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Introduction and Guided Meditation

So I'm just going to spend a few minutes here getting settled and settling down, connecting to the present moment. I'm going to look just to make sure... oh, so some people are saying they hear two voices. This I don't know about. Can some other people weigh in? Okay, so maybe it's about having two windows open.

Just arriving here. Just feeling the sensations that are present here right now. Those sensations may be the pressure of the chair or cushion against your body. There might be a little bit of tension or tightness in the body. Whatever it is, can you connect in some kind of way with a warmheartedness and openness to the present moment experience?

There might have been some energy around what's happening with YouTube, or if it's a problem there at IMC^[1], or if it's a problem here. Can we just allow that to settle?

And then we'll end this very short meditation with an invitation to connect with the felt experience of being here now, accompanying me and trying to figure out what needs to be figured out here. But now we're here. May the way in which we worked together to solve this—I felt like it was together—be a way and an attitude we can take to many things in our experience. We recognize that there is support, and together, with some patience, kindness, and warmheartedness, things can work out and we can find a way. Maybe it's not exactly the way we were imagining, but together we can find a way forward.

[Music]

With deep, deep bows for your patience and warmheartedness.

Connection: A Natural Part of Practice (1 of 5)

Good morning. For those of you who don't know, Gil^[2] is on vacation this week. If you've just tuned into the YouTube channel, we had a little adventure this morning where the computer fell from a stand. I had moved it a little bit, and it turned out to be precarious. There's a certain irony to this. Maybe I should introduce myself before I start speaking more: I'm Diana Clark. The irony is that what I want to talk about with you this morning, and this week, is connection. It seems that some of the connections got broken here this morning between the computer and... I don't know exactly what. I tightened everything and restarted. I'm sure there's a lesson in there, right? Just restart, begin again.

Connection is so important. Of course, not only for putting on a YouTube streaming broadcast, but in our lives. We can understand connection in so many different ways, but there is this recognition that all of us want to feel connected in some kind of way. There may be different degrees of connection or different ways of connection, but all of us would like to feel connected. For those of you who participated in the retreat that just ended, part of the design of the retreat was to help enable this connection. It is having this recognition that it can be nice to talk with others, it can be nice to connect on the chat here. I felt supported by you all while I was trying to figure this out.

Some researchers would say that having connections with others and connections with ourselves is part of a fundamental human need. It's a basic part of how we're wired. I'm using this word connection really broadly, and my intention is to unpack it through the upcoming days. So for now, maybe you can interpret it in a way that makes sense for you, in a way that you can connect with, if you will. But having a connection, a relationship, an intimacy, a familiarity with, or a touching upon, can be tied with a sense of meaning to our lives. The year of disconnection can also have a big impact on our lives, not to mention some disconnections we might have already experienced and the impact that those might have in our lives. So perhaps I don't have to convince you that connection is a big part of the human experience and something that's important.

When we think about Buddhist practice, it might seem sometimes—if you just read books about the philosophy of Buddhism, or read books on how to meditate, or somehow just listen to podcasts—there can be an impression that it's a solitary affair. After all, so often the Buddha is depicted as being by himself, sitting upright with his eyes closed. It doesn't give the impression of being connected to other people. But Buddhism definitely grew out of a sense of community and connection. It wouldn't exist today if that weren't the case. Maybe it's not as evident in the iconography or the statues that we use, or some of the ways that we talk about it, but at the time of the Buddha, of course, there wasn't YouTube with chat boxes^[3] and audio recordings. There weren't books. The only way that people had access to the Dharma—to the teachings of the Buddha—was through other people. It was through their relationships with other people, either hearing other people speak or hearing the Buddha himself give talks.

The Buddha recognized the importance of this. We don't hear about it so much perhaps in Dharma talks, but there's a tremendous amount of teachings about creating a monastic order that is a community of practitioners, with this recognition that it's within community that we can really learn about the Dharma. We can learn from each other, we can learn about ourselves—the way we get reflected back from others, the way we respond to others, or whatever it might be. So inherent in this Buddhism that we have inherited is the sense of community and connecting to others. For me, it's touching to think about this: that it wasn't these cold, isolated teachings, but it was people getting together, talking, sharing, and listening that helped preserve Buddhism and the monastic order for thousands of years. We are part of this as we sit here today. You're not here in the room with me, but somehow we're connected in such a different way, of course, from the Buddha's time. But it doesn't mean it's not there. I put things in the chat box here to stay connected even though I can't see or hear you.

So, of course, connection is part of how Buddhism comes to us, but it's also inherent in the practice and what we actually do with these teachings. Some of you may be familiar with the fact that the Buddha placed a tremendous emphasis on the company we keep, on with whom we associate, recognizing the importance of our relationships and our communities. To quote^[4] something attributed to the Buddha: "I do not see even a single thing that so causes wholesome qualities to arise as good friendship." Recognizing the role of friendship, there are lots of other teachings exploring what it means to be a good friend. I won't go into this now; I'll unpack that a little bit in the ensuing days. But the Buddha recognized how much we need one another and the importance of wholesome qualities. I think what we're all trying to develop here are wholesome qualities, including the connection to ourselves and connection to others. It's also preserved in the teachings where the Buddha said that just as the dawn is the precursor for the arising of the sun, so too, having a good friend is the precursor for developing the Noble Eightfold Path^[5]. Some of you may recognize that the Noble Eightfold Path is one of the primary teachings that the Buddha offered as the path to liberation.

Having connections with others, in all its myriad of forms and all its degrees of intensity and intimacy—whether it's physical, whether it's through words that we read, or YouTube things that we watch—acts as a precursor. This is really a tremendous support for cultivating and developing these qualities that help us toward liberation.

But of course, it's not only connection with other people that is a big support for practice; it's a connection to ourselves that's a big part of practice. In fact, we might even say that mindfulness practice, in some ways, could be understood as a way of connecting to ourselves, connecting to our experience, whether that's our mental experience or our physical experience. For those of you who are familiar with some of the teachings, you'll know that there is an emphasis on mindfulness in general, including mindfulness of the body. Feeling the felt experience here in the present moment—of course, the body is always in the present moment—so connecting to the body is a way in which we can be here for what's actually happening. We can be aligned with the reality of the moment, and the reality of the moment always includes having a body.

Maybe I will end here this morning with an invitation as you go throughout the day just to notice the things that you are connected to. Again, you can interpret this word connected, but maybe there's a certain type of touching or allowing in. Whether that's thoughts or ideas through reading or through the news, or maybe it's also physical experience—feeling connected to the way you're walking or sitting, the sensations in the body, emotions, or thoughts. It's just an invitation: what are the things that you're connected to? How does that support you? Or maybe some of those things don't support you. And not only that, maybe there's a different degree of connection. Sometimes you feel really connected to things, and maybe some things not so much. With our recognition that all of us have different needs, different preferences, and ways in which we connect to others and ourselves, there doesn't have to be one right way. But the encouragement here is to just be curious about the things that you connect to, and to have a warmhearted curiosity without a sense that things should be different or have to be different. Just an exploration and curiosity.

May our practice, the way that we connect to ourselves and connect to others, be a support. May it benefit not only ourselves but others. And may our practice together, our explorations together... I'm smiling because I'm thinking about earlier, all the support I was feeling by feeling connected via the chat. So may what we are connected to, and our exploration of connection, be for the benefit of all beings everywhere, all beings without exception. Thank you.