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Guided Meditation: Meditation as a Journey

So, a good Monday to all of you. Warm welcome, and I hope that the beginning of this week finds you well, and if not, I hope that the unfolding of the week goes well for you.

Our companion for this day, this morning for this sitting, is the statue on the IMC altar, a statue of the Buddha. And it's more than just a statue; it is a depiction of a particular event in the life of the Buddha, or to say it more accurately perhaps, not just an event but in the story of the Buddha.

There's a custom sometimes in different rooms in a Buddhist monastery, the Buddha will depict a different story. In some rooms where mostly the Dharma is taught, the Buddha's hands are in a teaching gesture. In a place where meditation is emphasized, he's often in this posture here, where it's a meditation posture, and it depicts the moment of his awakening, or just before his awakening. His right hand is reaching over his right knee to touch the earth, and I'm literally blocking it.

It's a story that is inspiring for many people. It's meant to be here to represent a story that becomes our own story. It's a story of sitting in the middle of our life. The Buddha sits very stable, strong, and the uprightness of the Buddha is not an uprightness that turns away from anything but sits in the middle. The depiction is an occasion where the chaos and temptations and worldly challenges of life are all around the Buddha, and he has an equanimity, he has a balance in the midst of all the challenges that are coming in the story that is depicted in the statue.

And then he's challenged in some deep way about his right to be awakened, and he reaches and touches the earth, calls upon the goddess of the earth as a witness to his right, to the appropriateness, the naturalness of him becoming awakened. And this reference to the earth can evoke many different things for different people. For some of us, for me, it evokes the naturalness of it all, or the way in which we are part of the earth, part of this nature, and that any movement to deny that, pull away from it, separate ourselves from that with greed, hatred, and delusion is a loss. And we can come back to that place of home, of freedom, which is kind of our place in nature.

So that's a story, and the statue depicts a story. In a sense, when we sit down to meditate, we are participating in a story, a story of finding peace, a story of waking up, a story of compassion, of discovering, engaging in this world not to fix it, not to run away from it, not to return to some pristine way in which things used to be, but rather to find our equanimity, our calm, our peace. It's a journey, in a sense, it's a story. In a sense, every time we meditate, we could tell the story of that meditation, of how it unfolded and what the challenges were.

Sometimes this idea that it's a journey, a story, a journey that we can narrate, can be a distraction for sure, but it also can be an inspiration. It can give us a sense of possibility and encouragement, inspiration to, "Yes, here I am on this journey. Let me stay in the journey. Let me stay in the story," as opposed to slipping away into other stories that maybe are depressing or just not to the point, or worse.

So in this story, we are here to be present. To begin with, establishing our presence with our body. Everyone has a little different body, so the posture we take will be different from each other. Some will sit cross-legged, some in a chair, some lying down. Some of you might actually be standing or doing walking meditation during this time. But to enter into your posture, whatever your posture is, with a dignity and a metaphorical uprightness. Here is the place to be established, to be rooted. Here in the middle of this world, of your world, to sit with a posture expressing some level of stability, calmness, rootedness here.

And then to gently close your eyes.

And to appreciate this body that we have. Whatever the challenges of the body might be. In a sense, this body is our companion. This body has to sit with respect and dignity for this body. To feel it and sense it as it is.

And with appreciation, with love, with compassion, to take a few long, slow, deep breaths, three-quarters full. And a long exhale, releasing, relaxing as you exhale.

Letting your breathing return to normal.

And with a normal breath, to continue this entering into your body. It may be similar to lowering your body into a warm or refreshing pool of water. Entering into your body from the top down. With the relaxing of the face.

The relaxing of the shoulders.

With the relaxing of the chest.

The softening of the belly.

And within this body, to become attuned to the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.

And there is a kind of communion or companionship with the Buddha and breathing. In that he too meditated mindful of his breathing. And so that some of the sensations, your experience of breathing, are the same as his.

