Dharmette: Complete and accessible; Guided Meditation Six Qualities of the Dharma

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Six Qualities of the Dharma; Dharmette: Complete and accessible. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by David Lorey at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 24, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Introduction

Good morning, one and all. Nice to see people checking in from around. I'm just getting my sound set up there so I don't hear myself checking in. Good day, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Seven o'clock here where I am, and thus time to get underway. I wish I could say good to see everyone, but of course, I can't see you. But lovely to see people checking in. And I know there are a lot of people who just don't check in. Welcome to you. I'm kind of one of those, but I appreciate people checking in. Welcome, everyone.

I'm looking forward to this week. I don't know if it's clear from the IMC calendar, but this week, Ying Chen and I are teaching together. In fact, Ying's doing most of the teaching. I'm just sitting in for today because Ying couldn't be here. But Ying and I love teaching together, and already in our exchanges about how to approach the theme for the week, I've been learning from Ying. We've had some lovely exchanges. Our theme for the week is the six qualities of the dharma. This occurred to us because next week we're teaching—Ying and I, along with Diana Clark and Kim Allen—an entire week retreat on this same topic, or a version of this topic: the six qualities of the dharma.

I'll just say a couple of words about it now, and then more words after we're finished meditating. The six qualities of the dharma is drawn from a phrase that occurs hundreds of times in the Pali discourses. It's a phrase that goes [Pali phrase]^[1], which today I'm going to translate as something like this: these teachings of the Buddha are comprehensive and complete in and of themselves. They're accessible to each and all of us. They're relevant at any and all times. They invite us inward. They point us onward toward freedom. And they're the foundation of wisdom and skillful action.

Today I'll talk just about the first couple of these, leaving the remaining four for Ying over the course of the week. For the guided meditation, I'll try to bring all of these into our practice, in a way that hopefully will be both supportive of a brief meditation and also support the sharing of the teachings in about 25 minutes.

Guided Meditation Six Qualities of the Dharma

Let's take our meditation posture. Maybe we make the meditation special in some way, unique to ourselves. Perhaps we bow to a Buddha statue. Perhaps we just collect our intention to settle into the here and now of our experience for a period of time. Maybe we feel in our chest somewhere a sense of practicing alone, but in the company of others of goodwill and of good intention.

Bringing attention to the body. I like to think of moving my attention inward and downward, sort of into the inner life and downward into the body. Making sure that the practice is an embodied practice.

Connecting with the breathing, and just noticing maybe how the breathing is right now. It doesn't have to be any particular way, but noticing it, paying attention, giving this central rhythm of our lives the gift of attention. Noticing whether the breath is easy, labored, shallow, deep, quick, fast, light, heavy, long, or short. Maybe it's a little quivery today. Maybe it feels strong and confident today, right now.

It brings us into a central teaching of the practice, which is we don't try to shape the way our experience is. We pay attention to the way it is. That helps us go deep into it.

So, the six qualities of the dharma. These teachings that come down to us can be thought of in general terms. They can be thought of as philosophical or theoretical ideas, or they can be thought about as meditation instruction. And don't feel any need to count up to six as I bring them into our meditation. Just notice how these ideas drop in. These phrases come into the meditation and maybe support something in your meditation. Support a stilling of mind, an opening of the heart, a grounding of experience, and the like.

First, there's a reminder that we have everything we need right here to be awake in life. We have what it takes. We can be confident in these ancient teachings, that they support us however we are in life.

We're reminded when we bring these qualities of these teachings to mind in the meditation that nothing needs to be excluded from our experience. Nothing needs to be pushed away. All of us can be included in this practice and in the meditation.

We're reminded that we don't have to be in a hurry to get somewhere else other than here. Being where we are, being right here, right now, is fine. This is where the practice lives and breathes.

We can be curious about what comes up in the meditation without rushing to analyze it, judge it, or think about it. Then we just notice this is what it's like right now.

We don't have to make the meditation do anything. The meditation deepens naturally all by itself, all on its own. And we can open to it. We can allow it to guide us.

Our job, as it were, our only job is just to come here and pay attention to our experience. We practice together. But each of us can find wisdom and a guide to skillful interaction and action in the world right here.

So there is encouragement in these six qualities of the dharma, these six dharma virtues as they're sometimes called, to share the benefits of our practice with the world. These qualities of the teachings that we embrace in the meditation—the open heart, the curiosity without judgment, the surrender to the practice as a guide, the confidence that we have everything we need to awaken, allowing all of us to show up, and showing up for all of who we are. All of these things can be of benefit to the world around us and the world in which we live.

