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Guided Meditation: Balancing

Good evening, good morning, good afternoon. I'm happy that we're practicing together.

We'll begin with a guided meditation. We'll start by just coming into the body, recognizing that we're here at this moment. Maybe in a global way, I'll just check in: how is the body? Maybe it's feeling a little bit tired, or maybe a little bit restless, or a little bit achy, or a little bit spacious, or maybe you're not quite sure yet.

However it may be, it's all welcome and invited. It doesn't mean it matches our preferences, of course, but we don't need to exclude or push away our experiences. We make room for them and allow them to be here as best we can.

Feeling connected, grounded, feeling the pressure of the chair, the cushion, the bench, the couch, whatever you're sitting on. Feeling the pressure against the body.

Then checking in with the posture: is there a sense of evenness, a sense of balance? Sometimes it's helpful to rock back and forth a bit—a little bit of an adjustment. We all know how uncomfortable it can be if we're not sitting just right. Then we find ourselves squirming or just simply getting up and abandoning it. But to feel the uprightness and the balance in the posture.

And then to allow the attention to rest on the sensations of breathing. Feeling the inhales, feeling the exhales, as the chest moves, the belly moves.

Every now and then, just check in with the body in a global sense. Just noticing the posture. Are we leaning forward? Maybe we're slumping? Maybe our chin is up? Without making it a big project, just feel into the body. Maybe the body as a whole, seeing if there's a sense of balance.

If you find that your shoulders are up or maybe you're leaning forward a little bit, we don't have to make it a problem. We just very simply bring our posture back into alignment, into balance.

If we notice that repeatedly we're leaning forward or our chin is up, we might just get a little curious: is there a mental state that's associated with this physical expression, this physical movement? Sometimes when people's chins are up, they're doing planning. Leaning forward is a little bit of striving. Getting slumped or collapsed is maybe lost in fantasy, or lost in some kind of thought, or maybe a feeling of dejection, disappointment, or sadness.

Being sensitive to our posture can be another way in which we can be aware of our experience, our inner experience. Maybe the mental state, maybe our emotional state—we might not be aware of it until we notice the shift in our posture.

So finding the balance in our posture, in our body, can help us notice when we're a little bit out of balance in the mind. Maybe there's a lot of wanting, this leaning forward. Maybe there's some collapsing mentally as well as physically. Maybe there's a lot of planning and striving. We don't have to make it a big problem or make a big project out of it. We can just very gently bring the body back into balance, allowing, perhaps, the mind to follow. Perhaps the mind is already there, but using the body and this idea of balance as a support for our practice helps us not to be out of balance, so that we can take care of ourselves and take care of others in a way that's appropriate.

In this way, our practice is for the benefit of all beings. Not just for ourselves, but for those we come in contact with, and whom they come in contact with, and so on.

So may all beings be free from suffering.

Staying Balanced

Welcome, welcome, a really warm welcome for everybody, wherever you are, whomever you are.

Sometimes when we listen to a dharma talk or give a dharma talk, there's this tendency to approach them with our cognitive minds. I know that certainly is the case for me sometimes. I've been reflecting on this, and for many of us who have had a profession or just enjoy solving problems, figuring things out, acquiring knowledge, understanding it, and creating models from the data that we get. In my years as a research scientist, I used to love that so much. I loved to get the data and be like, "Wow, okay, now what does this mean?" and put together the little pieces. There are so many different ways in which we might do this, whether we're actually doing experiments or not.

So, of course, we sometimes will bring this type of thinking or this type of way of being into the way we approach dharma talks, either giving the dharma talks or listening to them. If we're listening to them, we might have this idea that, "Okay, if I just take in enough information, if I understand it, if I can make all the little pieces fit together nice, neat, and tidy. If I just have to get everything straight, now how does this relate to that? And what precisely is the definition of that?" It's this energy of trying to figure it out, this leaning into, "Well, if only I just added all the information, then I could do this Buddhist practice thing. I could do this meditation thing."

