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Guided Meditation: Space & Sensation

Welcome. Hello. If you're on the West Coast, good morning. The rains have come to IRC. It's cozy. Nice to have a cozy morning when we're talking about compassion.

So far this week, we've talked through three levels of dukkha^[1]—suffering, disease, stress. And then three faces of compassion that arise in response: a patience, a capacity, a humility. And today we move into the fourth.

So if yesterday brought recognition of any contribution we might be making, today brings us subtle attention to the dukkha itself. The actual sensations, we might say the textures of dukkha. The heat, the contraction, the pressure, whatever it might be. It's right here and right now. In the body, through the body. So when mindfulness matures at a certain point, then the specifics become the obvious thing.

So in this morning's practice, we'll start with spaciousness. Inviting a wide mind. And then within that, seeing if there's any dukkha present and sensing the moment-to-moment sensations. The textures. Whatever's here. So, wide first. Sky first. Then the dukkha.

So, let's begin.

Settling in, in a way that's familiar to you. Perhaps sensing the physical support. The pressure from the cushion or the chair, whatever is supporting you. Our firm base.

Letting the spine grow long. From the base through the crown of the head. And finding upright balance. Front to back, left to right.

Relaxing into upright. And taking a few deep breaths. Connecting with the sensations of the body.

Letting the breath flow in naturally, flow out naturally. In its own time.

This morning letting the mind grow wide in its attention. Mind grow wide.

Perhaps first sensing the space just beyond the body.

Perhaps extending the attention to the edges of the room that you're occupying. Attention all the way to the walls. Up to the ceiling. If you're outdoors, all the better.

The felt sense of space.

And letting the attention grow as wide as it likes. Even beyond the walls. Attention open like the sky.

Wide like the sky.

Whatever arises in experience this morning. A thought. A sensation. A memory. The space is wider. Broader.

And what arises... we can have the sense that whatever arises is arising within this wide space.

And you might sense if there is any maybe little disturbance. Dukkha. Maybe in the mind, maybe in the body. This tension, tightness, unease.

If so, let that be present. It's not a problem. But tune in to the sensations. Sensations of that dis-ease within this wide space.

Within the space right now, dukkha is like this. The specifics of sensation.

And so then return to the particulars. Within this wide space. How are those sensations changing? How's the dukkha changing?

Within a wide, caring space, be sensitive to the sensations of any dis-ease. Seeing that those sensations are shifting, changing. Not a change we have to do or make.

Present here with us, right now, spatially. Willingly.

May all beings have a space to sense, and to find freedom.^[2]

[Bell]

Dharmette: Faces of Compassion (4 of 5): Wholesome Space

Good morning again. Good day. Our fourth day on the five faces of compassion.

We've been moving through these levels of dukkha: enmeshment, a little bit of space, recognizing our contribution, and then seeing how three faces of compassion are developed or arise in response, respectively: a patience or willingness, a little bit of capacity, and then the humility of seeing our contribution.

So today, the fourth. And as I said, with this fourth level of dukkha, fourth level of disease, we're coming into a more subtle observation of the dukkha itself.

So yesterday we had the dish drying story. I was on retreat and had this recurring, disruptive thought. And the linchpin that was holding the whole thing together was, as we said, a pressure in my head plus the words "we don't do it this way." And mindfulness seeing it clearly, seeing it precisely, allowed the dukkha to cool.

And now just to notice again what happened there at the level of recognition, it wasn't some idea of what relief would be like. It wasn't an idea about the dukkha. It was the specifics of sensation, direct experience, specific pressure, specific place, particular words. And looking at the dukkha in its particularity in this way, that's the fourth level of dukkha. It was already there with us in the story. It's this direct sensing of the particulars.

So, yesterday's recognition of our contribution becomes today's fine-grained sensing. This experience.

I think it would be interesting to set up a contrast between this fine-grained sensing of direct experience, sensing of dukkha, with a few words about the power of our thoughts and stories. I like to say that our thoughts are certainly worthy of our respect. And they're very powerful in their influence.

Our thoughts, including our thoughts about dukkha, have so much power over the mind that we react to them physically, emotionally, behaviorally, as if they are real events.

An example to illustrate this: I learned not too long ago a little bit about early cinema. Apparently, these two brothers, the Lumière brothers^[3], around 1895 or 1896, were having their first exhibition in Paris, their first screenings. Can you imagine what it's like to see a movie for the first time? Do you remember what it's like to see something on a screen? And imagine how big it was.

