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Guided Meditation: The 2nd Reflection; Dharmette: I Am of the Nature to Sicken

Greetings, sangha. Greetings from Mountain View, California. I am not at IMC, and this is a background of IMC so that we all feel at home, hence using my own microphone. I think some folks noticed that, and noticed that Gil's microphone at IMC is a very high-quality professional microphone. Of course, the one I have at home is not, so the sound might not be as clear. Let us say, these are the conditions to work with. I just wanted to bring that up.

Greetings wherever you are in the world joining this beautiful sangha. For today's sit together, let us continue our reflections, our exploration, and our sitting with the Five Daily Reflections^[1]. Today is the second one. Yesterday we started with the first of the Five Daily Reflections: the acknowledgment, the acceptance that this body is subject to aging, it has not gone beyond aging, and it's inevitable for all of us to age. We're human beings dropped in these bodies—somehow dropped. I use that not literally of course, but figuratively. This body is nature. It will age, it does age, it has aged.

So the second reflection has to do with acknowledging sickness—that this body is subjected to illness. It has not gone beyond illness. Illness, sickness, things not working as they're "expected" to. Again, in quotes, because we expect things to work a particular way, whereas actually it's quite a miracle that this body functions as well as it does given its complexity.

I'll say more about all this during the dharma talk afterwards, but just to say a couple of words about the meditation we'll do together as a contemplation. Again, the invitation, similar to yesterday, is we will start by settling in the body with the breath, and really tilling the soil, getting the heart and the mind ready for dropping in the contemplation into a more stable, available, ready space.

Later we will drop in the reflections as if they were a pebble in the water. We drop it into our bodies. And again, I emphasize dropping it in the body, not in the head. It's not a rumination. It's not for us to think about these and try to understand them, but in a body that's more quiet, dropping it in and letting it reverberate in your body and listening deeply to see what arises. There might be some reactions, there might be some grief, some sadness. Making space for these emotions, breathing with the emotions if something arises. Or maybe nothing arises, in which case you're actually planting seeds for you to be with this reflection throughout the day. I do hope that you were with the reflection yesterday throughout the day, as I was with the first reflection about aging, which is quite powerful.

Today again, we'll start the guided meditation with settling with the breath, with the body. Mindfulness of the body. We'll emphasize that. Then later I will invite you to first drop in the first contemplation from yesterday, let it reverberate, and then we will bring in today's contemplation about sickness—about the inevitability of illness for this body—and we'll let that reverberate.

Guided Meditation

With all that, I would like to invite us to get into our meditation posture. Whatever is comfortable for you in this moment in time. If it's more comfortable for you to sit up more straight, to have a sense of alignment, integrity, and wakefulness, then I invite you to do that. And if you need to lie down, if your body is asking you to do that, then that's what's appropriate. Or if you need to relax some more, relax your body, soften your muscles.

If you like to close your eyes and turn your gaze inward. Turning your gaze inward and landing. Landing in your body, arriving in this body in this moment. Arriving and landing in this body with a sense of appreciation and awe, no matter the conditions in this moment. The miracle that this body is regardless.

Turning the gaze of awareness inward and greeting the body, all parts of the body this morning. Start greeting the hands. The sensations in the hands, inviting the hands to relax, to rest. They do so much. Greeting them with friendliness, "Hello, dear hands. Thank you." Inviting them to soften. Offer up any tension they might be holding.

Greeting the wrists, and therefore the hands can relax and soften more. With your awareness, greeting the upper arms, the lower arms, the elbows, inviting them all to relax and soften. They work hard enough, they can relax now and land.

Greeting your shoulders, your neck. This body, inviting it to give up any tension it's holding. No need, dear neck and shoulders.

Greeting your face. All the muscles in your face, your jaw, your eyes, inviting them to rest in their sockets. Inviting the forehead especially to relax. All the muscles internally. There's no particular face you need to be wearing right now—the social mask. You can let the entire face relax, be supported by gravity. As if massaged by gravity.

Greeting the proverbial thinking muscle, which we associate to be our brain or head perhaps. Inviting your thoughts to relax and soften. Greeting them with friendliness. "Dear thoughts, dear ruminations, you can relax. You can come back later. Please come back later, taking a moment for refuge right now."

