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Be, See, Free, We (5 of 10) Being Stable

It is sometimes thought that liberation—the spiritual freedom that Buddhist practice is about—is some kind of radical, other kind of experience that's quite separate from how we live our lives and what we have access to in everyday experience. But I think one way of understanding it is that it's taking what's quite ordinary and expanding it, developing it, letting it grow, and flowering into its fullness.

For example, sometimes it's described that a liberated mind is imperturbable, that it can't be shaken up or disturbed by anything. But I think that everyone, I hope, can in some small way discover how they're unshakable, how the mind is stable and undisturbable in some ways. In some little ways, it could be very, very mundane. It could be as simple as you're looking for your cup, and it's not in its usual place, and you don't get disturbed, you don't get upset, you don't get agitated. You just look around the kitchen to see if maybe it's on the other counter or in another room. In those moments, things are not the way you wished—the cup was not where you wanted—but there was an ease, a stability, steadiness, an unagitated state in relationship to looking for that cup. Very simple.

Sitting in meditation, can we recognize where there is stability? Can we recognize where there is steadiness? Rather than thinking it's something new we have to make happen and figure out what to do, it is rather the recognition. And then, with the idea that even if it's a small little kernel, that that is what's going to grow and develop. It grows and develops partly because we do recognize it. We do appreciate its value and usefulness. We make room for that to grow, for that to be there as a support for us.

Supports and Conditions for Practice

This idea that we're developing supports for practice is an integral part of Buddhist practice. The language of the Buddha is that he talked a lot about conditions. It's very rare that he talked about causes, but rather he talked about the conditions that are required for certain things to happen. They're not necessarily the cause for things to happen, because there's a wide range of conditions that come together, and when they are there, then something in the natural world begins to unfold and to move.

The same thing with us: what we contribute to Buddhist practice is putting in place supportive conditions for the practice to grow. Rather than being responsible for the practice growing, we're responsible for putting in place the conditions that allow it to grow. That saves the practice from us trying to engineer it, or being the doer where the burden of responsibility is up to me to make it work and figure out what to do. Rather, our responsibility is putting in the conditions and then allowing the Dharma^[1] to move through us, allowing this process of inner growth to happen, Dharma willing.

One of the remarkable things I see about this kind of meditation practice that we do is that we don't always know the best direction, or what the next direction our practice is going to take. We don't know what we have to face, work with, work through, and resolve. The Dharma knows. Our inner life, our hearts know what needs to come next. As we go through layers and layers of the mind and the heart, different things will come up, and we have to face them, work with them, and be mindful of them.

It's not a linear process going from an agitated state steadily and linearly to a calm state. It's more like a spiral, and we go around and around. After a period of subtle, quiet peacefulness, the practice can easily open up to some challenge that arises, and we become agitated^[2]. Not because we're going backwards, but because we're going through the layers of the mind, and we have different things to sort through, work through, and practice.

Finding the Kernel of Stability

I like to think that the Dharma knows what we need, and our job is to keep showing up and offering the conditions that support us to be present. One of the conditions I'm emphasizing today is the family of things related to stability. This includes stillness, steadiness, imperturbability, being unagitated and undisturbed.

Rather than feeling that you're agitated, and it's impossible for you to become still or stable because you're so agitated, and then feeling bad about yourself, I think everyone can find some little kernel—doesn't matter how small—where things are stable. In the meditation that we just did, I suggested finding it where the body touches the object that supports you from the pull of gravity. Feel the weight of your body against the chair, your cushion, the floor, the bed—a place of contact.

It's quite wonderful to think of it literally: if that object was absent, not there, just space there instead, you would fall further. Gravity would pull you. Because that object is there, you don't fall. The pull of gravity is making contact with that object. Maybe that's where you feel some groundedness and rootedness. Maybe there are some other places.

Then, prioritize that, value that, or appreciate that little kernel of stability. Grow it, spread it, find more of it, develop it. Align yourself with it, attune yourself to that stability. Once you have a little feel for it, maybe then you can relax other parts of your body to be similar. Perhaps you can start behaving in ways that support that stability, that steadiness, that stillness inside, that unagitatedness.

Bringing Stability into Daily Life

For example, if you can get this little feel for what it's like to be unagitated in meditation, then when getting up from meditation to make breakfast, clean the dishes, or take care of the next thing that you're going to do, how would you act? How would you behave in a natural enough way that supports that unagitated state, as opposed to jumping up and running around like your hair is on fire to take care of everything else, and then coming back to meditate? Rather, how we live, how we act in the world—can we begin to make that in harmony or attuned with the very things that support the growth of the practice?

What we're growing are the very things that mature with awakening. This stability, steadiness, groundedness that we begin to find in practice—that is what's going to grow, until someday with awakening, with liberation, it has grown into an imperturbability. The goal of liberation is found in the mind, the heart, and the body of someone's beginning meditation practice. It's there, but maybe it hasn't been recognized. Maybe because it's just a little kernel, still a little seed somewhere, but it's there. As we settle in, do the practice, and follow the instructions, hopefully, we begin to recognize more and more the various seeds, the various supports, and conditions that are going to keep developing and growing into liberation.

The Foundation for Insight

One of the very important ones is what I'm talking about today: stability. I've realized that the word "stability" might not work for everyone, so that's why I offer words like steadiness or stillness. There's a strong tradition in Buddhism to not use positive nouns like that, but to talk about the absence: unagitated, imperturbable. Then it's not something you have to be, but mostly something you let go of to settle into and open up into.

As this imperturbability, this steadiness, and stability grows, a variety of things begin having space to grow more and more. One of them is, in fact, insight—being able to see clearly. Now there is a greater degree of calm, a greater degree of concentration, a greater capacity to be at rest in the present moment. The mind doesn't—I don't know if this is fair to anybody's mind—but you drop a drop of water in a hot skillet, it immediately sizzles, and the water disappears. Sometimes my mind has been so busy, it feels like every moment of mindfulness where I notice what's happening is like a drop, and my mind just disappears right away into its distracted thoughts. But slowly the mind quiets down, steadies, and rests in the present moment. Stability allows for a deep, deep rest and peace.

The stability that we're looking at developing is the foundation for being able to have clear insight into that which is unstable. There's something very liberating about seeing impermanence, inconstancy, and change. But the usefulness of seeing the changing nature of phenomena increases the more we have this meditative stability, this cultivated stillness, the capacity for steadiness. So for this morning, for this day, the idea is to cultivate stability. Then, at the four o'clock talk, I'll talk about how stability leads to this deep insight into inconstancy.

For those of you on YouTube, the talks I'm giving today, tomorrow, and Sunday are also part of this retreat that I'm teaching. You're welcome to come to the Dharma talk that's part of the retreat. That will be at four o'clock California time today, and it will be broadcast on YouTube just the way it is now. Then you'll get the full package of the ten talks that I'm giving this week.

May you, in the next few hours, be an explorer and an enjoyer of whatever steadiness and stillness you can align yourself with, be in harmony with, and support and allow to grow. Thank you very much.