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Guided Meditation: Noticing the Impermanence of Feeling Tone (Vedana)

Greetings to all of you, wherever in the world you are in this moment. Happy to be practicing together. How wonderful to be able to join this wonderful sangha^[1], saying all the hellos from different places in the world, and to practice together.

Continuing today, our practice and exploration of the feeling tone, vedana^[2]—the second foundation of mindfulness. We started on Monday noticing vedana, noticing the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, associated with moments of experience, with objects that come into experience. Yesterday, the invitation was to explore our relationship to vedana. If we notice that a sense of pleasantness is associated with an object, does the mind want more of it? What happens? Just a sense of curiosity. Of course, we'll follow up with that more, as our relationship to it is very, very important. And with unpleasant vedana, do we try to push it away? Do we try to make it stop? We're going to continue our exploration today, noticing vedana.

In Buddhist psychology, feeling tone is said to show up in every moment's experience, with every object. When every object comes in contact with consciousness, this feeling tone arises, whether or not we notice it. I'll guide us today, after settling in with the breath and the body, to explore how feeling tone—valence, hedonic tone, different names for it—shifts and changes. It's not fixed. It's subject to our perception; it's not inherent in the object at all. Based on our moods, our perceptions, our assumptions, and how we feel, what arises might be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Vedana shows up in all six sense doors^[3]: all the senses of taste, touch, smell, and hearing, as well as the mind door with our thoughts. It might be simplest for our exploration today to do that with respect to sounds. That's what I found in the past could be most instructive.

Guided Meditation

I suggest some invitations. Let's get started.

I'd like to invite you to get into your meditation posture now. If you need to, perhaps shift your weight to sit up more straight. Landing in the body in this moment. Arriving, arriving each and every moment. And no arrival. Greeting the body. Hello, body. How are you in this moment? Greeting the body with kindness, with care, inviting you to relax and soften. Nowhere to go and nothing to do in this moment, but to be here right now and take refuge in this moment.

Inviting the body to be calm, settled. Moving the center of gravity down, down, down from our heads, our forehead, our eyes, our jaw, relaxing them all. And moving the center of gravity of our awareness down through our chest, touching the heart center, opening the heart this moment. Down to the abdomen. Letting awareness rest in the lower abdomen, in your sit bones. Awareness of the breath, the lower body. And letting go of any holding or tightness on the out-breath in the entire body. Landing more deeply.

Receiving the breath in the body, as I invite you to become aware of vedana, the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling tone of an experience. It's not to be done from the head, the control tower. You're not supposed to think about it and try to figure it out, but to feel from the body. Receive, notice, as if you're an antenna trying to tune into the channel of vedana with your body, not your head. Your whole body feeling vedana, knowing it, not thinking about it.

For example, receiving the breath, feeling the breath in the body as your gaze is turned inwards, noticing the expansion, contraction, the movement. Open up to any feelings that might be pleasant, unpleasant, or neither, associated with the breath—this breath. And maybe nothing comes up, in which case it might be neutral. Don't think about it, let yourself feel it. You might notice a slight pleasantness, which is sitting, or maybe unpleasantness if you're trying too hard. It's just that very simple, very light. Maybe noticing all of a sudden that your jaw or forehead or shoulders are tight—maybe slight, not so pleasant. Maybe your bottom on the cushion feels stable, grounded, landed.

Oh, a little bit of pleasant, ever so slight. Exploring the body door, the door of sensations. Maybe the breath feels smooth or tight, either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. See how vedana keeps shifting and changing with every new object of the mind that comes in contact with the body door of awareness. It keeps shifting and changing: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. It's not permanent. It stays for a while and changes.

Continuing to be settled in the body with the breath now, opening up the awareness to sounds. It's called the ear door of consciousness. And as there is silence, sounds—the sound of my voice, background sounds, the sound of birds I hear where I am, an occasional crow, cars passing—whatever sounds arise and pass. Resting, receiving the relaxed body. Receiving the sounds. Also receiving the feeling tone associated. And if one does not easily perceive vedana, it could be neutral. See if there's an absence of pleasant and unpleasant, hence to notice the neutral. Receiving in the body, receiving, not thinking about it.

An Experiment with Sound

Now, an invitation to an experiment. Take on the perspective that these sounds are the most beautiful music that you've heard, as if you were in the symphony hall or your favorite venue, and all these sounds are just [unintelligible]. See how the perspective might shift the perception of vedana, listening with care, curiosity, and interest in all sounds.

And now the second part of the experiment. Now take on the perspective that all sounds are distractions from your meditation. It's supposed to be quiet. It must be so in order for you to be able to meditate. See how that might change this perspective, how it might change your perception of the vedana of the sounds. The feeling tone of the same sound now might feel unpleasant.

And now again, changing our perspective, which is the easiest thing to change, of all sounds being our teachers. Or perhaps experimenting that sounds are just sounds, arising and passing just like clouds in the sky—they come and go. See how this perspective might change the perception of vedana.

Reflections and Closing

And for the last moments of this practice period, noticing what vedana is present with the experience right now of ending the practice. What shows up in the mind? You're just noticing, becoming aware, and appreciating that you are aware in this moment. Appreciating that you've showed up, you've practiced, letting go of the outcome, whatever happened or did not happen. Appreciating yourself, the sangha who's supporting you. Appreciation for access to the teachings. May our practice and collective practice together support the waking up and freedom of every single one of us, and all beings everywhere. Thank you all for your practice.