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Guided Meditation: Knowing Calmly

So, I'm using the opportunity these days to emphasize the knowing quality of attention. Our capacity for attention and awareness has many different faculties, many different ways in which it operates. They can all come together and work in harmony. There's the more cognitive knowing where we recognize something for what it is. There's also feeling it fully and being with it experientially in the body, where the knowing might not be as central, but just the embodied feeling is what's central.

There's observing. There is a clarity of awareness where things just arise. So, a variety of things. We're emphasizing knowing because it's useful to get a sense of the richness, the possibilities, and the potential of this knowing faculty we have. For today, I want to say that it's possible to know something with some intentionality, with some choice to really say, "Let's know this. Let's be clear about it and to know it." As we know it, it might be in a word. It might feel—you know, just the in-breath is in, and we know it as an in-breath. It might be a word in the mind, it might be a little bit of an image. For people who think more in images, perhaps a nice image to have is the image of the chest moving or the belly moving.

What I want to emphasize today, because it's a little bit intentional no matter how else you might be feeling, is to engage in the knowing in a calm way. Calmly know. Even if you're agitated, take a little time to calmly recognize, "Agitation is here."

Sometimes the mind is racing, or is fast, or is energized. Or maybe it's really dull and sinking. There are all kinds of ways in which the mind can be. It's very common for us to let the mind's mood or state influence how we are and how we use our attention. This is an exercise to take hold of your knowing faculty and use it with a certain kind of clarity and intentionality. Consciously use it, and as you use it, do it calmly.

So in a little gentle, lovingly determined way: knowing the in-breath, knowing the out-breath. Knowing a sound that's coming in, knowing a warm tingling in the belly. Knowing an itch, knowing the itch some more, and back to the in-breath, out-breath. Let the knowing become... it's a little bit like the story I like to tell of my son in preschool. He had a wonderful teacher. When the kids were playing in the playroom, noisily and happily running around, and it was time to do something different—tell a story so they could take their nap—he would stand in the middle of the classroom and start talking softly. As he talked softly and calmly, over a few minutes the kids would begin gathering around him like the Pied Piper. The kids would all gather around him, sit down, and look up with great delight and expectation as he prepared to tell a story.

So maybe that kind of a calm knowing that is not trying to fix anything or do anything, but it becomes a little bit of a reference point for your psychophysical system to finally relax or calm down as well.

Beginning with a meditation posture that, for you, represents or allows for a combination of being alert and relaxed. Alert and calm. Then take a few long, slow, deep breaths, beginning the movement of being calm by how you calmly breathe. Maybe three-quarters full breath, nothing that is a strain, and a calm, long exhale. As long as it doesn't strain you, relaxing as you exhale. Breathing in, breathing out.

And then let your breathing return to normal. Perhaps there's a little margin of adjusting that's natural enough, easy enough, to breathe a little bit calmer. Maybe by relaxing the belly. Maybe there's a softening in the chest that's possible. Maybe you're not breathing in deeply, but there's this gentle intentionality to breathing in that allows you to breathe in calmly. Breathe out calmly.

As you exhale calmly, without much ambition, soften the face. As you exhale calmly, soften the shoulders. As you exhale, soften the belly.

Then, settling yourself more fully on the body's experience of breathing, experiment with knowing. Inhale calmly. Experiment with a clear knowing when you're exhaling: you know you're exhaling.

Whatever grabs your attention, gets your attention that's different from the breathing, explore the possibility of calmly knowing it. A calm recognition: this is what's happening. A sound, an itch, a thought, a feeling. In a sense, things are always changing, so stay in the flow of change with calm recognition. When you're calm, you're not going to know it all or recognize it all, but just be content with what you can calmly know, moment by moment.

Whenever it seems appropriate, center yourself in knowing the breathing. Calmly knowing the experience of breathing.

Right now, what would you need to know so that you're more in the present moment? What experience would you need to recognize to arrive here with what is happening? Calmly know it.

Knowing is an essential aspect of being a human being. What is your knowing like? Can you appreciate your capacity to recognize the simplicity of what's happening and to know it, recognize it calmly, as if to know it is precious? As if to know is a treasure? Which it is. Our human lives, our Homo sapien lives, would not be possible without our capacity to know.

Taking a few moments to continue knowing calmly whatever is happening in the present moment. Recognize it calmly, and recognize it in how it's obvious, without searching for the right word. Sometimes it's not clear what's happening; it's enough to recognize it as something.

In the last minute or so here, see if you can get a feeling for what it's like to calmly know. It's kind of like you're imprinting the memory of what it's like to know calmly.

Then bring to mind people in your life: strangers you know, neighbors, colleagues, friends, mail carriers, store clerks. What is it like to think of one of them with this calm knowing? Just calmly know. Like imagining them in front of you, calmly recognize them.

Perhaps the calm recognition can be the channel through which your goodwill can travel. Calmly having goodwill, well-wishing, kindness. Perhaps your goodwill can have some of the same qualities of calmness, tranquil well-wishing.

When that well-wishing spreads out widely in all directions, we might say to ourselves: May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free.