According to some reports, at least, the audiences were mesmerized. Understandably. Mesmerized audience. One of the films had the very descriptive title Arrival of a Train at the Station. And according to some reports, as the train pulls in, the crowd reacts with such a shock. They're trying to dodge the train to not be struck. They believed their eyes. Or they believed the story as they saw it. They believed this train was coming at them, and this is so similar to the power of our thinking.

A story arises in the mind, almost like a film sometimes, and our body responds, our mind responds, we leap into action, as it were. So when our attention stays at the level of story, at the level of sort of gross concept, we're more inclined to react.

So an alternative is available through the body. The alternative to attend to the fine-grained sensations of the here and now, letting go of the story, and instead feeling, sensing through the body. This might sound familiar from our mindfulness instructions.

So at this fourth level of dukkha, the sensations are what become obvious. The particular sensations. Returning briefly to the dish drying story again, mindfulness examined the experience in its specificity. The contraction, the heat, the tightness, the image of this yogi^[4]. The sensed experience. Particular.

Another way to put all this is that at the fourth level of dukkha, the fourth level of suffering, we're not experiencing dukkha so much in terms of the content of the story as the particulars of sensing.

So, I put a lot of emphasis on this because it does something important. For one, it helps us move out of the head, so to speak, into the spaciousness of the body. Spaciousness of the body.

So, if the particulars of an experience of dukkha is the fourth level, what's the fourth face of compassion? I want to call it wholesome space. It's a caring attention with enough room and enough time that the dukkha can reveal itself. That the awareness can hold what's revealed without too much reactivity.

So, we have this metaphor of the film, of course. The cinema, jumping out of the way of the train, is experienced as real enough to duck. The fourth face of compassion was kind of within this image the whole time. In Suzuki Roshi's^[5] image of the plain white screen.

He says that our everyday life is like a movie playing on a wide screen. Most people are interested in the picture on the screen without realizing there is a screen.

So, perhaps we can say then that if dukkha is the movie in all its particulars, the compassion is the plain white screen. The space in which it plays out, something spacious and unperturbed. There's room enough, time enough for the specific sensations to arise and be registered and to fall away without too much reactivity.

So, this is the fourth face of compassion, wholesome space. A plain white screen, it sounds so detached or cold or something, but we might miss that it's a face of compassion. But, this wholesome space allows for an experience of dukkha to just be what it is. Not unlike the warmth and space that a grandmother gives to her little one.

So, one more image for how this wholesome space and the specifics of dukkha work together. And that is the thread count. The thread count of dukkha. You know, we know what a thread count is. It's like the fineness of the weave in a cloth.

And when mindfulness gets steady and still and close, we start to be able to see dukkha closely, the exact threads that are holding it together, that are weaved together. The heat thread, the pressure thread, the story thread.

When the weave is seen in all its fineness, it starts to loosen naturally. Because seeing the details changes our relationship to the experience. It's much like the magic trick from yesterday. Once we get this fine-grained look at how dukkha is operating, it becomes less convincing. The relationship eases. And the weave^[6] eases with it.

So, we have this fourth level of dukkha, the fine-grained sensations here and now. And we have this fourth face of compassion, the wholesome space. Space that's wide enough to hold.

And the effects of this, of course, extend beyond the cushion. Again, to recall the dish drying story. After mindfulness recognized the details in this compassionate spaciousness, I knew that something had shifted and it affected how I saw. The clinging was lessened.

Maybe we'll say the movie that was playing had less brightness, maybe a quieter soundtrack or something. And then I really knew that something was different the next time I went back to the kitchen. Nothing had changed in my teammate's methods. It was the same old stimuli, but my relationship to the experience had changed. It was just appreciation and simplicity.

To emphasize the point again, I hadn't set out for those particular fruits. I didn't make them happen. But seeing cooled the fires. Compassion offered enough space and time for mindfulness to do its healing work.

So, five faces of compassion. What we can expect is that as mindfulness practice unfolds in relationship to dukkha, the experience of dukkha changes, the different aspects of compassion can come forward.

And the encouragement for today is, if some dis-ease comes to visit, remembering and recognizing the space around it. And then offering enough space, enough room and time for the particulars. Sensing the textures. It's right here through the body. And may it be a nourishing practice.

Please take care for the day. Enjoy the rain. Enjoy the sun. May the warm sun of compassion shine on all beings. Take good care.