This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Understanding Oneself

So, good morning and welcome. And I appreciate the chance to be here today. And more poignant, even more, is the appreciation that the theme of the week is appreciation.

So for this meditation, I'd like to suggest that one of the purposes of mindfulness meditation is for us to understand ourselves better. And if there's too much emphasis on relaxation, or having a particular experience of concentration, or even the emphasis is on somehow diminishing the amount of suffering we have—all those are fine, but if they're done at the cost of not really understanding oneself well and deeply, then some of the ways in which our minds, our hearts behave or act or function will continue to operate subconsciously or in ways we don't understand.

Because we don't understand ourselves, we won't necessarily understand what our needs are very well, or what our challenges are. It would be nice to live a preventive life, preventing our suffering rather than responding to our suffering or trying to reduce it once it's there.

So, this task of understanding: what is it that you don't understand about yourself that sitting quietly can make known? Not to analyze or think about this question, and not to analyze and think about whatever understanding comes, but even just the attitude that what we're doing here is making ourselves available to understand ourselves in a deep way.

Part of what's helpful for that is not to come with a lot of preconceived ideas. Not to come with preconceived attitudes about ourselves, about what we're doing, or any preconceived tendencies to judge in any kind of negative or positive ways. But to really be able to quiet and be still, and just with a kind of an open, available mind ask: what is there to be understood here? How could I understand myself better?

So, to assume a meditation posture and to close your eyes. And perhaps, with this theme today, to begin right away. As you're quiet just with your eyes closed, take a deep look at yourself as you are right now. What is there to understand about yourself?

What is it to understand that's maybe particular to this moment, this particular time^[1]? As if you're a friend to yourself—a friend who really listens. What is there to understand right now?

So then to take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Relaxing as you exhale. Letting your breathing return to normal. And as you sit still, relax your body as you exhale. Relaxing is also a releasing, or giving in to the pull of gravity. And as you exhale, to also soften the thinking mind. A calming of the thinking mind, like calming the waves on an ocean.

And then to settle in here with your breathing. Maybe letting go of thoughts as you do. And what do you have to understand or acknowledge about yourself, so that that understanding might allow you to settle further into this moment's breathing?

If you understand any ways that you're unsettled, maybe that can create space or room for a calming attitude towards whatever is unsettled in you.

In order for your heart, your mind, to be freer, what would be useful to understand about yourself? What stands in the way of deep ease and peace, that in knowing that, moves you in the direction of peace, ease, and freedom?

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, what might you understand about yourself here and now that might open you, prepare you to look out upon the world with kind eyes? With eyes of appreciation, appreciating others. Eyes of goodwill, wishing others well.

And to end the sitting with gazing upon the world kindly and wishing it well:

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

May all beings be happy in being well understood. May all beings be safe because they're well understood. May all beings become peaceful, having been understood by others. May all beings be free because others have helped them understand themselves.

May we live for the welfare and happiness of the world, and may understanding be a vehicle for that.

Thank you.

Announcements

So, good morning and welcome. An announcement before giving a talk. I thought that this Friday we could have a community meeting for those of us in this YouTube Sangha^[2]. So after this is over at about 7:45 on Friday, I'll open a Zoom room, and we could meet there. We could have some discussion, and maybe have some breakout groups so you could meet each other a bit.

I kind of want to do it partly because I'll be gone the month of June. I'm going to go and do a self-retreat up in the Sierras, and I'll be completely disconnected from the electronic world. And so I thought, before going off, I'd love to say hello, chat a little bit, and talk a little bit.

So I'll post the Zoom link in the calendar for the Friday event, also on the IMC 'What's New' page, and I'll also put it in the chat here on YouTube. So you'll find it in different places. I'll repeat these ideas on Thursday.

For those of you who don't want to go on Zoom, we'll keep the YouTube continuing, but there might not be as much exchange, and I might be looking at the screen for the people on Zoom. So, I look forward to meeting those of you who stay for that.

Dharmette: Appreciation (2 of 5) Understanding Self and Others

So, one of the ways of appreciating people, one of the ways of showing appreciation, is to show them that they are understood. Humans have a big need to be understood. I've been in many situations where there's been conflict, people disagreeing vehemently about something, or some people quite hurt by some behavior and they're trying to work it out. And the whole situation changes when one of the parties, or both parties, understands the other—shows that they understand what's going on for the other person.

They haven't necessarily agreed with the other party's point of view, but they have understood the point of view and made that clear. They've understood maybe the background for that point of view or the background of what happened, and their experience of something. And there's a kind of magic that happens in communities and between people when someone feels like they've been understood. Something can relax oftentimes, and there can be a greater feeling of safety or of being respected.

And so, when we run into situations where people are suffering, and a situation which maybe evokes our compassion, to quickly respond compassionately before we really assess the situation well can lead to inappropriate action. It can lead to inappropriate intervention, connection, or support for someone else that maybe isn't as rich or as valuable as it could be.

So one of the ways of appreciating people, one of the elements of compassion, is to take the time to understand them better. And an important part of understanding them would be to understand oneself better. Because without understanding oneself, we won't understand the biases we have or the orientations we use to understand the situation.

