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Guided Meditation: Awareness as Responsiveness not Responsibility

As an introduction to the sitting, I would like to make a distinction between being responsible and being responsive.

As soon as we have ideas of being responsible—of responsibility—it tends to come along with a very strong sense of self. When self is the agent, the one self who has obligations, oneself has to figure it out and do it. And with that then comes a whole slew of other baggage around self: being good enough, doing better, proving oneself, not being good enough, making some kind of very personal, emphasized effort for success, and all kinds of things.

If instead of thinking about ourselves as being responsible for what's happening, the direction that we go in doing mindfulness practice is to touch into a capacity we have that's very different than how we often operate in everyday life. It's kind of like the rules of the game are different in meditation than they are as we go about our life, work, and whatever we're doing. In everyday life, being responsible seems to be, in society, a very key part of how people think. But in meditation, we don't need to do that so much.

We're responsible to get ourselves to sit and meditate. But once we're here, then the focus shifts and changes to being responsive to what arises. In other words, whatever arises, whatever occurs, we're not responsible for. Why it arose, where it came from, or what we did before that made it happen is really beside the point. If something has happened, it's happening. If something is occurring, it is occurring because of causes and conditions, and we don't have to be concerned about why it's come up. The main thing we want to do is to be responsive to what we do next, responsive to how we are with it.

And here is where it gets even more interesting in mindfulness: there are many responses. The response of mindfulness is very respectful, very generous, very spacious. It's to open the hand of the mind, of awareness, and respond to whatever arises in meditation with awareness, with recognition. "Oh, that's what's happening. That's how it is. Oh, I see." Let's make room for it in awareness. "This is okay. It's okay. It's okay."

In the context of being aware, in the context of meditation, we're beginning to shift the locus of where we abide. We shift from a mindset where we have to be responsible, to a mindset where we're being attentive, abiding in an awareness that is responsive to experience rather than responsible. For meditation, just take to the open awareness, clear awareness, and recognition.

So, take a meditative posture. A posture, perhaps, that has a little bit of dignity. A posture as if you are rooted in your location, and that your whole being rises up or exists in this location with a certain clarity of being. A clarity of being here with a certain dignity or strength, as if you deserve to be here, as if this is your place, as if you can feel like a valued being here. Upright, clear, not proud, not conceited, not humble, not withdrawn. Just here.

And then within this here, at the center of it all, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Breathing in deeply and feeling the stretching and expanding of the torso and ribcage, the lifting of the shoulders, and maybe the expanding of the belly. And then as you exhale, a gentle, long exhale. Relax, settle in, and allow the pull of gravity to ground you in this body as you exhale. Then, let your breathing return to normal.

Allow the experience of the breathing to come into awareness. Allow the experience of breathing to reveal itself to your body. So, it's your body that experiences breathing. The movements of the body are felt in the body. Experience the pressure and tautness, and the release of pressure in the body.

And maybe as you exhale, relax the thinking muscle, the mind that was often overworked, maybe even tired, if you feel it carefully. Let the mind relax and soften. It might even help in being aware in a relaxed, receptive way, to relax the mindfulness muscle. Maybe there's a way in which you try too hard to be mindful. Perhaps settle back, relaxing in the mind, partly because a calm, relaxed mind will naturally be aware. It's a natural part of the mind quieting your thinking. Let go of your thoughts, and let go into the experience of breathing.

And then, whatever occurs while you're meditating, see if you can switch from any tendency to be responsible, to take the blame, or to attribute it somehow to yourself as the cause. Shift from being responsible to being responsive, responding with a very simple movement of the mind. Respond by allowing it to exist in awareness, to simply be aware. To be aware and so see it more clearly, experience it more clearly, without being for or against the experience. Respond by opening the fist of the mind, the fist of the heart, so whatever occurs is held in the soft palm of awareness.

A symptom of being responsible is contracting the body, holding the body tense. An expression of being responsive is to hold that tension in awareness caringly, and then allowing for the relaxation of the body.

Dedication of Merit

So as we come to the end of the sitting, there's a long tradition in Buddhism of dedicating the merit of any practice activity we do. Dedicating the merit for others, maybe to all beings. And to give this dedication of merit specificity, so that it really is something that we can do, act on, benefit from, and be changed by, it's good to think practically about what we can do to benefit others so it's not just wishful thinking.

And how is it caring for other beings? What is the opportunity, or what can motivate you to care for others? If you come from a place of being responsive rather than responsible, might there be someplace deeper inside where the depth of caring, the depth of being moved, the depth of being motivated is maybe deeper than ideas of self, identity, or who we are and what we have to do?

May it be that as you go through your day-to-day, you take the time to touch into that deeper place within that can be responsive. Let there be care in your speech, in your actions, and in your mind that cares for the welfare and well-being of others. On this day, may you reach out to someone who is alone or lives alone in the time of shelter^[1], someone who is sick, or struggling with economics, or who is afraid, or who is hungry. May the depth of your care coming out of your meditation be a force of good in this world.