ask: who benefits from this, and is there anybody who is harmed by this? Are we ever leaving someone out of the picture? Are we focusing too much on maybe the person who is suffering the most and forgetting there are more people involved in the ecology and the community that's related to all this? How is it that we can take into account the whole world, everyone involved, and not just yourself, not just the other in some very deep personal way, but for a whole community?

That community could be a family, it could be a place of work, it could be a Sangha^[2] or a spiritual community we're in, it could be a neighborhood. Where that whole is varies from time to time. I see it in the world of politics, that the divisions are so strong that so many times other people are cast from our hearts, and we don't ask the question: what would be best here for everyone? How do we find a way?

The difficult thing about considering what's the welfare for everyone, no matter how it is, is that it actually takes time. The conflict resolution work that I did was not a time-efficient process. It actually took a lot of conversations. I think not a few people who tried to be involved in similar conflict resolutions tried to do shortcuts, and I saw that whenever shortcuts were done, often the conflict resolution didn't work out very well. So it might take a long time to find what's best for everyone involved.

But the other thing I learned through doing this is that while it might take a lot of time to do so, it actually saved a lot of time in the future. When hurt or problems arise between people, when compassion is not all-encompassing in its scope, so many times the amount of repair work that had to be done later was much greater than all the inefficient time taken to resolve it well the first time. So it might seem inefficient and seem frustrating to stop and consider the welfare of all, and do the consideration, be in the conversations to understand the situation better, and do the creative thinking to consider how to do this so it benefits everyone. But it makes it much more efficient, easier, or more time-saving in the future as we go along.

I don't know, what's coming to mind right now is a very simple example. This doesn't involve conflict resolution. It could be that someone is ill, and it's nice to bring them dinner or some food. It would seem like just bringing them food is a good thing, but what's the bigger picture, the welfare of all? Well, maybe make enough food for their caretakers. Maybe there are paid caretakers who are caring for them, who are often neglected, often not seen, and often ignored in the close relationships that we have. But maybe make enough for them as well. Maybe for their family. Maybe there are more people. There might not be so much extra work to make a bigger meal that can then be shared more widely, but that little bit more work to make more might actually create a much better world. Who knows what benefits come into the future that are unseen.

Just a small example, but there are many examples of this. So compassionate action is not a rush to act compassionately, not narrowing the focus to only the person who's suffering or challenged. But how to take a deep breath, relax, and open to the situation more fully. Take the time and reflect: what really brings welfare for this person? What do they really need? How do I do this for my own sake so I'm nourished and become a better person? How do we do this so that it takes into account the relationship between self and others? And how do we do this so that it really takes into account a wider scope of a community—the whole world, if you will?

And if you protest that this is too much work, I'd like to emphasize again that I think in the bigger picture, it makes life much easier, and that's how, in a way, it has the welfare for all concerned, including oneself, because of how we benefit in return.

So in that process, I hope that compassionate action helps you become happier, more contented, more nourished, and more inspired in a wonderful way. May it lead to your happiness and freedom. So thank you, and we will continue this topic of compassionate action one more day tomorrow, and I look forward to it. Thank you.