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Guided Meditation: Confidence

Hello everyone. Welcome to our meditation together. I very much appreciate the togetherness of this practice, that we never really walk this Dharma path alone. Even if we're meditating alone, it's not really alone. We're accompanied by generations of practitioners before us, and many practitioners who are practicing to this day. And then, for all of us here sharing this time together to meditate: thank you.

As we begin, I want to evoke a description of the school of Zen that I practiced in, the Soto Zen school, many years ago. The way they described themselves, first, they claimed to be more the Zen of farmers. Other forms of Zen were more the Zen of the samurais. I like this idea of farmers who are tilling the soil, and the certain kind of humbleness of being with the soil and that life outdoors.

But also, they described that form of Zen as being about attention to detail. There's something powerful about attending to the details of our life as if they matter. One of the things that matters—it's a small detail—is the posture you assume when you meditate. Some people err on the side of being as comfortable as they can, and that can be fine; it can be appropriate. But in doing that, maybe you miss an opportunity. Because one of the details of a healthy life, a strong life, a life that's not swept this way and that way by the winds of life^[1], by the tragedies of life, is a life that has some degree of confidence in it. Confidence is the ballast. Confidence is the way in which something is rooted so it doesn't move so easily.

In terms of attention to detail, even if you don't feel much confidence, assume a posture that expresses confidence. Put your body in a position where if someone saw you—or if you saw someone this way—you would think, "Oh, that person's confident." There's nothing insincere about placing the body in this posture, even if you feel a lack of confidence.

Sometimes, if you lead with the body, the mind follows. If you lead with the body, there's a marvelous reference point to understand ourselves better. Maybe one of the reference points of a confident posture is that it's easier to see the lack of confidence, and see that maybe we don't have to believe in it. Maybe we can sit strong, firm, and rooted here, and not be pushed around so much by the winds of the mind. So, assuming a meditation posture that, if you're up for it, feels expressive of some confidence. Maybe a posture that allows the chest to be open a little bit, coming forward into the world. Not puffed up, certainly; confidence is not arrogance. Maybe one where the back is a little bit straighter, more self-supporting, a little bit more upright.

Take some time to feel a solid contact with whatever is holding up your body. If you're sitting in a chair, it can begin with the feet. Maybe both soles of the feet firmly on the floor, or some block you have to hold up the feet. If you're sitting cross-legged, take some time to feel the triangle of the knees and the seat. Maybe even rock back and forth and feel the stability of the contact, your weight resting against the mat, your cushion, or your floor.

There's an art to relaxing parts of the body, not so that you sink, but so that your spine is gently lifted up and straightened. Sometimes relaxing in the waist, relaxing the small of the back, and relaxing the top of the thighs is a way of doing that. It allows that kind of lifting up out of the base, for the spine to be a little straighter.

If your eyes are not closed, close them now so you can better feel the solidity of your body, the weight, the substantiality of it, the three-dimensionality of your body sitting here. Is there some place in your body that you associate with confidence? Or, if not confidence, some place where some kind of inner strength resides, however weak, however small? Put your attention in that place. Breathe with it. And if it's there, to feel the confidence, the strength—appreciate it. Confidence and the physicality where the body knows it is here. The body knows and feels its vitality, its livingness. The body has no doubts of the time and place where it resides: here and now.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, relax the mind. As you exhale, let go of doubt, of any thought that diminishes your own value. As you exhale, let go into the body—a body that supports breathing, makes room for breathing. A body that yields to the movements of breathing: no resistance, just yielding. As we continue meditating, perhaps some of the body's confidence can gently, lovingly support you to be present here and now, with your breathing, with your body. Confidently letting go of any thoughts that you have.

By having a posture which is confident, the confidence can be silent. No thoughts, no ideas that have to go with it. In fact, it's a confidence that allows the thinking mind to rest.

As we come to the end of the sitting, in subtle ways, can you sit up a little bit with more confidence? Or evoke a more confident way of being here in this meditation? Even if you just imagine yourself confident: a certain inner strength, a faith in one's own capacity to be present, to be able to face the challenges of life. The kind of confidence that is pleasant, that you appreciate having.

Then, with this confidence, gaze out upon the world, looking upon all things kindly, with kind eyes, friendly eyes. The confidence supports your ability to remain with a kind regard for all things. It's the kind of confidence that supports goodwill, supports kindness.

