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Guided Meditation: Awareness as a Jewel

Warm greetings from Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City.

Welcome to this meditation and welcome into this community of people all over the country, the world, the continent coming together to meditate now, and also some people do it later in the day, hello to them as well.

When we do mindfulness practice, sooner or later—and ideally it's sooner—we come to have a deep appreciation of our capacity for being aware. Our capacity for mindfulness, for clear recognition, for observing what's happening, for sensing and feeling what's happening as it's happening. There are many different angles or perspectives to this. These different sides of this wonderful jewel, this diamond of awareness, and at different times different ones are emphasized. But appreciating this jewel, this tremendously valuable thing that is so easily overlooked because the mind is using awareness to focus, to be absorbed in something else, to obsess. Awareness is the passive vehicle with which we then get involved in our thoughts, or what I call the world of aboutness. We're thinking about something, about the future, the past, about people in our lives, about events, about fantasy.

And we can get so involved in those thoughts, those ideas, those concerns—maybe because we have strong desire, or fear, or aversion to it, or whatever reason there might be. And we're not really aware that we're aware. We might know that we're thinking about something, but everything is channeled into that world of aboutness.

In mindfulness practice, we're stepping away from the world of aboutness. Not to reject it, but to know it so clearly that, "Oh, now I'm thinking about something, now I'm feeling something, now I'm sensing something," so clearly that we become aware of the fact that we are aware. We become aware of the event of being mindful. So we hear a sound, and rather than immediately going off and thinking, "What is that sound and what should I do and what do I have to fix here to not have the sound?" the first place we go is we simply know the sound. "Oh, it's listening, hearing sound." But we do it in such a way that the awareness of sound, the knowing of it, the mindfulness of it, becomes the jewel. It stands out, becomes really the main center of our experience. And so we have this jewel, this treasure. It's phenomenally powerful, effective, enlightening, freeing to begin to appreciate our simple capacity for awareness.

When we really taste it or feel or know it, it's kind of like being distracted and being given clear, clean, refreshing mountain water from a spring. And we don't taste it, we don't feel it, we just talk away and just gulp down the water. Or, to really take it in, feel, "Oh, this is pure water. This really feels refreshing and good," and really feel the tasting of it. So the knowing of it.

The avenue to doing that, the means to doing that, an important part of it is to be relaxed, not trying too hard. It's almost as if we can be upright, and the more relaxed we can be, then awareness is the natural center of our experience. Awareness just begins to stand out and highlight this treasure of ours. So assuming a meditative posture that will allow you to both maintain a physical alertness of some kind and to relax your body.

And gently closing your eyes, and without doing anything special around breathing, become attuned to the experience of exhaling. Become aware, know what it feels like for you, just as you are, to exhale.

And then become aware of different places in your body where there might be tension. And as you exhale, ease up, soften, relax the tension. In the shoulders, and the belly. Maybe the muscles along the sides of the spine. Maybe in your fingers and hands. And as you inhale, inhale into the very place that you've relaxed. As if that place can receive the inhale. As if the inhale prepares for further relaxation on the exhale.

And if you're thinking about things, you're in the world of aboutness about what you're thinking. And we want to be in the world of awareness, of presence. A kind of awareness and mindfulness that is closely related to a silent way of being that allows you to sense and feel more deeply your experience. Or a way of knowing, recognizing what's really happening here in the present moment as you breathe.

As you relax, the awareness can maybe be more receptive. Or maybe even receptive is saying too much, too much work. Awareness just is. And in its very is-ness, it registers, it experiences, it knows. And the diamond of awareness, allow it to stand out a little bit in mindfulness of breathing. Simple awareness of breathing, where breathing isn't the main point of what you're doing. Breathing is the means by which awareness, mindfulness, is revealed, is known, is experienced. The mind's capacity to know, to be aware.

