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Guided Meditation: Embodied Breathing

Good morning, everyone, and welcome.

We are here to meditate. Perhaps to use the word "meditation" is too broad. Another way of saying it is that we're here to deeply appreciate our capacity to be aware, to deeply use that awareness to discover what the lived life is at this moment—not the lived life we'll have tomorrow or we had yesterday, but the lived life of the moment. That is the place where it's almost like three dimensions. If the past and the future are two-dimensional, the present moment is three-dimensional and has depth to it in a different kind of way.

Assume a posture that can help you really be here to appreciate this moment, but not appreciate it only from the mind, from the control tower watching or thinking about it. Choose a posture of embodiment. Arrange your body in such a way that there's an intentionality to being embodied. For some people, that means to sit up a little straighter, perhaps without puffing up the chest. There's a gentle art of opening the chest as we sit, maybe by gently pulling in the spine between the shoulder blades.

Sometimes you can get a little bit more sense of engaged presence by pulling back your head slightly and tipping your head gently forward, opening up the space between the last vertebrae and the skull. Then gently close the eyes, if it's comfortable for you. Closing the eyes is a way of concentrating our attention in the body, dropping into your lived experience of your body. Feel and sense your body. So much of the lived experience of the moment is mediated through the body, including the things that we don't think of as the body: our emotions, our thoughts, our attitudes.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths so you can feel the fullness of this embodied life: the expansion of the chest, the lifting of the shoulders, the swelling of the belly perhaps as you breathe in deeply. Then let your breathing return to normal. With a normal breath, on the exhale, relax your body. Relax into an awareness of embodiment, of being in a body, having a body.

Relax the muscles of the face. On the exhale, relax the belly. On the exhale, relax the shoulders.

Within the body, as part of your embodied experience, become aware of how the body experiences breathing. As if awareness lives in your body, not in your control tower up in the thoughts, see if you can rest into the body's experience of itself. Rest into the body's experience of breathing.

Ever so gently, as a whisper in the mind, say the word "in" as you breathe in, and "out" as you breathe out. Let that word not be so important for its own sake, but rather act as a gentle pointing of staying with the embodied experience of the inhale and the embodied experience of exhaling so the mind doesn't wander off. When it does wander off, just gently begin again, returning to the embodied experience of breathing.

As we come to the end of the sitting, realize that the more centered we are in ourselves, the more we have to offer others. The more centered we are here, that can be the genesis of our kindness, our friendliness, our care, and our love. Take a moment to center yourself the best you can here in this body.

Turn your attention outwards into the world, either generally towards everyone or towards the people that you'll encounter today. Imagine yourself in the presence of some people where you're centered, balanced, relaxed, and unthreatened. Everything's okay, and there's lots of room for your love, your care, your goodwill, and your well-wishing.

With that situation in mind, extend your goodwill in the following way, maybe repeating after me:

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may I have the kindness and goodwill from which such goodwill can flow. May I contribute to the welfare and happiness of this world.

Dharmette: Discomfort (5 of 5) Comfortable with Discomfort

We come to the last talk on discomfort. I hope you've been usefully uncomfortable this week—not any more than usual, but that you've learned something about the value of mindfulness of discomfort.

Buddhism focuses ultimately on a certain kind of spiritual freedom, an inner freedom. If we become free only when we're comfortable, we're not really free. One of the tests for how free we are is to discover if we are free while we're uncomfortable and uneasy.

There is always going to be discomfort in this world. To fight it or feel like it's a mistake is going to be exhausting. We can develop a power: the power of being comfortable with discomfort. Discovering how to be free with discomfort—not just free when discomfort has gone away—is extremely useful. If people think that they have to be comfortable to be free, then we're never going to learn how to be wise with discomfort. If we feel like when we're uncomfortable we have to react to it, change it, fight it, hide from it, or collapse around it, then we'll never discover how to be free.

Learning how to be comfortable with discomfort means learning how to center ourselves and be present for discomfort without reactivity. It means being free enough that, while we're uncomfortable, we are able to metaphorically stand tall or upright and look directly at reality.

