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Announcements

I'd like to make a couple of announcements before giving the talk. I mentioned some time ago that I'd like to offer you a chance to have some longer meditations in the morning like we're doing here. We've been doing this for a long time together, and some of you are ready for sitting for more than 30 minutes. It will be helpful to have a little longer sit. Also, for this topic of Anapanasati^[1], having a little more practice with it and a little longer sitting would be good as well.

So what I'd like to do is, in two weeks—I believe it's the 15th of February, on the 14th I begin a retreat—I'd like to integrate the morning sitting with the retreat, and the retreat with the morning sitting. We will have our sitting start at 6:45 AM California time, so 15 minutes earlier than we usually do, so we can have 45 minutes together. I'll still do the guided part, but there will be more time for silence and settling in. I think this will also be very good because of the topics we're coming to. By then I think we'll be maybe at steps nine and ten, which has to do with aspects of really experiencing the mind, the citta^[2]. You can certainly join us at 7:00 AM, there's no problem with that if that's what your schedule allows. But that's the plan, we'll do that for one week. I'll announce that a few times to make sure people know about the change.

The other announcement is that the retreat I'm doing at that time, and the following retreat at Insight Retreat Center, are full. But we have arranged to have spots for auditors. If some of you would like to participate in a retreat, especially if you've been on a retreat before and know the basic routine of how to practice that way, you're welcome to sign up to be an auditor. In doing so, we have a teacher that is available to have drop-in group discussions with the auditors so they feel a little bit supported. But that auditor teacher won't give any teachings; they'll just be there to support the auditors. Some of you might want to do that and participate. I think that the theme for that retreat starting on the 14th of February is refuge. So we'll go through the idea of refuge as a wonderful topic itself, but also as a support for the deepening practice of meditation on retreat.

Mindfulness of Breathing (22) Mind-Body Gladdening

So, last week for Anapanasati, we talked about steps five and six. Step five is breathing in experiencing joy, breathing out experiencing joy. Step six is breathing in experiencing happiness, breathing out experiencing happiness.

The movement from joy to happiness is a move towards tranquility, the mind and the body becoming more tranquil. Where the joy factor is a little more energetic, the happiness quality is more subtle, peaceful, and tranquil, a kind of sense of well-being. That movement from something that's a little more energetic to this more tranquil state characterizes the whole process of deepening meditation in Buddhism. We're going from coarser states to more refined, subtler states of being. We're going from more active ways of engaging, and as the mind settles down, we're moving towards a clarity, alertness, and peacefulness where the mind becomes less active and softer. The quieting of the mind, the quieting of the activity, and settling is the movement we're going for here.

That is the principle of going from coarse to refined, or more active to more tranquil states. Tranquil doesn't mean that we go to sleep or that we become dull. The movement is to a tranquility that's quite alert or has a lot of clarity to it, but there is less activity. It's a fascinating process to see this, and one of the things we start seeing is this relationship between the mind and the body.

The first tetrad^[3], steps one to four, is kind of about the body. But it's not the physical body in and of itself; it's more the body that we experience. That experience is very much influenced by what's going on in the mind. There's a reciprocal relationship. As the body settles down, we get more focus on the body and it relaxes more. The fourth step is to relax the body. That also has a relaxing effect on the mind and other beneficial effects in the mind. It's reassuring for the mind. It brings a sense of safety to the mind, peacefulness to the mind, subtleness and focus to the mind. It's easier to be in the present moment.

And then we go into the second tetrad with steps five, six, seven, and eight. Now we're beginning to enter into the world of the mind that is not separated from the body. These two are interlinked, but we're moving into the area of the mind. The qualities of joy and happiness are a bridge between this, because the joy and happiness are felt in an embodied way, but they're very much influenced by the concentration level of the mind, the focus of the mind, and the peacefulness of the mind.

There's a reciprocal relationship. As there's more joy and happiness that courses through the body, that reassures the mind more. A reassured mind will feel like it doesn't need to think so much and ruminate so much, and it can get quieter. This bridge of joy and happiness between the body and the mind is really worth lingering with and developing.

I know it's a little hard sometimes to feel joy and happiness on short notice and just will it up like that. But even if you don't feel this during this time when this section of the practice happens, maybe just develop an intuitive sense of it. Or learn these teachings so sooner or later hopefully you'll recognize a little bit of this meditative, embodied joy, happiness, and well-being that can happen as we practice. Some people are surprised or delighted that they're given permission to feel pleasure in meditation, permission to feel joy and happiness. Definitely, this is considered to be a very important foundation for moving forward.

In many places in the suttas^[4], the Buddha actually describes a process of deepening practice that is called the gladness sequence, or the gladness pentad, because there are five steps. These are acquiring gladness in meditation, and the description is very intransitive or passive. It's like we're not doing the next steps; they just flow. As one becomes mature, it flows into the next, and flows into the next. We do our practice, and the practice begins practicing us. Something begins shifting and changing, and we don't have to be so responsible except to be really present for the experience.

So with the gladness, there arises joy. With the joy, when it's mature, there arises a tranquility of the body. With the tranquility of the body, there arises happiness. And with the maturity of happiness, there arises concentration, unification, samadhi^[5]—being really unified and sitting and feeling very whole here in the present moment. It's a wonderful pattern, the gladness sequence: gladness, joy, tranquility, happiness, and concentration (samadhi).

What's interesting, and what I want to emphasize today, is the first step: feeling a sense of gladness. The gladness comes from being inspired by something. The Buddha really understands the value of becoming inspired, being gladdened, being delighted by some aspects of what's happening in our practice or in our lives. With that certain kind of gladness, we don't get lost in our thoughts and stories and imagining over and over again what happened. We use our imagination just enough to have that gladness begin settling us into the present moment more and more, settling us into the body.

This use of the imagination—to not make us go wandering away, but to allow us to be inspired—is one of the supports for meditation practice. Doing so in a way that is not forced, not imaginary, and not an avoidance of the present moment, but really a support for connecting in a deeper and more honest way with what's really present in our lives, is one of the great benefits of dharma^[6] practice. To be able to be present even for difficult things with some form of well-being, some form of joy, delight, or gladness that holds it all. Not to be removed from the challenges and suffering of life, but to really be receptive to it in a deep way and not be a victim of it, not be oppressed by it. To have compassion and love as a possible response.

So what I'd like to do for the next couple of days, and we'll see how far we go, is talk a little bit more about the Buddha's emphasis or use of imagination. We will focus on teachings on imagination, both as what gets in our way and interferes with meditation, but also in ways in which it supports meditation. This seems like a very nice bridge between the mind and the body. We're talking about joy and happiness, and this imagination has very much to do with these qualities—how to evoke joy, happiness, and gladness with what inspires us.

That's the topic, and hopefully you'll get a sense as we go through these teachings of how it's useful in connecting you to steps five and six, joy and happiness, and creates a very good foundation for continued settling. Becoming more tranquil, the mind becoming more peaceful, is a preparation so we can start looking more deeply at the mind itself. The quieting, settling, and pacifying of the mind turns it into an instrument of awakening.

So, that's the introduction for this week, and I look forward to our time tomorrow. I'm delighted to share this time with you. Thank you.