To highlight awareness, you might use a very simple mental note that recognizes whatever it is you're aware of. Not that the note is that important in naming the experience. It's more that in the wake of the note, you're more aware of being aware. Recognizing an in-breath with the word "in," and then in the wake of saying that, being more there to recognize, to experience the in-breath. "Out" for the out-breath. Appreciating. Simple.

And as we come to the end of the sitting, take a few moments to appreciate your capacity to be aware. Present moment awareness. Not thinking about awareness to appreciate it, but knowing it as you're aware now. Not trying too hard to know awareness. Kind of know it from the edges, or know it from behind or underneath. Know it with the kind of peripheral awareness of the mind, appreciating its simplicity. That way in which awareness can be simple, just know.

And in the same way, love can be simple. Goodwill, friendliness, compassion can be quite simple. Also not being caught in the world of aboutness, thinking about things, but allowing the world to register in the heart, in the simplicity of the heart. The simple response of love, of compassion, goodwill. And allowing it to be simple without needing to figure out anything or act on anything. Just love. Just goodwill. Kindness.

And perhaps there's a way in which the following words resonate with the heart, especially if you don't try to engage the meaning of the words completely—like how to do it—but just listen as if in some way these words express the sentiment of the heart.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

May the simple capacity for love, for kindness, may it shine, nourish you. May the nourishment of kindness spread through your body. May the goodness of goodwill radiate through your body.

And then, without getting too complicated, may it be that your goodwill can be expressed today in ways that keep you intimate, connected to a relaxed inner place of well-being and peace. And may this goodwill—peaceful, relaxed goodwill—may it also find an expression in the world in what you say and what you do, in small or big ways in which you contribute to the welfare and happiness of others. May this meditation practice we did today contribute to the happiness and well-being of the world.

Dharmette: Delusion (2 of 5) Understanding Delusion

So this is the second talk on moha^[1], usually translated as delusion. And today I'll talk a little bit more specifically about what the Buddhist understanding of it is.

Moha is considered to be one of the three roots or three origins for everything that human beings do that's unwholesome, unhelpful, or harmful. In the tradition of early Buddhism, this moha is said to be present in every unethical act that someone does, in every unwholesome act that someone does. What unwholesome implies here is that it's unwholesome for the person who does it, and it's unhelpful and unwholesome for the person who might be the recipient of the act. So if we're doing something which is not healthy for ourselves, psychologically, heartfully, then there's some degree of delusion in that action, in that act of speech, or in that act of the body.

The word moha (delusion) is related to a cluster of other concepts or mental activities. Maybe the biggest one in Buddhism is ignorance. But ignorance is not that you don't know something, or that you didn't read enough books to learn things. Rather, it's more like an ignoring. It's a little bit more volitional; it's almost like choosing not to know, or allowing the conditions of delusion to be present that interfere with knowing. It's related also to bewilderment, to confusion, and to living in the world not quite understanding what's happening and being bewildered. It's also related to the idea of foolishness. One of the most common ways in which the Buddha talks about someone who is mature spiritually is he talks about them as being wise, and those who are immature as foolish. That divide is not the divide between saint and sinner, but rather the divide between the foolish and the wise.

Some people might feel it's unfortunate to make this distinction, but the difference between a sinner and a fool is that a sinner, in the way it's often used in the West, has no redemption. That is just what a person is. But when you're a fool, it's possible to become wise. Foolishness is a temporary phenomenon, and partly what we're doing is becoming wise. It's overcoming delusion.

