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Guided Meditation: Unlimited Mind

Warm greetings from IMC in Redwood City, California. And we're here, maybe also to enjoy the light show that will happen at this time of year as the sun goes up. We have these very big windows here, and there's a time of year that for a few minutes the sun gets very intense through those windows. Right now that's clear, and in a little while maybe it'll be a little bit too strong, and then it'll keep changing the light show.

So it changes our minds, and probably our minds can be sometimes more changeable than the changing patterns of the sunlight on the wall. And maybe you can marvel at your own mind. If you marvel at the changing nature of the mind, and the amazing things and thoughts and impulses that arise in the mind, you can kind of be amazed that you even have a mind, as opposed to getting caught by what's in the mind or preoccupied with what's in the mind.

One of the descriptions of a mind that is fully imbued with mettā^[1], with loving-kindness, is that it becomes unlimited, boundless. What this means in part is that the mind is not caught or trapped in anything. If we are fully preoccupied with something, we might not notice anything else. We go about even looking for something in our home that's lost, and we might not notice other things because we're just looking for that particular thing. Or we're preoccupied with some task and we don't notice the other people around, or their needs or their situation.

The same thing we notice in meditation, that the mind can be preoccupied with things—with thoughts, with desires, with aversions—and everything gets narrow, constricted, kind of organizing the mind around that particular thing. In Buddhist language, the mind then has been limited by that, has been bounded by that concern, that preoccupation. The idea is to begin to free the mind from its narrowness, from its limitations, from its preoccupations, and start experiencing something in the mind that feels more unlimited, more expansive and open.

A little bit paradoxically, it's possible to get involved with mindfulness of breathing in such a way that we become preoccupied with the breathing and we're limited by it, constricted by it. Some people who find that mindfulness of breathing doesn't work for them, it is because the only way they know how to focus on it is in a way that limits them, constricts the mind, or ties them up in some way. But the idea is that we use the breathing as a way to free the mind from all its limitations, all its preoccupations, not to add another preoccupation. So to find a way to engage in the breathing that has a softness to it, an openness to it, a receptivity to it. It's kind of like welcoming the breathing into the openness of the mind rather than constricting the mind to zero in on the breathing. As we do that, if the world gets reduced to just breathing, it can be a real pleasure this way: absorbing the breathing in a mind that feels unlimited but is not caught up in all the things of the world around it.

To have an unlimited mind or unlimited awareness that's not caught by anything is one of the conditions that supports some of the wholesome qualities of our hearts and minds. One of those is kindness, is good will, is friendliness, that sometimes seems to just flow out of that unlimited quality of mind.

So, assume a meditation posture. Spend a little bit of time adjusting your spine, adjusting your chest, adjusting whatever you can of your torso, and the position of your neck and your head, so that your body begins to feel like maybe it feels a little bit larger than usual, or more ready to be expansive. Not contracted, not crunched in itself, or collapsed. Then gently close your eyes.

Taking a few deep, slow breaths at the beginning can be seen as the beginning of this movement towards expansion. Kind of an expanded body as the torso expands, filling with air. And then the exhale is a time to let go of thoughts, preoccupations, activities. Just being here.

Expanding on the inhale, making room for the expansion by clearing the mind. Releasing the limitations of the mind as you exhale.

And then letting your breathing return to normal.

There is such an intimate relationship between the body and the mind that it plays out also in the tensions in the body. The way the body is held, in some ways, is an expression of tension in the mind.

So as you exhale, softening, relaxing the shoulders. Releasing the shoulders sometimes can feel like it begins a process of relaxing the mind. Maybe releasing, as you exhale, the center of the chest. Relaxing the chest.

And to relax your belly. Soften. Whatever softening you can do in your belly, maybe allow it to be a softening of the mind as well.

And then also a relaxing, softening of the face. In the softening of the muscles of the face, maybe it sends a reassuring signal to the mind that it doesn't have to work, it doesn't have to do so much. It's okay to put down concerns, preoccupations, doings.

Before settling in on breathing, check in with yourself. See if there are any preoccupations in the mind that can be felt as a limitation, as a narrowing of the mind, or being pulled into something particular—thoughts, fantasies, ideas that limit your connection to an openness and a wider receptivity.

Perhaps you can relax the thinking mind, relax the thinking muscle. And then settling into your breathing. Settled on your breathing, not fixated on your breathing.

As you exhale, let go of your thoughts and let go of any kind of tight, contracted effort.

