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Guided Meditation: Kind, Receptive Awareness

Good morning everyone. Welcome. It's lovely to see all of the names and the warm greetings popping up on the chat, all of your locations: California, Oregon, Washington, Calgary, Chicago, Bainbridge. It's really lovely to see people from all over. A warm welcome to you.

So just as you're greeting each other, maybe—if you don't already do it—take a moment to scroll through the chat and just appreciate all the warmth and friendliness in this online Sangha^[1] that has been cultivated over these years now of every weekday meeting at 7:00 A.M. Pacific Time. It's really quite something. It warms my heart and inspires me.

So we're about to get started. For those of you who haven't seen me yet or we haven't met yet, my name is Dawn Neal. I am covering for Gil^[2] this week, and the topic we are covering is inner and outer harmony of mind and heart. So just a refresher on that.

The invitation as you start to settle in, make your greetings, and read your greetings is to tune into your heart. Notice how it feels to see everyone greeting each other. Maybe participate in it. Receive my welcome, my appreciation, and just really feel it here. Tune into it for a minute.

And then settling, settling and taking a couple of intentional breaths, maybe with your hand on your heart just like I have it right now. Breathing in as if you could breathe directly into your heart, and breathing out. And let that appreciation, that sense of community, of being linked all over the world to people practicing now or at other times, allow that to enter your body, your mind.

And allowing your gaze to be internal, perhaps closing your eyes. From the sensations of having arrived here, the feelings of the greetings, noticing all of the sensations in your body and welcoming those too. Welcoming your heart and mind as well, exactly as they are.

And if it feels right, setting the intention of this meditation to greet all experience that arises with mettā^[3]—kindness, friendliness. It doesn't mean condoning the subject matter of thoughts necessarily, or liking everything, but just greeting it. Greeting whatever arises. This too is welcome.

And then returning to your surroundings as well, the soundscape, whether it be a birdsong or far-off cityscape noises, or something else. And creating your internal atmosphere. Settling in, tuning in to the breathing, to the goodness of the moment, wherever it is in the moment.

Allowing the mind, the heart to rest. Rest in the gentle rising and falling of the belly or chest, or simply rest in the gentle flux of whatever is arising in now, this moment. Settling. Appreciating any pleasant sensations, any feelings of warmth, connection. Acknowledging all that's there, just there.

From time to time, re-attuning to the moment. Seeing how kindly, graciously you can invite a reconnection with awareness.

Perhaps you're engaging with loving interest in the felt sensation, known experience of now. And stay immersed in the object of attention, breath, or sound. Or if the awareness feels steady, opening up to all that is arising and flowing through. Appreciating, allowing, being with.

Final moments of this meditation. The invitation is to gather up, soak in, find any little glimpse of goodness: well-being, kindness, peace. Any goodness, and savor it, appreciate it. Allow it to make an impression on the heart, mind, and body.

And then when you're ready, begin to turn that internal gaze of your heart, your mind outwards to all of those your life touches. Casting your internal vision far and wide, and perhaps setting the intention that others may also benefit from your practice. That others be peaceful. That they be well. Notice how this well-wishing feels in your heart.

[Laughter]

Thank you for the sincerity of your practice.

Dharmette: Metta Benefits Our Meditation and Relationships

So dear Sangha, welcome. Welcome to day two of a series on inner and outer harmony—qualities that we can cultivate that help engender and promote inner and outer harmony.

Yesterday we covered practicing for the benefit of ourselves and for others, and for ourselves and others at the same time, and for all beings. Today I'm just going to touch on the many benefits—personal and interpersonal benefits—of goodwill, loving-kindness.

It's one of the qualities that the Buddha taught about both as a meditative practice, as a quality of mind and heart, and as an invaluable quality in the ways that we show up with other people. Most of his teachings were about the Sangha, but he also taught laypeople in daily life.

It's well documented, both in the ancient Buddhist teachings and in modern science, that there are many benefits of cultivating an attitude, a disposition of goodwill, kindness, mettā. So I'm just going to start by inviting you to take in some of the different translations for the word mettā, most often called loving-kindness. Just feel them in your body and feel maybe a memory or a felt sense of what resonates in your own life, in your circumstances, your personality.

The word mettā—there's no one single translation for any Pali word it seems—is translated as friendliness, non-hatred, sympathy, amity, kindness, benevolence, beneficence, goodwill, love, and active interest in others. Active interest in others.

Maybe some of these qualities seem familiar, maybe all of them do. Either having been on the receiving end of them or feeling them, noticing them in your life. And it's really true that for many people—Gil Fronsdal being one of them—loving-kindness and compassion can naturally lead to the emergence, can actually come from the emergence of mindfulness practice. For some people, the cultivation of mindfulness practice just kind of at some point transforms their hearts, the way they show up. And for others, it's also helpful to cultivate it directly, and the Buddha offers practices for that, specific ones.