Then I'll bow, and that bow will be the end of the sitting. Thank you.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (17) How to Know

I think often we take our knowing for granted. Throughout the day, we're constantly recognizing things, but we're doing it at a subconscious level. It kind of needs to be that way; if we were to take the time to recognize each thing that we come across, we would never get anywhere. There's so much to recognize. But our brain can process things subconsciously, so we take in a lot and know how to find our way to the door and through the door without having to think about it.

Even though so much of it is done on automatic pilot, it's still an essential quality of being a human being, and without it, our human life would not be possible. But because we're so interested in our desires to do something, want something, or think something, we seldom take the time to recognize how special it is to recognize, to know.

For deep mindfulness practice, the knowing faculty of the mind becomes increasingly important, and it does so in a natural way. It's not like you have to work at knowing, but the deeper the practice goes, the more acute, the more clarity there is in the knowing. In such a way, the knowing starts being more and more liberating. It's a way of freeing ourselves to greater and greater freedom. So it's very basic.

When practice is strong, when meditating is going well and we're concentrated and quite calm, it's interesting to notice what it's like to come out of meditation. Get up from your seat and start walking. If you're really calm and settled, there's probably very little tendency to want to rush into the next thing. As you walk from your meditation seat, there might be a very relaxed, almost automatic knowing that you're walking. You're so present in the walking that you just know that you're walking.

There's a famous Zen story told sometimes of two Zen students who were talking about their respective Zen masters. One of them said, "My Zen master is so great, he can enter into the deepest states of concentration, can walk on water, fly through the air, do all kinds of miraculous things."

The second one says, "Well, my teacher, when she walks, she just walks. When she eats, she just eats. When she talks, she just talks."

The first one bowed down deeply and said, "Oh, your teacher is really advanced."

The idea that the simplicity of just being in the experience we're having while we're doing it is such a pleasure at certain times. When meditation is quite centered and settled, that's one of the times it's really a pleasure. As you walk, know you're walking, because you're inhabiting the walking. When you're standing, know you're standing. When you're sitting, know you're sitting. And when you're lying down, know you're lying down.

This second exercise of Satipaṭṭhāna^[1] can also be seen as a way of continuing the meditation into our daily life. The first exercise gets us settled, and the second one is the encouragement to stay present, stay in the knowing and the calm knowing into our daily life. So there's a continuity.

What can easily happen is that our meditation ends, maybe we're somewhat calmer than we were before, but we get up in order to do things, to take care of the next thing: make breakfast, go to work, whatever it might be. What's interesting is to watch how quickly we lose touch with the simplicity of: when walking, just know you're walking. Instead, we're already ahead of ourselves, planning what's for breakfast, what we should put together, what ingredients we're going to use. Then thinking about, "Where's my newspaper or my device that I'm going to read the news from? I wonder what podcast I should listen to while I'm having breakfast." On and on, we're already in the flow of all the different things ahead of ourselves, thinking ahead.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that; however, it can involve a loss of some kind of deep inner connection to the present moment and to oneself. It certainly can be a pleasure to do some of these other things, and I hope you do some of them with joy and delight. But if we keep losing ourselves to them throughout the day, we're lost. Many people are lost to themselves because of all the things they're doing and all the things they're thinking about and concerned with.

These simple instructions—when standing, know you're standing; when walking, know you're walking—are, especially coming out of meditation, an opportunity to both continue with the calm state you're in and experiment with how it is to live that way. It's really cool the way that, if we can get calm, settled, and quiet, the knowing of what to do next and the knowing of how to do things can happen organically, automatically. We don't have to be the agent, we don't have to be the one figuring it out always. There is this arising of a certain knowing and arising of intention. From this place of calm tends to bring forth some of the best qualities of who we are.

But also, what happens with instructions just to pay attention as you leave meditation is you notice how quickly you lose your calm. This became a really important turning point for me in my meditation when I noticed how quickly I gave up my calm, my settledness, my clarity when I got up from meditation, because I was on to the next thing.

So then, stop or slow down and notice: what is that next thing? Where are you rushing off to? What are you getting caught in? What are the feelings? What are the beliefs? Why are you sacrificing your calm, your clarity, your centeredness? Why are you sacrificing it for other things? Is it a worthy sacrifice? Is the cost-benefit analysis in your favor that you rush off to look at the news while you're having breakfast? Is that the best use of your human life? What happens with this kind of deep sense of connectedness that can happen, and a life that arises and flows out of that?

To know simple things in the moment, so simple as your posture, and enjoy that. Also, to do that in such a way that we start becoming more sensitive to what we're doing with our minds, our feelings, and our life. To see more clearly how we rush off, or get involved, or get preoccupied, and then ask the question: "Is this worthwhile? Is this the best use of my time?" If it is, go ahead, then you do it consciously. And if it's not, maybe there are better things to do.

I would suggest that for most of us, being calm—some modicum of calm, even when we're having fun, being playful—some degree of calm close by just enhances everything. It makes everything richer and fuller and more embodied. It's not the kind of calm that would limit you, but it allows for a deeper wellspring of engagement with life. It's just a great thing.

So when you walk, know you're walking. When you're standing, know you're standing. When you're sitting, know you're sitting. And when you're lying down, know you're lying down.

Thank you. I'm here at IRC^[2] for a couple more days, so I'll be with you here again. Thank you for participating, and I look forward to our time tomorrow.