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Guided Meditation: Release or Growth

Hello and welcome. Welcome to this guided meditation that goes along with this week-long series on the qualities and characteristics of the dharma. And to introduce this meditation, I want to start by saying there are many activities that we do that involve a kind of careful distinguishing of different perceptions of what's happening. If you walk barefoot outdoors—say you walk barefoot on a trail in the woods—you would be very attentive to where the sharp gravel is, and different kinds of things that might poke you in a way you wouldn't if you were walking with shoes with heavy soles. You would feel your way. You look for the places where it's soft and without gravel, for example.

Or if you are maybe walking after the rain, you'd be careful not to walk in the puddles. You wouldn't give much thought to it; maybe it would be almost wordless. You would just simply walk around the puddles rather than step in them, and you would know the difference. Without seeing that difference, you wouldn't make that choice.

The same thing can happen in meditation. And so when we're sitting quietly in meditation, when we're somewhat still, quiet, and attentive, one of the things that we're contributing is our attention itself, the way of being aware. Awareness is not a neutral phenomenon. Even though awareness maybe doesn't have an agenda, it still has an influence. It's like the sun. The sun has no intention to provide light for the plants to grow. It has no intention to dry the dew in the morning, no intention to dissipate the morning fog. The sun just provides its light without any intention, and it has this wonderful influence on our planet.

Awareness is like that too. We can practice awareness without a lot of intentionality. Awareness is just this providing of light, giving breathing room, light, or air to something. Two things can happen: something can grow, and something can be released. That which grows, like plants, will grow in the sunlight. That which is released from the plants—the dew sitting on the tip of the leaves—evaporates, disappears, and gets released.

The same thing within ourselves. If we're attentive, bringing awareness to different parts of our experience, some parts of our inner life grow in the light of awareness. Some things release, some things evaporate, some things relax and disappear. And these two different movements of practice are what we're most building on to go deeply into the dharma. These are natural processes that we don't have to intend, engineer, or make happen. But it makes a difference that the light of awareness goes onto these areas. It makes a difference that we're actually seeing them clearly.

And it's possible, as more and more we're staying in the present moment, starting to not be distracted, not be agitated, but arriving here in the present with awareness. The awareness we have, the attention, the mindfulness we have can come here. Look here. Like I said yesterday, there's a call. There seems to be an intuition: Here is where attention should be. And the two places that we start getting called to, the two places where we're paying attention—just like when we're walking in the forest we're being called to pay attention to the trail to make sure we don't step on the gravel—the two places we're called to in the dharma practice that is onward leading is either to the places we sense something is growing and emerging, or the place where there's some kind of tension, tightness, holding on, or contraction that can be released and evaporate.

And so in both circumstances, what's needed is simply to hold it in awareness. But there's an inner call. There's an inner sense: Oh, here is where attention needs to be. Let me just be there as neutrally, spaciously, and acceptingly as I can. Just hold it in awareness. Give breathing room to it.

So it's not a completely random, choiceless field of awareness. There's a deep kind of knowing that's not necessarily you, the normal you that you think of as who you are, making choices, engineering, and having the agency for things. It's a deeper kind of knowing that you almost can't appropriate into your normal sense of self, but it's within you. It is not separate from you. It's there in the meeting of sensations and awareness, right there. If you stay close to that, where your awareness and your mindful sensations meet, something happens in the space between them. One of them is: Here. This is where you should be. There's where attention is needed. Here's where something can grow. Here's where something can be released. Stay here. Breathe here. Feel this. And just let the dharma take care of itself. You don't have to be the one who makes anything happen beyond giving things breathing room, bringing the light of awareness there.

So to assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes, and allow yourself to be just as you are.

Allow your whole experience of life to be as it is without needing to change anything. As if what you're going to do now is to feel your way into how you are in your body, how you are emotionally in your heart maybe, and how you are in your mind with your thinking.

And by simply feeling it, knowing it, is there in fact some sense that here is something that wants to relax? Here is something that wants to release. And don't do the relaxing or releasing, but hold your awareness close to where that is and allow it. Invite it to happen.

It's possible your attention wanders around different places in your body, and you can feel that different places in your body are calling you to pay attention here. Here a change is needed. At first, don't do the change. Just feel and sense. And if a postural change is useful, you are welcome to do that. But following the lead of the body's message.

And as you feel into your body, is there anything that wants to grow, or anything that is good that wants to invite you to hear? Feel this. Be with this. And see what happens. Let it grow. Let it expand, if that's what it wants to do.

