Guided Meditation: Being the Inner Buddha; Life as Improv (5/5) Co-Created Characters in the Play Called Life

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Med'n: Being the Inner Buddha; Life as Improv (5/5) Co-Created Characters in the Play Called Life. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 31, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Being the Inner Buddha

Greetings, friends. Greetings from Mountain View, California, and unceded Ohlone land, where I am in this moment in time. Lovely to be with you; lovely to feel your presence.

We've been exploring the theme of the dharma of improv—the improv of dharma—for the past week. As I was planning for today, there were a few more dharmic improv themes, and I had a hard time choosing one to conclude our week. This is the winner, but just so you know, there is always more room to grow and learn.

This theme is that we are a character in our story. We are a protagonist in this story. Given all the causes and conditions, we have become this protagonist, this character, with these particular thoughts, emotions, and so on. But it's not as fixed as we take it to be. It changes all the time. Have you noticed impermanence? I've heard of that somewhere: anicca^[1].

Not taking ourselves to be a fixed entity also relates to another mark of existence: not just impermanence, but also anattā^[2], impersonality. There's so much flexibility. You wake up feeling one way, having particular thoughts, and your body feeling a particular way. Two hours later, you have different thoughts and a different relationship to someone else, as if it's a different person relationally. We are being co-created by the environment, and we keep co-creating ourselves in the environment.

To not take ourselves as this fixed person in a playful way—not in a judgmental way, but acknowledging that there's a lot of range and flexibility—keeps us from feeling stuck. When our vision gets tight in our lives, we might think, "This is the only way, I'm in pain, this is difficult." But there are so many possibilities, even in the midst of pain and challenges.

With that in mind, I will offer some invitations during our meditation, and then I will offer more reflections on this afterward. Let's arrive in this body, in the way we know it in this moment in time. Arriving with the body. Greeting the body. Greeting the moment.

If you might remember from yesterday, let us feel and sense our feet on the earth. Our legs. Our sit bones connected to the cushion or the chair. Our abdomen receiving the breath. Our chest, neck, and shoulders. Face and head.

Feel this body sitting, relaxing, letting go of tightness. Releasing. Feeling itself from the inside.

Receiving the breath. This breath, in this moment in time, keeps changing and shifting. In-breath, out-breath. Greeting it with lightness. The lightness of the changing nature of this moment. Impermanence has a sense of lightness to it; this fleeting nature of phenomena, this breath, can be delightful.

And now we're going to try some dharmic experiments, if you wish. As you feel your limbs and yourself, however you're showing up in this moment in time meditating... imagine that you have an invitation from a meditation teacher, living or in the past, to enter into their mind, enter their heart, their body, and rest. Meditate like them.

Accepting this invitation, let your body take the shape of their sitting. Like their body. A sense of integrity and brightness. How about your heart? Let it feel into their resolve and intention, as well as the gentleness and openness. And their mind. Perhaps you imagine it being undistracted, steady, calm, peaceful, delighted, and enjoying the practice.

It's like an inner transmission. You are practicing as them in this moment. Try it on for size. Have fun with this inspired invitation in any way that it might support you. Not too much thinking. Simply being.

Now letting go of all this—it will be available to you later, keeping any lessons or insights that might have come up—we will shift it around. Imagine the Buddha. You might have chosen the Buddha in the past invitation, but now, invite the Buddha. Imagine your inner Buddha as a historic figure who knocks on your door and says, "Let me help you. Let me support you."

Feel your inner Buddha infused in your heart, your mind, and your body. Practicing as your heart of compassion and wisdom. Such unfathomable, beautiful qualities. You don't have to think about them; your inner Buddha is shining. It's completely infusing your body and mind as you practice now. As this inner Buddha, there's no thinking, just letting it be. Let the Buddha guide the way.

You don't have to think, figure this out, or doubt it. Trust that there is an inner Buddha in you—in your wisdom and compassion. Trust. Let them lead the way. Let them practice.

At any moment, you can begin again. You can begin again as the inner Buddha meditating, becoming the inner Buddha in this moment. Reconnect with it. Begin again. There is no need for self-judgment or chastisement if the connection gets lost. It is not a problem; simply connect again.

Practicing as your inner Buddha. Becoming the inner Buddha in this moment. What would the inner Buddha do? How would they feel? How would they be? Be them.

As we turn to close this sit together in these last minutes, feel into the qualities of the Buddha in your heart, body, and mind: peace, happiness, equanimity^[3], joy, wisdom, love. Let them shine.

Let your inner Buddha shine within you, infusing you with a taste of whatever is needed, and trusting that goodness is always available. It might be faint, but it can be called upon. Your inner Buddha, your inner source of wisdom, love, and peace—it's always here. Sometimes subtle, but always here, waiting to be uncovered and listened to.

Trust that we are planting seeds of reconnecting, uncovering, and becoming our inner Buddha more and more. We offer our goodness, our co-created collective goodness, our inner Buddhas, to all beings everywhere. May all beings be well. May all beings know their own inner goodness and wake up. May all beings wake up to their inner Buddha, to their Buddha nature, including ourselves. May all beings be free.

Thank you for your practice, friends. Take a moment to transition. If you'd like to put a word or two in the chat about what's arising for you in this moment to bring it into the field, you are welcome to.

Life as Improv (5/5) Co-Created Characters in the Play Called Life

Hello friends, and greetings to you. We are continuing the theme of the improv of the dharma this week. In our practice, I just asked you if you would like to put some words in the chat as to what came up after the guided meditation, and I'll bring some of them into the space.

