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Guided Meditation: Resiliency

Greetings, happy to be here and be sitting here. I bike down from my home every morning, so it's a wonderful, exhilarating little bike down the hill. Sitting down here to be with all of you is very comfortable, and it is now becoming a familiar place to be in the morning. Thank you.

There are times when there's a correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm, and some people make much ado about this. But one area where I find it useful is to see that the wider ways in which we live our lives can correspond to, be represented by, or be epitomized by our relationship to breathing in meditation.

This is not always the case, and there are people for whom there are much better objects to meditate with than the breathing. But mindfulness of breathing is a very classic practice, keeping the breath at the center. I've been doing that now for pretty much my whole adult life, and I just love sitting down to be with my breathing.

The way that the microcosm is represented—how it can represent the microcosm of our life—is an interesting area. If the breathing is the center of gravity for meditation, if nothing else is compelling, we come and stay with the breathing and develop both mindfulness and concentration there.

Sooner or later, and chances are it's going to be very soon especially when you first sit down, the mind will wander away. You'll lose contact with the breathing, notice that your mind has drifted off, and then begin again with the breathing. That's a pretty common phenomenon. It is very common, to be expected, and part of meditation is working with that.

In that little process is a little microcosm of the mind wandering away and then beginning again. What I want to emphasize in this meditation is the care and attention to how you begin again with your breathing. That can be a little microcosm of how we relate to so many things in our life.

It is very easy to have the mind wander off. Since the task is to stay with the breathing, when the mind wanders off, it is easy to berate oneself, to be upset, or to feel like "I have failed" or "I'm not doing what I should have done." Then we might pounce back on the breath, jerk the mind back, or maybe come back to the breathing with an ever-so-slight irritation or disappointment that, here again, the mind wandered off.

There are all these kinds of little things, and they can be so teeny. In ordinary life or ordinary meditation, we almost don't see them unless we pay attention to them. Especially if you've been meditating for a long time, how we begin again or how we relate to the thinking mind has become so habitual that we might not see the subtle traces of something that is a little bit of dukkha^[1]—a little bit of suffering, tension, or a little discomfort in what we do.

What I want to suggest for this meditation is that one of the things we're developing in our life in general, and also in our ethical life, is resilience. This is the ability to see clearly what has happened, but not to be burdened with unnecessary beratement, self-criticism, discouragement, aversion, or reinforcing a certain idea of self in what we do that might subtly or coarsely cause harm in the world. When what we said or did doesn't feel quite right, resilience means seeing it honestly and clearly, just like when the mind wanders off from the breathing. We learn from it and grow from it, but without doing anything harmful to ourselves in that process.

We need the resiliency to start again—to see clearly what's there and then begin again in a fresh way. With an ethical life, we don't forget about it, but we always come back and step forward into the next moment. And so we can begin to learn this—what I call resiliency—if we are careful about how we begin again.

To begin again in a way that is fresh and clear means not being weighed down by the slightest hint of criticism, disappointment, ideas of failure, impatience, or whatever it might be. It should be as simple as your hand coming to touch your other hand in a gentle, calm, relaxed way. The hands come back in touch with each other, and awareness comes back in touch with the breathing. We recognize we wandered off, and then we experiment. It is learning a new habit, a new way of being with that teeny little microcosm. My suggestion for you is that this microcosm will cultivate wonderful capacities in other areas of your life. It will grow, that habit will spread, and it will make a huge difference.

Guided Meditation

So, if you would like to take your meditation posture and gently close your eyes.

Begin with an attitude or approach that feels nourishing and supportive for you. An approach that moves you in the direction I'm talking about here: a freshness and openness, without a lot of self, self-concern, impatience, ideas of obligation, or whatever extra might be there. Right away, experiment and just look for that attitude of how to be here in meditation.

Then, bring this kind of attention to your breathing. Some people like the idea of welcoming the breath. Or, if welcoming is too complicated, allowing the breath to come to awareness, as opposed to directing the mind to the breathing. Open the door of awareness so that breathing can arrive. Just be here in a very simple way.

Your mind will be as it is. Maybe there is agitation^[2], maybe it's calm. Perhaps you can have an attitude toward how the mind is that is not so troubled by it, not adversarial towards anything.

Whenever the mind wanders off in thought, acknowledge that. Then the real part of this meditation begins: to begin again with the breathing in a way that is peaceful and supportive. That itself may be an expression of freedom, ease, peace, or care. Every time the mind wanders off, the heart of this meditation is how you begin again with your breathing.

Sometimes in meditation, we want to try experimenting. One experiment is that every time the mind wanders off and you notice it, experiment with different ways of beginning again until you find a way that you enjoy and that is supportive. A way that creates an inner landscape that encourages you to stay present with the breathing. It feels good here.

What old habits do you have to let go of or shift to start again? It's a kind of resiliency to overcome any ways in which you have weighed yourself down.

Reflections

As we come to the end of this meditation, how can this microcosm—how we begin again with the breathing or whatever our meditation object is—be applied or understood in relationship to how we are present for other people?

When someone shows up and is here in front of us, or they call us, or they send us an email, how is it that we can adjust our attention to include them? What can we learn from how we begin again to include the breathing?

How is it that in our encounters with others, we can shed some of the unnecessary weight that we have around self, self-consciousness, subtle aversion, aggression, reluctance, impatience^[3], fear, or anxiety, and begin again with this person? We want how we show up and how we are with someone to be enjoyable and nourishing for ourselves.

As we learn this art of being present for others in a way that we appreciate, value, and look forward to, chances are that that way of being is conducive to living an ethical life with them. It's conducive to having care. It's conducive to having the aspiration or the goodwill expressed in the idea of: May they be happy. May they be peaceful. May they have an inner life^[4] which feels safe, happy, peaceful, and nourishing.

May it be today, as you go about your life and have encounters with others—whether in person, on the phone, via email, or even just reading about a stranger on the street—that you see if you can experiment in the same way you experimented with your breathing. Show up for those people in a way that's beautiful, at least for yourself.

May our contact and relationship to other people help create a better world for everyone.