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Guided Meditation: Embodied Awareness

Hello everyone and welcome to the beginning of our week of meditation and discussion of the Buddha's teachings on the four foundations for mindfulness, for awareness.

I want to begin with a little story. There was once a novice who entered the monastery and was being introduced to the teachings of mindfulness, Satipaṭṭhāna^[1], and asked the question of the abbess, "When should we be mindful?"

Maybe the novice hadn't really heard about mindfulness before, and it seems like a reasonable question. When should one be mindful? And the abbess replied, "When it is better than the alternative."

When it is better than the alternative. And I think that, certainly in my experience as I've followed this path of mindfulness for now several decades, it becomes clearer and clearer that mindfulness somehow is the best alternative, is the best option.

And so rather than struggling, wondering where I should be and what seems important, to have mindfulness in the middle of our experience, whatever we're doing, is really a delight. It's really a wonderful thing. Because when mindfulness comes to its simplest potential, its simplest form, it's also its most profound form. It's a clarity and a freedom of awareness that in and of itself is not diminished, not being hurt, not being undermined or deflated, not being eclipsed, and not coming under the influence of some of the challenging states of mind that we might have.

All too easily, when mindfulness is not present, when this kind of clear awareness is not present, the mind can easily get under the influence of stress, of tension of one form or another. So what is it about awareness, being aware, the practice of awareness, the practice of mindfulness, that makes it one of the best alternatives for what to do at any given moment?

And now here we are to meditate, to practice mindfulness.

So gently closing your eyes.

And perhaps, without trying to meditate, see if you can have a very simple awareness of your body. Maybe exploring your body, re-familiarizing yourself with your body, as if the two of you haven't connected for a while.

And without the idea of meditating on the breathing, familiarize yourself with your breathing. Familiarize yourself with the body's experience of breathing, the sensations in your body that come into play as you breathe.

And when there is awareness, especially awareness that almost arises together or out of the body, the breathing can feel like the experience, the sensations of breathing can feel almost as if they are infused with awareness itself. At the minimum, the awareness that has to be present to feel sensations.

And perhaps, as if you're filling your breathing, your body with awareness, gently take some deeper breaths and longer exhales.

Gently relax your body as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal, continue a few more rounds of breathing to relax on the exhale. As you relax some of the muscles of your body, perhaps it's a relaxation into more awareness in that part of your body.

And then letting go of relaxation in favor of a simple awareness of breathing in and breathing out. The simpler that awareness is, the more profound it is.

Letting awareness grow in the breathing, with the breathing.

And if you wander off away into the mind, into thoughts, consider whether mindfulness, coming back to mindfulness, might be the better alternative than what you're doing.

As we come to the end of this sitting, let there be an awakening of awareness throughout your body, becoming more sensitive to your embodied existence.

And it's with your body that you'll move and walk and stand, or move your arms to eat. Whatever movements you make with your body, imagine that you'll do that with an embodied awareness. So you're living in your body, aware through your body of the activities of your day.

And that those activities might also be the means for conveying care and kindness for yourself and for others. If you're alone, your actions of your body can be done attentive to how they care for yourself. When with others, you can be attentive to how in some way or other they convey your care and kindness for others.

On this day, may we explore how our activities, what we actually do in our actions, might be done with a greater dedication to kindness, goodwill, love, appreciation of self, of others, and this whole world that we make direct contact with, with our bodies. On this day, may we have a Midas touch, that everything we touch, we touch with kindness.

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

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (20) Beauty in Mindful Activity

So hello everyone. We're continuing now with going through the discourse on the four foundations for mindfulness, for awareness.

And it's the ways of developing a heightened sense of attention, attentiveness, and awareness. It's in these four different domains, four different areas of our life, that we bring attention to, sort of different kinds of attention, so that our capacity to be awake and aware becomes stronger and stronger, clearer and clearer, simpler and simpler, all at the same time.

We're doing the third exercise in the thirteen exercises, and it goes like this: "A practitioner is one who acts in full awareness when going forward and returning; who acts in full awareness when looking ahead and looking away; who acts in full awareness when flexing and extending the limbs; who acts in full awareness when wearing one's robes or carrying one's outer robe and bowl"—for monastics maybe, for lay people, a full awareness when wearing our clothes and carrying our plates and silverware. And when we're eating, "who acts in full awareness when eating, drinking, consuming food and tasting; who acts in full awareness when defecating and urinating; who acts in full awareness when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent." So this is mindfulness in activities.

When I was first studying this, I was coming with a strong influence from the Zen training I'd done, and I read the text selectively. I read it selectively for the passages that emphasized not doing anything, but rather just being aware—that just being aware was enough. Just be present for what is without any attempt to change it or do anything with it or judge it, just to be aware. So it was a kind of receptive or somewhat passive awareness in a sense.

But as I studied this text more and more, and as I studied the teachings of the Buddha more and more, I see that the Buddha's teachings are very centrally rooted or grounded in action—action of body, speech, and mind. And that without understanding the role and place for action in this practice, we might not really find our way to freedom, find the full potential of this.

And so it turns out that the first three exercises of the text have a lot of action as part of it. It begins with breathing. It says, "Breathing in, I know I am breathing in." It's not saying "I know breathing is happening," kind of a passive breathing just going on. It says, "I know I am breathing."

And then it says, "experiencing one's whole body." That's a little bit receptive and open, but it is a choice, an activity in the mind to receive and experience the body, to really feel the full body.

And then it says to relax the body. That clearly is an activity. The second exercise begins with focusing on walking: knowing you're walking when you're walking; standing when you're standing; sitting when sitting; and lying down when lying down. They're called postures, but these are all certain kinds of activity; we put ourselves in these postures.

