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Guided Meditation: Non-Harming

Hello. At the moment, I'm imagining that all of you who are present here for our YouTube meditation are welcoming each other. We're all welcoming each other, we're all greeting each other, and appreciating the shared companionship—the degree to which we are doing the same thing at the same time, and sharing the same focus here. So thank you for being here.

One way or the other, when we come to do meditation, we are ascribing or assigning some meaning to what we're doing. We assign some sense of purpose, some sense of values of what it's for, and some sense of the context of it in our wider life. There is some way in which it serves ultimate values we have—religious values, spiritual values. There are all kinds of ways in which these are on the edges or at the center of doing meditation, and one of them is our values.

Some people clearly bring along values when they meditate that they've inherited from their society or their family, and some of them are deeply unconscious, just a matter of fact. Some of them evolve and develop in the course of meditation practice and engagement with Buddhism, where we acquire new values. Whether it's an old value or a new value, one of the central values for Buddhism, and I would propose for people who mature in this practice of meditation, is non-harming (ahiṃsā)^[1]. There's a very thoroughgoing devotion, interest, and sensitivity to living a life of not harming at all.

Often that idea is assigned to the idea of not harming anything outside of ourselves—other people, the world—and that's true. But in meditation, the primary care around not harming is not harming oneself. What we learn about not harming ourselves through meditation is directly applicable to how we live that life in the world around us. The very things that we do that cause harm to ourselves are, one way or the other, a support for that spilling out onto others in the world.

So to sit and meditate, care is given that we don't harm ourselves. That takes the form of not criticizing ourselves, not being upset or angry with ourselves. But of course, we will be sometimes. A very significant part of this practice is to appreciate the degree to which you don't have to take responsibility for the particular impulses, thoughts, and feelings when they first appear. What we take responsibility for is how we then respond to them, how we react to them.

If a hostile thought arises in the mind—maybe hostile towards oneself—the teachings of not taking it personally say, "Just that's what the mind is doing." We don't define ourselves by it. But in the wake of it, what is a non-harming thing to do? Not be hostile towards hostility. Not to be hostile to ourselves. Not to pull away and shut down and give up, and all the kinds of things that we do. What is the non-harming thing that can be done in this practice? It is simply to see it clearly with kindness, and if kindness is too much, just to see it clearly.

For whatever arises in this meditation, when it first arises, let it be known. And in that knowing, practice non-harming. Practice radical non-harming as you sit here and practice.

To begin with an upright, or maybe say it differently for those of you who don't sit upright, a dignified posture. Something about how you dispose your body. The posture of your body kind of embodies your dignity, your value, your importance. Sit in a way that lets your chest avoid collapsing or crunching up, a way in which your neck is a little bit straightened.

Gently close the eyes. Feel the contact with whatever supports your weight. And almost as if the inhale begins there, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. If you want to get a little more benefit from taking these initial deep breaths, calmly count to five on the inhale, and count to five on the exhale. Have your inhale be that long.

Then letting your breathing return to normal, letting go of counting, and sitting here quietly. Be devotedly present with your mindfulness, present with the breathing. Be devoted to non-harming. Do not respond to anything in ways that cause harm in attitude, motivation, or belief. And if you do, let it go the best you can.

Perhaps your mindfulness is a non-harming wind that blows gently on whatever it is you're aware of.

Somewhat like a pebble being dropped into a quiet lake where the ripples spread out throughout the lake, I drop the concept of non-harming into you. Let the ripples of non-harming spread out to touch all of who you are.

As we come to the end of this sitting, turn your attention to how you will be living your life the next day or so. Independent of all the things, or the few things, that we'll be doing, if all we do is to live a life dedicated to non-harming, that would be enough. You don't have to be kind, you don't have to be compassionate and loving, you don't have to wish everyone well. Just practice a radical non-harming. To become for everyone else someone who is safe. Someone whom no one needs to fear. No one feels aggression, assertion, or dominance. No one receives judgments or prejudice. Everyone is seen through eyes rooted in not causing any harm inwardly and outwardly. Just this is one of the greatest ways of living a life.

May it be that on this next day, whatever benefit we receive from this meditation, from our practice, from being mindful, may it serve to support being in this world in a non-harming way. May all beings benefit from our harmlessness.

Dharmette: Meaning (4 of 5) Values We Live By

Thank you. The topic for this week has to do with the meaning that meditation has for us. I know some people, like myself at one point, were a little bit allergic to the idea of meaning. But as I've come to understand the word, it's really a broad word that covers a lot of ways in which we assign purpose, assign roles, assign functions, and assign value to the activities and events of our lives. It's how we understand or interpret events in the context of our life story, the context of our society, and the context of our beliefs. There is no shortage of the many, many ways in which we, one way or the other, assign some interpretation to the meditation we're doing.

So this week, we are trying to bring some of that out and have you be more reflective about it in a way that would help your meditation. Both in that it would help you not get caught up in assigned meanings that are not useful for you or that get in the way, but also to recognize the useful ones. The useful ones are there to give buoyancy, momentum, and strength to meditation, to help you stay focused on what you're doing.

Today, the topic is the values that we live by and the connection that meditation might have with those values. It's hard to imagine that there are people who have no values at all—no ethical values, no sense of prioritizing certain attitudes for how to be in the world. Some of those values might be healthy and supportive of self and others, and some of them might be harmful. But how does meditation fit into it?

