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Guided Meditation: Staying with the Moment

Here we are, good morning! I needed to refresh my own YouTube. It's wonderful to see you all this morning. I'm happy to see so many familiar names rolling in, and your greetings from all over the place. It's really inspiring to be here with so many people doing this practice. It's a delight.

Good morning all. The topic for this morning is vīriya^[1], energy or effort. I just want to mention that it's part of a five-part series—many of you have been to the other parts of the series this week—which is on the bases^[2] or roads to spiritual power and meditative success. So we'll start with a guided meditation.

The invitation is to enjoy the chat rolling in, if you are, and while you're doing that, to settle into your body. Maybe weave back and forth a little, like I'm doing. Feel your weight forward and back, side to side, and come to balance. Come to balance in the center.

It can be helpful to start with one or two intentional breaths—a little bit longer, a little bit slower—and letting go of any excess gripping or tension on the out-breath. Now, if you are ready to close your eyes and go inward, tune in. Notice how the body is today in this moment. Any places of holding... [unintelligible]. Any vibrancy or energy. Softness, relaxation. And the other stray sensations. Noticing this whole body.

Allowing the breathing to settle into normalcy. If the breath is a good anchor of attention for you, the invitation is to settle your attention there. Rest there, while very intentionally placing attention, awareness, and mindfulness at the forefront. Allowing concerns and other experiences—anything "then and there"—to fade off into the background.

Making the intention for this time together in meditation: continue to return to this moment. A light touch, or a firm placing of the heart, the mind, and the body, now.

Noticing the details of what is arising. Maybe ambient sounds where you are, the myriad sensations of breathing, and the aliveness of the whole body. Bringing a sense of interest, devotion, and engagement to the details of each in-breath and out-breath. Each arising.

Noticing if the mind is wandering away, and if so, with just as much effort as is necessary, returning. Allowing this moment to be predominant.

From time to time, noticing if the mind has drifted away, if the attention has become loose, and reattuning to the moment. And also noticing if the mind has constricted or gotten too tight, and if so, softening, allowing, in the moment.

In the final moments of this meditation, reflecting on any calm or peace, any goodness, kindness, or pleasure. Even the smallest moment that may have emerged during this practice. And if it feels right to share it, offer it outwards to the others in your life, so that it may grow in the sharing.

Casting your mind's eye towards those who share your days, people and creatures, and offering the wish: May they be safe. May they be happy. May they be healthy, peaceful, and free.

Thank you for the sincerity of your practice.

Dharmette: Spiritual Power (3 of 5) Effort and Energy

Thank you. So, good morning again, sangha. I see some notes about refreshing YouTube in the chat, and I just want to mention that we are broadcasting via Zoom, so that may have a little bit to do with it. Have patience with the technology that brings us together and sometimes causes those little glitches. These are all recorded. They will be uploaded—most of them will be uploaded on Thursday, I think. They are available on YouTube and will be available on audiodharma.org as well.

So, sangha, the topic for today is balanced effort, energy, and perseverance. Just a brief recap: effort or energy is one of the key components of these bases of spiritual power or meditative prowess that the Buddha practiced before his awakening. Each basis has a kind of tripod of qualities in it. One is samādhi^[3], what I've been calling immersion or collection, sometimes known as concentration or stability. Then there is padhāna^[4], engagement. And in this case of vīriya, effort.

There are three main points this morning. First, vīriya—effort or energy—has a range of intensity. Second, it's helpful to balance and adapt that energy, that effort, throughout practice, and for that matter, throughout any activity. And third, there's one kind of effort so important to the teaching that it's sometimes taught by the Buddha as a fifth basis, and that is perseverance or persistence.

So, vīriya (effort) is a continuum. That's reflected in different translations of it depending on the context. I just want to invite you to feel in your body how these words feel, these different nuances of interpretation, and maybe notice any associations that come up with this word cloud: Heroic effort. Heroic energy. Strength. Courageous effort. Vigor. Perseverance. Balanced effort. Continuous engagement. Gentle persistence. Light touch. Receiving, or allowing.

Feel those in your body. Feel those in your mind and your heart. No one is better than the other; at different times in meditation practice, each one of them has an appropriate and helpful place. The key is to take an adaptive approach, being fluid and flexible to how effort and energy come up in this practice.

The Buddha likened this process to tuning a stringed instrument, like a lute. It's the example used in the ancient Indian texts, but these days it might be more like tuning a guitar, a violin, or a banjo. It's worth noting that with these stringed instruments, changes in the weather will change how the tuning needs to happen, and the appropriate amount of turning required to get a good pressure. The same is true for different meditation conditions, which are kind of like the weather, right? There's a tuning, or attuning, to the appropriate amount of energy that's a little bit different each time we sit down to meditate, and throughout the course of a meditation.

In the course of a meditation, there are maybe different phases. For many of us, it can be like running or riding a bike on a hill. Courageous, vigorous effort is required to get moving. On the flats, once pedaling has gotten some momentum, it's okay to coast. And then downhill, you can just enjoy the momentum, speeding right along. Pedaling gets easier—a lighter and lighter touch, sometimes hands off completely, just to allow the flow to happen. This relates to the engagement, padhāna. We want to be lightly touching the handlebars, keeping tabs on where we're going, maybe using the brake to moderate the speed, and enjoying the immersion, the intentness, the samādhi, that flow.

So that's one simile or example of how vīriya (energy or effort) can work with these two complementary qualities. Another important way of adapting energy and effort is to notice what's being cultivated with it. This goes back to what we talked about yesterday, which is noticing kusala or akusala^[5]—skillful or unskillful application of effort.

The Buddha talks about this in a teaching called the Four Great Efforts^[6], which I'm just very briefly going to mention. They're called wise exertions, wise engagement, or padhāna, that same word. In brief, it is to prevent the unskillful from arising in the mind and heart, to abandon it if it has arisen, to cultivate what is good and skillful, and then to maintain that. Sometimes this involves backing off. If we're tangled up in aversion or frustration, grating of the teeth, furrowing of the brow, that kind of thing. Other times it can be a total act of courageous effort to place the attention where it's useful and move it off of where it's not useful. So it's a range.

Finally, one kind of effort is so important to this teaching on spiritual power that it's sometimes taught as a fifth basis, and that is—the Pali is ussoḷhī^[7] (spelled u-s-s-o-l with a dot under it, h-i). This translates in many ways, sometimes even as enthusiasm or vigor, but the translation I like the best is perseverance or persistence. It's this staying with the meditation practice over the long haul. Keeping coming back. Staying engaged. Not getting too caught up in outcomes. It's like keeping on, keeping on in a long journey.

This kind of perseverance and persistence is just vital to successful, powerful meditation practice over the long haul. The Buddha talks about it in different ways in different teachings, but it's that stick-to-itiveness. Any one given meditation session might be beautiful or not, but it's the accumulation of all these sessions over days, months, even years or decades that add up.

So effort, energy, is central to this teaching on spiritual power. So much so that the overall bases of success contain these three related concepts: vīriya (effort or energy), padhāna (wholehearted engagement), and sometimes this special shout-out to persistence, perseverance. It's layered in there in three different ways.

I just want to encourage you to pay special attention this week to the tuning of effort, the adaptation of energy, and what the purpose is that you apply effort or exertion for. In the next 24 hours, you might notice what kind of effort, energy, and engagement are helpful in your activities or your meditation. You might jot down notes, talk with a friend, and explore how it comes.

So thank you. Thank you all for your attention, thank you for your practice, and I look forward to being back with the online sangha tomorrow.