In the third foundation, it's all about activities. It's all about what we're doing. And one of the reasons I like to think that it begins this way is that we're starting to get the hang of how to pay attention to the way that we act, the actions we do. So it's not just mindfulness sitting quietly in meditation with the eyes closed, and then later we learn how to practice in daily life. It begins right there with activities and with our daily life, all the things we do in our daily life, and infusing it with mindfulness, infusing it with attention.

And it's not a distraction to do this. It distracts us from our distractions. If you prefer to be distracted, then don't practice mindfulness. But in a funny way, to practice mindfulness is to do something different than being distracted.

So to be present for the activities we do when we're doing them, and to be present from the inside out. So there's not just simply a knowing we're doing them, knowing that I'm reaching for something. But we're infusing... like if I reach for the bell that's here next to me. If I reach for it, I can do it mindlessly. I could do it while I'm talking and not really pay attention to what I'm doing. Or I can really slow down and really put my attention in my arm, feel it stretching out, feel the weight of the bell, feel my hand gripping it, and then feeling what it's like to lift it up, and just infuse it with sensations.

This kind of attention, if you do it initially, might seem like a distraction from living your life. But over time, we can live our life but we're infused with this kind of attention. We're infusing ourselves with an embodied awareness which gives us access to a much wider range of who we are, a wider range of intelligence, a receptive perception of sensitivity, of wisdom, than if we're only in our heads thinking and planning ahead and reacting to things, reviewing things in the mind.

When we start dropping down and having the body be the foundation from which we engage, it becomes more holistic. Our whole being with all the different capacities and functions we have can start to be marshaled together for this purpose of being present and for being wise.

The text talks about practicing full awareness, and I like this expression quite a bit. But I think the Pali word itself, sampajañña^[2], means more something like a clear recognition. To really recognize what we're doing when we're doing it. But what do we recognize? Certainly the activity in and of itself, but the full recognition includes our intentions and purpose in which we're doing something, the context which we're in. And so this wider intelligence, this wider sensitivity that can arise from the body because we're really present for our experience as we do it—not at the exclusion of everything else, but because we're more here and we're more attentive and sensitive to what goes on around us.

And so we also pay attention in this full awareness, full clear recognition, to the effect, the influence our actions have on us. So if I grab my bell out of greed and just quickly grab it and hold it in tight, "this is mine," this kind of tension and tightness of holding it and grabbing it, if I pay attention to the influence it has on me, it's not very good. It's kind of off. It brings more tension.

But if I reach to grab the bell in a relaxed way, respecting the bell, feeling the bell when I first touch it, not grabbing it right away, and then holding it with just enough grip, just enough to hold it lifted without gripping it, just holding it and lifting it up and feeling it. I feel the coolness of the metal against my hand and it feels kind of nice to do that action. There's a simple pleasure in reaching for it and having it.

This is a hugely important part of this mindfulness practice. We can become mindful of the influence, the effect our actions have on ourselves and the world, but within ourselves. Is what I'm doing nourishing me? Is it benefiting me? Is it pleasant? Is it enjoyable? And the concept that's most important: is it wholesome? Is it helpful for us?

Part of the Buddha's teachings on action is encouraging us to do things, actions which are beautiful. And so this idea of infusing attention into all our activities can also go along with doing the activities in a way that is beautiful.

What the beauty is for any individual is very individualistic, but how would you reach for something if you would do the reaching in a beautiful way? If you eat and chew and taste in a beautiful way in order to experience it as beauty or as a kind of a wholesome pleasure. A kind of beauty which is—I love the word beauty because it's different than pleasure, which many people will associate with physical pleasure that's just skin deep because it tastes good or feels good physically.

But beauty is a pleasure which is deeper. It's kind of like a dharmic pleasure, a deep feeling of resonance with what feels right and good and wonderful, clean and ethical within ourselves. The word for beauty here is kalyāṇa^[3]. Some of you will know kalyāṇa-mitta^[4] is often translated as 'good spiritual friend', but kalyāṇa, its first definition is 'beautiful'. So kalyāṇa-mitta literally is 'beautiful friend'.

To infuse the actions one does with awareness, with attention, there's even a more wonderful potential possibility. Not only being present for our experience so we're really present knowing it, but doing it in a way... being sensitive to the influence it has on us, being sensitive to the quality that comes with doing the activity. It's possible to do things beautifully.

One acts in full awareness when going forward beautifully, when returning beautifully, looking ahead beautifully, looking away beautifully, flexing and extending one's limbs beautifully, wearing one's clothes beautifully, eating, drinking, consuming food and tasting beautifully, defecating and urinating beautifully, walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent beautifully.

Exactly what beauty is, is personal, but it is something which has a feeling of goodness or deep pleasure, dharmic pleasure. Something that feels like, "this is worthwhile to do with my being, this is a healthy thing to do."

It requires paying attention to the present moment. The kind of attention I hope that you'll see your life blossom around. It doesn't take you away from your life but it infuses it with a great sense of purpose and value. And it lays the foundation for living a full life in the world in a way that is beautiful, in a way that is peaceful, and moves us towards awakening and appreciation.

Beauty as a foundation for the path to awakening. The Buddha's teachings on action have an emphasis on beauty, on beauty and kalyāṇa.

So may you explore your activities you engage in, your everyday things. May you take a heightened interest in them today and see what you can learn about a heightened awareness in activities. But more so, is it possible to do them in a way that has a positive influence on you, that the very doing them is done in a way that feels good, maybe is beautiful.

So thank you very much.