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Dharmette: Don't Make it Worse (1 of 5) Wait

Guided Meditation

Good morning everyone, and welcome. I'm happy and grateful for Nikki and Ying, who taught here while I was away. I was back in the country of my birth, Norway, for memorial services for both my parents. It was wonderful to be back there and see relatives I haven't seen for a long time, and I'm happy to be here.

For this meditation today, I'd like to evoke an unfortunate term that many people live with, and that is "time pressure"—living under the pressure of time. Not enough time. There's not enough time to do what we have to do with our responsibilities, or there are so many things to do. We live sometimes under the burden of time, the pressure of time.

If instead of calling it pressure—which kind of implies that it's something coming from outside of us—we call it tension, "time tension." We carry in us tension related to time. A big part of how we relate to time is a construct of our own mind, independent of any philosophical ideas of what time is. The way that we relate to the time aspect of life has a lot to do with our constructs, our beliefs, our orientations, our plans, our expectations, our to-do list—all kinds of things.

When we sit down to meditate, one of the opportunities is to step out of time or to enter into a sacred time—a time where there is lots of time, spacious time. A time that is not something we have to be tense around or be pressured by. Don't live in expectations of when it will be over; all these are things we overlay on top of this moment-to-moment life that we live, on top of "now." From time to time, like when we sit down to meditate or when we have a Sabbath, a sacred time off, we can be willing to question how we live in time. To use the reference point of time to see the ways that we're attached and caught up, somehow connected to time—a different time than now, past or future. Feeling a pressure around doing and accomplishing that has to do with time.

Can we relax the tension, relax the inner pressure around time, and find time as being spacious? Maybe no time, maybe outside of time, maybe a sense of abundant time for these few minutes that we're meditating here. A pause in all things having to do with time.

To feel part of something that's deeper, fuller, rather than being in time, or pushed around by time, or preoccupied with time one way or the other. There's the idea of being time. We're intimately in time, not out of time, not doing time, but being time. Just being here. So may this meditation be one where we relax all and every tension and pressure around time.

If being sensitive to how we relate to time or live with time is challenging or not interesting for you, you can just put it aside. But maybe there's a very light and easy way to step out of time tension and pressure that allows these few minutes to be an entering into the timeless present, the sacred present, where this moment, this present time, is allowed to just be itself, not under the dictates of the constructs and ideas of our mind just now.

Assuming a meditation posture, gently close your eyes and gently take some deeper breaths so you can feel your torso more fully, maybe feeling some of the tensions and pressures. As you exhale longer than usual, relax and soften. Relax in your body.

Let breathing return to normal, or normal enough, letting go of any preoccupation with how you're breathing. Just breathe in whatever way it is. Relaxing on the exhale. Maybe on the inhale finding places of tension in your body, holding, and on the exhale, softening. The more the body relaxes and softens, either directly or indirectly, we begin softening the tensions and pressures that exist around time. Time pressure is not inherent to being alive and present now. It's not necessary.

On the exhale, softening and relaxing in the thinking mind. Time pressure has its origin in the mind, and how we think, believe, and orient ourselves. Softening the thinking mind.

Then centering yourself on breathing, allowing the inhale to show itself, to be there. Your body, without a before and after in this moment. Timeless moment. Just breathing in, just breathing out. Less your breathing as the body's breathing; less you are experiencing breathing, and more the body's experience of breathing.

If you find yourself drifting off in thought, you might take a moment to feel or notice if those thoughts have any connection to time—past, future, pressure, tension. Relax and return with your breathing.

There's a way in which being distracted in thinking takes us out of living time, living in time. The live time of now. The live time which inherently has no tension or pressure as part of it. It's just now.

What is your relationship to time? Is there any pressure or tension that's time-related? And if there is, don't try to relax it at this point; instead, see it clearly. Feel it as fully as you can—the tension, the pressure—and allow it to be there and see what happens. Give space and time to the pressure you feel.

As we come to the end of this meditation, you might consider that attention, your attention, can be a gift. We can listen to ourselves or listen to others as a gift. We can take time to see and appreciate others, and that seeing and appreciating is a gift for people who are seldom seen, seldom appreciated. To say it differently, to see, appreciate, and listen also involves the gift of time. Slow down. Take time to really be with others, with yourself. Sometimes only if we give the gift of time can other gifts be given: kindness, friendship, love, compassion, generosity, patience, forgiveness, joy, and delight. All can thrive if there's time for them. The gift of time.

As we come to the end of this sitting, may it be that whatever way we're going to benefit others, whatever way we're going to live for the happiness and welfare of others, consider that it begins with the gift of time. Without there being open time, available time—without taking time, giving time, being in time—so many other things are not possible, or undermined, or limited in some way. May it be that as we go into the day today, we offer the gift of time to those around us. May it be that we can live for the welfare and benefit of others by how mindfulness teaches us the gift of time, living in time, here and now.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

[Music]

Thank you.

Don't Make it Worse: Wait

A warm hello on this Monday, and I'm happy to be back after being away for a couple of weeks. I had a very nice time going back to my homeland, my birth country of Norway, and having a wonderful time with my relatives there. I certainly brought my practice with me, but it was more ordinary in the sense that I was not reading Buddhist books or thinking profound Buddhist thoughts. It was just living in this present moment as freely and generously as I could.

