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Guided Meditation: Space Element

And today, I will share the sutta that I've been speaking about for this week. Maybe towards the end, so we don't all have to get occupied by reading the suttas, but I will be sharing a link at the end.

So maybe just take a few moments to settle in. We'll begin with the arriving sequence again. If you like, you can close your eyes, gently, softly. Arriving. As if you're arriving in a quiet meditation hall. Bring some gentle kindness, softness, and quiet as you settle in.

Taking seat. Really taking your seat. Feel the contact of your body with the chair or the floor. Know that you're sitting. Arriving here on your seat. Leaving the contact of your feet on the ground. Supported by earth. Maybe there is a sense of the whole body landing. Landing here and now.

Maybe a few long deep breaths to allow yourself to settle in. Becoming available, however so slightly, to the lived experience right here and now. Sound. Movements of the breath. Contacts of the body.

Being available evokes a sense of opening up the awareness to receive. Not wanting anything to happen, not driven by our preferences, our wishes. Just open. Open up. Surrender to whatever shows up.

Allowing ourselves physically, from ground up, sitting like a redwood. Align our heart and mind along with the uplifting body. Align with aspirations. Align with goodwill. Align with non-harming. For me, I feel a sense of ease, at ease when there is that inner alignment with integrity, value, and goodness in our heart and mind.

Softly and gently open to the felt sense of the earth element. The contact of our bones with the earth. Firmness. Dense. Settling downwards. Resting in the felt sense of earth element in this earthy body. Maybe the sense of accessibility may come in as strength. Like the big pillar holding a structure of this body. Feel the quietness of the bones. Stillness, however so slightly.

The earth element in the backdrop of our awareness. Becoming available to the felt sense of air element. Wind moving through our bodies. Rising and falling of the belly as you breathe. Expansion and contraction of the torso. Different kinds of vibrations and buzzing in the body.

Dropping out of ideas, beliefs. Feel and sense into the elements. Alive. Flush. Each moment, flush.

Here we open and expand our field of awareness to receive space. Space that holds the earth element, this body. Space inside of the body and outside around us. Gentle opening and expanding to receive space. Space all around where the sound travels.

Be a felt sense of spaciousness in your being, however it might show up. For me, there is a slight opening of the torso, slight opening of my shoulder blades. Being available to space. There are different qualities of the felt sense of space. Lightness. Openness. And sometimes there may be slight brightness to it, or darkness. However it shows up for you.

Different elements are held in space. Relax and ease into the space. There may be a different kind of stillness related to space. A delicate kind of space stillness. Quiet. As if you can hear the sound of silence.

Experiences can arise and pass in this vast spacious field. And the space is unmoving, unmoved.

For the rest of our meditation, you're welcome to stay with space or receive any other experiences that may seem prominent for you. Releasing concepts, ideas. Melt yourself. Melt away into the space.

The Buddha said to his son Rahula^[1], "Rahula, meditate like space. When you meditate like space, pleasant and unpleasant contact will not occupy your mind. Space doesn't tremble by the things that happen within it."

The vast spaciousness. All experiences are free to be themselves. Emotions, thoughts, sensations in the body, free to flow in the vast field of spaciousness.

If there is any form of well-being or some goodness that is bubbling up, allow them to permeate in the vastness. Let your whole body, mind, and heart be nourished by the sense of well-being. However much there is available to you.

The Blessings of Sila - The Fifth Precept (5 of 5)

Welcome everyone. Feel quite sacred to be in this space with you all, the vast space holding all of us, meditating together. Allow that goodness to touch you and maybe support you on the path.

Today we're going to continue our conversation on sila^[2], and then we'll speak a little bit about the last precept, and then maybe do a review on the whole territory of sila.

So this last precept, many of you would know this. It's about undertaking the training rule of abstaining from intoxicants, drugs, and alcohol that lead to heedlessness or cloudiness of our minds.

Well, we all know the danger of cloudy minds, right? When our mind is not clear, and acting out from that kind of cloudiness, dullness, we know. We know what it feels like. We know what may happen. So there is a real danger of that.

This precept is inviting us to become really clear about this and say, "Oh, you know, I'm not going to play with fire here." This is like telling young kids not to touch the hot stove because it'll burn. If the kids really listen and don't go anywhere close to it, they may never get burnt. Over time they really know there is a danger and they understand. The same thing with this particular precept. It's pointing to the danger of a cloudy mind. We've all heard so many stories about what happens when one is drunk or gets intoxicated, and much harm has been done in so many different ways. So, abstain from taking drugs and intoxicants that cloud our mind.

But there is also a deeper dimension of this particular precept, which is that the precept is pointing at the care and protection of a clear and pure mind and heart. This is where the cultivation of awareness comes in. The precept invites us to cultivate awareness, to become sensitive to the conditions that lead to cloudiness, dullness, and the conditions that lead to brightness in our mind and clarity in our mind and heart.