I'll explore the benefits and techniques in detail of that practice actually in an introduction to loving-kindness course that I'm teaching in March through the Sati Center. So I'm not going to really go into it here. Today I'm actually mostly going to talk about how those benefits support our overall meditation practice and relationships.

A kind attitude, an inner posture of goodwill in the mind and the heart is a huge benefit, a huge boon and support for mindfulness practice, insight practice.

Some of the known benefits, both in the ancient discourses and in modern science, include a reduction of anxiety, lessening ill will or hostility, enhancing concentration, and bolstering confidence. And all of this, of course, bolsters the capacity for clear seeing, insight. And all of this can emerge, as I was saying, naturally from dedicated mindful awareness practice over years or from the specific practices and techniques the Buddha outlines.

Part of the way that the attitude and practice of mettā, goodwill towards ourselves and others, does this is by reducing preoccupation—especially self-judgment and self-criticism, but also inordinate judgment, criticism, or blame of other people. And it makes sense, right? If I'm preoccupied on what they did wrong or what I did wrong, the mind is agitated, it kind of stands on end. It's not so conducive to a peaceful meditation, it's not so conducive to a peaceful mind and heart and life.

So the calming of that, the settling of that, and eventually the lessening of this tendency to blame, or judge, or criticize—all of that has benefits that bolster maturity and inclusion in our hearts and minds in meditation practice. And it has health benefits, it turns out: better sleep, improved immune response, and better mental health.

All of these are outlined, maybe not using those specific words, in the Buddha's ancient teachings, and they're also touched on in a lot of the contemporary science. And of course, these qualities don't just appear in and benefit our meditation and one's personal experience. They spill over into the rest of our lives and benefit relationships, every interaction we have.

There's a story I've told recently in another context, a story about a wise gatekeeper that highlights this. So picture back in ancient India, Bronze Age, and there's all these different little city-states sprinkled around. And there's one or more gatekeepers at each one, and their job is to kind of monitor who flows through and who comes out, and also to orient newcomers, right? Tell them where to go or help them get settled in just a little bit, give them directions.

So there's a wise gatekeeper at this ancient gate of this little city. And one day a group of people comes through getting ready to settle, and the head of household asks the gatekeeper, "Thanks for all the information. You know what I really want to know? Tell me what people are like here." The gatekeeper contemplates for a moment, and they look at the person and they say, "What were people like where you came from?"

And the person says, "Oh, they were awful, mean, conniving. You couldn't trust them. Impolite, rude." And the gatekeeper kind of nods and says, "I think you'll find people much like that here."

The group goes on, and a few hours pass. Another family comes by, and that head of household ends up asking the gatekeeper much the same question: "So tell us, what are the people like here?" And the gatekeeper asks the same question back: "What were they like where you came from?"

And this person said, "You know, we came here for this new job, but we didn't want to leave. They were trustworthy, kind, really had your back. They did everything good neighbors would do. We're really gonna miss them. Good people." The gatekeeper nods gently and says, "I think you'll find people much like that here."

So as the story highlights, of course, the mental templates, the predispositions that we carry around influence all of our interactions, all of our relationships, just as they influence our relationships with ourselves. And this might seem really obvious until one looks at the opposite, right? The habit of criticizing oneself or others.

Many of us in Western culture might default to criticizing ourselves, and this can often flip to being critical of other people, particularly in conflict. The Buddha points out the dangers of this attitude towards conflict. He says, and this comes from the Dhammapada^[4]: "During conflict, it's easy to see the faults of others, hard to see one's own. If one focuses on others' faults and constantly takes offense, one's own toxins flourish." One's own toxins flourish. That can be true even if we're overly focused on our own defects.

It's really important not to take on all the blame or to shift all the blame somewhere else. Rather than blame, the practice or the emergence of mettā, kindness, asks us to notice, to learn with a sense of compassionate understanding for foibles, our own and others'.

Bitter seeds of blame or criticism reap a bitter fruit in the mind and heart and in our relationships, right? And happily, the opposite is also true. Kindness and goodwill create a beneficial resonance and contagious effect. This is from Dr. David Hamilton: "An act of kindness is like a pebble dropped in a pond. Just as the pebble lifts lily pads at the other side of the pond, so an act of kindness lifts the person you help, and also many others connected to that person. As their own spirits are lifted, their behavior towards others is kinder too."

So as many of you have heard me talk about, there is this ripple effect of our practice of kindness that has an uplifting effect on our lives, on our relationships, physical health, and the well-being of others, in ever-widening ripples.

So over the next 24 hours, perhaps notice how you already might bring all these different flavors of mettā, goodwill, to your meditation practice, or your life, or your interactions. And notice where you might want to bring in just a little bit more. Maybe talk about it with a friend or write about it, or just take a moment or two in your downtime.

So those are my reflections for today. Thank you. So let's just say a little dedication of the benefits of our practice. May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings everywhere be free.

[Laughter]

Thank you. Thank you for the sincerity and consistency of your practice.

[Laughter]