And as we sit here, we're engaged in a journey, a story of relaxing the mind enough and focusing the mind enough so that we allow ourselves to just be here in this moment's experience, breathing.

Touching the earth that's within, that we are.

If you find yourself distracted, re-enter the story of waking up here. Of being present here. Rooted, grounded in your lived experience.

See it as a journey, a process of entering the present more and more fully. Breath by breath, moment by moment. Give yourself to the journey.

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, to appreciate anything that can be appreciated about this journey of meditation. To appreciate maybe how you are right now. The relief of coming to the end, the ways in which you are now maybe a little bit calmer or centered than you were before.

This particular 30-minute story is coming close to an end, and it is what it is, the journey. And there's a tradition in Buddhism to never end a journey of practice without dedicating the value of the practice for the benefit of others. That in whatever ways this can work, seen and unseen, intentionally and unintentionally, we aspire, we wish that the story doesn't end here with us, but that rather the story continues into the world, benefiting the world from our efforts here.

May it be that spreading from us, the hundreds of us that are meditating together this morning, may there be a radiating glow or radiating momentum of benefiting the world. May the world be better, safer, happier, more peaceful because we've meditated here today. And may we contribute to that possibility in the people we encounter, the places we go, the things that we do today.

And may this journey, story of benefiting the world continue for a long time.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Stories (1 of 5) Source Stories

So welcome to this Monday morning Dharma talk, beginning of the week. As usual, there will be a five-part series, and today I'm inspired to have the week be about story, and to have a five-part talk using the word "story" as an acronym, each letter to stand for some aspect of story.

Today it'll be S, source story. And then T, trapping stories, stories that trap us. O, opening stories, the stories that release us from the trap. And then R is releasing the stories. And then there is Y. For Y I'd like to use the word "yes", and what that means we'll have to wait until Friday to understand the "yes" in relationship to this theme of stories.

In Buddhism, this Insight Vipassana^[1] tradition historically has put a lot of emphasis on the fourth theme of the week: releasing stories. Letting go of stories, learning how not to live in stories as we meditate, not to live in the storytelling mind, the discursive mind that's talking to itself and thinking, and learning to release. And that's certainly a very important part of this path of mindfulness practice and something that we learn.

But sometimes it gets overdone in such a way that we overlook really understanding deeply the nature of how stories work in our lives, their centrality, and their importance. Not a few people have pointed out that stories are really crucial to human society and human beings. It's how we understand ourselves, how we form identities. The stories we tell our children are not just stories; they're often passing values and an understanding of self, and an understanding of the cultural self, how we fit into society and how we are. Stories are what conveys all kinds of cultural values and identities of how we fit into this world.

It has been pointed out that as much as we might focus on religions as being a set of doctrines, for most people what is most animating and engaging around religion is the stories of a religion that somehow we identify with. There's a narrative there in which maybe people feel they can participate in or they enter into or inspires them for how they live their lives, because life is a narrative. Life could be something we explain through a story of what happened. If a friend asks you, "How did it go today?" and you tell them the story of parts of the day, they have a bit better sense of how you are, perhaps. It's much clearer.

So stories are quite important. Some of the stories that we carry inside of ourselves that influence us are somewhat subconscious. We don't always think of it in terms of a story, and so I call this a source story. Maybe it's a bit dramatic to use as an example, but it speaks, I think, to how central stories can be, or events, narratives that really shape a person.

For many years I've been going to San Quentin State Prison, though I haven't done it the last few years because of the pandemic. But I'll visit a particular program, a year-long mindfulness-based anti-violence program, helping some prisoners deal with their violent past, deal with their own past and their difficulties, and really confront themselves in a very deep way. The group of prisoners, about 30 who do the program every year, become each other's challengers and each other's best friends, supporting each other to really take a deep look at their lives, at the origins, the source of the violent life that they lived.