As you inhale, perhaps use that as an occasion to have the awareness be receptive, open. Wide in the open wideness of awareness to receive the inhale.

When you find yourself wandering off in thought, notice that in a wholesome way. Notice whatever way it limits you, limits the field of attention, or involves a narrowing or a preoccupation. See if you can let go of it. See if you can let go of it into a more open, receptive state, quiet, peaceful, into which you can allow the experience of breathing.

Relaxing the constrictions of the mind and the heart. In that relaxation, you receive the inhale. Relax with the exhale.

As we come to the end of this sitting, perhaps you can consider these last few minutes of the meditation as kind of a private time, and that what you do in the privacy of your own meditation, only you need to know.

With that sense of privacy, maybe it's easier to open your awareness, open your heart to make room for all beings. To make room for others to come into your awareness. Meaning that you're not preoccupied by something, or fixated on some aspect of your relationship to others, or some fear or annoyance, some defensiveness. But for these minutes, open up wide and make lots of room, infinite room, for others to be in your awareness, in your regard.

Nothing more is asked of you for this moment than just simply making room. At the end of the meditation, you can let them go and not hold them anymore in your mind or your heart if you want.

Perhaps in this kind of open, receptive mode, including people in your heart and your mind, perhaps in the privacy of your mind, you can also have good will for them. A kind regard. A generosity of spirit that wishes them well. Imagines them well and wishing it for them.

And perhaps coming out of the meditation, you can, in that openness and goodness of the heart, aspire that your meditation practice, in whatever way known or unknown, intentional or unintentional, has benefit for the world around you. That it's one of the ways that we live for the welfare and happiness of others.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

May the open expansiveness of our hearts and minds contribute to that possibility.

Dharmette: Mettā Sutta (4 of 5) Cultivating a Boundless Heart

This is the fourth talk on the Mettā Sutta^[2], the discourse on loving-kindness. In the first talk, I said we were dividing it into four parts, and maybe we are, but I'll do five talks.

The next section of it is about the cultivation of loving-kindness. First is the wholesome qualities of heart and mind that we cultivate on the path to liberation. And then it's having this wish—the wish doesn't have to be with these exact words, but the wish for all beings to be happy and safe. And then to really get to the bottom, to work with our aversion, our anger, our resentments, because these limit us. These are a narrowing of the scope of the mind and awareness. It involves a preoccupation to be angry and resentful, and when we're preoccupied, there's not room for really taking in the world, taking in others in an open-hearted, open-minded way.

With that as a foundation, the practice of this discourse on loving-kindness goes on to emphasize cultivating a boundless heart, cultivating and developing an unlimited heart or mind with loving-kindness. It's not just simply having wishes and saying phrases over and over again. That's not really the point of loving-kindness, but the phrases are there to support and help. If we use them, they help to create this open awareness, this openness of heart, this ability to be wide, to include others into our awareness without contracting or narrowing or resisting, without getting caught up in desires and aversions and fears.

It's a very simple state of mind that's open and available to really absorb, take in, or receive experience. But it is so open, so boundless in a sense, that it doesn't stick with us. Others don't... it's almost like being more transparent, and things just go right through us. Not because we're dismissing them, but because the limitations of the mind—the way that we contract and get preoccupied—are sticky, and we get caught in the world of other people and our world of reactions. Moving to the mind that's free is a mind that has no stickiness in it, so things are fully experienced, but they also just go through or don't stick anywhere. This is called an unlimited mind or heart, a boundless heart and mind.

This next section goes like this (and on YouTube, you'll see it in the description of this episode that's underneath the video. If you click on 'show more' and scroll down, you'll see this fourth part of the Mettā Sutta):

As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, her only child, so towards all beings should one cultivate a boundless heart. With loving-kindness for the whole world should one cultivate a boundless heart, above, below, and all around, without obstructions, without hate, and without ill will.

For some people, it's a touching metaphor, this idea of a mother with a single child going to the extent of protecting the child at the risk of her own life. It involves a kind of non-self-preoccupation. When I was a parent of young children especially, it felt much more acute, where I just didn't feel so important. I was willing to put aside all kinds of personal needs because it just seemed like the importance of this child, this little baby that couldn't take care of itself, was so much more important. There was this wonderful feeling, a healthy feeling most of the time, in this kind of giving myself over, giving myself up in a certain kind of way for the welfare of this other person. When it was done well, I felt that it wasn't because I was trying to benefit myself, but I could feel this was really good when I did it. In ways that were unhealthy, then it would come back and bite me and didn't really work. But this idea of a parent protecting their child—it isn't that we're supposed to risk our lives to protect all other beings in this text at least, but rather it's that kind of letting go of self. It is this boundless space for being inclusive of others in our hearts that we're cultivating.

