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Guded Meditation: Knowing and Seeing

So we've come to the end of this week, the series on patience. Patience is often a wonderful gift that we give to ourselves and to the world, because the alternative to patience is not so healthy or beneficial for us or for others.

So for this morning meditation, I want to mention that in the ancient teachings of the Buddha, he puts an emphasis on knowledge and vision, and I'll translate this as knowing and seeing. I'll explain this for this meditation as the simple, patient knowing of what's obvious in the experience, what's obvious with the breathing. As we focus on the breathing, just knowing, and then taking patient time to perceive that, to sense it, to let the experience that you've known register. In a sense, you recognize it. You know it's there. There's a simple, very simple recognition. It just doesn't have to be with words. It could just be a kind of silent knowing. But when something is known, then take a brief time to let it register more fully, to really experience what that is more deeply. For something that's passing quickly like the inhale, it's just a fleeting moment. To really register something if it lingers a little bit longer, it doesn't have to be more than a second or two. It's easygoing, relaxed. And the patience is there with that seeing, with the registering, allowing it to be there.

It's not literally what I'm about to say, but it's the spirit of it: and that is as if you have all the time in the world. Not literally, because you don't linger so long you start thinking about it. But as long as there's a kind of deeper silent recognition, silent registering, seeing, perceiving, sensing—stay there, let it sink in, if it's still there. And then know the next thing. So know the inhale, and let that be registered, and feel it. Then know the exhale. You know the beginning of it, and then let's feel and register that more fully, that experience of exhaling. If there's a pause after the exhale, know it, and allow yourself to let that register, or take it in, or feel that experience in some way. So there's knowing, and then there's Buddhist language, seeing. But seeing applies to all the inner ways of perception, of feeling, of sensing that goes on.

Assuming a meditation posture, one that allows you to have a certain alertness, but also one in which you're going to be patient. You're settling in for the long term just to be with what's here, whatever it might be. Not fighting it, or resisting it, or fixing anything, but a posture that allows you to be present with some alertness or clarity.

And then gently close your eyes, or gently lower your gaze.

And taking a breath or two just to relax into your body. Soften in the body. Relaxing into the body might give you access to more of your body to feel and sense. As you now take a few long, slow, deep breaths, almost as if you're getting a massage from the inside out. Feel the rib cages expand. Maybe the shoulders rise. Maybe the belly balloons out.

Maybe as you breathe in, there's an increased pressure on the sitting bones. Or if you're laying down, increased pressure in the back ribcage. Or if you're sitting in a chair, you might feel the back rib cage too.

And then letting the breathing return to normal. And take three or four breaths to relax in your body on the exhale.

And then to settle into your breathing. Feeling the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. Sensing or feeling the body's experience of breathing. The sensations in the body as you breathe, the movements.

And as you inhale, know the inhale. Allow the inhale to be known, and then let that experience register more deeply, almost like a physical registering as you sense or feel what you now know.

And then as you exhale, know the exhale. In a receptive mode, as if the body is receiving the sensations, let the experience of the exhale be felt, sensed. The exhale is known and felt.

Seeing if you can be infinitely patient with this process of knowing and then silently feeling and sensing what is known.

And so there's a rhythm of knowing and sensing, and the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out.

A rhythm that you feel and sense, participate in with lots of patience. Knowing and feeling. Knowing and registering quietly, calmly.

And if there's a lot of thinking, know that is happening. And silently register how that feels in your body, your mind, to be thinking. The sensations. Not what you're thinking about, but what the process of thinking feels, senses. Know it and sense it.

And then begin again with your breathing.

It's quite valuable to learn the art of staying close to knowing and feeling, knowing and sensing. Knowing and letting things register more deeply.

And then as we come to the end of this sitting, this practice of knowing and sensing, knowing and seeing, knowing and letting things be registered more fully, can be done outward into the world that we live in. To know the joys and the sorrows of this world, and to really know it, and then take patient time to let it register. To let ourselves feel it, to be a witness to what's happening in the world, so that we're touched by it. To be touched by the world, be a witness to what's happening in the world. To witness it with our hearts is an expression of this practice. It's supported by our patience.

And it becomes a gift if we can then care for the world, each in our own individual way. To live a life of knowing and seeing, knowing and feeling, and then caring. Knowing, feeling, caring. And this doesn't have to be dramatic. It could be an expression of our own unique agency and abilities and situations. It might be with the people around us.

May this practice that we do support us to live for the welfare and happiness of the whole world, including ourselves. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. And may all beings be free of suffering, challenges, oppression. And may we contribute to that possibility.

Dharmette: Patience (6 of 6) Patience in Practice

So patience. Today I want to talk a little bit about patience with the practice. When we really settle down to doing meditation practice, Buddhist practice, I think it's done best, most efficiently, if we don't try to be efficient. We try to be sincere and dedicated to it, but to be in a hurry, to be impatient, goes in the wrong direction from the freedom from compulsion that we're looking for, that we're trying to develop. And so to be caught in impatience is to be caught in a world of clinging. And in moving towards non-clinging, we want to learn how to be patient with the ongoingness of the path of practice.