Different people can encounter the same person who's suffering and see the suffering in very different ways. Some people primarily might see it as something emotional and respond to their emotional situation. Some people might understand it as physical, and think, "Let's make sure that we get people some water and food." Some people might see it as being something societal, or something about a larger situation we have to fix, and so they're fixing the situation to help them feel better, but we're not really taking time to know them.

And so we orient ourselves sometimes very quickly in times of suffering because we think it's a crisis or we're alarmed. But if it's possible to slow down and take time to understand the other person, even if we can't support them or help them with their particular suffering, it can make a huge difference for people that they are understood, and that they feel understood, or that their situation is really taken into account.

I've known people, I've been with people, for example, in the hospital, where people were caring for them in the hospital, but the people did not feel really understood in their suffering and the challenges they were having. And for someone to come and not try to fix their medical situation, or not try to make a nice picture of it all by saying, "You'll be okay," but to really acknowledge, "Oh, I understand that this is difficult for you"—something relaxes in the person.

So, take time to understand the other person. Maybe ask simple questions: "How is it for you?" And, "Oh, this must be difficult for you," you might say. And that's a prompt for a person sometimes to want to explain more and say more, because they know you're interested; you seem to be attuned to them. Or you ask, "This seems really difficult. What's happening? What part do you find the most difficult?"

Because sometimes we can be quite surprised. What we think is the difficulty for someone else is very different. It might be that you're focusing on them and the challenge they have, but they're actually focusing on how their challenge is limiting their ability to take care of a relative or a neighbor or something. And so in helping them, you might be missing what's really important for them.

So, to ask, to understand others, is a form of appreciation and allows us also to find out what we can appreciate about people. When people think that we really want to understand them, or we're beginning to understand them, some people will open up more, some people will relax, and we see them more fully, and there's more to appreciate. The more we appreciate, the more it's beginning to be a compassionate action. Compassionate action begins with appreciation. It begins with understanding. That is compassion in action.

The other part of this understanding is how important it is to understand ourselves. We have so many biases, so much conditioning about how we encounter suffering. Do we understand that what we're doing is really wanting to support the other person, or are we taking care of ourselves? Some people have said that their compassion is to address suffering so that they don't have to feel bad. It's more taking care of ourselves—fixing others to take care of ourselves, to make ourselves more comfortable. Or it could be that we have certain opinions about what deserves compassion and what doesn't, or what counts for suffering and what doesn't, or what elements of life need to be addressed when there's suffering. To understand that, we often have preconceived ideas that we carry with us to understand the situation.

And this is where mindfulness is invaluable. Because when we have trained ourselves to be mindful, we start becoming more sensitive to the beginning point of an opinion we have, the beginning point of an orientation, of a selective process, of a way of thinking. And we can see it arise at the beginning. Then we can question it, put a question mark: "Is this really so?" If we see we're focusing on people's emotional life, is it really so that that's what's needed? Do I always look for reading people's emotions? Or there's what comes up is the idea that something needs to be fixed here, and I'm responsible to fix it.

One of my Achilles heels is this sense of responsibility for things that are not necessarily my responsibility. So I've had to learn to notice that in myself, how quickly that gets activated: "Oh, I have to take care of this situation," when it's not mine to take care of. But it is mine to connect to someone, to help people feel understood, to appreciate people, to empathize, to sympathize, and so forth.

Also to understand what we are trying to do when we are being compassionate, or when we're trying to be with suffering. How much self is involved there? Are we trying to look good? Are we trying to look good in the eyes of people who are not even here, thinking that we're supposed to be a certain way? Are there a lot of "shoulds" that we're operating under, or opinions, or are we scared? So, to understand ourselves better.

Both these movements take a little bit of time, and maybe in some situations we have the time. So, to not be rushed into compassionate action, but to take time to appreciate the other person, to find what there is to appreciate. To appreciate something that's maybe deeper than their surface behavior or what they're saying, and then to try to understand them a little bit more deeply. What's behind their surface behavior? What's behind what they're saying? What do they need? What do they think they need? What does this difficulty mean for them, or how do they understand it for themselves? Because there are so many facets, it might be that the facet you think is important is not important for them.

And then to turn the attention to yourself and ask the question: "What is there to understand about myself in relationship to the suffering that I'm encountering? Am I afraid? Am I overeager to fix? Do I feel responsible? Am I judging the person in some way or another for what they're doing?"

So, one element of appreciation is understanding. In fact, maybe we can't really appreciate others without some deeper level of understanding about them. So an important element of compassion is appreciation, and an important element of appreciation is understanding.

So, you might see how this works today when you're with people. Maybe they don't have to know that you're making an effort to understand them better, but you might see if you can, in your conversations with others, ask yourself: "Can I take time to understand this person more? Can I understand myself more?" If I understand myself, maybe I'll understand them better. And in that deeper understanding, is there a deeper appreciation? And is there a deeper understanding of what are the issues that need to be addressed?

So, thank you very much, and we'll continue this discussion about different aspects of appreciation tomorrow. Thank you.