In doing loving-kindness practice, we're developing not only through loving-kindness, but I think through the path of liberation, a path where the mind and the heart are no longer limited, contracted, preoccupied, resistant, shut down, or closed off. It's just completely open and receptive. Like an open window, the wind can just go right through, or the kids' baseball that they're playing outside won't break the glass because it just goes right through.

To cultivate that—and "cultivate" is a very powerful word because it doesn't mean that we're supposed to do it automatically and that you're bad if you don't—it means that you practice it. You practice and practice and practice. This is what we're working towards, and the more we practice, the more we're moving in this direction. The practice has a quality to it, or parts of it is this openness, this relaxing, this receptivity. This not getting tight and not getting forceful, not getting into all kinds of unwholesome movements of needing and wanting and expecting and pushing away. Rather, it really has a quality that as we do the practice, something is opening, something is releasing, something is making more room. There's more and more room for things.

When people become mature in Buddhist practice, their mind has lots of room for things, infinite room. Sometimes you can feel that spaciousness in others because their mind doesn't move as much. You don't see the mind jumping around, or you don't see the agitation or the restlessness, or the deflecting or the turning away. There's an openness and a quiet, a willingness to just be there in a kind of open stillness in that maturity.

With loving-kindness for the whole world should one cultivate a boundless heart. This is the upper reaches of real loving-kindness. Certainly, in the privacy of our meditation alone, it's relatively easy to love everyone and to feel like universal love is a great thing. But it's when we really run into people and are working with people and engaging with people and sharing lives with people that the idea of loving all beings sometimes just gets lost. It recedes from importance because of the drama, the preoccupations, the irritation, and the injustice of whatever is happening in the moment.

The idea of cultivating a boundless heart with loving-kindness for the whole world is the direction we're going. But to do that is not only learning how to let go a lot, it's also learning how to be wise and have street smarts about how that is expressed and how to live in this world that's so complicated and difficult. How to live it in a safe way, in a wise way, so that we can have this boundless loving-kindness. We don't want to do boundless loving-kindness and be naive in a certain kind of way, easily victimized by what goes on around us.

Cultivate a boundless heart. With loving-kindness for the whole world should one cultivate a boundless heart, above, below, and all around, without obstruction, without hate, and without ill will. These obstructions, ways the mind is limited... the two that are really big in relationship to our capacity for love are hate and ill will. Big words, but they can have very subtle manifestations, and sometimes it's the subtlest manifestations that are really the cutting edge, the growing edge of our practice. Even the subtle ways, we don't overlook. We don't say it doesn't matter, or it's easier just to go ahead and do it. Even the subtlest forms of hate and ill will, find out how to live without those obstructions, without those limitations.

Cultivating a boundless heart above, below, and all around. Some people experience this as a kind of radiance, a glow, a warmth. Some people have a sense of light—that's not really light, but that's the closest, a clarity, an openness that feels like it's a radiating light. This idea of radiating loving-kindness is based on the idea of an intention. But that intention doesn't have to be a mental exercise where we keep saying words like "may all beings be happy." The words can be useful, but as the heart gets more and more boundless, it becomes more of a glow, more of a clarity, more of an openness that we can feel that goes out in all directions. 360 degrees all around is the attention; it's not focused narrowly on something and only that. It's opened up 360 degrees with the kindness, with the goodwill, with the friendliness, with the radiance, this glow of kindness above, below, and all around.

It's phenomenal, the human capacity to dwell in love, to dwell in goodwill, to dwell in kindness and friendliness. It's phenomenal that we can kind of have that be the predominant mood, the predominant field of attention, the predominant flow of concern that we have. To be integrated and harmonized, and all of us centered in mettā, is a phenomenal capacity. That we should be born this way, to have this capacity, is just fantastic, and it's a capacity we can cultivate and develop and grow. Sometimes it's done intentionally by doing mettā practice, and sometimes it's a byproduct of just doing mindfulness practice. As mindfulness frees us from the limitations of the mind, we can begin to recognize that in fact, living in our hearts, waiting for us, has been love, has been goodwill. And then it's a matter of making more space for it. Just as you make space for more people in your heart, you make more space in your heart for your love.

So thank you, and we also have one more talk on this tomorrow.