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Guided Meditation: Inconstancy and Non-Clinging

Greetings, and my warmest welcome to our meditation this morning. As an introduction to the meditation, and also the theme for this week, in the ancient world of India there was the idea at some point that great spiritual, realized beings—people—had some kind of omniscience, that they kind of knew everything. It seems that the Buddha was in that kind of environment, where that was an expectation of teachers, and the Buddha often didn't criticize or oppose ideas; he often just redefined them for himself. So he kind of said he wasn't omniscient, but he also said that there was a particular way in which he was, that he knew something about everything. And what he knew about everything is that nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to.

To read the quote (there's a little different teaching around this): "When someone has heard that nothing is worth clinging to, they directly know everything. Having directly known everything, they fully understand everything. Having fully understood everything, whatever feelings they feel, whether pleasant or painful or neither painful nor pleasant, they abide observing inconstancy in those feelings, observing fading away, observing cessation, observing relinquishment. In this way, they do not cling to anything in the world. When they do not cling, they are not agitated. When they are not agitated, they attain Nirvana^[1]."

First, we can hear the teachings that nothing is worth clinging to. And then, when feeling sensations, experiences occur, if we don't cling to them, then we know that nothing is worth clinging to, and the mind becomes at ease and peaceful, and a release can happen, a deep letting go of liberation.

Guided Meditation

So as we sit here today, I would encourage you to sit and meditate not with the ideas of things, but with the ongoing flow of experience. If you have a thought, it will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. A particular sentence you say to yourself, a particular image you have, they come and they go. If you have a particular sensation, if you have a particular feeling, there are ways in which it surges and recedes. It arises and it passes, it appears and it disappears. And what gives it continuity is the ways in which we think about it.

So settle back in your meditation seat, and rather than believing what I said for this meditation, you might let the object of your attention, what you notice the most, be whatever it is that arises, the arising of things. Especially if they arise unexpectedly: a sound, a sensation, a thought, and say, "Oh, there it came." And notice those things that stop, that disappear. "Oh, I'm no longer thinking that. I switched topics. That sound is no longer happening." And don't go chasing and looking for that. See if your mind and body can be relaxed, as if your awareness is like the sandy shore of the beach, and experiences are like the waves that wash up and down, coming and going through experience so that nothing whatsoever is clung to.

So taking a meditation posture, and perhaps gently, lovingly closing your eyes. And perhaps gently and lovingly let your attention roam around your body to make any helpful adjustments you can make in your posture.

And then, as you roam around your body, gently and lovingly relax the places in your body that can be relaxed. Perhaps you can relax the muscles around the face. Perhaps any holding in the eyes can soften, and the eyes can rest in their sockets. If you find you're using your eyes a lot, even with the eyes closed, you might imagine that your eyes are looking backwards and downwards, not reaching out, resting lovingly and gently. Relaxing the shoulders.

These different parts of the body that you can relax have been with you for a long time. They have been your companions, your supporters. To gently, lovingly let these parts of your body relax and soften. Softening in the chest, relaxing in the belly.

And it might be possible to relax the whole length of your arms down through your hands. It might be possible to relax the whole length of your legs down to your feet. And it might be possible to relax the whole length of your body lovingly, kindly releasing any bracing or resistance in the body.

And then also to bring a gentle and loving attention to your mind, to your brain. Feeling in your head any tension, or pressure, or agitation connected to thinking, or worrying, or wanting. And as you exhale, lovingly relax the thinking muscle. And as you exhale, imagine that the mind can just relax backwards, as if settling back into a soft mattress and pillow and being supported. The mind can be relaxed and soft.

And then sitting here, become aware of whatever suddenly appears. Especially if you can notice what sensations, or sounds, or feelings, or thoughts appear effortlessly, with no work on your part. The sound of my voice. The sound of individual words—they come and they disappear.

Noticing whatever sensations in your body that simply appear without any wanting or willing from you. Notice the effortless ways in which some sensations just appear, with no self-conscious effort to make them be there.

And notice how some things also effortlessly disappear. They're no longer there. The sound of my voice appears and then stops.

You might be thinking about something, and then I speak and the thinking stops. Maybe especially if I remind you that nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to. Often the stickiness that's needed for us to cling and to interrupt the rising and passing of things is our involvement with thoughts and ideas. See if you can relax into your breathing, and notice that in and of itself, the body breathing is a kaleidoscope of sensations appearing and disappearing.

And if you stay a little bit with your breathing, the coming and going of inhale and exhale, if something takes you away from that, that's also a change, a change in the coming and going of your attention in a certain way.

Settle back and allow the flow, the river of experience, to wash through you in a certain way. Everything that's actually happening in the present moment is something that's coming and going, arising and passing. Settle back and observe the comings and goings of all things. Don't worry if something doesn't come and go, just watch what is coming and going, like you're watching the flow of the river from the riverbank.

Reflections

And then as we come to the end of the sitting, I'd like to suggest that in and of itself, love, kindness, and care are a part of the flow, the river of our experience. As soon as we cling to love, or care, or kindness, as soon as we hold it fixed, it's no longer love or care. To trust deeply the flow of life and to learn how to navigate on the river of life, so we're flowing along with what allows^[2] the deepest kinds of love and care to exist in us. It takes a lot of trust to settle back, relax, and open, but to allow your care, your love, the natural capacity for kindness to flow out of your open^[3] experience, to flow out of your willingness to not resist or hold on to anything. A tenderness, some people call it a vulnerability, that allows our care, our empathy.

And may it be that this meditation today can be an inspiration for you to take a little bit of risk today, to see if your love, and care, and kindness can flow from you, and flow through the words you speak, the actions you do. May it be as you learn not to cling to things that your capacity for kindness, caring for others, can flow more cleanly and clearly. May it be that your practice that you do be for the welfare and happiness of all beings, including for yourself. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.