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Guided Meditation: Flowing Awareness

For those of us here locally, we're kind of in a lull between storms. Maybe meditation practice for some of you is a lull between different kinds of storms, a kind of Sabbath or a sacred pause in the middle of busyness or preoccupations. So welcome.

In Japanese Buddhism, in Zen, a monk—especially a young monk—is sometimes referred to by the title of an unsui^[1]. It's a combination of two words: cloud and water. So it's an affectionate way of referring to a young monk who is to practice being like clouds and waters, not offering any resistance to anything, but kind of flowing freely and effortlessly^[2] between things, or around things, or through things. That offers no resistance, but also takes the path of least resistance to go forward.

It's interesting to take this as an analogy or metaphor for what we do with our awareness when we meditate. There is a kind of way that using awareness, being aware, being mindful, is something we do. While we do that, we can cease, stop, quiet being involved in all the other things that the mind usually gets involved in.

It's interesting to settle the water of awareness onto breathing in the body, but then to notice that the activity of being aware gets interrupted by things. It gets interrupted by our thoughts and our preoccupations, gets interrupted by our reactivity to what's happening if we don't like it or we really want it.

This interruption in the activity of being aware, of being mindful, is to be noticed. But then bring back the flow of awareness, the flow of the water, and just kind of flow around, recognize, bump up against whatever is happening. Let the awareness be like water that flows around and comes back to the bottom of the lake, the quiet place of the lake in your body with your breathing. Being aware with your breathing, flowing with your breathing. Maybe this metaphor is meaningful.

So, assume a meditation posture, one that allows a certain kind of feeling of aliveness in your body. Whether it's repositioning your hands and arms so that they're not completely passive, but also not active—kind of alive. Even something as simple as turning the palms up to the ceiling, if usually your palms are down, can give a little bit of aliveness. So, a sense of vitality in the body. Closing the eyes and then feeling whatever vitality or energy there is in the body. Even if you're mostly tired and exhausted, where in the body is there some aliveness, some vitality?

Taking a few long, slow breaths. Expanding the body and expanding into that place of vitality. Almost as if you can expand it. Taking a few long, deep breaths and relaxing. Settling into the body.

Letting the breathing return to normal. The more held or tense the body is, the more difficult it is for the awareness to flow like water. The more things are kind of frozen, frozen water. So, as you exhale, relax the muscles of your face. It might be helpful to drop your mouth open slightly and then float it back together. On the exhale, relaxing the shoulders, softening, almost as if something is melting in the shoulders and flowing down below into the chest, down the arms. And relaxing, softening the belly. A global softening of the body on the exhale.

And for two or three breaths, on the exhale, relaxing the thinking mind. Softening in the mind. Quieting the thinking mind a bit. And then having your awareness settle into the body breathing, settle into how the body experiences breathing.

The rhythm of breathing in and breathing out maybe can be seen as the undulations of the waves on the ocean. Maybe a gentle rising of the wave, rising up on a wave and down the other side. Awareness floating, riding the undulations.

There is a kind of vitality in being aware. If we offer a little effort, or see awareness as being something we gently do, we do it, and there's a vitality and aliveness in being aware. Awareness is maybe like water flowing over, through, with your breathing.

And if your mental vitality goes anywhere else—into your thoughts, your reactions—notice that the flow of awareness has stopped, or hindered, diminished. Begin again with the flow of awareness flowing through or around, offering no resistance to anything. Finding the path of least resistance, around and through and under, back to the breathing.

Keep flowing with your awareness, gently, calmly. Let being aware be an activity, a gentle doing that flows along, so your mind does not get caught up in other doings. Notice when awareness stops or is lost, and find a way to flow around your thoughts and preoccupations. Keep it flowing, even if it has to continuously flow around something. It touches it, feels it, knows it, then flows on and on.

And then, as we come to the end of this sitting. The path of harmony, or love, is to flow where there's receptivity, to flow where there are openings, to flow around and over, but never to assert, never to push. The path of kindness or friendliness is soft like water, but always there, available, flowing. Ready to flow into where it's welcomed, and when it's not, it just flows around. Never disappointed. A kindness that needs nothing in return, like water that just flows.