Of course, it's easy for us to fall into that type of thinking when we have it in so many other areas of our lives. In some ways, and sometimes, that type of approach of figuring it out or acquiring information is helpful with our Buddhist practice. It is helpful with meditation, but it's not the only way, nor does it have to be the predominant way. There are so many different ways in which we might listen to a dharma talk or just approach the dharma in general.

One way this cognitive, highly intellectualized approach may manifest when listening to dharma talks is not only trying to figure it out, but there might be this little niggling^[1] thought: "Okay, surely it's not really that simple. It must be more complicated." There's always this thinking that there's got to be more here. This idea of mindfulness, just being with our experience—surely that can't be enough. Pay attention to one's breath? Surely there's got to be more than that. That doesn't seem snazzy enough.

So there's this way in which we might be tempted to substitute knowledge for practice. People think they need to acquire information or figure it out.

But there's a way in which practice can actually be really simple. One way we might think about it can be demonstrated with a simile. Perhaps some of you are familiar with this simile that's in the suttas^[2]. The Buddha tells this story as a way to make a point. Suppose there's a crowd of people who are watching a performance—a really beguiling, interesting performance. Their attention is there, and maybe there's an upbeat mood. In my mind, it's kind of like pop or rock-and-roll concerts that we see. So there are these people that are happily watching a performance.

Then, imagine that you have been instructed to carry a bowl of oil on your head and to walk through the crowd towards the stage without dropping the oil from the bowl. And just to make it a little more interesting, there's a person behind you with a sword that will cut off your head if any drop of oil falls.

It's a little bit outrageous even to imagine this, but the Buddha is pointing to this as one way we might consider mindfulness practice. That is, if you're going to walk with a bowl of oil on your head, and there's some hustle and bustle going around you, and people are paying attention to the performance, not to you, that means you need to have some mindfulness. You need to be aware, and to be aware of your posture so that you remain balanced. But there also needs to be some flexibility and some agility. You have to be aware of what's going on around you, maybe not so much that you're turning your head to look and see everything, but in a way in which your awareness is broad.

So it has to be really embodied, with a sense of agility, flexibility, and stability, to walk through this crowd with a bowl of oil on your head. And then you might consider the person with the sword that's going to chop off your head. It's pointing more to the need for sustained mindfulness. It's not just to be upright with good posture and balanced in a sense of agility once or twice, but the entire time you're walking towards this stage. I'm imagining that in the Buddha's time, it wasn't so unusual to walk with a bowl or anything on your head, so maybe it didn't have the same degree of difficulty that it might for us, but again, it's pointing to this sense of embodiment and awareness.

If this were to be a simile that points to practice, we could say, "Well, actually, in some ways the practice is simple: be aware and stay balanced."

But we might also hear about this person behind us with a sword, and we might consider there'd be some tension and some tightness about this, not flexibility or agility.

So maybe to bring in another visual—you know, sometimes we can understand things with visuals, similes, and stories. Even though Buddhism and Buddhist practice certainly have a lot of lists, there are also these stories and visual things. So here's another visual.

There is a monastic who is feeling really discouraged. He wants to leave the monastery and disrobe. Before he became a monastic, he played the lute. We can think of the lute as a proto-guitar; it's in the guitar family, perhaps. When the Buddha hears that this person, Sona^[3], wants to leave the monastery and disrobe, he goes to Sona and says, "So, Sona, you're a lute player, right?"

"Yes, venerable sir."

"Well, when the string was too loose, did it sound good?"

"No, venerable sir."

"Well, what about when the string was too tight, did it sound good?"

"No, venerable sir."

"So in the same way, tune your level of effort so that it's just right. In the same way that you would tune the strings of a guitar so it has the right sound, tune the level of effort so it's not too tight, striving, and straining, and not too lackadaisical."

One thing that's nice about the simile of the lute is that lutes have more than one string. When you tune one string, then you tune other strings to that string so that everything comes into harmony. You can pay attention particularly to one string, and then it becomes a little bit easier to tune all the others. Pay attention to the amount of energy, the amount of effort.

Maybe one indicator for how much effort one is applying is your reaction when the bell rings at the end of a meditation period. When the bell rings and there's a big sigh of relief, that's a sign that there's a little bit too much tightness. It might be too much straining or a sense of white-knuckling it until the end of the meditation period.