Most of the men in the group of 30 have killed someone, so it's pretty bad what they've done. But what's remarkable is to be there and discover that each of them had a source story, an original event that happened that became the primary pain that they carried with them, that became the pain from which they acted violently in the world. Unresolved, festering pain from some event in their life, a story. Often having to do with a parent, often for these men having to do with a father who was violent at home, who was violent to them, violent to their mother, or a father who was killed. The trauma that a young child went through was so difficult, no one then supported them, no one helped them. They were left with their pain and started acting out to get away from the pain, to somehow try to feel better in this very dysfunctional way.

Without these prisoners taking a deep look at the source story, the source event, and really coming to terms with it, the transformation out of their violent life can't really happen. It's remarkable to go there and watch, to see them grapple and struggle with this and come out to the other end. Some of these men that I've met, they become deeply transformed and changed; it's inspiring to see.

So each of us probably has some source story. Maybe it's a series of stories that have created an attitude, an orientation, a belief about this world that we live in. Those stories conditioned us, and we carry that with us. So the source story is something like, when we see the world and go outside, we might see that everyone is dangerous. There's danger everywhere, and no matter who we meet, the first instinct is to be afraid of them, to be mistrustful of them. Certainly, it's wise to have some mistrust of some people and be afraid of some people, but to have that as the policy, the de facto orientation, probably was something that happened in our youth, some event that conditioned us that led us to believe that something dangerous happened to us.

Other people might have a story of hope, that they've somehow taken in a story that's been told over and over again, and they have an idea that there's a hope of getting somewhere, of attaining something. Sometimes the hope is unrealistic: the hope of becoming rich, the hope of becoming famous, the hope of becoming a movie star.

So what's the story we've been told? What's the source story of your life? What kind of orientation, story, attitude, policy do you carry with you about other people, about yourself? Are those stories happy stories? Are they debilitating stories? People who investigate the narratives that people live their lives by sometimes have divided narratives into three types. The narrative that there's some kind of normal life to come back to that's been disrupted, and the story is how do we get back to what we had. The other story is that the world is dangerous and chaotic and it's not going to get any better, it's just going to get worse, and so we have to do the best we can to protect ourselves and to keep the world at bay, or keep others at bay, and that's all about our own protection.

A third story is that of the quest. That yes, the world is maybe dangerous, it's chaotic, things change all the time, and there's no normal to go back to, but there is a possibility of engaging in a journey to freedom, to peace, to transformation, to wisdom. To make the best out of the situation and be personally transformed, to become a better person that's independent of the situation that we're in.

The quest is the one that I think is most empowering and the most realistic. The idea of returning to some pristine state is never going to happen when life is always changing. The idea that it's all going downhill from here, that the world is chaotic and a terrible place, we just have to do our best to protect ourselves, or be afraid, or be angry, that everything is terrible—is also not necessary, so it's very debilitating. The idea that I'm chaotic, that I'm a mess, that I'm somehow incapable or a terrible person, that's a story that has no hope and no possibility in it.

And then there's the quest. We don't get bogged down by the stories, but it's a story beyond stories, a story out of the debilitating stories. It's a story to discover how to be free.

So the source story. These brief words that I've said today, I don't know if they speak well enough for your particular situation, but you might spend some time thinking about what is the source story? What stories, what events, narratives, situations in your life—either a particular one or some kind of pervasive ongoing way of how you were raised, what kind of worldview was provided for you, what kind of philosophy, what kind of story about what this life is about have you learned? And is there something that is deeper than maybe you're fully conscious of? It might not be a big story, it might just be an attitude or a belief, an approach to how we are emotionally as we go through the world. But to see the source story, and maybe there's a source story that is the origin for so much of how you live your life, understand yourself, who you are.

I'm doing this theme partly, I think, inspired by a continuation over the last little while talking about emotions and anger and grief. It's maybe a continuation of this emotion theme because the chronic emotions of our life most likely are connected to some story. What is that story, and how do you tell that story? Is it the right story? Does the story change over time? What's the source story for the story you tell of your life?

So thank you. And tomorrow we'll do trapping stories, how some stories trap us in their grip, in their web. Thank you.