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Introduction

Greetings from Redwood City, and one of the cities in which we had a curfew last night. For those of you who are living with curfews and living with many of the challenges that exist in the United States and other countries, I certainly hope that a chance to come and sit is a support not only for yourself but, through yourself and through your meditation, a support for the people around you.

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness as Being Here

So, to begin, take a posture where the posture itself supports you in being aware. Sometimes if you see a small toddler or a child sitting upright and being attentive, you can get a feeling the whole body is attentive and alert. It is almost like all the senses are awake, open, and present. Gently close your eyes.

Begin with what might seem like a very simple statement, but I believe it can be quite profound, and that is that wherever you are, you are here. Recognize the hereness, the sense of being here. To really be here in a full way is synonymous with really being awake, being aware to what's here, being aware to now and here.

Our attentional faculties are awakened. Some of them get awakened if we're afraid, and so we're hyper-vigilant to what's happening here and now. But there's also a way in which we can be awake to what's here without fear—almost the opposite of fear. That we're here peacefully, safely. In this moment, in this place, really settle into the hereness of the moment.

For some people, the doorway to that is through the body. The body is always here. The mind may not be; the mind may be thinking thoughts of other times and other places. The body is always here and now, but the mind might be there and then. To bring the body and mind into harmony is the task of aligning and attuning the mind to this place and time where the body is. If the mind can be in the same place as the body, all kinds of things begin to flow, arise, and awaken, including the Seven Factors of Awakening^[1].

Settle into this body here. Take a few moments to feel your body as if you've never gotten to know your body before. For the first time, you're really allowing your attention to roam around and discover this companion that you've had with you for your whole life.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths in this body. Breathing in deeply, and exhaling to relax into here, into this body that's here.

Then, let your breathing return to normal. You might, if you'd like, very gently say to yourself quietly in the mind the word: here. This word points to something very profound and intimate: here. In saying here for a few moments, open up all the faculties of awareness that you have to let reality show itself to you, rather than you having an agenda for attention. Just say the word here and see what is here, what shows itself to you that is here. And then do it again.

In saying here and opening up, it is a stepping away from what you're thinking. If thinking is a claustrophobic room, it's like opening the wide double doors to let the breeze come in, the sun come in, here. Letting your thoughts become quieter, here.

If you do have expectations or ambitions, trying to do something, or are reactive or judgmental, judging that's also here. There's an art to saying here in that opening up to how things are. Open to that as well. Not to be involved with it, but to let that be received by our attention.

If you find yourself thinking a lot, the word here is a waking up to the fact that you're thinking. Here is a mind that's thinking, here and now; this is thought.

And if the breathing comes into the here, allow yourself to open fully to the experience of the body breathing. Saying here to breathing here, that's also a kind of resting here. The breathing comes and it goes.

It might be possible to be more fully here—meaning with greater awakening, greater awareness in the midst of here—by, after you say here, following it with the word what. What is this? Not to answer the question or analyze, but to keep allowing yourself to feel, to sense, to perceive, to register more fully the experience of what's here. If you're feeling breathing, what is this breathing? If you're thinking a lot, what is this experience like to be thinking? Not what you're thinking about, but the felt sense, the physical experience, the energetic experience of thinking, of our emotions. What?

And then, if something feels really the right place for awareness to reside—perhaps with the breathing or body—the third word you might try is this. Just this. Simply this.

Each time you say these words—here, or what, or this—let it help the mind become quieter. It opens the mind to a quiet space that can better feel and sense and rest here and experience.

Reflections on Waking Up and Hearing the World

As we come to the end of this sitting, I'd like to suggest that the practice of here—really being present, really being awake with our attention, being a witness to our life or experience—is a practice where the word here regularly transforms into the word hear. The Bodhisattva Guanyin, Avalokiteśvara^[2], is the one who hears the cries of the world. To learn how to be here in a relaxed, restful, open way gives us the opportunity to also hear the suffering of the world.

There's something about the metaphor of hearing. We can hear deeply, but we're not entangled with what goes on. We normally don't close our ears as we can metaphorically close our eyes. To receive and hear the suffering, the cries of the world, is always to include all beings in your heart, to cast no one out of your heart.

To make room in your heart for all beings, and perhaps as a practice of waking up, is also a practice of expanding and enlarging our hearts so there's space for all beings. So, in the place of the heart that rests, with a certain kind of ease, it's very clear that we care for the world. We would like our life, how we behave, what we say, to be a positive force in the world.

May it be that as we come out of this meditation, you also think about how whatever degree of hereness, calmness, and connectedness you feel from meditation can be applied or inspire making a difference in the world for others. So those who suffer will suffer less, or know that they're not alone in their suffering, and that there are people who care. That people who are afraid feel that they don't have to be afraid of you. That the people who are sick feel the care and the goodwill.

May it be that our goodwill, our care, our compassion spreads out to wish all beings to be happy, all beings to be free, so that all beings know that their lives matter. So those who are oppressed and being ignored by society no longer feel ignored or marginalized. May it be that our practice is for the happiness and welfare of all beings.