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Guided Meditation: Non-Sticky Awareness

Hello everyone, and welcome to our meditation time together. I send my warm greetings around the globe to people all over who are participating.

This week's topic is mindfulness of mind, or mindfulness of awareness. One of the interesting facets about our minds or our awareness is that sometimes it acts like Velcro, and sometimes like Teflon. Sometimes what comes into awareness—what we know, what we see, feel, think, and remember—sticks there. We get stuck, it doesn't leave us, we get preoccupied, we get caught in it.

And sometimes, actually more often than we realize, the mind is more like Teflon. Awareness is like Teflon; it just slides right off. In the ancient language, they didn't have Teflon, so they talked about a drop of water sliding off a lotus leaf. Apparently, lotus leaves are quite slick for water, so it wouldn't stay, it would just slide right off.

It's interesting to notice when it's like Velcro and when it's like Teflon. Notice that now that I've talked about Teflon and Velcro, perhaps it's lingering in your mind. You're questioning it, wondering about it, reacting to it, and it's there to stay for a little while. And then some things that are happening maybe in this moment, you're aware of fleetingly, but it doesn't stay, it doesn't stick. It's just there and passes through.

It could be something in the space where you're sitting that you're aware of, but it doesn't stick anywhere. Here in this room where I'm sitting, there are chairs. I've known these chairs for a long, long time, and except for now searching for them to tell you about them, I'm aware of the chairs, but the mind is Teflon with it. It just doesn't stick anywhere. It doesn't cause any thoughts, any involvement, any judgments, or reactions at all. The chairs are going through the mind on the Teflon side of it.

Notice, and maybe use a simple label or simple recognition: "Oh, now awareness is more like Velcro, and things are stuck, or there's an attachment, there's involvement. And now it's just like Teflon."

Same with the breathing in meditation. There might be all kinds of agendas about the breathing, and judgments about the breathing, and then the awareness is more like Velcro. You might even notice that it's a Velcro mind, or a clinging mind.

And sometimes the breathing just goes through smoothly, easily. There's no resistance to it in awareness, and the awareness just knows it. Even if the breath is a little bit labored or a little bit tight, awareness just knows tightness, knows laboredness. There's no before and after. There's no connecting it to a narrative, a story, what it's connected to, what I have to do, how it was yesterday, and what it should be tomorrow. It's just an experience of the moment that passes right through. The Teflon mind lets things pass through. They come and they go, and it just lets them pass through.

When you notice that's happening, you might use a label like Teflon. Or if you prefer, lotus leaf, or just free. Stuck and free, Velcro and Teflon—whatever is nice for you. Begin to sit here and appreciate that you have both capacities. The capacity we're cultivating and growing is the Teflon, the lotus leaf. As you sit here, you can appreciate and emphasize that side of the mind.

Assuming a comfortable, alert posture.

Lowering your gaze, maybe down towards the floor 45 degrees, with your eyes still open, soften the focus.

Then, if it's nice, gently, slowly let the eyelids close.

And without breathing deeply, as you exhale, relax the shoulders. The belly. The muscles of the face.

And then very gently, as if the gentleness is a caring touch for yourself, take some deeper breaths.

And gently, more caring for yourself, as you exhale, relax the body. Let go.

Then letting the breathing return to normal, and again, another round of relaxation. Relaxing the face. Any tightness associated with thinking in the area of the head. Release the shoulders. And soften the belly.

And perhaps gently, caringly, you can relax deep in your core, deep in your being. A softening, a quieting within.

And then become aware of the body's experience of breathing. In this cycle of breathing in and breathing out, is any of the experience of breathing experienced more with a Teflon mind, or more with a Velcro mind?

Whatever part of the breathing is more like Teflon—it arises and passes—prioritize that. Allow things just to pass right through.

And when they don't, gently, caringly recognize it as a Velcro mind, a Velcro experience.

[Silent Meditation]

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, consider the mind's awareness when it's aware of other people. Is the mind more like Teflon, or more like Velcro in its contact with people? Either in person, or in memory, or through means of communication.

It's a gift we give others to meet them with a heart that is not sticky, a Teflon heart, a Teflon mind. It can be quite wonderful to hold someone's hand, but if they have a piece of bubble gum in the palm of their hand and you feel the stickiness, it probably doesn't feel so good. Maybe part of the wonderfulness of holding a hand is that when it's easy to release the hands, nothing sticks.

It's a gift to others to be fully present with nothing sticking. Recognizing when there's the Teflon mind and when there's the Velcro mind can support us and help us meet others with less stickiness. Chances are it's more comfortable for them. There's more room for them, they can relax, they can feel safer, it's more peaceful for them.

May it be that what we learn about attention and awareness supports us to be more like a lotus leaf, more like Teflon in our care, our respect, and our kindness for other people. May we contribute to the happiness of others, the safety of others, the peacefulness for others, and their freedom.

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

Mindfulness of Mind (4 of 5) Waking up to Non-Clinging

Announcements

Before I give the talk, I'm going to make a couple of announcements while they're still in my mind so I won't forget them tomorrow.

Next week, I won't be here. I'm teaching the first in-person retreat at our Insight Retreat Center^[1]. Matthew Brensilver^[2] will come and give the 7:00 AM talks and guided meditation. He's also connecting what he's doing for next week into a larger package for all of you in the worldwide IMC community. It includes some evening events and a Saturday daylong a week from Saturday. You can read about that on the IMC website, both in the "What's New" section on the bottom right and also on the calendar.