So we need to tune our energy. We need to have some agility. To emphasize this sense of a little bit of movement, here's one other story in which a deva^[4]—an unembodied being—comes to the Buddha and says, "Dear sir, how did you cross the flood?"

We could use the word "flood" to represent all kinds of things, but without saying anything specific, we know that floods are generally undesirable. They destroy things in their path, have a lot of power, and are the product of torrential rains.

"Dear sir, how did you cross the flood?"

"I crossed the flood by not halting and not straining."

Then the deva says, "But how, by not halting and by not straining, did you cross the flood?"

The Buddha responds, "When I came to a standstill, I sank, and when I struggled, I got swept away."

To not do anything is to sink, but to put forth a lot of effort, struggling and fighting, is to get swept away in this torrential flood, to not find a way across, but to be susceptible to the energy of the flood itself.

These are some visuals with which we might understand practice and really simplify it: be aware and stay balanced. I heard this from another dharma teacher: "Be aware and stay balanced."

What does this mean, to stay balanced? I talked about this a little bit in the guided meditation. One way is with our posture, whether we're sitting or walking or whether we're moving. I guess you don't worry about your posture so much when you're lying down in terms of being balanced. But it's really worthwhile to spend some time learning which kind of seating equipment is best, and to really learn if our ears are over our shoulders. Sometimes having to tuck the chin a little bit opens up a little space in the back of the neck so that the spine has a real sense of uprightness and allows the arms to just hang.

As we are sitting, we might notice during meditation, if we have this intention to check our posture, that sometimes there's a certain amount of leaning. It can be leaning forward, maybe not so much literally, but figuratively. Leaning backward is kind of a push and a pull that we feel in the body as well as in the mind.

If we notice that we're leaning, it might be an encouragement to inquire: what are we placing our attention on? What are we aware of? Sometimes our minds fixate on what we want or what we don't want, and this causes us to lean, either literally or figuratively—this push or pull. But mindfulness practice is to be aware of this preoccupation with what we want or what we don't want. Of course, it's a natural human impulse to be preoccupied with these things and to try to fix them, but we can be aware of our mental state rather than just letting it continue unchecked.

To be aware and stay balanced is to notice when we are a little bit out of balance. To lean towards something, to want something, to have desire for something is not inherently problematic. We all have the desire to eat when we're hungry. We have the desire to care for and protect those people we love. We have a desire for the world to be a better place. I have a desire to practice and to experience more freedom. Desire by itself isn't inherently problematic, but our practice is about becoming aware and being able to distinguish between skillful and unskillful desire. The desire that leads to more and more freedom, versus the desire that leads to getting tangled up and experiencing less freedom.

Practice isn't about getting rid of all desire, even though sometimes I have heard some Buddhist teachings that made me think that perhaps it was. This recognition of what's skillful and what's unskillful can sometimes be noticed by whether we feel out of balance or not. And if we notice that we're a little bit out of balance with our desire, one thing we can do is take a careful look at the object of our desire—the actual thing or the situation—and do this gentle inquiry: are we seeing it accurately?

Chances are, when we have a lot of desire, we're just seeing all the beautiful, attractive aspects. But the chances that something is a hundred percent beautiful are not high. So can we see the fullness? Can we see some of the unattractive aspects of whatever we're desiring? And can we imagine: will this really fulfill the expectations that I have? And ask ourselves: what are our expectations for whatever it is that we're desiring?

That brings us back to our own experience. There's the object—is it really as beautiful and perfect as we're imagining?—and then what is my experience? What are my expectations, and how does it feel to be desiring? How does it feel to be leaning, pulling, being pulled towards something? It might be a really subtle way that we're a little bit off balance.

To simplify the practice to "be aware and stay balanced," one way we might be out of balance is because we're filled with desire. And of course, the flip side of that is aversion: mild or even strong dislike, a real sense of, "I don't want this." Just like with desire, there are healthy forms of aversion. In some ways, it might even be a kindness to turn away from some things that are painful. There are times when, for many different reasons, we're not quite ready to work with some particular difficulties or have a particular difficult conversation, so we feel like the time isn't quite right. That's perfectly natural.