"Beautiful, lightness, inspired, gratitude, and grace. Deeply peaceful, lightness, compassion, native wisdom radiating, radiant, shining, sense of humor." I love it. "Shake it till you make it"—that's great. Actually, I would say, "Fake it till you become it." I think that's the way I like to rephrase that. Thank you for that. "Aliveness, joyous gratitude infused with Buddha nature." Beautiful. "Always a beginner." Thank you so much for so many beautiful reflections.

There are so many doorways to the temple, and a sense of humor is one of them. Sometimes, when we enter the path of practice, we think it has to be serious. Actually, humor can be a great support. Awakening is just too serious for us to have no humor about it. [Laughter]

As I mentioned briefly, there are many themes, but the one for today is this dharmic perspective of the lightness of impermanence. There is a shifting, changing nature to ourselves, our thoughts, our bodies, and our personalities. In a particular environment with particular people, we show up differently. That impermanence leads to one way to experience anattā (impersonality). It is co-created, and there is such a lightness about it.

This person we are, this sense of self, is created from so many causes and conditions, which is actually one way to understand emptiness. Everything is codependently arising. Our personality and how we react might feel fixed, but the way we show up in a particular moment and our reactions are co-creations of our environment, previous experiences, and so many different factors. We often view it as, "This is fixed. This is who I am. This is the way I am, and this is how I relate." But the Buddha invited us to really see these characteristics of existence: nothing about our personality or self is fixed. It is co-created and codependently arising in each and every moment.

So, why don't we support a kinder, wiser co-creation? We certainly can, because we are part of those causes and conditions.

From the perspective of improv, you take on characters when you're playing a scene with other players. The character keeps shifting and moving. You take on one character in one scene, and another character in another. What many people have discovered is that as you take on a different character, different aspects of your personality, perception, and behavior become unleashed. You realize you're not as fixed as you thought; there are so many more degrees of freedom.

In fact, simply taking on the physicality of another being can shift your state of mind. I had a practitioner, a yogi, some years ago on a silent retreat. What they shared with me was so insightful. At first, they felt annoyed by other people. They felt annoyed by someone walking slowly, or someone acting a certain way. Their judgmental mind was frustrated. Then they made an observation: "What if there is something about their physicality that is actually making them be in the world in a particular way?"

So they made the decision to take on the physicality of the different people they were initially annoyed by. For instance, perhaps an older person was hunched over a little bit and walking slowly. This younger person tried that; they tried walking more slowly with perhaps less certainty in their steps. What they shared was that with every body posture they took, and every character they entered, there were different ways they saw the world. Their heart opened to compassion for the beings they were originally annoyed at, because they entered their world through their physicality.

As an improv performer, one of the exercises is taking on different physicalities to enter different characters. You can enter them in so many ways to open our hearts to compassion, kindness, and insight.

What we tried in the guided meditation was a different version of a practice called Buddhānussati^[4]. Buddhānussati is the recollection of the beautiful qualities of the Buddha. Traditionally, you conjure up the beautiful qualities of the Buddha: "Ah, wise... generous... peaceful... all-knowing of all worlds."

I've practiced the recollections of the Buddha a lot, and I love this practice. If you're feeling upset, unhappy, or depressed, do recollections of the Buddha. It infuses your heart with light and bliss, and your inner Buddha becomes alive. In the meditation, I was basically inviting you to do this practice of recollecting the qualities of the Buddha in a creative way—having the Buddha enter and infuse those qualities. "How would they be right now? How would they pay attention? Oh yes, the Buddha."

I was practicing along with you, and there was such a sense of shining this brilliant light of goodness, confirming, "Oh yes, it's here too." Trust that it's here too. We all have it. Sometimes it might feel covered, or we have to listen more closely to uncover it, but it's always here.

Our personality, the way we take ourselves to be, is so flexible. It is impersonal, co-created, and an aspect of emptiness and codependent arising. We can play around with the skillful means of recollecting the beautiful qualities of the Buddha, letting it nourish and infuse us. In improv terms, we're playing the Buddha character. As someone mentioned, we are "faking it until we become it." Please, let's all fake it until we become it, because that is how it happens!

If you have decisions to make for the rest of the day, ask yourself: "What would the Buddha do? What would this favorite teacher do?" I saw someone mention Ajahn Brahm^[5] in the chat. There is a lot of humor in his teachings; he is a very funny person. "What would Ajahn Brahm do in this case?"

We have so many tools and skills on the path to awakening. Empathy and compassion allow us to enter other people's worlds and see from their perspective. So use this playfulness of taking on different characters. Maybe you decide, after this sit, to go around for part of your day as some character—as the Buddha, or one of your favorite teachers. Be creative today. Play around with saying, "I'm going to go around as the Happy Buddha. I'm just going to make my breakfast, make my lunch, and interact with my friends as the Happy Buddha. Or as the Wise Buddha, the Compassionate Buddha, or the Generous Buddha."

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice this whole week. It's been fun exploring this, and it's been a delight to share all of this with you. Thank you for your enthusiasm, your practice, your heart, and your Buddha natures coming to the fore and playing in this way.

Be well, and I will see you on the path. Come to happy hour if you want more of this—well, maybe I'll do something similar to this tonight at happy hour. I'll see you on the path in different ways. Take good care, be well, dear friends. Much love and all blessings. It's been a delight. Take good care. Bye.