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Guided Meditation-What Known and the Knowing

Hello everyone, welcome. And those of you who are greeting on chat, thank you, it's very nice. Those of you who are not on chat are doing it for all of you. I would like to thank you.

So, the insight pentad. The focus being on the insight part of it, how insight works. One of the important places to have insight, to really see clearly, is the difference between what we know and how we know.

So there's what we know and there's how we know. We know many things. What I'd like to suggest for today is to give more attention to something that's often not noticed. Often when we focus in meditation on what we can know, it's usually something tangible, something that the senses can take in in the present moment. It's something we can know because it's arising or occurring in the present—so breathing, body sensations, feelings, thoughts, sounds.

But one of the things that is very, very important as insight deepens is to be aware a little bit of what is absent. Certain kinds of things that are absent, we can feel when we recognize their absence. There might be a short period of time where we can recognize the relief of it not being there.

So, for example, before we rush headlong into mindfulness of breathing and the body here, we might take a little bit of time to notice if there's any relief that you might evoke sitting in your meditation posture. Maybe there are things you're not doing, responsibilities you put down for these 30 minutes, and things that you don't have to address. Things that are not present right now for you. It's just so nice not to have them here. The absence of them can have a little bit of a nice effect. To feel that goodness, to feel that it maybe allows for a different kind of relaxation to happen, a different kind of settling in.

And then we can take one step further, and that is: in the knowing of the relief, is that knowing pleasant or unpleasant? Does that knowing carry with it some of the characteristics of the relief? Does that knowing feel spacious or at ease? Or is it in a hurry, ready to go on to the next thing? Is it kind of pouncing, or is it pulling back, or filled with some kind of desires, or aversions, or doubts about what's going on?

How simple can the knowing be? To keep the knowing super simple, there's what is known, and then the knowing. So simple, that direct knowing of what's here, or sometimes what's not here. The relief of what's not here. That the knowing is so simple that it's welcomed. There's a good feeling; it's appreciated to know this way.

So there's a knowing, and what is known. So assuming a meditation posture, and gently closing your eyes.

Take a few moments now to feel if there's any relief of just being here in this way. Maybe identifying two or three things that are not present. Maybe the regular part of your life is not here in the moment as you're sitting here, and that's maybe part of the goodness of being here.

And if you feel some relief of being here, what's it like to know that relief? The simplest, clearest kind of knowing of absence, of relief. Without commentary, without judgments, just knowing the relief. Knowing the absence of whatever is normally present. Especially the absence of the stress that you might carry, the preoccupations that you normally carry, the impact that life events might normally have.

To feel the relief, and then also to recognize a simple way of knowing that. In that simplicity of knowing, knowing that it has no stress within it, there you will find the path to freedom. Stay close to knowing in a way that feels relieving, that feels releasing. No matter what you know, it's how you know that you'll find the path to liberation.

Whatever degree of calm or subtleness that you might have, can you know that calmly and subtly, in a settled way? Can you know whatever is happening from a calm and settled place, so that there are qualities of freedom in the knowing? Maybe some quality of knowing which is not something you do, but the kind of knowing that arises by itself when we're present.

Sometimes mindfulness practice is to bring ourselves to be so present and available for our experience that knowing arises on its own. And it can be challenging to do this, because this way of being present can feel vulnerable. But to be present in a relaxed and full way, so that knowing can be at ease, relaxed. Maybe knowing the relief of not asserting ourselves, or defending ourselves, or judging and commentary about ourselves. Just present, knowing the freedom of how we know.

And when we allow ourselves to be this fully present for others, without defensiveness or assertiveness—just fully present and available to know them with a relaxed open awareness, a relaxed, easy knowing—maybe something like kindness, good will will well up inside, will vibrate, will radiate.

Maybe there's a good will, love, a care, compassion. It's not a doing, but an arising when we're fully present. An open presence to what is. A kind of good will which is expressed in these sentiments:

May others be happy. May others be safe. May others be peaceful. May others be free.

And may this good will that I feel, may it be known by others. May others know that they're held in good will, friendliness, kindness. And may we know each other that way. May all beings be happy.

Dharmette: Insight Pentad (5 of 5) Knowing Liberation

So we come to the fifth and last talk on the insight pentad. And these are the five qualities, including insight, that flow together, that arise together. Not as something that's constructed or made to happen, but something that conditions each other, or one leads to the other, awakens to the other, triggers the other.

Many people would think that it ends with liberation, the fourth of these insight pentad's five qualities. Shouldn't that be enough, liberation? But the liberation itself is a condition for the arising of a fifth quality, and that's the knowledge that one is liberated, the knowledge that the mind is liberated.

There are people who have some degree of realization, liberation, something that really sets them free. And they kind of know that they've had something significant, but they don't really know it. They don't understand what's happened. And this knowing of it is to understand something profound about it. As so many times for the Buddha, it's to know something specific. It's not some generalized, vague idea of what liberation is, what freedom is.

Because some people will have some profound feeling of peace or calm, or some letting go that happens that feels so relieving and releasing, but they don't understand what they've let go of. They don't understand what they've opened up into, and what this experience is really like. And without knowing that, it's hard to find the path there again. It's hard to know what this path is really about. Some people will have some kind of wonderful experience of peace and think, "Well, that's the point," and kind of try to get back there. But they don't understand the conditions that led to it, and they don't understand what it is in particular that was experienced or came along with that peace. So they kind of know what they're working towards, what it's about, what the North Star is that they're working for.

So I want to read to you what I started talking about yesterday. The Buddha gives a list of 17 specific psychological states that can be known. We can know that they're there—these are painful states—and we can know when we're free of them, when they're absent. Seeing that specificity of it: "This was afflictive, this was painful, and now, wow, it's no longer there. It's been released."