And so as we bring the meditation to a close, we can maybe touch in with those aspects of these qualities of the dharma. And maybe with less focus on ourselves as actors, and more on the dharma itself. We can wish that these attributes of the dharma be shared, that our embracing of them, our cultivation of them, that these benefit others. And that way when we walk out into the world upon completing a period of meditation or as we deepen our practice, we can let these benefits flow outward in the sure knowledge that they are a benefit to others.

May these dharma qualities benefit all the world. May all beings feel their benefit. May all beings know freedom.

[bell]

Dharmette: Complete and accessible

As the bell fades, let me wish a good morning and good day to everyone. Welcome again. Welcome to everyone who's showing up now for a sharing of the dharma. Let me get the sound right.

I mentioned at the beginning that Ying Chen and I are sharing this week, happy as we always are to teach together in any form. And I particularly recommend to you to follow Ying. Ying is going to do most of the teaching this week. She couldn't do today, so I'll talk a little bit about the dharma virtues as a group, or the six qualities of the dharma, and then Ying will talk about them in another way. I'm going to say a couple of general things and talk about the first two qualities, leaving the other four for her. But they're all related, and so her way of bringing them forward and sharing them is bound to be interesting and supportive as well.

I realized as I brought the meditation to a close that frequently I recommend to everyone that when you finish the meditation, before hopping up or signing off in the YouTube chat, you do something to make what's just happened a special space. In some Tibetan traditions, this is referred to as protecting the practice.

Something I do is repeat the Pali phrase that includes these six qualities of the dharma. I said it at the outset. I like to repeat that because it reminds me of what's just occurred, touching in with the qualities of the dharma. It's a phrase we get from the ancient texts, which appears hundreds of times in the suttas. This way of characterizing the dharma, these six qualities, goes back 2,500 years. That to me makes it sort of special to be able to repeat it in these words.

This phrase is usually translated—I don't have it in front of me, but it would be something like this: This dharma is well expounded by the Buddha. It's visible here and now. It's not bounded by time. It invites us to come and see for ourselves. It's onward leading; it leads onward toward freedom. And it's to be individually experienced by the practitioners.

I'm translating it a little bit differently this week. I shared this with Ying. We talked about a way to make it very brief, a way we can grasp it really easily in the practice. She probably by tomorrow will have come up with a different way, but the way I put it together is that this phrase can be translated or glossed as follows:

The teachings of the Buddha are comprehensive and complete. That's "well expounded by the Buddha." I'll say something about that today. They're accessible to each and all of us. That came up in the meditation in the form of "we've got everything we need." We don't need something else besides what we have in front of us in our experience. They're relevant at any and all times. The teachings of the Buddha aren't bounded by time, and they're always useful.

The teachings invite us inward, as we do in the meditation: bringing our eyes down, bringing our attention inward. They point onward toward freedom. All the teachings of the Buddha, as the Buddha said, are only about one thing: suffering and the end of suffering. It might sound like two things, but the implication is that when we know suffering fully, we see the way to be free.

And finally, these teachings are the foundation of wisdom and skillful action. We experience them for ourselves, and then we can share them, as I said at the end of the meditation.

We could say a lot about these. We're teaching a whole retreat—Ying and I, and Diana Clark, and Kim Allen—next week at IRC. But I'll be brief and talk just about the first couple of these.

This idea that the teachings are well expounded by the Buddha, I take to mean two things—at least this is what I'm thinking right now today—that they're both comprehensive and complete. In different places, the Buddha reinforces that point in a couple of well-known passages in the ancient texts about them being comprehensive.

There's a famous phrase, and some of you may be familiar with it, that the Buddha in sharing the teachings is sharing a handful of leaves. I'm going to read from my phone from the text, and I'm going to paraphrase what's going on. It says, "On one occasion the Buddha was dwelling at Kosambi in a simsapa grove^[2]."

He took up a few leaves in his hand and addressed the practitioners around him, saying, "What do you think? Are there more leaves in my hand, or are there more leaves in the forest from which this little handful of leaves fell?" The practitioners said, "Oh, well, obviously there are more leaves in the forest." And the Buddha essentially said, "I know a lot of things, and I know a lot of things that are true, but this handful of leaves, these teachings that I give you, that I share with you, are the ones you need to find freedom." You don't need anything other than these core teachings.

