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Guided Meditation: Finding Refuge Within

Good morning and welcome to our Monday morning sitting. I hope that coming together as a community of people meditating in the morning, you will find that the meditation is a powerful refuge. It is a refuge, a protection, and an inspiration to live in a different way. Classically, the refuges are a refuge from oneself—a refuge from the forces that exist within us of greed, hatred, delusion, clinging, and attachment. To a large degree, it is also a protection from fear.

So, it's a wonderful thing to sit down, perhaps close your eyes, and do this inward settling where we settle on ourselves. Where the heart can come home to itself. Where the mind can be at ease, so it doesn't have to go searching, fixing, or wanting. So the body can be settled and open, allowing the healing powers of the body to course through us to be a refuge.

To find a refuge in meditation is to allow the Dharma^[1] to flow through us. More than understanding the Dharma, we are opening ourselves to this natural process of freedom, allowing it to move through us. In this way, there is a two-sided aspect of practice. There is what we do: we show up in a deep, close, and intimate way with ourselves. And we also get out of the way. We show up and get out of the way to offer ourselves to this moment, allowing what is here to reveal itself. We allow this process towards freedom, towards no longer clinging, because all things that we are attached to want to be set free. They want to be released from the work and the tension of that clinging.

Take an upright posture, either literally or figuratively, and gently close your eyes. Perhaps in a gentling way, tune into your posture. Gently, kindly, and lovingly, move around a little bit. Rock forward and back, sway side to side, and see if you can come to center. Come to a posture and a way of being that is upright, balanced, and open. It can be helpful to meditate in such a way that your chest—maybe even your heart—is a little bit more open. Not puffing the chest forward, but somehow allowing it to open as the shoulders roll back a little bit. We are allowing the middle of our chest to come forward by bringing in the vertebra in our upper spine between the shoulder blades.

Continue this showing up for yourself here, not as a way of condemning anything or seeing anything as a problem, but as a way of waking up to the lived experience here. You might take a few long, slow, gentling breaths. The deep inhale is a reminder to be here. It is a kind of knocking on the door of your lived experience now. Maybe the deep breaths are a way of requesting and inviting the present moment to be here with you. Then, let your breathing return to normal.

Part of this ritual of coming home, settling, opening, and finding a refuge here is to relax whatever muscles you can relax in your body. Soften the muscles of the face. Perhaps you can release the muscles of the shoulders, and that release can spread down into the arms, all the way down to the hands. Let the elbows relax, the wrists, and even the fingers can soften and release.^[2] Perhaps there can be a relaxing of the ribcage. Maybe at the end of the exhale, the ribcage can be gently softened a bit. Perhaps the diaphragm can be softened at the end of the exhale, giving the diaphragm a little moment of a break, a rest.

Soften the belly, letting it hang forward and down. The whole area of the abdomen can settle to the pull of gravity into the pelvic cavity. Maybe there can be a gentling and relaxing of the small of your back, releasing the grip of holding that might be there. Release the muscles of the legs: the thighs, around the knees, the lower legs, and all the way down to the feet. Maybe the arch of the foot can be ever so slightly allowed to relax.

The final relaxation might be to feel the body as a whole, noticing if there is any global way in which you're bracing yourself, holding yourself, or pulling back. Perhaps the whole body can be released a bit. In here, in this body, you will find the place of refuge. Here, with an intimacy and closeness, you can feel and sense the possibility of not clinging. Not living in wants and aversions. Not being caught up in your thoughts, but rather settling into a natural sensitivity to the possibility of releasing dukkha^[3]—suffering and stress.

Then, tuning into your breathing, becoming attuned to your breathing. Gently steady yourself on the body's experience of breathing to steady the mind. Perhaps it's a steadiness that is better found by letting go of the tensions and agitations of the mind and thinking every time you exhale. Let go, and let yourself go into the breathing body. Chances are that your thinking is not much of a refuge. The refuge is found somewhere placed deeper—a deeper source within than the place where you do your thinking. The Buddha referred to the body as the place of refuge. The breathing body, here is where an intimacy is found.

Reflections: Becoming a Refuge for Others

Discovering all the ways that we can be a refuge to ourselves is one way of describing Buddhist practice. One way is to find refuge in being mindful, being settled on oneself. In that settledness, we have a greater awareness and greater choice about how to act. In that settledness, we have more wisdom about how to act.^[4]

As we become a refuge to ourselves, the refuge we find within also gives us the opportunity to be a refuge for others. To be someone who is safe for others, someone who is ready to support and care. Being a refuge for others doesn't have to be complicated. It can just mean that we're willing to stay open and present with others so they feel safe with us. They feel that we accompany them in this life journey that we all take.

As we end this meditation, may we aspire to be a refuge for others. May we aspire that as we become free, we offer ourselves as someone who allows others to be free. As we become more peaceful, we allow our peace to be shared with others. As we become more aware of the goodness and the healing that could happen within us, we can offer this generous space to allow for freedom and healing in others. As we recognize the goodness and the beauty that lives in our hearts, we can also recognize how it lives in others.

May it be that the practice we do this morning helps us to be a refuge for the people we encounter today, and for the people we won't encounter but who we hold in our hearts. May this practice we do help create a refuge for all beings everywhere, so all beings can feel safe. So all beings can be respected, and feel that there are people who care and value them. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.