Now, the word delusion in English, and moha in Pali, implies that the mind is creating ideas that are not based on reality. So we either have projected some false ideas, some fantasies onto how things are, or we just live in a world of fantasy that has no connection to the world around us. It's something the mind is doing in terms of thoughts and ideas. Maybe some degree of feelings are involved and contributing to this world of delusion. One of the very useful reference points for understanding this is the psychological word "projection." We have ideas, bias, and prejudice that belong to the world of ideas, sometimes very intimately connected to feelings and motivations. These biases, prejudices, and preferences that we have are projections that we put on top of our experience. There is a whole slew of ways in which the mind is actively involved in obscuring what's actually happening in the moment because it's created an idea of what's happening that interferes with the direct experience. Socially, this is very painful when we see people through a stereotype, when we see people through bias or prejudice. Sometimes we see ourselves through bias and prejudice. These ideas and mind forms are then projected on others, ourselves, and the world, obscuring our ability to see clearly. This helps us understand why ignorance is not just "not knowing", but is an ignoring. It happens when we have these projections, when we're not allowing ourselves to see deeply what's really going on.

In the tradition, there are a few things which are really central to the projections we have. One of them is that we project the hope of happiness onto things that don't really produce happiness. If we're trying to make ourselves happy, or sometimes even safe, with unwholesome activities—with lying, stealing, cheating, or being caught up in greed or ill will—then we think somehow our well-being is there to be found in engaging in unwholesome activity. That is a kind of delusion because unwholesome activity is always harming ourselves. To end that projection allows us to see, "Actually, this is not happiness-producing. I projected this hope for happiness into that activity, thinking it was going to do something for me." Part of wisdom is to see the difference between what's wholesome and unwholesome, what's harmful and what's not harmful. We become finely attuned to this, so we begin living in the world of what is beneficial both for ourselves and for others.

The other important idea of projection is the idea that we project a kind of permanence onto things which are not permanent. It might be a permanence we just have for the few minutes that it's there. We behave unconsciously, perhaps, as if this is forever. "It's always going to be a hot day now. It's always going to be this way or that way." I remember that there was a brief period of time when I was about twenty where I had a wonderful summer, and in the middle of this wonderful summer I said to myself, "I'll never be depressed again." This was a delusion of permanence that came back and bit me, because that fall, right after that wonderful summer, I was more depressed than I had ever been. And then I had the thought, "Now I'm going to be depressed forever." That was the attitude I had. I didn't say those words, but the weight of it all, this weight of permanence: "This is how it is." It can be a projection, and to live under the weight of that projection causes a lot of suffering. That projection of permanence or constancy obscures how shifting and changing our experience is. There's a whole different way of being in the world when we see the inconstancy of it, the changing, shifting nature, and we find how to let go and find our peace with it.

There's also the projection of identity. We all have some kind of identity: gender, nationality, or all kinds of things. Even though maybe nominally it's accurate, the act of projecting it and holding on to it and seeing through the lens of it can obscure. It can create a sense of a solid self, a permanent self, a constant kind of ideation of who we are and what we're caught up in. So much of what we think of as "myself", "my identity", is a projection, or we're acting through a projection in relationship to it. That's a kind of delusion that obscures how, in some very profound way, we are always more dynamic, more complicated, more fluid, more changeable, more than any projection we have of ourselves. In fact, these projections obscure some deeper capacity for awareness and aliveness and freedom which is always going to be here.

So delusion, as an activity of the mind, is not a passive ignorance, but it's the creation of ideas which are not accurate, and then projecting that onto the world, or wearing them as filters on our eyes so we see the world through those interpretations, through those ideas. It's a wonderful thing to take those filters off. It's a wonderful thing to let go of those projections. The cost of living in this world of projections, of delusion, is a lot of stress. There's a lot of tension that comes along with it. To live without projections, without these mind creations that we see through—assumptions, beliefs, prejudice, bias—allows the mind to be much more relaxed than it is, and to come to that place of ease and peace. Not only is it just peaceful and useful for the mind itself, but it allows us to see with the absence of delusion, the absence of moha. How to get to that, and how to practice with delusion and come to the other side, is the topic for tomorrow. So thank you. And you might, over these next 24 hours, see if you can become a little more attuned, or notice how ideas surface in the mind, and then those ideas become the filter through which we look and understand what's happening. The key is to see it arise. If you see the beginning of something, then it's easier to see it as a creation of the mind and catch it as a kind of delusion. Thank you very much.