Moving down, greeting your chest cavity, the upper back. Feeling as it receives the breath. It feels lighter perhaps receiving the breath.

Greeting your abdomen, your back, your lower back. Greeting your sit bones, landing in them. Inviting them to soften. As if a block of ice melting. Melting any tension, holding, tightness.

With your awareness, greeting your legs. Upper legs, knees, lower legs, and feet, touching and embracing the earth lovingly. Inviting them to relax and soften. The whole body receiving the breath. The whole body invited, greeted with your awareness. The entire body alive, breathing, present.

Greeting each breath. Each in-breath, each out-breath, in your abdomen, in your whole body. One breath at a time. Tilling the soil of the mind to settle.

Now I would like to invite you, if you wish, to drop in the first contemplation for a moment into this body. Not in the mind, the head, thinking about it, not ruminating, but dropping in the body, letting it reverberate. The first contemplation of the five:

I am subject to aging. I have not gone beyond aging. I am of the nature to age. Aging is inevitable.

And now we bring in, drop in the second contemplation today, if you wish:

I am subject to sickness. I am of the nature to sicken. I have not gone beyond sickness. Sickness is inevitable. I am subject to illness. I have not gone beyond illness.

And the third time, expanding the perspective, as we did yesterday. Just like everyone else. Just like everyone, I am subject to illness. I have not gone beyond illness.

If you find a lot of emotions arising, make space for them, breathing with them. Perhaps coming back to the body, mindfulness of the body, simply receiving the breath to stabilize and titrate. To titrate how much of the reflection is appropriate right now without overwhelm.

For the last minutes of this practice period, I'd like to invite you to turn the gaze of your attention back to your body and the breath. This body sitting, soft, breathing. And greeting with your awareness any level of health that's available right now. To whatever extent, appreciating any level of health. Good health, lack of pain, the various areas of the body that of course we take for granted.

Choose one area of your body perhaps and notice it's not hurting, it's not ill at this point. It's one area, it's functioning. And allow that to arise a sense of gratitude for this part or for the whole. For whatever is available right now.

May we be in touch with and acknowledge the goodness of health as much as there is available. And may it support, through our thoughts, speech, and action, spreading goodness in the world to benefit all beings.

Dharmette

So the second of the Five Daily Reflections: I am of the nature to sicken, I have not gone beyond sickness.

I realized as we were going through the reflections today that, especially at the time of a global pandemic, this reflection is particularly profound. To really acknowledge that we are of the nature to sicken, just like everyone else. Just like everyone else, I'm of the nature to sicken. We're not immune; no one is immune. We are of the nature to sicken. All of us. All of us humans, siblings in old age, sickness, and death. We are all siblings, all of us. None of us are immune from old age, sickness, and death—the first three contemplations of the five.

This sense of the feeling of common humanity opening up to what the Buddha called dukkha^[2], translated as suffering or stress, but the human condition. It's part of the human condition. And specifically with sickness, a lot of times we have a reaction that's not very friendly. We have a lot of narratives, especially with sickness.

The narratives that often come up when we get sick isn't, "Well, okay, I'm sick, all right." There's not one of acceptance—which, by the way, is very different from resignation. Let me talk about that actually before I talk about narratives, because that's very important.

Acceptance, as I put up yesterday in the little diagram about the difference between acceptance and what acceptance isn't. Acceptance isn't: "Oh, I wish it wasn't here." It was regarding rain. "Oh, I wish it wasn't raining. My day would be so much better if it wasn't raining." Whereas acceptance of rain with that diagram was like, "Yep, it's raining. Yeah. Accepted, it's like this."

Versus resignation. So bringing that with sickness. It's like, "I wish I wasn't sick. What did I do wrong? It's my fault. If I only hadn't done this or that. If this other person... oh, it's this other person's fault," pointing the finger outward. "If they hadn't done this or that." Or catastrophizing, fear that this will never go away. So the stories, there are many, many narratives that you can bring that are not really helpful in accepting that, "Yep, this is what's happening right now."

So acceptance is a sense of, "Yeah, my body sickens. I am of the nature to sicken just as everyone else in the world. And okay, so this has happened, and okay, with wisdom, with compassion, what to do?"

