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Guided Meditation: Inviting Gladness

Welcome, everybody, and thank you for being here. I especially want to thank you for your practice, for your sincerity. I was thinking today that if I were looking for a word to describe or characterize our far-flung meditation community of practitioners, I think I'd pick "sincerity."

Let's begin by taking a moment to recognize where we are in this particular community, with each person sincerely doing their best to practice meditation and to walk in the footsteps of the Buddha. I'm sending out to you a silent expression of appreciation for the sincerity that each of you is bringing to our practice together. If you like, feel free to take a moment to do the same.

So far this week, we've cultivated three of the wholesome mind states that prepare the mind for awakening, allowing the full impact of this Dharma practice to come alive in our own hearts. These qualities of mind are receptivity, softness, and being free of self-centered preoccupations—free of the hindrances^[1], which function as barriers or obstructions to awakening.

When we have just a brief moment and the thinking mind is taking a break from all the commentary, I think perhaps the most natural response to that is gladness. Now the mind is ready for the sunlight, fresh air, and spaciousness of the Dharma to reveal itself to us, moment by moment. Let's begin by setting our intention for this meditation: what is your deepest wish for how this practice could benefit both yourself and others?

Now, taking your meditation posture, feel the contact with the earth. Send your roots down deep into the earth, letting it support you. Align the spine so that the energy flows freely. You might think of opening the lower chakra in the perineum to receive the energy of the earth, and the topmost chakra at the crown of the head—where there's a little space between the plates of the skull—opening that to the heavens, allowing the energy of the sky to come inside as well. It's good if your posture gives you a feeling of stability.

Begin relaxing the body, scanning down from the head. Relax the shoulders, the arms, the hands, and the fingers. Relax the torso, the belly, the hips, the legs, the feet, and the toes. Take a long, deep, slow breath, and relax into the process of breathing.

As we stay with the breath, we can let the awareness of the breath be slightly in the background and just do a few minutes of loving-kindness meditation. Create a safe space where we're protected by this warm-hearted feeling of well-wishing towards ourselves and all beings.

May I and all beings everywhere be safe and protected. May all beings everywhere, including me, be happy, be peaceful, and be free.

With this warm-hearted well-wishing, we bring in the wisdom to vow that we'll sit quietly, with a quiet body and a quiet mind, leaving our preoccupations outside the door. Now, bring the breath back into the foreground and connect with the breath. Feel the flow.

Breathing in, notice the felt sensations of the beginning of the breath and the continuation of the in-breath. Notice the pause at the top, which gives way to the out-breath, and as that flows down, notice the pause at the bottom.

Sometimes I enjoy thinking about the cycle of the breath as an oval of energy and flow. Closing your eyes, you can imagine the in-breath beginning at the base of the spine in the back and reaching its end at the top of the head. Then, the out-breath flowing down the front of the body, reaching its end in the perineum. Or, just stay with the breath flowing in and out. Give your breath as an offering to your mindfulness, as a beautiful, non-static object of meditation, constantly changing. Perhaps you may feel it flowing up the back and down the front.

If it feels right to you, light a little candle of gladness in the heart. Breathing in, welcoming gladness. Breathing out, spreading gladness as far as it wishes to go. But if you're struggling with loss, depression, despair, hopelessness, or fear, I trust you have the wisdom to know that repressing your emotional state is counterproductive. If that's the case, recognize your pain. Perhaps you can appreciate just being here in a safe space, breathing.

Inviting gladness on the in-breath. Radiating gladness on the out-breath. Like all these wholesome states, gladness exists on a wide spectrum. If you're really free of the hindrances, you might feel elated. But if life is difficult right now, you might just be able to access a little hint of gladness, and that's fine. That's to be honored.

Or you could try these mettā phrases: May I live with an open heart. May whatever clouds my heart be dispelled.

If you feel that support would be beneficial to you, please go ahead and do the well-wishing of living with an open heart and letting whatever clouds there are be dispelled. Perhaps we can be satisfied just to be here—a sincere practitioner in this spot on planet Earth, breathing.

Breathing in, welcoming whatever gladness may be present, and allowing yourself to feel it. Breathing out, sharing it with all beings. By staying contentedly with the flow and ebb of the breath, allow yourself to perhaps glimpse the freedom that is possible when the mind and the body settle down, even for just a moment. Perhaps you can be glad that, wow, this freedom is possible, even for me. In this openness, breathing in, radiating gladness inside. Breathing out, radiating gladness, giving it away.

As we come to the end of this sitting with a mind that has benefited from appreciating some of the goodness in ourselves, in our world, and through the goodness of our practice, may our center of appreciation and gladness now radiate our heartfelt wish.

May all beings everywhere be safe. May we all be happy. May all beings be peaceful, and may all beings be free. And may our meditation practice help us to contribute to the safety, happiness, peace, and freedom of all beings everywhere.