And may it be that our care, our kindness, our love for the world flows through us freely and openly, generously, because it nourishes us. It's healthy for us; it is us. And may it be that our goodwill, our well-wishing, flows in the path of least resistance to touch all people with our care, our kindness, our friendliness. May the world know that we care. That we wish that all beings be happy, that all beings be safe, that all beings be peaceful, that all beings be free. And may our goodwill support that in happening.

Dharmette: What is the Dharma? (2 of 5) The Dharma as Action

So today, I'll continue this theme about what is the Dharma. Dharma is a powerful word in Buddhism and it has many meanings. But when I study these teachings of the Buddha, I see that one of the primary ways in which it is used—what it refers to, not maybe what it means literally, but what it refers to—is action, or something dynamic.

It doesn't refer to things that are static, especially when the word Dharma is used in the plural. In the singular, sometimes it means teaching, the Buddha's teachings for example. But in the plural, when it refers to dharmas, it often refers to action, something that's active and dynamic.

This goes along with what I taught yesterday, that one of the meanings of Dharma, or what it refers to, is the relatedness of all things. That things exist in relationship to other things; they come about in relationship to other things. And this relatedness is only related because there's a dynamic relationship between them. There are ways in which the functioning of one thing impacts and affects the other thing that goes on.

And so, things that live in relationship to each other, because they're dynamic, they're more activities than they are things. There are more verbs than there are nouns in how Buddhism focuses on the Dharma.

One of the clear places that I'm inspired to see this is the Buddha, near the end of his life, gave the instructions to take the Dharma as your refuge, as your only refuge, as your island, as your support, as your refuge. And then he went on to say, take yourself as your refuge, as your only refuge. Saying these right next to each other, one after the other—take the Dharma as a refuge and take yourself as a refuge—implies a kind of equivalence between those. They're kind of referring to the same thing, seemingly. Especially when he says, "and no other refuge." Well then it only works if the two are the same: Dharma and yourself. And how could that be?

Well, then he goes on to say, and how do we do this? By practicing the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: by practicing mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of mind states, and mindfulness of the dharmas. Here, the fourth foundation of mindfulness.

And this fourth foundation of mindfulness is referred to as dharmas. That's referring all to things which are dynamic, that are active. Many of them are mental actions, mental activities we're doing. The hindrances^[3], for example, those are all actions of the mind, activities of the mind. The Seven Factors of Awakening^[4]—things like mindfulness, investigation of dharmas, effort, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity—these are all functionings of the mind. So they're dynamic. And generally, when dharmas refers to activity, it generally refers to healthy, good activities, good conduct.

Whether it's things we actually do, conduct that we engage in, or whether it's the activities of the mind that we wouldn't necessarily call actions (if actions are limited to a person who does something), but they are functionings of the mind. And so, when there's an emphasis that all things are changing, inconstant, impermanent, you see that, yes, of course, that's what we're pointing to. When we're pointing to the inconstancy of things—not that they necessarily come to an end, which is certainly part of it—but that as they are, they're dynamic. Appearing and disappearing, kind of like waves that come and go. There are these activities that are not fixed and not static. We're not stuck.

And so, this idea that dharmas in the teachings of the Buddha repeatedly refers to something which is dynamic and active, an activity, is actually kind of the good news of Buddhism. Because it means that when nothing is frozen in place, it's kind of like there's no hardware operating here; it's all software, and we can change the software. Conditions can change, the choices we make can change. And so, because it's all in relatedness, all the actions we do relate to each other. Certain kinds of activities that are unwholesome, unhealthy, the way that they relate to what follows is unhealthy. Greed and hatred have a negative impact. Generosity and love have a very different impact.