Resignation would be, "Oh, this is fate. There's nothing to be done, and this was meant to happen. This is it." I guess in this cosmology, some people use karma^[3]. "It's my fate, it's my karma, I'm supposed to be sick," which is resignation. And by the way, that's not the right way to use karma. That's another whole long talk, but I won't go there in this moment talking about sickness.

So there's a difference between acceptance—accepting the reality of the moment—and fighting it. This is what's happening right now. These are the circumstances. Those are the causes and conditions. Given all these causes and conditions, this is what has happened. It cannot be changed because it must be this way. If it could have been any other way, it would have been, given all the causes and conditions. So this is what's arising, this is what has been given, this is what the case is.

Okay, accepting instead of fighting it. Instead of in our minds bargaining, "What if I had done this? What if they had done that?" That doesn't really help. So there's a sense of acceptance. Instead of wishing it to have been different—well, it isn't different. This is what has happened: there is sickness. And of course, it doesn't mean not to do anything, not to have resignation, but to take wise, compassionate steps, accepting the reality of this moment without fighting the reality of the moment. Without fighting that this is how things are.

This reflection, as I mentioned also yesterday, the first three reflections correspond to the three heavenly messengers^[4]. The first three reflections regarding old age, sickness, and death correspond to what really woke the Buddha up when he came out of the grounds of the castle and saw an aged man, a sick man, and a corpse. That woke him up to the reality of being human and how to wake up. How to have freedom, how to not be in pain and mourning in the middle of this life. How to have freedom in the midst of sickness and old age, and knowing that we die. Knowing that we'll be separated from everyone whom we care for and love. Knowing all that, how we can have a sense of freedom in the midst of this life.

The crows are singing in my neighborhood. I hear them loud and clear, maybe so are you.

So this reflection really helps. This daily reflection that the Buddha has suggested, has taught all of us, both monastics and laypeople to do these five reflections every day, is to till the soil of our hearts and minds for acceptance of the human condition. To make us more ready for waking up in the midst of all this, because of all this, actually. As a condition not to lull ourselves into oblivion, but to actually use these conditions to wake up, to make peace. Yes, I am of the nature to sicken. How can I have freedom? How can I have ease with the conditions? How can I be with them without being toppled this way or that?

And all these practices that we do with meditation, with sitting, with being—these are all different ways of opening up to these truths. The waves in the ocean, you can consider all of these waves in the ocean. The waves will always be there, and we learn to surf better and better with bigger waves so that we're not toppled over into the ocean, popping up and down in the waves.

So for today's practice: Like everyone else, I am of the nature to sicken. I have not gone beyond sickness.

My invitation is, if there is any sickness—and I've had a chronic illness for decades, so I know a lot about working with sickness and the nature to sicken. I say this not from a high place, but this is a practice I've done for a long time, working with sickness and befriending this body's nature to sicken. So if there's any sickness, really noticing the ruminations. Noticing the narratives in your mind if there are any narratives that, "Oh, my body has let me down, I feel betrayed. Why me? What did I do wrong? Why did they do wrong?" Catastrophizing. Noticing these narratives, really noticing them with mindfulness, befriending them. Because seeing them is really the first step of working with them.

And another aspect of this reflection is that it supports you to actually realize the blessing of good health. If there are areas of your body that are functioning, are not hurting, and to realize that the nature to get sick is part of human life. So if you have good health, if there is vitality and good health, how to use it today? What is the best way to live your life with the vitality, with the good health or the good fortune you have been given? So living according to your values when you are healthy, this reflection supports you to wake up to that.

So this reflection both supports you when you are healthy to live according to your values. Also, when you are ill, if you are ill right now—or well, we will all become ill at some point, it's inevitable—it helps you to live according to your values when you're ill or fear illness. "Oh yes, this is a human condition. Just like me. Just like me. Just like me and just like everyone else."

So my invitation for today is to hold this reflection close to your heart. As you are walking, as you are making food, as you're eating, as you're working, as you're exercising, as you're doing anything. As you interact with your loved ones, drop it in, drop it into your body: Just like everyone, I am of the nature to sicken. I have not gone beyond sickness. I am just like everyone, I am of the nature to sicken. I have not gone beyond sickness.

So thank you, dear sangha, for joining us, joining everyone in these beautiful practices, both for yourself and to support everyone. Thank you, and see you tomorrow. I look forward to the third reflection.