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Guided Meditation: Seeing Peacefully

Well, good morning, or good day. I feel kind of cozy being here this morning. I'm alone in this big room with a fog and low clouds here today in California and the Bay Area. It's starting to be a little dark in this room in the mornings now in the coming fall, so it's kind of cozy and nice. Thank you for being part of this.

So, in mindfulness practice, the medium for it is our capacity for perception. The primary example of perception that's used repeatedly in the Buddha's teachings is seeing. And one of the advantages of using this as an example is that it can be clear that when we see something, maybe outside of ourselves, that it is outside of ourselves, it's there. The eyes that see, the ability to see, is here with us, and between those two there is the act of seeing, which is the coming together of the object and the ability to see.

And that coming together to have the seeing, that's where the dynamic aspect of mindfulness, or the revelation of practice, opens up. Sometimes we look too much at the object, as if only the object has the answer. We just really bear down on the object, look at it, see it deeply. There's a role for that, but it's only part of the picture. The other part is the ability to see, and it has to be there. And then there's the coming together of those two. If we're too interested in the object, reacting to it or bearing down on it in some way, investigating it deeply, we might miss the other two parts.

And the other two parts are also where we can discover where we're caught in something, where we're entangled or attached to something, which is often felt as a freezing of the seeing. A freezing of the act of perception, and locking in or locking out, pulling back. The meeting of the two stops being so smooth and fluid in the present moment as it unfolds.

So the ability to see is discovered in the seeing. How we see is a beautiful thing. That's what the Buddha calls the beautiful witnessing. How we see is where we discover the unfolding of the Dharma, of the practice. We have to stay close to that meeting place of the seen and the seeing.

How we see, how we perceive, how we know. So in this meditation, you might take an interest in how you're seeing, which always happens here and now, which is always part of the immediacy of the present moment. How you see. Can that way of seeing, the way of knowing, the way of perceiving, the way of seeing with the inner eye what's going on inside of you—can you give a lot of time to that, the extended present moment? Can you allow for it to be calm, expansive, and unhurried? Just here and now. Directly visible in a certain way is our seeing. It's the seeing itself.

So, to assume a meditation posture, and lowering your gaze to begin the process of relaxing your eyes. So you're not really looking at anything. The central vision of the eye is not really engaged with anything, and it's more the peripheral vision which is open. [Music]

Gently closing your eyes. No need to physically engage your eyes in order to be aware and mindful. No need to physically engage the eyes at all. Letting the eyes relax in their sockets. Almost as if the eyes can kind of rest backwards, downwards in the sockets.

And then, as if you have infinite time, taking some long, slow, deep breaths. And to relax as you exhale. To let your whole psychophysical system settle into some modicum of calm as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal. As you inhale, feel your hands and wrists, and if there's any holding there, on the exhale adjust your hands or relax the holding.

If there are any ways in which there's holding in your elbows—they're pulled in tight to the side of your body, or they're pulled too far forward—adjust your elbows. Let them relax.

And then feel your shoulders. And on the exhale, relax your shoulders. Maybe the shoulders can relax a little bit more if you gently pull back and lift up your head. And if you gently, incrementally, sit up a little straighter with your upper spine.

And on the exhale, softening the belly. Letting the belly hang forward and down. And as the belly relaxes, letting the relaxation spread around the waist to the sides. Letting the relaxation spread down into your pelvis, hip joints, groin area.

And then on the exhale, to soften and relax the thinking mind. Relaxing any intensity, force, or fixation connected to thinking.

And then settling into your body breathing. Here with your breathing, there's the experience, there's breathing. The parts of your body that move as you breathe. Here's your ability to feel or know yourself breathing. And the meeting of those two, where you know and experience breathing.

Avoiding being excessively focused on the physical aspect of breathing itself. See if you can appreciate more the knowing or the sensing of breathing. Our ability to sense is one thing, the sensations are another, and the meeting of those two is our sensing of the body breathing.

Perhaps you can have some intuitive sense of the knowing, the sensing as its own thing. And then that knowing or sensing, aware of breathing, to let that be expansive in time. As if there's an extended present moment to feel what's happening as your body breathes, to know it, to experience it in the knowing.

In whatever way you're aware, mindful, relax back into it. See if there's a place where you can be aware peacefully. Where it's kind of like the window is open and the wind gently blows in continuously. That your perception is open, available. And what you're aware of is known in that open, peaceful space, continuously.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, there are these three parts also to love. There's the object of our love, our ability to love, and the loving. It's possible to relax back closer to the ability to love, the loving that may be there without the object.

There's what we care for, our ability to care, and the caring itself. Can you take refuge in your ability to care, to have compassion, to love, without so much concern with the object? Where that care, love, and compassion is peaceful and calm, maybe receptive.

So that when you meet the world that suffers or that you care for, you do so peacefully, calmly. The kind of peace and calm which gives lots of time to time, lots of openness to the extended present moment.

And perhaps this ability to care from this relaxed, calm way, this ability to love, can be touched, can be inspired or recognized as you hear these words:

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

And may our care touch the world, not with a Midas touch that turns it into gold, but with a mettā^[1] touch that turns it all into our friends. May we be friends with this world. [Music]

Dharmette: The Dharma (3 of 5) Inviting Seeing

So, this is the third talk on the five characteristics of the Dharma. That's an expression meant to express the kind of confidence that some people have in the Dharma. And so the saying goes: the Dharma is well-spoken by the Buddha, it is visible here and now, immediate, inviting us to see, onward leading, and to be personally known and experienced by the wise.