Dharmette: Opening the Dharma Heart (4 of 5): Inspired By Freedom

Friends, I'm very glad to be here with you. This is the fourth talk this week on the theme of opening the Dharma heart. The early Pali texts talk about opening the Dharma eye when a follower of the Buddha awakens and fully penetrates and realizes the Dharma for themselves. What's necessary for this insight to happen is to understand the truth of how things really are.

The wonderful artist Marc Chagall said, "If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." I believe this is especially true for everyone who has suffered greatly. I talked earlier this week about this Dharma practice as a process of sculpting ourselves, as though we're creating a beautiful work of art where more and more, through our practice, we become a force of beauty and goodness for both ourselves and others.

I think I coined this expression, "opening the Dharma heart"—which, by the way, is not canonical—because for me, opening the mind was not enough to get ready for the insights that give rise to liberation. I had to progressively, little by little for a long time, learn how to open the heart. This wasn't going to happen if I couldn't fully accept myself, warts and all.

So, the heart had to open for the mind to be able to settle down. In my case, I needed to be comfortable resting in moments of emptiness and to open the doors and windows to let in the sunlight and spaciousness of the Dharma. Like many of you, I'm a creature of this Western culture, and it's quite intuitive for me to distinguish between the mind and the heart. But this may not have been the case for the disciples of the Buddha. It's fascinating that citta^[2], the word in Pali that means mind, also means heart. Even today, when you ask someone in the Indian subcontinent to point to their mind, most people will put their hand on their heart.

This week, we're talking about the qualities of mind that the Buddha held as valuable in preparing for awakening. We've seen that we need to cultivate receptivity, making space in the mind to receive the Dharma. We need a soft mind, which in Pali is mudu^[3]. When I talked about this on Tuesday, I mentioned that the etymological root means not only soft but also happy. Then I went for a walk afterwards, and I had sort of a mental light bulb. I said to myself, "But of course, when the mind is soft, even temporarily—if it really doesn't have sharp edges—one can't help but feel happy." It completely makes sense, actually, that the root of this quality could evolve into either softness or happiness.

Yesterday, we evoked the quality of having a mind that is free of preoccupations, again, even just temporarily. Likewise, the absence of the hindrances is naturally a source of gladness because we're no longer slaves to our preoccupations. What a relief. We can be here in the present moment with more agency when the hindrances are not pushing us around. Moments like that are really moments of freedom, and this taste of freedom leads naturally to the quality that we'll evoke today.

The word for today's wholesome quality is udagga^[4], which comes from the prefix ud and the word agga. Ud means upwards, and agga has a number of different meanings. As an adjective, it means highest, foremost, supreme, ultimate, or superb. As a noun, it means peak, top, conclusion, or result. This may sound a little abstract, but in fact, udagga is usually translated as elated or inspired. It can also mean enraptured or exalted. This kind of intense rapture is an early phase of deep concentration in meditation.

In this context, I think it's important to recognize that there may be dangers. When we experience being elated like this, it can be pretty enrapturing, and it could become a preoccupation in itself if we cling to the intense pleasure that it produces. I think the way the Buddha intended us to welcome this quality is more as a quality of being inspired—in a way that allows the mind to settle so that the dregs can filter out, and we have the genuine clarity to be able to receive these insights. We don't want to be captured by being elated.

As I said earlier, all of these wholesome qualities exist on a broad spectrum. They're, of course, easier to access on a long meditation retreat, but it's worthwhile tuning into and recognizing even subtle occurrences of them during our daily meditation and daily life.

As the Buddha teaches in the Dhammapada^[5]:

All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a corrupted mind, and suffering follows, as the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox. All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind. Speak or act with a peaceful mind, and happiness follows, like a never-departing shadow.

We are constantly creating our experience by what we focus on. The news is full of disasters and unethical behavior, but it's worthwhile taking the time to make space in the mind for what inspires us. Perhaps we can think of the courage and generosity of all the rescue workers in Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, and elsewhere in the world who risk their own lives to help others.

In our meditation practice, even if we have short moments of receptivity, softness, and malleability, and the freedom from being pushed around by our preoccupations—just a tiny moment of that is worth celebrating. For me, having confidence that this dharmic path I'm trying to walk is the right place to be brings me great gladness. I know that I'm in good hands. I know I'm on the right track, and it's okay to walk this path even with imperfections.

I hope you can take that in and trust yourselves to be worthy practitioners. Don't be impatient. This Dharma path is made for slow bloomers as well as fast bloomers, and there really is space for all beings to be here. We can be inspired by tasting and celebrating even short moments of being free of the hindrances. As you open your hearts and minds in your meditation practice and in your mindfulness throughout the day, be sure to honor those tastes of freedom and let them bring you gladness.

So that's your homework: making peace with who you are, recognizing, and even letting yourself be inspired by whatever tastes of freedom are offered to you, moment by moment.

Thank you for your practice. May your day be sprinkled with moments of gladness, and may your practice inspire you.