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Guided Meditation: Wholesome Awareness

Hello everyone, and welcome. A few words for introduction to this meditation.

For these last few months now, we've been doing satipaṭṭhāna^[1], the practices for establishing awareness. The Buddha calls these practices of cultivating awareness to be a heap, a mountain of wholesomeness, of skillfulness. He says that the five hindrances^[2], which are one of the things we've looked at in these weeks, are a heap of unwholesomeness, unskillfulness. This idea that mindfulness and what we're cultivating here is what's skillful, what's wholesome, what's nourishing, what's healthy serves as a very useful guide for how to practice mindfulness, how to evoke and bring forth a clear awareness of the present moment.

We do it in a way that is skillful, wholesome, and feels healthy. It feels welcoming for us to do. To chase after meditation out of greed, to use meditation to try to get rid of something we don't like—that's using mindfulness that, according to the five hindrances, just brings unskillfulness; it brings poor results.

So as you practice this practice of mindfulness, one of the things to be attentive to is the quality of your practice, the way in which you practice. Is it open-handed? Is it openhearted? Is it open-minded to what is here? Open-handed meaning you're just here to experience what is here in a generous way. Openhearted means that your care, your kindness is available; you're caring for yourself in this approach. And open-minded means you're available for whatever the experience is. You're willing to be present for things without expectation, without agendas, just present.

Maybe we take it on faith initially that, for the Buddha, this is one of the most psychologically and spiritually healthy, skillful things a person can do: to bring forth this clarity of awareness to the present moment. I think part of the reason it's considered so healthy, so skillful, is that it's a magnet for so many other good qualities. It's almost as if clear awareness of the present is making open space in which other skillful states, other wholesome ways of being can surface and come into it. That open space holds at bay, or doesn't make room for, or doesn't really help the hindrances thrive. The hindrances thrive when we're not paying attention, when we're not creating that open space where we don't have clear awareness.

So in all these ways of talking, the word "open" is emphasized: open-handed, openhearted, open-minded, open space. As you sit today, may you be attentive and careful that the way in which you practice, how you bring forth present-moment awareness, has a good feeling for you. It's a way of being a friend to yourself, perhaps, or just that other people would be attracted to you in the goodness, the clarity, and simplicity of how you are with your experience, so other things come.

To begin, maybe caring for yourself by the posture you take. Taking the time so your body feels that you're attending to it and caring for it. A posture that, to the best of your ability, seems like a good posture for meditation, for your body to be in.

Gently closing your eyes, and maybe with the eyes closed, before meditating, just let your attention roam around your body with an open awareness of, "This is how it is, this is how it's feeling now." Being careful with how your awareness can just be with yourself for a few moments here. Maybe just to discover, to be receptive, to recognize how your body is, and how you are in an open-handed, openhearted, open-minded way.

And gently, a little deeper breathing than usual, so that when you exhale, maybe you exhale with a little bit of relief, relaxation here now. A gentle, little deeper breath than usual, maybe with the inhale infusing awareness with more clarity, more openness. Awareness becomes a little more expansive or receptive. And on the exhale, the awareness rides along with the exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal. Anytime your mind wanders off and it's time to begin again with your breathing in the present moment, see if you can make the beginning enjoyable, pleasant, or friendly. As you stay with the breathing, or stay with your experience, stay with it in some simple, relaxed manner that is friendly or feels healthy. So that you have the feeling, "Oh, this is good to hang out with this kind of awareness here and now." Whatever you're aware of—body, feelings, mind states, thoughts, reactions—how you're aware is important.

Remember to be aware in an open way, where awareness is an opening. Awareness opens itself.

As we come to the end of this sitting, consider what you know about being aware, being attentive in an open way. Without expectations or demands, without pulling away or wanting something. Just aware. Open-handed, open-minded, openhearted. Almost like as you're aware, you're making space, making room.

Think about doing this for other people that you encounter. "How am I being aware of them?" A little bit, not too much. It's like you're making room for them, space. You're with them in an open-handed, openhearted, open-minded way. And if you're not, can you be aware of that? In being aware of it, can you try to open up a little bit? Open, clear awareness of others. What would it be like to be with others that way?

It is healthy and wholesome to apply what we learn about attention in meditation to how we can attend kindly to others, to be aware of others without the hindrances getting in the way.

May, through this practice that we do, we support the possibility for all beings to be happy, for all beings to be safe, for all beings to be peaceful, for all beings to be free.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (69) The Four Foundations Together

So we've gone through, for these last four months, the four foundations for awareness, for awakening awareness. These four areas of developing awareness can work together cooperatively, support each other, and they make a very interesting and useful perspective for us to bring to our lives.

So often, when we pay attention, give attention, take in, or perceive the world around us or the world inside of us, it's all too easy to do it with preconceived ideas, preconceived agendas, or being oriented to certain things that we think are important. Not to automatically dismiss those—even if it's a useful way to look at things, sometimes it can be useful to find a fresh perspective for our perception of the world and ourselves. These four foundations are interesting to keep in mind, to use these perspectives when looking at our life.

For example, some people might be oriented towards "What's in it for me? What am I going to get out of this experience?" In satipaṭṭhāna, we wouldn't do that. Instead, we would say, "What is the physical experience here? What's the feeling tone that's here? What's the mind state that's present? And what are the dhammas^[3]? What are these processes of being caught or being free that are playing out as I practice here?" It could be that when we look at the world, we look at it through what we don't like, what frightens us, or what's unpleasant for us, and we react to that from that point of view. But instead of that, we can ask, "How is it physically? How is its feeling tone? How are the mind states? How is it with the dhammas?"