Today the topic is ehipassiko^[2], which is sometimes translated as "inviting inspection" or "inviting us to come and see." It's a compound word. Ehi is the instruction: "come, come here." And passiko has the word "to see" in it: "come and see." It's the same root as vipassanā^[3], which has passanā in it, to see as well. So, come and see.

Early in his teaching career, when someone wanted to become ordained as a monastic, the Buddha would say to them, "Come, monastic." And simply that, "Come, come here, come into this," was the ordination ceremony. Nothing more fancy. I kind of like this, because this idea of ehi, come and see, has an association in my mind with this movement to really step into the spiritual life, the Dharmic life fully, as this "come into this."

And so the Dharma beckons us to see. It invites us to see, says, "Come look, come look." It's not telling us, "Come learn, come read these books, come memorize these teachings, come believe what I'm saying." Rather it's saying, "Come and look, come and see." It's beckoning us.

And the question is, what is doing the calling? What's inviting us to come and see? Some people have suggested it's the world. That everything that's there, there's a request that we connect with it, that we know it, that we really are present for this world, because everything is important. I've known some wonderful spiritual practitioners where you get a sense when you're with them that everything is important, every little detail, everything we do.

An inspiring little event that I witnessed was many, many years ago in the late 1970s. I was a witness to an unusual gathering, maybe the first time of about seven full Zen teachers in the United States, and most of them were Japanese who had moved here to teach Zen. They had a meeting, and after one evening of their gathering, they had a panel for us Zen students. They were sitting behind a table, answering questions. A Zen student came along with glasses of water for them, and just reached behind them and put it on the table for them, kind of innocuously. But as he went down the table, he came to the last person, a teacher, Maezumi Roshi. When the student left the water for the teacher, the teacher turned around as if that person bringing the water was the most important person in that moment, and bowed in an appreciation and thanks.

The fact that none of the other teachers had done that really stood out. "Wow, this is important for this teacher, this is as important as anything else." The other teachers seemed to me so involved in the Q&A that they didn't notice, maybe. But he said everything's important. Later, I was sitting in a retreat next to a Japanese monk, and I saw him bow to his teacup. I thought, "Why would you bow to a teacup?" So everything is important. And so, maybe what's inviting us to see is the world, be present for it, everything is important.

Another way of understanding what we're being invited to see is the seeing itself. That seeing is important. Come and see, come and be involved in the seeing. The freedom is found in how we see, how we're aware, how we know. And as we start tuning in to how we see, how we know, a fantastic thing begins to happen. We start recognizing how our awareness, our seeing, our knowing, gets hijacked, gets caught in, gets utilized by our attachments, our greeds, our agendas, our conceits. Because we feel it. It gets tight, it gets frozen, there's pressure, it gets assertive. The knowing is not spacious, relaxed, open, peaceful.

And so "come and see" is, I think, partly an invitation that it's not so much what you look at, or in addition to what you're looking at, it's the act of seeing. Come really see, learn about your seeing, learn about how you're aware. Learn about the richness and the value of this present moment ability to be present and to see. So what's calling us to see is the seeing itself, because the seeing itself wants to be free, wants to be open, is available.

I think the analogy I have for this sometimes is, if you sit and meditate in a nice way, and come out of meditation very calm and centered and very present, then the seeing of the world around us just kind of happens naturally, easily. Things begin to sparkle and stand out, highlighted in a way they weren't when we were busy and stressed in everyday life before meditation. I remember the first time I had this experience, I kind of felt everything was sparkling. And I said, "Wow, had someone gone around and cleaned while I wasn't paying attention?" Or sometimes taking a nap during the day, I've woken up in a place where there's sunlight coming in through the window, and I can see all the dust particles playing in the sunlight. And I'm just kind of—that is completely interesting to see. Not because the dust particles are so interesting, perhaps, but what's so compelling is the very relaxed, open way of seeing that just seems to happen on its own. A kind of way of seeing that is free of attachments and agendas and all this stuff.

So "come and see," the Dharma is "come and see." See each thing, maybe, as important. Come and see, be in the seeing and the freedom that's there, and see deeply. And as we do that, there's a lot to see. And one of the things to see is what we'll talk about tomorrow. Another amazing quality of the Dharma is that it's onward leading. And what is that "onward leading"? Well, I'm getting ahead of myself now, so that's for tomorrow. I'm kind of excited.

But for now, it's our capacity to perceive, our capacity to know, our capacity to see, literally and representing all the acts of perception. There's something that is welcoming us, inviting us to let that come to the foreground. There's some feeling of invitation, some calling to it. "Come" is part of the Dharma that's within us. This call to be present, this call to know, to see, lives within us. It gets obscured, gets covered over by preoccupation, by strong desires, strong aversions, being in a hurry. But as we are no longer in a hurry, we live in this extended present moment where time gets stretched out, or is more open, or seems timeless, I think maybe you'll feel the call to being aware. To being aware in a way where being aware has been set free of our thoughts, preoccupations, stories, past, future. Where just being alive is enough.

So ehipassiko, come and see. Come look. May this be the day where you explore this and consider this. It requires what I'm suggesting, giving yourself that kind of extended time of "now." Because if you're in a hurry, you can't feel the call, the request, the invitation. But take time from time to time through the day, to give yourself this extended time, and see what you can discover that might be similar to this call to attention that is free, peaceful.

So thank you, and I hope you enjoy your day, and your exploring of this wonderful invitation to be present. And maybe responding to that call can be entering into a deeper life, a fuller life. Thank you.