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

In directing this goodwill to all beings, we are directing it also to our fellow meditators. Each of them is part of this category of all beings. So I end this meditation with a wish that each of you be well and happy. May all of you be happy. May all of you be safe. May all of you be peaceful. And may all of you be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Hindrances and Assistances (5 of 5) Doubt vs. Confidence

Hello everyone. We are coming to the fifth of these five talks for those of you who looked for them in the recordings this week. The talks are called "Hindrances and Assistances"—the things that hinder us and the things that assist us in this life.

I'm looking at these categories of ways of being, which can either go in a hindering way or an assisting way, a positive way. Desires can hinder, but desires can also help free us and move us in good directions. Averting can take the form of hostility and aversion, but averting can also be turning away in a healthy way, an appropriate way of stepping away. Freezing, sloth and torpor^[2], and going numb is a version of being still, which is the hindering one. But there is also the stillness which is clarifying, which creates clarity and presence. There is being animated with the energies of our life that can lead to restlessness, preoccupation, thoughts, and regrets. And there's also a way of being animated that comes from a deeper place, that suffuses us with a sense of wonderful vitality.

Today, the hindrance—or maybe the category—is "not knowing." Not knowing can take the form of confusion, doubt, indecisiveness, and uncertainty. People get caught up in these and make all kinds of bad decisions because of their doubt. Or they make no decision at all because of their indecisiveness, and they're kind of caught. But the positive side of this is a certain confidence, a decisiveness that doesn't have to know anything.

Sometimes we don't know, and the not knowing leads to doubt. Or, the not knowing can be held in confidence. One could know clearly, "I don't know," but without collapsing, without getting agitated, without feeling ashamed. Rather, we take a posture of confidence. If you're standing, stand with both feet firmly on the ground, standing tall. Act as if it's completely fine not to know, and just announce it, even to the whole world: "I don't know." Almost as if people will be inspired that it's possible to be alive, confident, breathing, and not to know.

So, a person has no doubts that they don't know. They know they don't know. They are not confused about it. They're not uncertain about it, and there's no lack of confidence in not knowing. There's a confidence in not knowing: definitively, "I don't know." There's some real value in that kind of clarity because then we don't give up our confidence. We can stay in our place of strength, in a sense. We stand tall, and then we can look around from that place and see much better. We can start understanding what is happening in small degrees. But if we succumb to doubt, confusion, and indecisiveness—some kind of doubt is cynicism and skepticism that keeps us swirling in thoughts—it keeps us from showing up in a confident way.

I'd like to suggest that confidence doesn't require us to understand or to make a decision. We can stand confident and relaxed in whatever way we are in life; there's no reason not to. There's a kind of healthy not knowing—the not knowing that maybe opens up possibilities, where we're more available to the world to see clearly. And there's a kind of not knowing that leads to doubt, uncertainty, confusion, kind of spiraling out, and feeling like we have to know. Certainly, there are times we have to make decisions in life, so being caught in indecisiveness is not so healthy.

But to confidently assert, confidently recognize, "I don't know what to do right now, I'm being indecisive, I'm not making a decision"—just that confidence in making that statement, standing tall and confident, just might give you access to some other way of knowing, some other way of deciding, than if we get caught in the trap of hindering doubt. The doubt where we are just agitatedly uncertain, feeling lost, confused, and uncertain about what to do. The body being confident, the heart being confident, even if the mind doesn't know what to do, can be a guide and a support for finding someplace inside that knows wisely what to do.

Look for opportunities when you don't know or you're not sure, and study yourself. See in your un-sureness, your not knowing: do you get influenced in a certain way that is depleting? Does it lower your energy, lower your confidence? Is it a little bit of a downer? Or can you step into not knowing as if it's almost like a room that you're stepping into? "Yes, I'm in this room of not knowing." But to stand there confident.

This has a lot to do with where we identify ourselves. If we identify ourselves as the one who's confused, who doesn't know, who is uncertain, then we might not be able to find a way out. But if we don't know, and if we're not certain, but we think of it simply as a room we're in, or a situation we're in—and if we're going to identify with anything, we identify with the one who can have this postural confidence. The one who can stand clearly, definitively: "I am here, I am present, no doubt about it," and do that with strength and confidence. Then the not knowing, and maybe even the confusion of what to do, is not going to debilitate us in the same way as if we identified with it, or if we saw it as a personal fault or failure that we are that way.