And the same exploration can happen for the mind, the thinking mind. Is there any discomfort in the thinking mind that calls attention to itself? And if so, hold it in awareness. The light of awareness shines on it without needing to do anything about it. If it wants to relax, allow it to do so.

And might there be something good in the mind—feeling, sense, experience, openness, spaciousness, warmth, love—that also calls attention to itself? That can grow in the light of awareness, in the spaciousness of awareness.

And then to gently, quietly bring the light of awareness to your body breathing. And within the experience of breathing, what calls attention to itself? What sensations? Almost as if it's saying, Here, look here.

And is it something that can grow, unfold, evolve beneficially? Or is it something that can be released, relaxed, let go, evaporate simply in the light of awareness? If you're aware of it long enough, tenderly enough.

And then for the rest of the meditation, let your thinking alone. Don't worry about it. But feel your way deeper under your thoughts. Stay close to the world of sensations that are perceivable here, that are immediately now, that are calling you to see here. And recognize if it's a process that wants to grow or be released under your thoughts. That's a deeper sensitivity.

Letting the thinking mind be as quiet as you can, gentle as you can, as soft as you can. So you can bring yourself more fully into the world of sensations. The world of sensations where there is a profound intelligence guiding you deeper and deeper into the dharma of release, the dharma of growth.

If you bring yourself to the place within you that is the most quiet, the most calm or peaceful, even if it's just a teeny little place. And from there, you gaze upon your experience. What wants to be released? What wants to grow? And which of those two seems the most important to attend to, most important to allow to unfold?

And as we come to the end of the sitting, if again you find within you the place that's most quiet, the most calm, peaceful place, maybe underneath the turmoil and the challenges deep down inside. Maybe in your heart, maybe deep in your belly, maybe in the back of your mind. And from there, gazing upon the world kindly. Gaze upon the world. Seeing there what needs to grow, what can grow and develop, and what can be released. What can be settled? What can be healed?

And for these few minutes, trusting that all you need is to offer your kind awareness, the light of your caring attention. Let your light shine on what the world needs, and in these beams of kindness that you send out into the world, wish the world well.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And at least with our attention, with our kind awareness, may we attend to the world and benefit it in seen, known, and unknown ways. May all beings be happy.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Qualities of the Dharma (4 of 5) Onward Leading

So hello, and welcome to this series on the qualities and characteristics of the dharma. There are five of them, and today I'll do the fourth one.

The first is that whatever the dharma is, it's something that's perceivable in your perceptions. You can feel it, see it. The second is that it's immediate. It's not in the future. It's not in the past. In a sense, it is not tied to time. It's just the full present here. That's where it's found.

And then it calls our attention here. Look here. Look here. Reality calls for attention. The reality inside of us, our body, hearts, and mind. If you're very sensitive, you can feel what wants attention, what wants to be cared for, attended to, or what messages need to be listened to.

And then for today, the dharma, whatever it is, it's onward leading. And whatever it is that I'm suggesting this week, it's a form of intelligence. It's a deep intelligence which is not our ordinary mental intelligence that we identify as being smart and capable in a conscious way. It belongs to a deeper level of our human existence, a human processing that is closer to the sensation level of experience. It's closer to the coordinated way in which all our senses operate in unison, or in cooperation with each other, to provide a kind of deeper intelligence. It's an intelligence which is deeper than the conscious mind, and one that we can't really control or claim for ourselves, or engineer. We have to kind of tune into it and be in harmony with it. Listen to it. Go along with it.

And this is the intelligence that's onward leading. And it's onward leading in two big ways. Being a human being is constantly something in process. There are developmental models of human growth that continue right up until we die. All along the whole life, we're developing and changing in all kinds of ways. And sometimes the changes we go through are deleterious. We get caught and stuck in certain things and resentments. We get caught in certain mindsets of self-criticism, or certain mindsets of somehow being caught in a wound, a tightness, or a belief.

But in and of itself, this human system is constantly changing and moving. It's impermanent. It's changing, but it doesn't do so randomly. It's not just a random bunch of stuff that comes together. There's a directionality. There are two primary directions that this human life can move. It can grow and develop in wonderful ways. It can grow in wholesome ways and beneficial ways. It can grow in directions to help us feel whole, complete, fulfilled. These are all words that are translations of the ancient Buddhist teachings in Pali. Wholesome. Complete in entirety, kevala^[1]. And fulfilled—sugata^[2], I think it is. These are common words, common ideas in the ancient texts that we can go in this direction, we can grow.

