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Guided Meditation: Respecting Karma

Okay, thank you for the messages about no sound. So now I think it works. Hello everyone, and welcome to our Monday, the beginning of the week. I'm happy to be back here. I was away teaching a retreat from this very spot online, and the retreat continues this week. But I'm very happy to be here.

When we sit and get quiet, or try to be quiet in meditation—sit and be still—one of the things that sooner or later becomes very clear is that we carry with us the momentum of our life. The momentum of our thinking, our concerns, our preoccupations, our desires, our aversions. We carry with us the momentum of the different life experiences which have influenced us. The life experience of things we've done in our lives still resonates or still kind of lives somehow with us.

One teacher once said, when asked, "What do you do when you meditate?" She said, "We confront our unresolved issues." That's certainly much more than we do than that, but sometimes that's one of the things that arises. Although that whole package of things that we come into touch with—our momentum of our life—is sometimes summarized in Buddhism under a simple, maybe simplistic term: that it's karma^[1]. I'll talk more about that later. But whether that's the right label for it all or not, it's nice to gather it in your mind, gather it at heart, gather it all together. All these influences, all this momentum that we have from a lifetime of habits, concerns, preoccupations, and influences we've had, and bow to it deeply.

Offer our respect. Have tremendous respect for this part of our lives. By bowing to it, respecting it, and acknowledging it's there, maybe that can allow us to step away far enough to ease up on our concerns with it, our preoccupations with it. Trying to fix it, trying to ameliorate it, whatever. Step away and recognize it's there. Be respectful. But for the time of the meditation, cease picking it up. Cease getting pulled into it and keeping it going with thinking, concerning, remembering, planning, judging, and criticizing. All those things can go on, but as we meditate, we want to give breathing room for ourselves—the kind of space that sometimes is not available when we're locked into these things or caught in them.

Often in meditation, we talk about letting go of such things so we can focus on the breathing. But it's important to also respect it, and maybe in deep respect, it's easier to let it be and for these moments not to pick it up. One of the functions of breath meditation is to help us disentangle ourselves from all that influence, all the momentum. It still comes through us, but you can imagine that you're standing on a dry riverbank looking at the river going by. The river is massive. You respect the river, but you don't get into it.

I've been in big, powerful rivers with big rapids, and my way of respecting it was not to stand right on the edge of the river, but to be back maybe three feet, four feet, so as to be able to watch it go by without being involved. This is one of the functions of breath meditation: it takes us to dry ground. It helps us to disentangle. Maybe it's easier to give yourself over to breathing after you've respected this karmic stream that is part of who we are in a sense.

So assuming a posture that maybe promotes disentangling. Promotes a stable, confident presence that's not easily swept away. Kind of like you're standing strong with your feet firmly rooted in the ground, so that you don't get pushed over by the wind. Taking a posture that's grounded and firm, and lowering your gaze, relaxing your eyes, and perhaps closing your eyes if that's comfortable.

To begin this process of disentangling, take a few long, slow, deep breaths. As you exhale, let whatever momentum that's here relax and settle away. Deep breath in, and as you exhale, become rooted, relaxed, stable. Rooted here in this body. Letting your breathing return to normal. Sometimes by continuing to relax the body, it's a way of continuing to ease up on the way that we're concerned about things and involved in thoughts and fantasies. Ease up on our emotions that we might have.

So as you exhale, relax the belly. Maybe even letting the belly become a little heavy to feel the pull of gravity. On the exhale, relax the chest. And then relax the shoulders. And then soften the muscles of your face.

And then on the exhale, maybe on the inhale, feel any tension or pressure in your thinking mind. And as you exhale, soften the thinking mind. Relax.

And then, with respect for the thoughts you have, the thinking you have, the feelings you have, maybe even acknowledging their presence, center your attention on the body breathing. So that this precious resource that you have—your attention—is no longer involved in your karmic stream. That can just go on by itself, but your precious attention is devoted to the experience of the body breathing.

As you exhale, giving yourself over to the full exhale. As you inhale, receive the inhale. Feeling the rhythm of breathing in and out. Hanging in there is a way to make lots of breathing room for all things. While you're rooted, devoted to the simple experience of breathing.

Stepping away from our thoughts, concerns, respectfully. Disentangling and using the attention to breathing is a way of staying on dry ground. So the river of karma can take care of itself without our needing to do anything about it. Just breathing is enough.

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, if we appreciate and respect our karmic stream—all the influences and experiences and concerns, hurts and joys, and ups and downs that somehow still have their life within us—we can appreciate maybe that that's the case for many other people as well. All beings, all people, the influence of this difficult life streams through them, and their karmic patterns, concerns, preoccupations are stored in their body, mind, and heart.

To have care and respect, and a certain kind of reverence for other people for what they carry, their challenges they live with. At the end of the sitting, to extend our care, compassion, our kindness, our deep respect for what people deal with in this human life. To offer our ability to be companions on this journey so people are less alone, less forgotten. Until you turn our attention outward, considering how we can support others in finding a way in this life. May it be that through the goodness of this practice that we do, that our attention can go outwards for the welfare and happiness of others. May we contribute support, the possibility of all beings being happy, all beings being safe, all beings being peaceful, and all beings being free. May all beings everywhere be happy.

Dharmette: Karma/Dharma (1 of 5) Introduction to Karmic and Dharmic Streams

Hello, and as we begin this series of talks on this Monday, the topic this week is to talk about two streams of our lives: the karmic stream and the dharmic stream^[2]. The dharmic stream is the Buddhist language to talk about what unfolds, what can develop, when we free ourselves from the karmic stream. We free ourselves respectfully—respectful of the karmic stream, and in particular, the way the stream of karma contributes to our ongoing suffering.