Following up on that, today I want to offer something for this week that is very simple and basic. Maybe we don't even have to think of it as being Buddhist; it's just a wise way of living. It has to do with a little saying that I'm very fond of, and I've certainly mentioned it here in this teaching a few times. That's the idea that as you go through your day, especially when things are difficult and confusing, and maybe you don't know exactly what you should be doing or saying, a wonderful guideline is: don't make it worse.

Whatever is happening, don't make the situation worse. If you're angry, be careful. Don't make it worse by speaking angry words so they hurt people, or so they sever and ruin relationships, so they divide rather than unify. If you don't know what to do, maybe running away makes it worse. Maybe you don't have to know what to do; maybe it's enough to just not make it worse.

Sometimes it's so powerful to not make it worse. Part of that is that it gives time to the situation we're in. Rather than feeling pressured to react or do something now, or say something now, and then later regretting it, we hold our tongue. By not attacking someone, or not doing something that makes it worse—not going for some substance that's going to somehow bring us into oblivion or disconnect us from what's happening or bypass what's happening, which in the long term will make it worse. Whatever it is, don't make it worse. That gives time for something more to happen.

So that's going to be the topic for this week: don't make it worse, and how to live that way, how to live with that guideline. I like acronyms sometimes because they help us remember and orient us. I have an acronym for the word WORSE, and that's what I'll talk about this week:

• W can stand for Wait.
• O can stand for Organize or Orient.
• R can stand for Rest or Relax.
• S can stand for Sense or See.
• E can stand for Express, or if you prefer, Empathy.

Today it's 'Wait'. Part of not making it worse can be enhanced by understanding the benefits of waiting, of taking time, giving space, and giving time for the situation to unfold.

It's uncountable how many times in my life I have not known what to do. Sometimes in meditation, sometimes socially, sometimes in figuring things out when I'm on my own. I've found that if I just wait, something unfolds. Something happens that makes the path forward clear. Sometimes some new thought and idea arises that I couldn't have thought about or understood if I was riding tensely on top of the issue, the problem. I had to relax and allow something else to be there.

Sometimes in social situations, things begin to switch and change when I wait. I have opinions, and I feel like, "Okay, I have to tell this person I have an opinion. I know what's right. I know what we're supposed to do here. I know how to fix this thing." I can feel my impatience to really assert myself, and I've learned that it's not really useful to act from that place. It's useful to wait. So many times by waiting, the person I'm with says something, or opens up the door for the conversation to take a different direction, or they have the understanding that I was going to assert, or they know how to fix something. It's such a wonderful, profound experience to have not asserted my solution, my way, and instead to see how things evolve. In small ways, I allowed the situation to unfold. Sometimes the situation wasn't solved by that, but new information came along that allowed us to figure out what was going to happen and what to do.

Human intelligence and human social interactions do really well sometimes if we give conscious, clear time for things to show themselves, to reveal themselves. It takes time for us to see and understand what's happening. Sometimes that can be intentional, where we ask questions: "Tell me more. I don't understand everything here. Can you explain that in a different way?" or "What do you think?" We're giving time for the other person to speak.

If we're alone and have some kind of personal challenge, maybe we wait by going to meditate. I found that sometimes in my life, when I have tension and pressure—I feel like there's a deadline, I have to do something, I can't figure something out—I can feel the tension in my forehead, or behind my forehead, or different places in my body. I realize this is making the whole situation worse. Let me go and meditate, or sometimes I'll go for a walk. Just stepping out of the pressurized time that I was giving myself into the unpressured time of going for a walk creates a whole different ecosystem. It allows something to shift and change inside, something to relax and open. It gives time for some inner process to unfold. When I finish even ten minutes, sometimes there's so much more clarity, so much more understanding. It becomes clear what to do in a way that I couldn't otherwise. Wait. Don't make it worse. Give time for the situation to clarify itself, to unfold, to become more obvious. Give time so that maybe you understand, or if you're confused, give time for the other person to find their way with the situation.

Not making it worse is not only an issue of restraint—staying silent, not blurting out what you want to say, not doing the thing that's impulsive. More profoundly, by not giving in to those impulses, there's a kind of sacred waiting. Or if you don't like the word "sacred", a generative waiting. Let's see what else wants to unfold here. Let's see what else wants to happen. Things don't have to happen on the tip of my own assertion, the tip of my own preoccupations, or the tip of my own fear, anger, or desires that are pushing into the present moment in the situation. Relax. Don't have that pointed pressure. Soften, open, feel, sense, see. Wait for a deeper understanding. Wait, so don't make it worse.

By not making it worse, give yourself time to have a generative waiting, an exploratory waiting, a discovery waiting. A time for intelligence waiting, a time for deeper feeling. Wait to feel, to sense, to know what's happening here. Wait.

So that's the "W". For the next 24 hours, you might want to give yourself the learning opportunity to spend time allowing more waiting in all kinds of situations and see what you learn, what happens. There are so many different ways that can happen. For example, if nothing's happening—you're waiting in line, waiting for something—and you find yourself pulling out your phone to look at the news, email, or text because you don't want to wait and you want to do something. Don't do that. Don't disconnect from your environment. Don't disconnect from yourself. Take the time when you're waiting for something anyway to do a generative waiting, a sacred waiting. Allow the waiting. Give space and time to see what else can unfold in just being here, present for your experience.

Thank you. I'm happy to be back here and look forward to joining you again tomorrow.