The other is that which can be released. That which can be let go of. That which is not needed, that which is unwholesome. That which limits us, divides us, keeps us separate from ourselves. And this idea that it keeps us separate from parts of ourselves lends itself to this feeling that it is work to be caught in what is unwholesome. It's work to be caught in attachments. It's work to be caught in resistance and fear. And so in a way, it's like pushing Sisyphus's rock up the mountainside. It's a lot of work to be pushing it up. What Sisyphus didn't realize is that—or maybe he realizes all too well—if you let go of the rock, it will roll down the hill. If we let go of our attachments, the attachments will dissipate, evaporate, and roll back down. We'll settle back and come into wholeness again. It's work to be partial. It's work to be separated from ourselves.

And so as we're practicing this deep sensitivity—deeper than what we can think about, deeper than what we can navigate through our ideas—there's a deep feeling in the sensations themselves, or in the meeting of awareness and sensations. This third entity, what arises when sensation and awareness meet: right there is an intelligence, a knowing, an understanding, a message. And one of those can be: This is wholesome. This is onward leading. This is what can grow. Or: This is unwholesome. This is what divides, limits us, separates us from ourselves, from parts of ourselves.

And so we can feel where the onward leading nature is. Is this leading me onward to something deleterious? Is this leading me onward to something beneficial? And not beneficial in some kind of worldly way, but some deep existential way, deep spiritual way, deep emotional way.

So the dharma is that which guides us to what is wholesome, guides us to the growth, guides us to the letting go, guides us back together into the whole. So there is that deep message inside that we can get: Here is where attention wants to be. Here is where something can grow. Hold this in the light of awareness. Be with this.

And I think it's very meaningful to call it light, the light of awareness. It's a metaphor, of course, because sunlight doesn't have any intentionality behind it. It's not trying to make the plants grow, or trying to make the morning fog evaporate. But the effect of it—just this fact that the sun is up and shining on it—has a beneficial effect for the plants, and a beneficial effect on ourselves for the fog to lift, maybe.

And the sunlight also sterilizes. So some things that are put in the sun get cleansed of certain kinds of bacteria or something. So the light of awareness can do a lot without it being intentional, without the engineering job. But it depends on where the attention is put. It makes all the difference in the world. And so to have this very deep sensitivity to what calls attention, what's needed right now, where the deeper messages are that arise out of the sensations that have no story involved with them, that have no big plan, no big construct of me, myself, and mine. They are very, very basic and simple. But basic and simple doesn't mean they're not profound.

The intelligence that exists between sensations and awareness that can arise there is the dharma, is the deep, profound experience of being at home in this world, home in this body. Being on the path of liberation is liberation itself. If liberation is not in your thinking mind, but something deep inside of you that's bigger, wider, fuller than whatever your thinking mind can think about.

It's a common cliche in Buddhist circles to say enlightenment is not what you think it is. And it's a kind of a profound statement. It's never going to be what you think it is. It's going to be something that you experience. Enlightenment is what you experience.

And there's something deep within us that wants to move towards freedom. And that's the onward-leading nature that we can feel and sense. And maybe the simplest, maybe reductionistic, naturalistic way of describing this is that it's the movement towards a vitality where tension is released. Anytime there's tension, contraction, resistance, tightness, that tension wants to be released. It's like the fist doesn't want to stay closed. The fist wants to open up in and of itself.

And so this deep movement to releasing all the fists in our mind, our hearts, and our body—that's the movement towards liberation. And when it's so thoroughly complete, and our whole being is no longer fisted in any kind of way, but released, it's profound.

And it's remarkable that this can be done, that there's a messenger inside. There's information inside that can guide us in that direction. And the message is what I talked about yesterday and today: it is that which calls attention to itself. Here. This is where it's good. This is where attention is needed.

And then hold it in this spacious awareness. Breathe with it. Center yourself on it. Follow the instinct of where attention needs to be to allow something to unfold. Go with what feels like: This is the way forward. We're not asked to just sit here passively without anything changing. And we're not asked to be involved in making the change. We are asked to notice where the natural movement of growth and release is found within us, and shine the light of awareness there. This is the way forward. This is the way we grow. This is the way we move towards freedom. This is the way we move towards becoming whole, the wholesome.

So thank you, and I hope that you can keep exploring. Where is this in you? Find it through the day. Check in with yourself repeatedly through the day. Take little pauses in the day and ask yourself: What's calling for attention? What is it? Is it something that needs to be released, relaxed? Is it something that wants to grow and unfold? Where is the onward leading right now? If through the day you do this by closing your eyes briefly, you might discover a lot that you're overlooking just in your regular daily life.

So, thank you very much, and we'll continue one more day on these five qualities of the dharma.