That's a dimension that invites all of us to begin to pay careful attention to. In fact, it's not just intoxicants and drugs and alcohol that cloud our mind. You may have noticed even some food or certain activities can cloud our mind and cloud our being. The way we take our food, overeating and undereating, can also lead to dullness and cloudiness of our bodies and mind. This cultivation of mindful awareness is to begin to tune in to those forces that may happen within us and begin to learn to cultivate the conditions that support an alert, clear mind, and let go of the conditions that lead to heedlessness and cloudiness of our mind.

Some of you may have seen this, for example, nowadays, if people play hours of video games, when they come out of their room, you look at them and you just feel there is a sort of tiredness around the person. Engaging in certain activities can create different forms of energy and really dull our minds.

I remember one time when I was attending a conference in Las Vegas. There was a big casino with lots of big conference rooms. One early morning I was getting into the elevator to go down to the conference rooms, and there was a person who walked in with a bucket of coins. It was very clear that the person had probably played a long time overnight, or maybe the whole night, and the person looked very tired. When I looked into her eyes, there were no sparks. At that moment I felt, Wow, this feels lifeless. It was as if these hours, and maybe a whole night of gambling, had taken the sparks of life out of the person.

So begin to pay attention to our activities. Observe how the way we engage in our activities can become conditions that lead to dullness and cloudiness of our mind and heart, and we learn to abstain from them.

Similarly, in this meditation that we just did, maybe you had some experience—a felt sense of clarity, a felt sense of alertness, aliveness, the sparks of our lives. We begin to know that these are the conditions that bring the sparkles of life in us.

With this kind of clarity in our heart and mind, we can cultivate the entire sila domain that we've been talking about, the five precepts. The more we become clear and aware, the more we can allow the depth and the richness of the practice of sila to mature in us.

In this way, while cultivating sila, we're not treating it as some form of a dogmatic holding of "We shall not do so and so," or trying to get a hundred on a sila test, or huffing and puffing and saying, "Look at me," or judging other people: "I didn't do this, look how good I am." That's not what the sila practice is pointing to. Instead, the practice of sila is an integral part of the cultivation of our whole heart and mind. It's an integral part of the dharma path that leads to awakening, freedom from dukkha^[3].

When our bodily and verbal activities are aligned with wholesome qualities of our mind and heart, our actions and speech become a natural expression of our heart and mind, and they bring much benefit to ourselves and to the world.

The Mangala Sutta

I've been sharing bits and pieces of this Mangala Sutta^[4], the sutta of blessings, in this past week. I wanted to read you this as a whole. This sutta has many pieces that speak to the cultivation of sila, and then towards the end also speaks about the fruit of the cultivation of sila, samadhi^[5], and panya^[6] (heart and mind) together. May you receive these blessings.

There are many translations, so I'm going to share the link in just a moment. The translation that I've been sharing is based on Bhante Sujato^[7], though this is not the only translation. You can look at different translations and see if some of them speak to you. For me, not a single translation captures everything. Different translations connect with me in different ways, so feel free to explore.

Here are the blessings. It starts by saying that there is a deity who showed up in front of the Buddha asking the Buddha to declare the highest blessing, or the greatest of blessings. So here we go:

I have heard at one time the Buddha was staying near Savatthi in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. Then late at night, a glorious deity lighting up the entire Jeta's Grove went up to the Buddha, bowed, and stood to one side. That deity addressed the Buddha in verse:

"Many gods and humans have thought about blessings desiring well-being. Declare the highest blessing."

The Buddha said—and for the first one, I'm going to use an alternative translation here which I associate with a little more—it says:

"Not to associate with fools, but to associate with the wise, and honoring those worthy of honor. This is the highest blessing.

"Living in a suitable region, having made merits in the past, being rightly resolved in oneself. This is the highest blessing.

"Education and craft, discipline and training, and well-spoken speech. This is the highest blessing.

"Caring for mother and father, kindness to children and partners, and unstressful work. This is the highest blessing.

"Giving and righteous conduct, kindness to relatives, blameless deeds. This is the highest blessing.

"Desisting and abstaining from evil, avoiding alcoholic drinks, diligence in good qualities. This is the highest blessing.

"Respect and humility, contentment and gratitude, and timely listening to the teaching. This is the highest blessing.

"Patience, being easy to admonish, the sight of ascetics, and timely discussion of the teaching. This is the highest blessing.

"Austerity and celibacy, seeing the noble truths, and the realization of extinguishment. This is the highest blessing.

"Though touched by worldly conditions, their mind does not tremble. Sorrowless, stainless, secure. This is the highest blessing.

"Having completed these things, undefeated everywhere they go, in safety. This is their highest blessing."

May you all find true safety within. May all beings find safety within. Thank you so much everyone, I'm truly delighted spending all these days with you.