Mindfulness is an activity of the mind. Even though it might feel sometimes just being aware is mostly a not-doing, and it feels so restful not to do—just to be aware, as if we're resting in awareness—even so, awareness is a firing of certain nerves in the brain. It is a certain activity that's going on. But it's not something that the self feels like it's doing, and it's such a relief to feel like a beautiful thing is flowing, but that we're not the one who's doing it.

But when we do mindfulness, what we're doing is bringing in conditions that allow things to settle, bringing in conditions that allow us to see clearly what's happening. Bringing in conditions that allow us to differentiate between the different kinds of mental activities that are going on, so that we do the ones that are healthiest for us. The ones that are the Right Effort—that's from teachings from last week.

Another place we see the Buddha emphasizing this idea of Dharma being activities is in the teachings of the Seven Factors of Awakening. The second one is usually called "investigation" in English, but the ancient word has the word dhamma (dharma) in it, and it's dhamma vicaya^[5]. Vicaya means to distinguish or differentiate. It's the differentiation of dhammas.

When the Buddha explains what it's differentiating, it's mental activities. The Seven Factors of Awakening, again, the Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, the Five Faculties, the Four Right Efforts. The mind has the ability to distinguish between what is healthy and not healthy as activities of the mind, as what's wholesome and not wholesome.

And this ability to see clearly in the mind the activities of the mind, what's happening in the mind, is part of the gift of being very settled and present and quiet. Almost like we're not doing anything. And then we start seeing much more clearly what's happening there, the activities: "Oh, my mind's going down that old, well-dug canal of wanting, of desiring, and I've seen that that doesn't take me in a good direction. I don't have to do that anymore. I could take the vitality of my mental energy of awareness and let it flow someplace else. Recognize what's happening and not get caught in it. I could focus on something else instead. I can focus on contentment. That feels healthy. When I do contentment, then I settle more."

So there's this gentle kind of action that goes on in this practice, which I referred back to last week: Right Effort. Right Effort is an action, and we're learning how to act, how to do, so it borders on—or some people would see it as—almost like a not-doing. It's so peaceful, it's so relaxed, it's so flowing. Maybe it's like flowing water; we don't see that it's flowing because it's so clear. There is an activity, that onward-leading flow to what's awakening through this practice.

So the Dharma meaning activity, dynamism, action, it means engaging. And so this is also a kind of a paradigm shift for some people, just like focusing on relatedness is a paradigm shift. As opposed to focusing on "me" and "you," focusing on the relationships.

In the same way, rather than focusing on nouns, when things are fixed—"This is how it is," "I'll always be this way," "It'll always be this way," "The situation will always be this way"—start being attuned to where the activity is. Where the flow is, where the dynamism is, where that change is happening. It's always happening anyway.

And so to be attuned to that, to surf with it, to flow in it, to participate in it. And if we're flowing in a river, and the current is taking us against dangerous rapids, then we learn how to swim over to the other side of the river where the water is flowing peacefully. We learn the terrain, we learn the route. We learn how to use the flow of change, but it's always changing.

So what I'd suggest that you do today, if you're interested in an assignment, is to become a little bit more—or quite a bit if you can—aware of how you freeze. How you stop in the river of change, the river of time, how you get preoccupied by things and fixated.

Flowing doesn't mean you can't focus on certain things, but then we focus on them with the flow. With the mind itself shifting and changing and flowing. The mind doesn't freeze, the mind doesn't get caught, but is involved in a flowing, gentle way, where we are like unsui, we're like clouds and water. The Japanese word that flows with the flow of life, the flow of time, that flows with the movements and activities of the mind, choosing what's healthy^[6].

So the dhamma, the Dharma: a very important, if it's not the literal meaning, it's often what's being pointed to. It's pointing to action, to activity, to dynamism. And that's where it is: in dynamism and activity, in action, that the Dharma is found. More than assuming that it's only in stillness, only in peace or quiet, or some fixed state. Nothing is fixed, always changing, always flowing.

So I hope you can see the difference between being stopped, stuck, and gently flowing along with all things. Even if you're sitting quietly, still in meditation, and your body's not moving, everything is still flowing.

So thank you very much, and we'll continue this tomorrow.