I'm so happy that Matthew is coming back. With all the guest teachers that we have coming, if you are at all inclined to make a donation for them, the easy place to do it is on YouTube. Underneath the video, there's some text about IMC and a link to the donate button.

The other thing is that on December 4th and December 11th, two Saturdays, we're having the next round of something we did last spring, which is a mindfulness circle for Black-identified individuals—African-Americans, Africans, anyone identified as Black. Anne is bringing her friend Kristin Rickerson^[3] along this time to help her. It's an opportunity for Black-identified people to meet together and have some discussions, little teachings, and community around this mindfulness practice.

Waking up to Non-Clinging

I see in the chat someone wrote, "Velcro, like Lila, the Velcro can be a heavenly messenger^[4]." And yes. I think what we're learning to do in this practice is to recognize the challenges we have, the ways we get stuck and attached, as messengers as opposed to enemies. As a messenger, you don't want to kill the messenger, but you want to learn from it. You want to use that opportunity to wake up.

This idea of waking up is such a beautiful one, this concept that when you wake up to something, nothing changes in the world, but you now see clearly. You now understand clearly. So maybe there are attachments in the mind, clinging in the mind, but you wake up to it. It's almost like you've become bigger than it, and you realize, "Oh, that's what's happening. I see it." There is something about that clear seeing where there is freedom. There is the process of moving into Teflon.

The analogy I'm using is that sometimes the mind can be more like Velcro, and sometimes more like Teflon. For this week, I'm using these synonymously: mind and awareness. So mindfulness of mind and mindfulness of awareness for this week are the same thing, and it's closely connected to mindfulness of attitude, or the way in which we relate to experience.

What's happening as we practice is a restoration process of the simplicity of awareness, the most simple form that's accessible to us. Some people might want to call it the natural state of awareness. That is a little bit of a philosophically dangerous thing to claim, but it's kind of like that. It just feels so healthy, so right. This is home—to have awareness which doesn't stick to anything, but allows things to arise and pass through.

As we become mindful of awareness, of mindfulness, of attention, it becomes clear that attention is operating with a certain level of porousness, transparency, non-stickiness, and non-clinging. There's a clarity to the fact that, yes, there's a sound outside, and it just comes through without any waves or ripples in the mind. It's true that my knee hurts, and there are no ripples, no contractions, no stories, and no agendas around it. It's known clearly. We're awake to it, meaning we've become larger than any story, agenda, reactivity, or judgment, and awareness can just be with it and feel it with clarity. It is like Teflon; things just roll off or are allowed to float.

As we do mindfulness practice—and this is not automatic for beginners, but as we get deeper into the practice—at some point, we become aware of the nature, quality, or characteristics of how we're paying attention: the attitude, the engagement, and the extra baggage we have along with it. One aspect that's particularly significant for Buddhists is to become aware of the clinging that has us lingering on things, holding onto things, pushing against things, and wanting things.

As we see that clearly, you would certainly let go of it, but it's also possible to wake up to it. This waking up is the restoration of this healthy, liberated mind. We can certainly get relief by letting go, and please let go when it's easy enough to do. But there's a whole other process that has to do with waking up, the restoration of a clarity in which whatever happens can occur and pass through.

One image sometimes used for this is that the mind becomes like an endless sky. Clouds, birds, and all kinds of things go through the sky, but they don't stick to the sky. The sky doesn't interfere with them, doesn't stick to them, doesn't hold on to them. The sky just is; it just lets everything go right through. There are times when awareness can be like that. And that possibility is not necessarily so far away if we associate it with this waking up.

Rather than saying, "How can I be mindful of this thing?" we can sometimes ask ourselves, "How do I wake up to its presence? How do I wake up to it here?" What's the difference between being mindful (knowing it) and waking up to it? I associate it with an expansion of awareness, where awareness seems to have lots of capacity to know without reacting to what is known. It has lots of capacity to allow things to just be there, floating in the sky of awareness, without doing anything, having an agenda, or wanting anything about it.

As we practice this restoration of a healthy mind, a free mind, a Teflon mind—or if you prefer a more natural image, a lotus leaf mind where water drops just roll right off, or a sky-like mind—this is a very different orientation than how most minds operate. Most minds are operating focused on what they want or what they don't want. They are focused on the objects of attention, objects of thought, and are sometimes blinded by them, completely preoccupied with them, and stuck on them.

Now we're turning the attention—not exactly away from the objects of mind—but we're shifting the focus to something that is bigger or larger than any particular thing that we're thinking about, wanting, or not wanting. In that spaciousness of mind, openness of mind, stillness of mind, and smoothness of mind, there is a degree of freedom. There's a healthy feeling of being alive and breathing.

With that as a reference point, it becomes clear when the mind gets stuck, when the mind gets caught in something, or when the mind gets preoccupied. There's stickiness there. This is one of the great functions of this practice. As we get more sensitive and more attuned to when we get attached, stuck, contracted, or preoccupied in a way that's not healthy and useful, that heightened sensitivity ideally doesn't lead to more stickiness. It doesn't lead to more judgments and self-criticism about being caught. Instead, it becomes almost a delight: "Oh, I see it here, and this is good that I see it. Great. This is the heavenly messenger," as it was said.

And then to ask yourself the question, "How do I wake up to this now? What is it like to be awake with awareness?"

So, relaxation. That supports more open awareness, the recognition of awareness itself, respecting awareness, and the restoration of this wonderful capacity of awareness. And then tomorrow, the release of awareness.

Thank you very much.