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Introduction

Thank you for all these wonderful good mornings appearing here. It's very heartwarming to sit down and see them all from all over. So, I'm happy to be here, and good morning to all of you, good evening, good afternoon, wherever your time zone is.

Guided Meditation: Aware Like an Open Door

To begin today's meditation, I want to offer another metaphor that is meant to support the teachings after the meditation. I imagine that there's a very complex maze—a large maze with lots of hallways that go on and around and are convoluted in all kinds of ways. What's unusual about this maze is that it's also made up of a lot of doors. There are hundreds, thousands of doors that you have to choose from, deciding which ones to go through.

Imagine you're standing in front of this maze, perplexed and wondering how you're going to manage to find your way through. A wise person comes along and tells you, "The way to make your way through the maze is to only go through the open doors." You take that advice. As you're walking down these hallways, you come to an open door—lots of doors are closed, but you walk through the open one. You walk further, pass all kinds of closed doors, and lo and behold, there's another open door. You walk through that. After a while, it seems pretty easy to find your way through the maze. There are no doors to open; you just walk through where the opening is, and soon enough you find yourself through the maze and free.

This is a little bit what happens with the experience of Nibbana^[1], or experiences that are quite Nibbana-like, where the letting go is strong. The cessation of some kind of preoccupation, clinging, or delusion has occurred. A sense of openness and freedom has evolved and created space in the heart and the mind. When that is clear enough, it leaves an ability of vision—an ability to see where that freedom of the mind is found.

Rather than practice being so much about doing, building, and making—which is an important part of practice—there is also this clear feeling, or a clear vision, of where the freedom is, where the open door is. That becomes the guide for practice. We're guided by that visceral, heartfelt clarity—the bright light of the openness of the place where there's no clinging, no resistance, no being for or against.

There might well be all kinds of ways in which we are for and against^[2] things that are appropriate, but the awareness with which we walk through the world is an open door. Really, it's not so much that we're walking through the maze, but the world comes to walk through the maze of our own mind, and we allow it to walk through with the door open. We know where that door is, and then things just go right through our mental maze.

When the doors are closed in our minds, the world gets stuck there with our attachments, our clinging, our resistance, and aversions. So as we sit for this sitting, perhaps you can see if you can find that place where awareness is an open door. Whatever experience you're having—whether it's the breathing, sensations in your body, emotions, thoughts you might be having, or sounds from outside—you have a sense of how to keep the doors of awareness open. Not to pick it up, but to let it just pass right through. To be clearly known, but with the clear recognition that there is freedom.

Taking a Posture

Taking a meditation posture, sit up or meditate in a posture that gives you some sense of uprightness—literally upright, or having some sense of integrity to it. Find a little sense of confidence: "Here I am." A confidence in present-moment attention. And more than attention, a confidence in your whole being being present for this moment. Let there be a presence, attention, knowing, and awareness that is somewhat embodied here.

As you exhale, let go of holdings and tensions in your body, relaxing into the body. Then, gently center your attention^[3] on your breathing. See if you can feel or recognize that quality of awareness where there's no clinging or resistance to breathing. The experience of breathing comes through the open door of awareness. It's just known, without any stickiness, without trying to do something, accomplish anything, or get rid of anything. The experience of breathing is allowed to be itself. It doesn't get entangled in the mazes of the mind, but the mind is open; awareness is open.

It might only be a partial openness, or a small percentage of how you are in relationship to it. Don't worry about how small your ability to have an open door is. Just stay there, recognize it, and allow the experience of breathing to move through the open door of awareness.

If other things arise besides the breathing—sensations of the body, thoughts, emotions, sounds, anything—see if you can find that place where the doors of awareness are open to that as well. It passes through the door; it doesn't stop. You don't get involved in it or start thinking about it. It might not pass quickly, or it might come repeatedly, but keep the door of awareness open.

If you're distracted in thought, then the door is not open. The open door is found where there's an absence of preoccupation. Can you find in your mind, in the awareness itself, that quality? The non-preoccupation of an open awareness. Cultivate a sense that can receive whatever experience you're having, know it, and receive it like an open door receives someone going through it. It just allows things to pass.

The Gift of an Open Door

If a physical door is open, the door will not be damaged by something that goes through it quickly. But if doors are closed, something that moves quickly will slam against the door, maybe damaging the door, maybe damaging itself. When awareness is open to allow things to pass through, the awareness will not be damaged. You will not be damaged.

But if the doors of the mind and heart are closed, then there's a danger of being hurt. To not be hurt, the doors have to really be open—fully open. The doors of awareness are the doors of liberation.

We give a gift to the world if we keep the doors of our mind and hearts open. We give a gift of safety, a gift of non-contentiousness, non-hostility, and non-clinging^[4].

May it be that whatever taste of non-clinging we get, whatever taste of release we have, becomes a gift to the world. With our doors open, it is easier for us to be generous. It is easier for us to be kind and compassionate, a calm, peaceful presence in the midst of chaos and hostility.

May it be that we aspire for our meditation practice to support us in how we live our lives among other lives. May we become a force of good and of benefit. May our practice and our lives be lived for the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere, because our doors are open.