There's a very touching story for me that I heard secondhand from a few people who were there. The Dalai Lama^[1], many years ago in a big amphitheater in Arizona, apparently was giving weekend teachings. He took questions sometimes, and a person stood up in the middle of the auditorium and asked for the quickest way to enlightenment. As the story was told, the Dalai Lama paused for a long time, just stood there without responding, and then at some point a tear started going down his cheek. Then he said something like how sad he felt about this drive to be quick in the practice, to try to get something. I don't know what was going on for the person who asked the question, but I wonder if the Dalai Lama felt that there was some kind of greed or selfishness, or some kind of acquisitive relationship with the dharma^[2], for someone to ask that kind of question.

To settle in, to do the practice patiently—in a sense, inefficiently—is often the most efficient. There's a story also that I've told, kind of a fairytale story, of a very capable person who comes to the monastery to practice. He is dedicated to practice, is quite accomplished in the world, has a high degree, is very smart, clever, skilled, with lots of native ability to manage things. The person comes to the monastery and says, "I'm here to practice, and if I practice well, how long will it take for me to become enlightened?" The abbot says, "Oh, it'll take you about ten years." Then the person says, "Wait a minute. I'm quite capable and I really know how to apply myself. I'll really be diligent and really kind of work hard. How long will it take then?" And the abbot said, "Oh, then it'll take twenty years."

So there's something about the patience of just accepting the situation, accepting how things are, including the challenges in practice, and then a steady ongoingness. The patience that allows us to go step after step. To sprint in the practice, to go really hard and push, and then have to recover and stop practicing—or you go off and do something else you think might be efficient—is very different than just the mundane, ordinary, step-by-step: This breath, this act of mindfulness, this is what we do step after step after step.

To practice that sincerely and patiently, for me, allows for sincerity. It allows for offering ourselves to the practice more fully without it being an exchange, without being a transactional thing: "If I do this, the practice will give me this back." We're just in here willingly to allow it to unfold as it wants to. I very much like the idea that the dharma knows better than I do what I need to experience, what I need to practice with now, today, anytime. I've seen that over and over again. I might have one idea of what I'm supposed to be doing or what's supposed to happen in practice, but something else comes along, and I practice with that. In the long term, eventually I say, "Oh, that was really great." Immediately I don't quite understand how it's beneficial, but I've learned to trust how things unfold as I practice, and just practice with it. Practice with this patiently.

There's a story that I'm very fond of, and I'm sure some of you have heard me say it. A friend of mine was a student of Shunryu Suzuki^[3]—Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, a Zen master. My friend asked Suzuki Roshi once, "If I practice Zen, will I become enlightened?" And Suzuki Roshi answered him, "If your practice is sincere, it's almost as good."

"If your practice is sincere, it's almost as good." So rather than rushing forcefully and demanding or expecting enlightenment, just practice patiently, sincerely, and it's pretty good. Maybe you'll become enlightened, but if not, it's almost as good. So this is part of the benefits of patience: to settle in for the long term, willing to practice with what is, not being ahead of yourself, not protesting what the dharma offers you, what arises for you in the practice. The challenges that come, the joys that come, just steadily. Very steady ongoingness: practice, practice, practice.

And then at some point, when the impatience disappears, when compulsions quiet down, when greed and clinging and anxiety settle and abate, then there's a wonderful, special kind of higher patience. That's the patience which is non-patience. I mean it in this way: if two people are coming into the same very trying, difficult, stressful situation, one person sits down and puts on their seatbelt or something, and really bears down into it. They don't react and they stay still, but it's a lot of work to stay patient. They have to really work at it and hold and check their obsessive, compulsive reactivities. People say, "Oh, that person managed to be patient with a difficult situation." The other person is in the same situation, but none of their buttons are pushed. It's stressful, it's difficult, but they're not reacting to it. There's no inner compulsion, no obsession, no reactivity to the situation. The person has no reactivity; they just sit there calmly.

From the outside, someone might say both people look like they're equally patient. But on the inside, one person is doing patience, and the other one is being patient. You could say that the other person has no need for patience. It's a non-patience that allows them to be present for the situation without being reactive. As practice deepens, as we follow this path patiently, the time will come when you start recognizing, "Oh, I'm patient without being patient. I'm patient without needing to do anything. I can be here, and I'm not reacting. I'm present, I can know what's happening clearly, I can let it register and see what's happening clearly, but I'm not reacting." When that happens, then there's lots more room and space for us to care. To be aware in a caring way, a sympathetic way, and maybe, if it's appropriate, to act in caring ways to care for the world.

So patience. To be patient, I think, is one of the great gifts that we can give ourselves when we do this practice. And it's also a gift we can give the world, because to be impatient is not a gift for anyone.

So thank you for this time and this chance to talk about patience, and I look forward to Monday when we'll start a different topic. I don't know what it is yet, but we'll do something. So thank you.