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Guided Meditation: Touching into Joy

Okay, so why don't we go ahead and get started this evening? It's nice to see, at least on the screen, a couple of comments there, know that you're out there. Welcome to our Monday evening sit. Diana is away, so I'm very happy to be here. Some of you know me; I've taught a number of times at IMC for a while, and it's a delight to share this time with you.

Settling the Body

So let's go ahead and get started with our meditation. Finding a posture that's upright, also relaxed, and something where you'll be able to sit for a little while.

Just feeling a sense of settling in, knowing that you've arrived for the sitting. And if you're comfortable doing so, you can close your eyes. Just let your eyes gently close. If you're more comfortable with them open, that's okay, but usually, in our practice, we would keep them closed.

Maybe taking a couple of long, slow, deep breaths to really bring the air into the body. And then, on the exhale, encouraging the shoulders to drop, the body to soften, the spine to still remain upright. So we're settling into a posture that is at ease, and also alert.

And then you may begin to bring the attention inward and just encourage some ease in parts of the body that we often hold tense. Softening the muscles of the face, the forehead, around the eyes, jaw. Softening the eyes and the eye sockets. Especially if we've been looking at the screen, often the eyes get a little tense.

And down through the shoulder area, letting the shoulders drop. Maybe thinking of the shoulder blades sliding down the back, so we don't slump as we soften the shoulders. Down the arms, into the hands, releasing any tension in fingers from typing. And down into the torso area, softening the chest. Maybe deliberately feeling the front, back, and sides of the ribcage. Also, when we look at the screen, a lot of our energy tends to go forward in the body, so it's so helpful to bring the attention to the back, the back of the ribcage.

Down through the belly, letting the belly be soft. All the way down into the hip joints. Feeling the seat against the chair, or the cushion, or the bench—wherever you're sitting, letting that support you. And softening down through the legs. Releasing any bracing or tension in the knees or the ankles. And if you can, feeling all the way into the feet.

Ease of Mind

So then, having invited ease through the body, just returning attention to the full sense of the body sitting, the general overall sense. And just being at ease mentally with how the body is right now. It's fine just as it is.

Gently allowing the attention to settle onto the sensations of breathing. These sensations are very simple, almost elemental. The touch of the air on the nostrils or the upper lip. The sense of coolness in the nasal passages. Some sense of expansion, maybe the shift of clothing against the skin.

Maybe even a sense of tension near the top of the in-breath. And then that stops, and we begin the out-breath. There's a different kind of movement, maybe warmth as the air exits. It's a whole kaleidoscope of simple sensations in sequence, and we can just flow along with that.

Just as we invited ease through the body, we can begin to encourage ease of the mind. Perhaps using the body is a simple way to stabilize the mind. The body is sitting still, relatively, so we encourage the mind to become simpler, stiller.

Certainly, the goal is not to end our thinking or eliminate any emotions present, but more to have a simple presence with whatever is here. Just as we can be simple with the movement of the breath in the body, we can be simple with the movement of thoughts, emotions, the normal activity of the mind. We just try not to get so caught up in it, but instead just to hold it in simple awareness.

And if the mind has gotten caught up in thought, some concern, it's no problem. As soon as you notice, just returning to the simple presence of the body, simple awareness. You can anchor in the breath or the body. In fact, we may even notice that the moment that we come back, when there's presence again, there's a little bit of joy. It's actually slightly pleasant to be present.

Tuning into Joy

So I encourage you in this sitting to notice the simple joy that accompanies mindfulness. Even if what we're mindful of is some discomfort in the body or in the mind, the mindfulness itself has a certain quality of joy to it. Just seeing if you can notice that from time to time as you continue with regular practice.

In this meditation, continuing on, if you begin to feel some degree of ease in the body or the mind just from having settled even a little bit, you're encouraged to tune into that feeling. That pleasant feeling of well-being, or a little bit of peace, or softness in the body, or a mild kind of joy in the mind.

We don't need to only be neutrally mindful about our experience. It's actually fine if we're feeling meditative feelings of well-being to open to those, include them explicitly, bring our mindfulness to those also, so that they are supported and nourished in a natural way. And if you don't feel so much of that, that's okay too. But just to be aware when such a sense of ease arises and allow it to be nourished.

The monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu^[1] says that sometimes as he practices with the breath, he just has the simple idea of not adding any new tension on the in-breath, and releasing a little bit more tension on each out-breath. That could be physical or mental tension. And practicing in that way, it's very easy to tune into the ease that's present. So that we're not adding anything on the in-breath, and we're deepening into the ease on the out-breath—whatever ease is available.

Final Reflection

And in the last few minutes of this meditation, I'm going to invite just a brief reflection, if it's of interest. As you continue to sit in meditation, with the breath, with the body, bringing the mind into the present moment, just reflect on any sense of delight, or joy, or gratitude for the Dharma^[2], for your practice, for having a path to walk.

However it is that you think about this role of Dharma in your life, consider the appreciation or positive feelings from that. Just keeping the mind simple, maybe even feeling in the body that feeling, a simple sense of joy in the Dharma, however that is for you. And just resting and breathing with that feeling.