This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Harmonious and Connected

Good morning and a good day. Maybe good evening for some of you. Welcome. Welcome to our 7:00 a.m. Sangha gathering together. I'm here sitting alone in the basement of my house. It's very quiet here. And as I was just seeing the chat messages flowing through my screen, I have this vivid sense of we're joining a Dharma field together. There is a kind of connectedness. A sense of quiet gathering. I'm feeling the goodness, and so many greetings start with the word good. Good.

With all this cultivation that we've been doing all these years and this week specifically around the cultivation of sila^[1], maybe there is a sense of goodness within. And a sense of being held by a kind of inner goodness. And so as we engage, as we live our lives, it comes from this inner sense of goodness. And so there can be a sense of harmony. A sense of being connected and harmonized rather than fragmented, conflicted, and divided. And so we all sit together, cultivating our inner goodness. And then we'll flow from there.

So let's begin. Just with these few words, let yourself notice any goodness that's here. Maybe a sense of warmth in the heart. A sense of quieting down. Gathering inward.

This Buddha's path is inward oriented. Coming here to the immediacy of the here and now. Dropping below the surface layers of the chatters, preoccupations, to-dos. Gathering around sati^[2], mindfulness, mindful, aware.

There is a felt sense of being present for our live moment. Let yourself know, register how it is to be present. You're present so you can feel and sense what's happening in the present moment. Sensations in the body, movements of the breath. Vibratory feeling. The flux of aliveness embodied.

Let the mindfulness become big. Maybe expansive. Let the momentary presence become a steady kind of presence. So, the moments come to us. We don't have to go out to the moments.

Remembering this whole week of cultivation of sila. We're aligning our hearts and minds with non-harming, kindness, care, compassion. Does that not have a sense of goodness already with this kind of orientation and alignment? It's not a demand. It's opening to a kind of possibility that's available to us.

Sensing the uplift in the heart. Sensing groundedness in the body. At the inner presence. Be quiet. It's more like a listening. Feeling, sensing. Quietly. So, there is a natural attunement to what arises in our minds and hearts and bodies.

A gentle attunement allows for a natural harmonization of the happenings of our experience. Pleasant, unpleasant, joyful, painful, lots of space around it. So, they can move. They can find their way in the vast spaciousness. They are not mistakes. They are here. They are to be seen, known, and heard just as they are.

May this spacious knowing, might there be a hint of harmony. All parts of you, all aspects of you can be here as they are.

Let the spacious presence be without boundaries. Our boundaries are mental constructs. When we let loose the constructs, the quiet presence has no boundaries. Maybe there is a sense of how we're connected. In the vast spaciousness, the sound of my voice has an effect. The words have an effect on you. And your presence has an effect on each other. A connected field. Beyond the walls, borders.

And we can be connected and have a sense of harmony together. Maybe a hint of it. A hint of a possibility. Doesn't need to be perfect.

Bowing to each other. Bowing to ourselves. So grateful. That there is a path. A practice. And a cultivation. That allows us to open to this possibility of living in harmony. Living with well-being. And living in this world without harming, as best as we are able. It is surely a blessing. To be in this connected field. And to participate in the practice. Together.

And may the goodness ripple out into the wider world. May all beings feel and sense the benefits of a connected, harmonious possibility.

[bell]

Dharmette: Sila from Inside Out (5 of 5): Sila Harmonizes

So, in the Pali Canon^[3] text, sila is rarely presented as just some kind of personal morality. You know, "I abide by the rules and so I am the best." Instead, the practice of sila is world-shaping. And it starts with this world right here, and then ripples out to all around us. And so, it's world-shaping. As there are lesser degrees of retaliation, division, conceit, distrust, there is a kind of force, a movement all around that allows for a kind of unification and harmony. Because sila makes room to allow humans and nature to coexist. Coexisting is possible with a kind of harmony, with a kind of unity.

I'd like to bring a British musician into this conversation and this teaching. My son brought me to this British musician called Jacob Collier. Jacob is quite an interesting musician, and he has a very unique way of relating to music that I found to be really resonating with our Dharma teachings. Maybe very relevant to how we live our lives.