Discomfort is perhaps always a message, and the question is: What is the message? Is it a message to heed, or is it a message to not give into? Being present for discomfort means being able to look reality in the eye and really see what's happening here. Sometimes we need to look at ourselves, and sometimes it's a call to look at what's happening around us, taking discomfort as a message for greater attention. Something here needs attention. Then we look at it directly: what is really going on here? This begins to exercise our freedom to look at what's happening, as opposed to giving in to our reactions about what's happening.

This ability to stand comfortably in discomfort also gives us the capacity, when appropriate, to allow ourselves to be uncomfortable and do what has to be done. The discomfort doesn't interfere or distract us from what has to happen. It can be very uncomfortable to have to take a neighbor to the ER when the hospital is full, there are long lines outside, and COVID^[1] is there. That is very uncomfortable. But this has to happen. I have to help the neighbor. I know how to be uncomfortable; this is the time to be uncomfortable and not be caught by it, but keep focused on the task of helping the neighbor.

We must have the strength, the capacity, the dedication, and the ability to stay present, investigate what's going on, and take care of what needs to be taken care of without being sidetracked by the discomfort.

Sometimes the task at hand is to investigate the discomfort itself. That investigation works a lot better if we are not living in reactivity with discomfort. If we have learned how to be comfortable with discomfort, we don't have filters over our eyes. We are more able to be honest and see more clearly and deeply what's happening when looking at ourselves. The same thing applies if we're looking outwardly. In an uncomfortable social situation, I think it's important to take a good look and see what's going on. We must not give in to the discomfort or be distracted by it, but also not ignore it, using our capacity to investigate what's really going on here.

I see this as a capacity to do three things at once: to know we're uncomfortable, to be okay with that enough so that we can look and see more deeply what's happening, and to dedicate ourselves to the tasks at hand. We do what needs to be done even if we're uncomfortable.

For example, giving a public speech is very uncomfortable for some people. Learning to be comfortable with discomfort might mean saying, "Yes, I'm uncomfortable, and I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to go up there to the stage and just stand there and do it. I'm not going to be held back or inhibited by the discomfort, but I will know it's uncomfortable."

This ability to look at and hold all of this is one of the great skills that we can learn from the practice of mindfulness. Do not be discouraged, upset, or avoidant of discomfort that occurs while you're meditating. Don't hold up a standard that meditation is only supposed to be relaxing, calm, and blissful. Sometimes the greatest inner growth can happen when we're willing to practice with our discomfort.

When meditation is uncomfortable, don't go make yourself uncomfortable just for this lesson. But when discomfort comes, don't shy away from it. Don't feel like, "Oh, this is not the day to meditate." This might be the ideal day to meditate. You might learn more about freedom, more about yourself, more about your reactivity, and more about how not to give in to discomfort if you sit with it upright, clear, present, and really practice mindfulness of it. Feel how it is in the body, your attitudes, and your reactions.

This week has been a call for all of us—myself included—to understand the value of practicing with discomfort. As I said yesterday, sometimes when we give in to discomfort, we actually shortchange some of the most beautiful parts of what's possible in our life. We might be uncomfortable with love, with receiving generosity from others, or with honesty. These are all things that interfere with rich social interactions.

Learning to be comfortable with discomfort so that our love, our generosity, our care, and our receptivity to other people's love can flow freely is one of the great advantages of this practice.

Thank you for this. I hope this has been useful for you, and I hope it leads you to a greater comfort in this life—including a comfort with discomfort.

Announcements

A couple of announcements. Next week I'm off teaching a retreat again at the retreat center—the second in-person retreat. We will have a wonderful teacher coming, Ying Chen. She's been teaching here at IMC for some time, and I'm very happy and delighted that she's going to be able to be here for the 7:00 a.m. teaching.

Also, on December 4th and December 11th, we're having another round of something we did back in May or June, which is a mindfulness circle for people who are identified as Black. Two wonderful Black teachers will be leading it. It will be on Zoom at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday—a week from tomorrow, and the following week. If you are Black, or if you know a Black practitioner who might value being in a mindfulness circle with some teaching, discussion, and practice, you can find more information about it on the IMC website. The easiest place to find it is either in the "What's New" section in the bottom right-hand corner, on the calendar, or under "Programs."

Thank you, and I look forward to being back in ten days or so and continuing here.