This is a part of the insight, and it's also part of liberation. That shows the kind of circular nature of it, the spiral perhaps. And so as we experience some real clear sense of the falling away, the ceasing of, say, hate, and really experience it ourselves, take time to know that this is the absence of hate. Not just know that it's peaceful, but really know, "This is the absence of hate." Then we start getting the information about what hate is about, and the alternative. We become increasingly disenchanted with hate. The underlying tendency to hate starts to fade away. And then there's again a qualitatively different way of releasing hate, and then we know we've released it. And then that's a kind of an insight that the whole thing can develop further and further.

So I want to read this list of 17 specific states that the Buddha talks about, that one could know their presence and we could know when they're absent. For the Buddha, this is very significant. It's in a discourse called the Simile of the Cloth^[1] in the Middle Length Discourses^[2]. The list is covetousness, unethical greed, ill will, anger, resentment, contempt, insolence, envy, avarice, deceit, fraud, obstinacy, rivalry, conceit, arrogance, vanity, and carelessness (or negligence).

Some of these translations into English might not be exactly what there is in Pali^[3], so we can maybe find other words that are a little bit more meaningful for us. But the idea is that when we practice, we can know that these—they're called afflictive because they hurt to have present—we can know that they're there and feel the pain.

And it's possible that they can be let go of. Either we let go of them, or somehow they fade away, they disappear, they're not there. And if we know that they're there first, really know, "Wow"—and sometimes this is bad news to know that I have contempt—but in the Dharma, you want to know that so-called bad news in an open, non-reactive way. It's really important. To feel, to know the states of mind that are afflictive, that are causing pain, and not to pretty them up, or deny them, or ignore them. "Oh, this is what I'm living with, contempt, with resentment, with greed."

And then because we know something about knowing that's there, the clarity of that then allows the mindfulness, the awareness practice, to make room for it to fade away, for us to be disinterested and for it to fade away. That won't happen if we ignore it and haven't really admitted to ourselves that these are there.

So here we find the example of the Buddha being, in modern terms, psychological about the discussions of the path. He's very specific about psychological states that are being addressed. So this is what we can know. And then we can know when they're let go of, when they're absent. And that knowing of their absence in this text, there's a way of knowing it which is inspiring. It's inspiring to know it's possible to be free of these things, even if it's temporarily. To have the experience of the mind: "Wow, I've been with this for my lifetime, with this for decades, for a long time, and I had no idea how there can be a qualitative experience, a good quality experience of it not being there."

So allowing ourselves to know that we're liberated, and really recognize the absence, the freedom of something, that can give birth to an inspiration and to confidence. The Buddha calls it a verified confidence, or verified faith. It's verified because we know for ourselves that this is possible. And even if some of these states come back, the confidence is there, the trust is there that this is valuable, this is a direction to go, this is important.

And then the Buddha in this text goes on to say that this confidence and inspiration that this is possible is the catalyst for the gladness pentad. The five qualities I talked about last week that also have this natural flow to them. When there's inspiration, there's gladness. When there's gladness, and we're present for it and allow for the practice and practice with it in the context of it, that morphs or changes into joy. That changes into tranquility, physical tranquility and peace. And that can open up into a kind of a deep, subtle feeling of happiness or contentment that is a foundation for becoming unified, for samadhi^[4]. And that unification of samadhi that has that focus, that clarity, then begins the insight pentad: insight, disenchantment, fading away, liberation, and then today, knowledge of liberation, knowing it.

So, as I said before, they kind of spiral. They support each other and move on and on. And how liberation is of some kind, even if it's very temporary, of particular mental states. So this is something we can identify and know for ourselves. Otherwise, some people have such a vague idea of what enlightenment is or freedom is that it's just always a kind of mythic event. It's kind of like, "Maybe not so relevant for me. It's good for the great meditators who go live in caves, but what about my everyday life here, where I'm dealing with getting the kids to school and work and all kinds of things?" But by naming the psychological states, the Buddha is making it really relevant^[5]. This is what's important here.

And then he goes on in this text—this phenomenal text—it talks about this natural flow of arising. He talks about how from the inspiration comes the gladness pentad, and from that the samadhi. The unification gives rise to loving-kindness, to Metta^[6]. And so the whole Metta and then the Brahma Viharas^[7] are all part of this natural flow. It's almost like these are inherent qualities, capacities, or potentials within that can be set free, that can be opened to be allowed to flow through us.

So there's not something that's constructed, made to happen, or engineered, but something that we allow for. And that's the underlying theme of these two pentads, the gladness pentad and the insight pentad: that there are natural forces within us that can be unleashed and opened up, where we roll along to what we open up to, these wonderful states of deepening practice.

And so it's insight. Insight to what is, insight to what is no longer there. Insight into the absence of afflictive states that have bothered us for a long time. And the absence of those afflictive states might give us a possibility to become more aware of how we know, how we're aware of something. So that how we're aware is not afflictive. So how we're aware doesn't partake or share with some of the greed or the ill will, aversion, contempt, or resentment that might be with us, but which influences how we know.

And so, to begin finding a knowing which is freeing, a knowing which has qualities of freedom, ease, and peace, and then using that as a way of knowing to know, to practice mindfulness, to be aware. And so that the very act of knowing is part of the path of freedom, is where we find the freedom, and allows us to see more and more clearly what is.

So, insight in the insight pentad. May your mindfulness practice lead to insight, and may the insight open this world up of the Dharma moving through you. So thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing you or being with you again on Monday.