It would be unfortunate for someone who is a thief, who feels that it's fine to steal and is in fact proud of their ability to steal, to find that the value of meditation for them is simply that it centers them and calms them down so they can do their profession more effectively. That would be quite sad because of the harm it does. But take someone who is a caregiver, for example, and their value is to give the best care to someone in a medical setting. For them, meditation has the value of grounding them, centering them, and preparing them so that the best of them can be present with wisdom and clarity for the people in their care. Here, the values we have and how we want to live are brought to bear on meditation, and meditation is used to serve that purpose.

One of the things that really inspires me is people who want to live honestly, to really live without any lies or deceit. They just really want to have the truth at the forefront. With that as a value, mindfulness can be a real support. Mindfulness is a truth-teller^[2]; it's truth-making. For someone else, the value could be harmlessness, and so the function, the meaning, the purpose of meditation is to live a more harmless life. Someone else's value might be full, complete, total enlightenment (bodhi)^[3]. So for them, the value, purpose, and function assigned to meditation is that it's going to support them to find a way to that enlightenment.

There can be multiple functions happening at the same time. The same meditation can be done for different purposes. It can be for truth-telling, for de-stressing, for coming with more groundedness to the work that we do, or for being on a path to awakening. It's not like you're choosing one over the other, but it helps to have some clarity about what's important, maybe what's most important around the values we have. You can even pick and choose between things that are important so you can give emphasis to one thing to do really well. If we have too many values and too many purposes, everything gets watered down. Nothing really takes root and flowers. Sometimes in order to really do well, we have to choose, "This is what meditation is about, this is what I'm developing and doing here," and have some clarity with it.

The benefit of that is, no matter what the purpose is, if you have a real sense of getting behind it and having some dedication to it, as meditation deepens it blossoms out into all these different dimensions of our life. You might put aside certain things as the purpose or value, and at a later date, you find that if it's a healthy purpose, it returns in a whole different way. It may be a little bit like someone who moves to a foreign country with a different language, and they really want to be friends with everyone on the street. They go around trying to be friends but can't speak the language at all. So they dedicate themselves to learning the language, and once it's learned, they find that walking down the street, it's really easy to make these connections because of the shared language. Regardless of what the purpose is for meditation, learning to meditate well opens up in such a wonderful way to so many different things.

Some people center their lives on the values they have more than the goals they have or the work they're trying to do. For some people, how they live is more important than what they do. I think that in Buddhist practice, we emphasize much more the how than the what. Whatever meditation is for, the way to it is by caring really carefully for how we are. Caring that we're not living a harmful way, that we're doing what's beneficial. Caring that we're learning to be at peace, relaxed, and non-attached. Learning to be kind and supportive, learning to have care in what we do, learning to be honest in all ways, and learning to let go so that we can be at ease, have equanimity (upekkhā)^[4], and be at peace here and now.

For some people, the value they have is to be of service, to live a life of generosity and support. Meditation serves that purpose for them. For others, it's to live a life of really practicing Dharma^[5] for its own sake, and as a result of that, they want to live a life of service. All these things shift and change over a lifetime of practice. It's fascinating to see the interface between meditation and the way we live our lives—how the purpose, the values we have, what we emphasize as being important, and the assigning of meaning or functions to meditation into our life shifts and changes in a dynamic way. To hold on to any one way, any one purpose, or any one meaning for what meditation is, sooner or later we'll get all bottled up. We'll get limited and come to a dead end. Rather, keep opening up. Keep looking, feeling, and sensing all the different ways, functions, meanings, and purposes that evolve over the years of practicing more and more.

It's a dynamic process. It's like having a good friend. Over the years, the friendship shifts and changes as the two of you shift and change. But somehow you stay connected and involved, and things flow back and forth, change, and unfold. Because of the commitment to stay present and stay connected, you all change together. The same thing happens with meditation.

Understand some of the values that you live by that come to bear on meditation, and then see how they shift and change. One of the ways they change is that they move. Sometimes we discover through meditation that some of the assigned purposes or attitudes we have about meditation don't work, that they're actually harmful for us. Straining in meditation, being attached to states of mind that we're hoping to attain, holding on to calm, or holding on to bliss that might be there. These kinds of holding on, wanting, and overvaluing particular states of mind are a dead end; they're not really that helpful. If the value is, "It's all about attaining a state, it's all about having some wonderful experience so that I can just add it to my repertoire of wonderful experiences," that is a dead end to experiencing the full potential of meditation.

If there's a lot of conceit involved in meditation, and the assigned meaning has to do with, "I'm going to be the best meditator on my block, and everyone will like me and give me accolades for how wonderful I am," or "If I meditate well, then my meditation teacher will praise me and put me up on a pedestal, and we'll be happy ever after"—those kinds of assigning of meaning, purpose, and function are dead ends. You'll just end up knocking your head against that dead end until you find a different way.

So look deeply: what is the meaning of meditation? What is the function? What is its purpose for me? Here's an exercise I'd recommend that you do over these next 24 hours until we meet again. On a piece of paper or with a computer, write the words, "For me, meditation means..." and then fill in the rest of it. Do that 100 times, and every time write something different.

Many years ago, I would have written down, "Meditation means nothing," and I would have dismissed the whole exercise. But because it's a hundred different times, you have to kind of keep going. "Meditation means that I sit on my cushion. Meditation means that I sit early in the morning." You can say physical things like that, but does that really get to your heart? Does it really get to some deeper thing? Just keep writing it 100 times: "For me, meditation means..." After a while, you can drop the "For me," but that's the idea behind it. See what you discover and stretch yourself. It doesn't have to be all at one sitting to do all 100 at one time, but maybe over the next 24 hours you can fill in that sentence 100 times.

Thank you very much. I hope that the exercise is enjoyable and useful for you, and we'll finish the series tomorrow. Thank you.