One of the great possibilities of meditation is to sit with some modicum of relaxed confidence in the midst of whatever storm is going on, and whatever confusion is going on. I offer this as the background for this week, or the assumption: when we face challenges in our life, it's very easy to be swept up in the drama, the concerns, the trying to figure it out, and the difficulty of it. Sometimes, whether it's conscious, semi-conscious, unconscious, or seemingly conscious, we can have strategies of trying to cope with it which are not helpful. And those are the five hindrances^[3].

Sometimes the five hindrances are used to try to escape so we don't have to face the challenge. Even restlessness, agitation, and doubt are sometimes a running away. Sometimes it's safer to be caught in those than to feel like you're addressing directly what's going on. But to take the time to pause, to step back, and ask the question, "What is my strategy with this challenge? How am I responding to it? What's my relationship to it? What am I trying to do in relationship to it? What desires are part of it? What motivations are coming up?" Simply to ask that question begins to create some space. It begins to create some independence. It creates a little different ecology than if we're caught up in the challenge.

If we've learned something about being confident in some simple way, then stepping away to ask this question—"What is going on here for me? What am I doing? How am I responding?"—to ask that question from that place of confidence changes the ecology we're working within. It's not easy to remember to be confident, because the habit of succumbing, the habit of criticism, or somehow identifying ourselves with all this is hard. But we can switch this when we get caught by simply asking questions, pausing, stepping back: "What's going on here?"

If it is the hindrances that are operating, remember not to necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe the hindrances are connected, having a relationship to the other side, to a positive side. See if you can swing the pendulum to the other side or evoke the other. If there's a lot of sensual desire for addictive behavior, for getting lost in comfort food or whatever it is, can you swing over and evoke your capacity for aspiration, your capacity for inspired desire for the good?

If you're caught up in hostility and aversion, can you swing to the other side and say, "You know, this is a difficult situation. Is there some way that I could step away now? Pause, either from the situation or from my own aversion? Maybe that's what I should step away from, avert myself from, so I can see more clearly."

These positive assistances—aspiration, stepping away, being still for the sake of clarity, finding a place to be animated from within that has a pleasure to it, that feels pleasant and not harmful in the way that agitation and restlessness can be, and finding confidence in a place of not knowing if that's what's going on—all these positive ways assist us. They work together. They support us. Having these almost as checklists that we go through can support this ability to step away from being mired in the challenge.

Try to do this in the small challenges of life, so they become easier and easier, more familiar practices to do. Then, at some point, you come to a big challenge, and you might have some healthy, beneficial capacity to go through it in a clearer way.

Announcements

Now I have some announcements. First, for the next few weeks, we have guests coming for these YouTube teachings in the morning. I'm going to be away; I'm going to teach a retreat and have a vacation with my wife. When I come back from that, I go immediately to do another retreat at our retreat center. I think it will be about a month before I come back to be here with you all. I've invited wonderful teachers to teach in my place. I think they've all been here before, and I'm delighted that they can come. In this wonderful way of mutual support, if you want to support them and their efforts in getting up in the morning while they're here, that would be inspiring for everyone.

I'll continue when I come back with a series on challenges. I hope you find it useful.

The last announcement is about the way that we broadcast these on YouTube. When I'm not here, people usually do it from their homes. To do that, we have to create a Zoom room, and then through Zoom, there's a way of transferring the broadcast over to YouTube so you can see it here. Some teachers know how to do it for themselves, but some don't. We have some dedicated volunteers here who've been helping with this—setting up the Zoom room for the teachers and supporting them so they can teach this way. But we need more.

If any of you would be interested in volunteering and learning what it would take to do this task—I mean, a lot of these technology tasks are difficult until you learn them, and then they're easy once you get the hang of it—if you're interested in helping with that from anywhere in the world, you can email contact@insightmeditationcenter.org. Or you can go on the website and find the general information email, and that will be forwarded to Kevin. Kevin will contact you and probably train you. So thank you very much.

I appreciate this time with you all this week. I look forward happily to the chance to come back here in a month. At some point when I come back, it's close to the time of finishing our third year of doing this on YouTube. For me, that's quite a wonderful anniversary as we start our fourth year. Thank you.