Not every single time there's an aversion or a turning away does it mean that it's bad. Again, practice is about learning to discern when it is helpful and when it isn't. But aversion can also be mixed with a little bit of hostility and ill will. That, of course, is not helpful, and it pulls us more out of balance. It's a kind of push, a really strong pushing away.

To work with this, can we just be with this aversion or ill will without trying to fix it? Can we just notice, "Oh yeah, that's what's happening right now. I'm aware this is what's happening. I'm aware I'm a little bit out of balance." Then sometimes, when we just bring some open-hearted awareness, we come back into balance.

Similar to desire, the invitation is to look really closely at the object and to see, is this really going to satisfy our expectations? When there's some aversion, maybe use a little bit of imagination: how would you feel if you acted out your aversion, your ill will? Maybe there'd be some regret, some remorse, or maybe there's a sense of, "Okay, the wise thing to do here is not to get tangled up with that, but to come back here to center."

So, check in and use our imagination about the objects, as well as how we feel. Notice how it feels to have aversion. There's often a real sense of tightness, constriction, and collapsing; it's the opposite of open and spacious. We also don't want to have aversion towards aversion, because that just perpetuates aversion. Is there a way that we can just recognize and allow, "Ah yes, here's aversion. I'm a little bit off balance here because I have some aversion."

That kind of leaning, literally or metaphorically, is one way we're a little bit out of balance. Another way might be energetically. There might be a lot of restlessness. There might be a sense of wanting to jump up and run away, or a feeling of ping-pong balls inside that are bouncing around. This agitation or scatteredness in the mind means it can't really settle anywhere.

There can also be a really subtle way in which the mind is quietly searching for something more interesting, rather than landing on the object, like the breath. Instead, there's this probing, looking for what's next, maybe a type of foraging. It can be a subtle type of restlessness, which maybe I wouldn't call "out of balance" because it's very subtle, but it is out of balance when you compare it to the experience of being completely here with our experience.

When we have this restlessness, we might again use our imagination to work with it. One thing I like to do is to imagine stepping into a cathedral. I was in Rome quite a long time ago, but I remember that sense of awe of stepping into this magnificent cathedral with these really high ceilings and a sense of space. It's not that the restlessness has to go away, but now that same energetic feeling is in a big space. It has a calming sense of settling, like there's room for the restlessness to be.

That's one way to work with restlessness. Another way might be to zoom in on how it feels in the body and get really curious about the jaggedy feeling that goes with the restlessness.

The energetic opposite of restlessness is a sense of dullness in the mind and the body. A sense of collapsed energy, just not enough energy, physically or figuratively collapsing. Not enough energy to sit up, not enough energy to really be with the objects, but instead just a foggy, detached way. Like an absence of vitality.

It might show up in our mind as retreating a little bit from what we're wanting to pay attention to, rather than arousing just enough energy to pay attention. When we find ourselves in this—I might call it sloth and torpor^[5]—we might investigate what's underlying it. Often there's a not-quite-paying-attention, some discontent, a little bit of aversion, or some boredom, which is also a little bit of aversion. Maybe there's just some physical tiredness from the body not having enough sleep. Sometimes there might be this shutting down or lack of vitality when there are some really difficult emotions that we don't quite feel ready or capable to be with, and so there can be this collapsing.

We can really simplify our practice without having to think about it exclusively, but by using imagery and experiences in the body to be aware and stay balanced. We might use this idea of balance and our posture as a way to point out when we're a little bit off balance, and we can discover ways to come back into balance. But first is to just recognize, "Oh yeah, I'm leaning," or "I'm bouncing," or "I'm collapsing." We can use the kinesthetic, somatic experience as a way to point to when we're a little bit out of balance.

Of course, the more we are in balance, the more we can respond appropriately not only to what's actually happening to us, but what's happening to others, so that we may be able to support others and help them. In this way, our practice can be a benefit not only for ourselves but for others.

Thank you.