When he was very young, he was very attuned to all kinds of sounds. But he never really categorized them as good or bad. And so in his way of relating to all kinds of sounds, he would say, you know, "In music there are no bad notes. They are all unexpected opportunities." And so he was known to be able to harmonize all kinds of sounds into massive, beautiful pieces of music. Whether it's the banging in the kitchen or vacuum cleaner sounds, all kinds of sounds. He would bring them in and find ways to harmonize it.

And what was really moving is that he created a way, he kind of found his way into how he can be at a concert and begin to conduct the whole audience, thousands of people in the audience, and make what he called an "audience choir," which includes the voices of everyone into the piece of music he's making. And he'll be doing that live right there with everybody. And so in this process, this is what he says: "This (meaning the audience voice), this is my voice. It's the voice of others. It's when I can offer whatever courage I have to you to use your voice. That's me speaking. That's me singing."

I found this very touching. And so I sometimes watch these YouTube clips on this. People who think that they can't sing, they sing anyway. And people who think that their voices are not good enough, they sing anyway. And people who think they can't let their voices be heard, they still sing anyway. And somehow, together, without diminishing anybody, without criticism, the totality of the voices becomes one unifying, harmonious piece of sound that reverberates in this whole theater, maybe into the world. And I'm often so moved by this, and so many people are moved by this. And it feels like a spiritual moment when our voices come together like this.

So why is this relevant for what we're saying here? Maybe that's an analogy. What I found is the practice of sila has this kind of harmonizing effect in the world we live in. It harmonizes our dance with life. And allows us to dance with life in some kind of harmony, maybe in small and big ways. It can feel and can be very, very ordinary, maybe as ordinary as how you're not bothered by being delayed by having to help someone pass a street slowly. So you do a slow dance. Maybe you missed the train. Maybe you have to wait for another 35 minutes. But, so what? Is it not meaningful to be participating in this slow dance with someone? Or maybe you take time, take energy to research some options, to care for something or some being with more sensitivity. And so, we're not just automatically rushing for something that is convenient. And our societies are so addicted to convenience.

Then, I would say sila, the practice of sila is often incompatible with the convenience we would tend to resort towards. And so, let love lead^[4]. Let the care and let the interest bring aliveness to our lives in how we treat each other, how we treat this heart, and how we treat different parts of ourselves. And what breaks harmony and unity is often driven by how we get caught by our anxieties and frustration, our self-centeredness, and carelessness. Greed. And they divide us, and they fragment us in taking sides. And it's not very hard for us to see how today's world easily gets organized around greed, hatred, delusion, power, dominance.

And so when we don't take care from inside, the conflicted mind tends to create more conflict externally. And a less conflicted mind, then we listen more. We feel more deeply. And so this kind of harmony that I'm pointing out is not based on somehow forcing ourselves into a kind of canned list of rules, but rather it's an expression of vast responsiveness of the human heart-mind. That is based on the insight into the truth of how we are deeply interconnected.

And so this inner quiet, an inner clarity allows for living in a harmonious relational world. That's a relational world that includes all parts of ourselves and all parts of other beings and the nature that we come in contact with. Whether or not we like it, we are participating in one another's dance with life. And so this cultivation of sila allows us to participate in the dance with joy and harmony as best as we can.

I'd like to end this week's teaching by reading you a poem from Thich Nhat Hanh^[5] in his book called Call Me By My True Names. Many of you probably have this book. And this poem is called "Interbeing."

Interbeing

The sun has entered me. The sun has entered me together with the cloud and the river. I myself have entered the river. And I have entered the sun with the cloud and the river. There has not been a moment when we do not interpenetrate. But before the sun entered me, the sun was in me. Also the cloud and the river. Before I entered the river, I was already in it. There has not been a moment when we have not inter-been. Therefore, you know that as long as you continue to breathe, I continue to be in you.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your attention and thank you for your practice in this connected and collected way. And may the benefit of our practice be shared wide open to all beings. May all beings be safe and protected from inner and outer harm. May all beings have peaceful, loving hearts, clear and bright minds. May all beings be strong, healthy, and vital. May all beings know joy, wonder, peace, and liberating wisdom just as it is in this life.