It could be there's a lot of self-orientation going on. Instead of that, we do the four foundations. These are like going through the scales. We can ask ourselves, "Given what's happening now, let's look at them from these vantage points." These are the four vantage points that the Buddha offers for the path to awakening, to freedom. A path to everything that's wholesome or skillful, a heap of skillfulness, a heap of wholesomeness. For the Buddha, this is phenomenally healthy and beneficial to cultivate this kind of awareness. And the vehicle or medium he uses is not through orientations that are about me, myself, and mine. Of course, it's about you in a certain way, but that's not the orientation with which we're looking, analyzing, and understanding the situation.

Rather, he's saying for the purposes of cultivating this open awareness that's liberating, freeing, healthy, and wonderful, notice your body. Notice the feeling tones, how it's taken in and registered as pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. Notice the qualities of the mind, the state of the mind. Is it contracted? Is it expansive? Is it filled with intense desire or intense aversion, or is it not? Does the mind feel caught? Does the mind feel free? Those categories have no self in them. It's not like saying, "Am I caught? Am I filled with greed? Am I aversive? Am I contracted?" None of the instructions in the satipaṭṭhāna involve the perspective of me, myself, and I.

It can be such a relief. It can be a challenge because of how common it is to have that perspective, but to put it aside or evoke a different perspective has advantages. Looking at things from the point of view of me, myself, and mine—"What's in it for me? How am I being seen? What's good for me? How am I?"—that's a magnet for all kinds of unskillful, unhealthy attitudes, states of mind, and situations. It tends, one way or the other, to close the space inside of us and around us. It tends to reduce the open-handedness, the openheartedness, the open-mindedness.

So instead of going in that direction—like, "What's happening to me? How am I doing? How are people treating me? What's going on here for me? Am I improving? Am I getting better? Am I getting worse? I'm a meditation failure"—all these things you can say with the word "I" or "me", see if you can put them aside and bring into play a different perspective: the four foundations. What you've learned about mindfulness of the body, go back and read some of the exercises, or listen to some of these talks about mindfulness of the body, and cultivate this greater connection to the body. It is you, but you don't have to think about it being you. Of course, this is who you're paying attention to; you're paying attention to your body, you're paying attention to yourself. But it's extra to put that idea to operate, to analyze, to react to the situation from the study of me, myself, and mine, especially when we're meditating. So just the body, the simplicity of it. The feeling tones, the mind states, the dhammas.

The orientation also is not to get anything out of it or analyze the situation, but to begin tuning in, waking up to the changing nature of experience, the flow of present-moment experience. The river of life goes through, and things are always changing, always moving. To do it from the perspective of these four foundations. This perspective of change, things coming and going, to do that with an openhearted, open-minded way is a very helpful way to loosen the grip of attachments. Just rest, float, or keep opening to the flow of change, the flow of experience. That's only available, or best available, when we're centered in awareness in this direct experience of body, feelings, mind states, and the dhammas. Let it all just flow, teaching us how not to cling, not to grasp.

The five hindrances are forms of grasping, forms of clinging that diminish freedom, diminish the clarity with which we can see things, and, for the Buddha, diminish our wisdom. When you're caught in the five hindrances, bring forth the four foundations. When you're caught in a hindrance, how is it in the body? What's the feeling tone of it? What are the mind states that are there? And then just be really present for each hindrance in and of itself as it comes and goes, letting go of it.

This referencing back through the four foundations applies also to the way in which we practice, the way that we meditate. From time to time, it's good to go through these steps, the four foundation scales, and to see, in relationship to how you're practicing, how you're being mindful, how you're meditating: How does it feel in your body? Are you straining? Is it tightening up? Are you resisting? Are you sluggish? Are you collapsing? Are you draining in your body because you're not really in it? What's happening in your body? What's happening with feeling tones? What's the feeling tone of how you're practicing, of how you're doing mindfulness? Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Is it something that feels good to do or not? What is the mind state with which you're doing mindfulness? Is the mind state filled with greed, aversion, or delusion? Is the mind state expansive, liberating, or settled? What's the mind state?

And then, in the way that you practice, the five areas of the fourth foundation. Are the hindrances at play, even subtly? Are we entangled, knotted up in anything? Are we caught in identity—me, myself, and mine—around the five aggregates^[4]? Or are the seven factors of awakening^[5] peeking their heads up as we're practicing? Are they nearby or potentially nearby? Are they creating the space where those wonderful factors can begin to grow? In how we're paying attention, are we seeing in a way that allows us to see the Four Noble Truths^[6], which is another way of saying seeing the changing nature of things?

So, bringing these together, these four foundations. When we sit down to meditate, at different times we might choose one of the foundations more than another foundation because that seems to be a salient one, a good one with which to develop awareness. I find it's really useful to come back to breathing over and over again—the very first exercise, stay in the body. I find that really useful, and then the other ones as needed, as is helpful. Sometimes I'll go through the four: "Okay, how is it in this area? How is it here in relationship to whatever is happening in the moment?" This is a way of bringing the four foundations together, seeing how they are mutually supportive of each other, and how this works as a unified whole. There's a unified way of bringing together all these practices for the purposes of open awareness: openhearted, open-minded, open-handed attention to ourselves and the world. Thank you.