That's one of the reasons why Buddhists focus on karma, the karmic stream: because of how much suffering it perpetuates. It's kind of like being caught in a perpetual renewal of suffering, pain, despair, challenges. But then there's this other whole stream that is not karmic, but it can be called dharmic, the dharmic stream.

To give a... you know, language like karma and dharma evoke all kinds of complicated ideas, and karma, people have a lot of associations already with what it means. I'll talk about it in a particular way this week, hopefully in a way to normalize it as something that we can see operating in the day-to-day activity of our life, putting aside ideas of karma being something influencing us over the lifetimes.

If a person went through life with their fists clenched, that's never opened up, that would influence their life in all kinds of ways. That would be very different if someone went through their life with their hands open—relaxed, soft, open, ready to operate in all kinds of ways and all the kind of ways that fingers can move and hold on and do things. A person who has a hand that's free to open and be used, their life will unfold very differently than the person whose life is always clenched, the fist is always clenched.

You know, it's best not to stretch this analogy too far, but just in a simple way. And then if someone is similarly... if someone's heart is clenched, their heart is closed, and it's closed for decades, that life unfolds differently than if a heart is open. If the mind is closed in some way—constricted, narrow—that life unfolds very differently than a person whose mind is open, open-minded.

The way that we live day by day in the present moment can influence how we live in this life. If we live a life with recurring kind of chronic hostility or aversion, that puts together certain conditions that are very different than if we go through our life with generosity and love. If we go through our lives with greed and lust and that's the predominant mindstream that we keep flowing in, that life opens up or moves ahead or unfolds very differently than someone's life who is generous and kind and thinks about the welfare of others. These very broad strokes are pointing to different directions life can go, and it's certainly different ways that we influence ourselves.

All these ways that we operate, consciously or unconsciously, have an impact and influence on ourselves. So that if we are chronically aversive, there are traces, there's lingerings, there's feelings, there's an ongoing impact on ourselves because of that. If we're loving, this has a very different impact.

One of the powerful ways to see the operation of karma is in our thought streams. Probably that's the single most effective way to understand karma, to see its influences and how it operates day by day in our lives, and not to be involved in the more metaphysical ideas of karma, but to see that thinking has a big influence on us.

It's said that rumination is one of the leading causes of depression. If we're ruminating in such a way, thinking in such a way that the thoughts are deflating, the thoughts are discouraging, the thoughts are critical and frightening to listen to or discouraging to listen to, and to have that discouragement and that fear kind of chronically move through our system—our whole body and mind and heart will be influenced by the ongoingness of those thoughts. We can feel the impact it has on us. It's a kind of rebirth, a constant renewal into this karmic stream. As we feel lousy, that's kind of a fuel to continue having these kinds of difficult thoughts, these undermining thoughts. The undermining thoughts make us feel worse, and so it prompts a certain way of thinking. It's cyclic; it kind of gives birth to itself over and over and over again. Sometimes it's so chronic that they become almost invisible to people. It's kind of like if it's true that fish don't see the water they swim in, we sometimes don't see the mood and the attitude that we move through because it's been reinforced.

So sometimes all this karma stuff is described as habits, ongoing habits. Some of the karmic habits are healthy. There can be great habits of love and generosity, and that creates a very different influence on ourselves and provides a very different conditioning influence in our body and mind.

But there's a stream we enter into and we participate in, and part of that stream is momentum from the past that continues into the present, and then there's ways in which we keep adding to the momentum in the present moment. What Dharma practice is trying to do is trying to free us from continuing to reinforce, continuing to add momentum to the stream. To be respectful of how much it's flowing, but to step back on dry ground and watch the stream go by without adding to it. As we step back, it's kind of like when the hand's been closed in a clenched fist for a long time and then it's opened, things begin to happen. There's an unfolding that has an influence on us, an influence on the hand. It's inspiration, it gives us ideas of what we can do.

It starts setting in motion a goodness inside of us, a movement towards freedom. We get a sense that, "Oh, the hand can be released, that's nice. I bet now my shoulders can relax. Maybe this clenched stomach has a possibility of relaxing." A path begins opening up, and that path is the natural unfolding of what could be called the Dharma stream. The Dharma stream is that stream of releasing ourselves from our contractions, our tightness, our holdings, and then experiencing the goodness, the joy, the well-being, the tranquility that comes flowing from that and leads to deep insights, a deep understanding of this world.

Every day we are in this. Every moment, both streams are available, and a lot of what people spend their time doing is living in the karmic stream. A very easy way to see it, I believe, is to notice what you're thinking as you go about your day. If you are thinking about something which is not in the present moment, that's the karmic stream. As you're sitting in that stream thinking about the future, the past, fantasy, anything like that, you might take time to see: what kind of influence is this kind of thinking having on me? Is it a beneficial influence? Is it not a beneficial influence? Is it neutral? What is that influence on me?

To stop and take that kind of look is beginning to stop also from reinforcing that stream. But if we just let our minds kind of flow along happily thinking about resentments in the past or the desires we want in the future, then we're adding momentum to it, keeping it flowing. Some people like that, they justify it. The cost of that, of keeping it going, is that we don't allow this other whole stream to unfold, the Dharma stream.

So that's the topic for this week. This is the introduction to it, setting the stage. It's considered to be a very important topic in Buddhism and perhaps not talked about that much. So we'll try to talk about it this week. So thank you, and I look forward to being here with you tomorrow.