He continued, "What is this handful of leaves? This is suffering. This is the arising of suffering. This is the ceasing of suffering. And this is the practice that meets suffering in a way that has freedom in it."

So the teachings are comprehensive. What we get is all that's needed to be awake in the world.

Complete is kind of a different idea, but the Buddha says in another passage—I have that here somewhere, let me see. This is in a discourse that describes the end of the Buddha's life. He says a lovely phrase. He's asked by his longtime attendant, Ananda^[3], if he has anything else to say. In particular, will he say anything about the leadership of the sangha after his death?

The Buddha says, "I'm not going to say anything more than I've said. I've taught the dharma without making any distinction between secret and public teachings." The Buddha doesn't have the closed fist in teaching, but rather an open hand.

In other words, what he's taught is complete. It's a lovely idea that the practices we're introduced to are all we need. There are no advanced teachings. What we need to do is this practice of paying attention to our experience and looking deeply within without judgment, without pushing away, without hanging on too tight.

I love this idea that the Buddha has taught these teachings not with a closed fist, but with an open hand. Nothing stingy. Nothing held back. Not holding back special or advanced teachings for special or advanced people. There is something about the teachings and the way they're presented that make them accessible to all of us.

That quality of being accessible is the last one I'll talk about today. The word sandiṭṭhiko^[4], which is usually translated as "visible here and now." This is an idea that's reinforced elsewhere in these characteristics or qualities of the dharma, which is that we can see and understand the teachings for ourselves.

When we engage with the teachings that are shared with us directly, we don't need the intercession of belief or of experts. Rather, we can find in the teachings all we need to know to be free, to be awake.

As I say that right now, it sounds like a lovely quality, but I realize it's also kind of a challenge. We're used to relying on expertise. We're used to relying on things outside ourselves. Yet in this characterization of the teachings, and throughout them, there's this encouragement to keep engaging with our own experience directly as a way to know suffering, and as a way to end suffering.

In all of this, there's this sometimes challenging notion that what we need to know is already there right in front of us, and that we need to open to it and see it clearly. Our job in engaging with the teachings is to let go of things that get in the way of seeing clearly. When we lean into the teachings, when we let the teachings be our guide rather than experts, we can clearly see things like suffering, or impermanence, or selfing. We can see through them and understand them in a way that allows us to meet experience without fighting against it.

I'm tempted to say more, but I want to leave a lot for Ying to say. I've characterized here only the first two of these six qualities: that the dharma is complete and comprehensive. A little goes a long way. A handful of leaves—just this small set of teachings that seem disarmingly simple. We know they're not easy to put into practice, but this is all we need to be free. They are presented by the Buddha, and by those teachers that follow in the Buddha's footsteps, with an open hand. Nothing is held back. They're accessible to any and all of us. They're there to be met, encouraging us to clearly see our own suffering and that of the world around us.

I'll close by saying that there's a lot of emphasis on each of our individual engagement with the teachings in these six qualities, and yet we practice together, as we are this morning, and we live in the world. We bring these practices to bear in the world. The idea that these teachings can be a foundation for wisdom and understanding our own suffering, and that they can also support skillful action in the world, is something sort of paradoxical in the practice. We sit in meditation alone, but then we share the benefits of whatever we meet with this way of seeing, bringing the benefit of that into our action and interaction in the world.

At any rate, until next time I'm asked to come back and share the week with Ying or others—I think I'll be back sometime in May—let these qualities of the dharma permeate your practice. Let your practice be confident that this is all you need. Let all of you show up in the meditation and in the rest of the practice. We don't have to push parts of ourselves away. We need to know all of us. This is a practice of intimate exploration with how it really is to be alive in the world. That's complicated and difficult. There's a lot of stuff that we don't really want to see. But pushing anything away keeps us from seeing it clearly.

Be curious about what comes up in the practice. Let that curiosity lead us deeper into the practice and closer to freedom. And finally, I think the way to strengthen how it helps us in action and interaction is, as we act in the world—which we do constantly—to just keep bringing these qualities of the dharma into that action. It may just be a momentary pause to recognize that in this instance we can be curious without being judgmental. Or we can be confident that we're enough, that we're adequate to the task, that we're up to this life.

So take care everyone. I can't say I'll see you tomorrow, but Ying will see you tomorrow, so enjoy that. Take care, see you in May.