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Guided Meditation: Meditating in Beauty

Good day to everyone. Here we are together, from all over, gathering ourselves for this period of meditation.

One of the subjects we are practicing with is mental activity, which has been my most common translation for saṅkhāra^[1]. It is sometimes also translated as "mental formations." What I will say about this is that regarding these mental activities we have as we practice, as we settle into meditation and begin to let go of attachments and clinging, the direction the mind goes is toward becoming beautiful—toward having a beautiful mind.

The experience, or the quality of physical calmness that happens when the body relaxes, and the quality of mental relaxation and tranquility that comes as the mental activities calm down, is referred to in the Buddhist tradition as beautiful. These are beautiful qualities of mind. Many of the factors of mind that start coming into play—faith, engagement with the practice, attention, wisdom, mindfulness, and samādhi^[2]—are all considered beautiful qualities of the mind.

One of the orientations for meditation, something to consider, is how you practice. How do you do the activity of meditation so that it itself has some quality of beauty, or maybe another word is harmony? I love the expression of the Hopi, an indigenous people of the Southwest—I love their expression of "walking in beauty." What would it mean to engage the mind in beauty?

Sometimes, there is such a strong orientation toward avoiding what is not beautiful, what is difficult or painful. There can be a lot of self-criticism in the mind, and many judgments that whatever the mind is doing—wandering off in thought—is somehow wrong, or worse. And maybe so, but how we show up to be mindful, to be present, to be engaged with the breathing: how would you do it if you did it in a beautiful or harmonious way? Because that is the direction this practice is going.

Especially with this calming of mental formations, the calming of mental activities, we are feeling our way into a place of harmony, beauty, peace, clarity, and lightness. Sometimes the ancient tradition talks about a clean mind, a cleansed mind.

For this sitting today, maybe you can orient yourself a little bit with the question: What would it be like to sit here in beauty? Not just because you are looking for it—it might already be here—but because you engage in the practice that way. The very way in which you are present, the very way in which you are mindful, is in harmony or is in beauty. What would that look like? I know it might be a stretch, and you might not have an easy reference for this, but I would suggest that you imagine you do. Imagine yourself in this way.

Assuming the Posture

To begin, assume a meditation posture. Even here, as we take the posture, how would you do it as if the activity of assuming your meditation posture was itself a movement in beauty? Maybe in gracefulness.

Maybe gracefully rocking forward and back, maybe slowly, maybe side to side, and then slowing down to find a balanced posture. Find the most balanced posture available to you, given whatever challenges you might have. In this way, your posture itself begins to feel like a small stepping stone to beauty, to harmony.

Then, softly, peacefully closing your eyes. What would it be like if you approached your breathing with trust, with care, and with relaxation? What if you had some quality or feeling of approaching your breathing in a harmonious or beautiful way? What would attending to your breathing be like if you were attending in a beautiful, harmonious way?

Perhaps you could invite your body to gently breathe more fully, expanding the chest and expanding the belly as you breathe in. Maybe fill up three-quarters full so you are not straining, and perhaps allow for a longer, peaceful exhale, as far as it is useful to exhale.

Then, as you exhale, relax the body. Calm the bodily activity of tension, holding, or contraction in the body, releasing it.

Relaxing the Mind

Let your breathing return to normal. As you exhale, also relax and soften the thinking mind. If you can recognize any tension, holding, contraction, hardness, agitation, or forcefulness associated with breathing, relax the mind as you exhale.

If you can't relax it, that's okay. Perhaps you can recognize that awareness—attention to the tense mind—is larger. It is distinct and different from the mind itself, the activity. Then, hold the tense mind in the beauty of open awareness.

Enter into the body breathing. Breathe naturally and easily with a very light touch, not trying too much. See if you can attend to breathing in a way that feels harmonious, even beautiful, with its care, tenderness, openness, and willingness. Perhaps there is a feeling of respect for breathing—a reverence for being here.

Perhaps there is something in the breathing itself which feels harmonious, beautiful, or pleasant. Sit here, present for your breathing, while attuned to that which is harmonious or beautiful here and now, no matter how small it might be.

If possible, relax the mental activity of anxiety, discouragement, or resentment. Let those settle and recede to the background. In the foreground, as you are sitting here, meditating in beauty, notice whatever feeling of pleasure, well-being, joy, or happiness might be here right now. Breathe with it. Breathe through it.

As you breathe, is there any little place inside of tranquility, calmness, or peacefulness? A calmness of body, a calmness of mind. Breathe with that. Breathe through it, gently allowing that calmness and tranquility to spread and grow so that its influence—perhaps a beautiful influence—can begin to move through you, breathing in and breathing out.

Concluding Reflections and Metta

As we come to the end of the sitting, look inside yourself to see if there is any shift inside over the course of this meditation. Are you a little more settled? If not more settled, are you more aware? This heightened awareness of how you are, as well as the settledness, can both be seen as something beautiful. Are you more open, more peaceful, or feeling a greater sense of well-being? Have you learned something about your own capacity to attend beautifully, harmoniously?

In whatever sense you have of an inner beauty, harmony, or well-being, bring to mind some people that you know. Imagine that they too have the same capacity; they have the potential for this. More than worldly success, experiencing this inner harmony, inner peace, or beauty is one of the great potentials they have—a potential which is not so dependent on what happens in the world.

Perhaps you can gently, lovingly, and harmoniously wish that they could feel this inner well-being and harmony, that they might know their beauty. Beyond the people you know, consider even the people you don't know, and the people who are a challenge for you. How wonderful it would be if they could stay closely attuned and aligned with their own inner harmony and beauty. It is their own potential for an inner well-being that is so ethical in nature because it doesn't depend on getting anything or making anything happen in the world.

May it be that all beings touch into their capacity for happiness. May all beings experience safety within, peacefulness within, and a full inner freedom—the heart set free and at ease. This beautiful heart that we all share, may all beings be happy.