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Guided Meditation: Still, Quiet Awareness

Hello everyone. Hello from IMC in Redwood City. Happy to think of these greetings going out in so many different directions around the world, and to have your attention from so many different places all the way around. So thank you for being part of this.

And I sit here in this large room at IMC that's kind of peaceful, calm, still. I hear some traffic outside. And so regardless of how I think about you around the world, and regardless of how I think about or am aware of the drama of the world, the challenges and storms of the world, I know it from this place here in this room that's calm and peaceful and quiet.

So if you take a light, a lamp bulb, put it inside a small box, and turn the light on, the light shines. And the light bulb shines just as it does if you expand the walls of the box, make it a bigger box. It doesn't affect the light; the light is just peacefully shining. If you expand it bigger and bigger and make it as big as this room here, the light just shines. The light shines quietly without defining itself by how far its light goes. It doesn't define itself by what the light lands on. There could be a lot of drama in the room, or there could be a lot of stillness; the light just shines.

And so the light of our awareness, the light of attention, it's possible that it can just shine on everything without defining itself by what it's shining on. And that place of awareness then can become the large, quiet, peaceful room for us, or to say it differently, it can be a stillness or the calm in the middle of the storm.

And the storms around could be the storms that exist in our thinking. It could be the storms of our emotions. It could be the storms, the agitation, energies of our body. And it's possible to know it with a light that's turned on, that is not defined by any of it. It knows it but is not defined by it.

And so as we meditate, that's one of the possibilities here: is to discover a still, quiet place that may be as small, maybe is as big as a large room, or as big as the universe. That's kind of like the calm in the middle of the storm where we turn on our light and we sit here aware of what is.

And it's a very different way of relating to thinking, very different relating to emotions than usual. If we define ourselves by it or get involved with it, participate in it, think more about them, react to them. But the still, quiet place letting all things be but not defined by them. So in this meditation, perhaps that can be your little mantra: "not defined." So whatever you're aware of, whatever is happening for you that you can know, you can add or imagine you're adding "no definition," not defining yourself by it.

So sitting upright in the meditation posture and gently closing your eyes, and without much more to do, sit quietly and be aware of what your experience is like. Before relaxing or breathing deeply, just be aware.

Be aware from the inside out: your body.

Be aware of the emotions.

Be aware of your thinking.

And be aware that the awareness of it all is like the light that's turned on that does not need to be defined by what it knows. And what it knows will change and shift, but maybe the knowing can be a calm, peaceful place to come in the storm.

So if it's possible for you, see if you can drop inside as deep as a place you know where there might be some quiet stillness.

And allow experiencing or breathing to make itself known to that still, quiet place of awareness. Awareness doesn't go out, but experiences come to it. Come to awareness, come into that quiet place.

Being aware, mindful, knowing what's happening. Like turning on the light so there's brightness and clarity about what is, but not defined by what is.

An awareness which is not defined by the body.

A knowing not defined by your emotions.

A knowing not defined by what you think.

And a knowing which doesn't define itself either. It just is.

Thank you.

And that still, quiet place in the middle of the storm denies nothing, doesn't even have to let go of anything. A place, whether it's quiet awareness where we turn on the light of attention to see clearly. And it's a world of difference to know from a peaceful place inside, or to know while negotiating and entangled, participating in what is known.

And then to again find a place within that's a still, quiet space, maybe associated with knowing, maybe a place that's deep within, maybe the deepest place of stillness that you know.

And then from there, if you look out upon your life, the issues of your life, your concerns, from that place of stillness or peace or depth. Does that provide a different perspective than the usual one for you? Do you gaze upon things differently? Understand them differently, think about them differently?

How do you see your life when seen through the eyes of the peace within?

And to turn that gaze from that still, quiet place out into the world. Out into the people you may encounter today, strangers and people who you know. And maybe from this quiet place within, you can be touched more by the humanity and suffering and joys of others.

From that still, quiet place, you could gaze upon the world kindly. Be still and gaze upon the world with kind eyes.

May all that you think of, all the people you know, may they be happy. May all the people you know, friends and foe both, may they be safe. May all the people you know, may they be peaceful. And may all the people you know, may they be free. And in relationship to all the people you know, may you be free, not entangled in your caring awareness of them.

[Music]

Reflections

So, to talk more then this week on practicing with thoughts and emotions, the relationship between them. It felt important to, as much as it's important to see that there's an intimate connection between how we think and our emotions, how we emote and our thinking, and that by seeing that connection it's possible to find a degree of freedom.

But another possibility is by knowing and seeing carefully the relationships, the entanglements, the influence of emotions and thoughts, and thoughts and emotions, at some point what becomes maybe strong is not the emotions and thinking, but the awareness of them.

But to be aware—I think that thinking and emotions is often the place that people get hooked up, caught by, stuck in, reactive in. But also it's a very common place to somehow consciously or unconsciously be defined by, to know "this is who I am." And some people feel it's very important to really be someone, like "this is who I am," and take a stand there. And some people are very afraid of being someone, taking a stand. And there is a third option.

And that is to calmly and peacefully be aware, be present, be grounded, be centered in the place where the light of awareness can shine. Where we can turn on the awareness and see what's there. See the emotions, see the thoughts that we have, maybe even see some of the entanglements between them and our entanglements with them, but to be aware of it from a peaceful place.

And that's one of the possibilities through meditation: is to become calmer than we usually are in daily life. And I say it carefully there, "calmer," as opposed to some high standard of how calm we have to become. But to be calmer or more peaceful and more subtle than we usually are, so that we have different eyes to see. We have a different way of looking upon the world. And as we get quieter and stiller, we are less caught in the world of thoughts, less caught in the world of emotions, even the ones that are beneficial. Then the eyes can see with greater clarity. And we can see from a deeper place within, where we have contact with wisdom, to understanding, to perspectives, to attitudes that we're not going to have available when we're caught up in the thoughts, caught up in our emotions, caught up in defining ourselves by it and thinking "this is who I am."

And to have that new perspective, and to then from there maybe think about our life. From there, see what emotional connection there might be. But it's the emotional connection that has a very different feel to it, a very different attitude, very different effect, because it doesn't come from the contraction of definition. It doesn't come from the hooks of reactivity. It's as if there's a wellspring or a vast spring within, of wisdom, of goodness, of freedom, of peace, that we can avail ourselves of when we are no longer so caught in the world of thinking and emotions.

And that also allows us to think and have feelings from a very different perspective. Because many of the feelings we have, many of the thoughts we have, can be very much rooted in definition, and seeing "this is who I am" and "this is about me, myself, and mine." But the still, quiet place, the calm in the middle of the storm, is not you. It's not anyone else. And whether it's you or not, we don't have to think about those thoughts. We don't have to define ourselves by it. We don't have to grab a hold of it and feel like we take a stand on it: "this is who I am."

And this freedom, this peacefulness, this calm in the middle of the storm is tremendously useful, because it can allow a different kind of thinking that's not impatient, that's not reactive, that's not carrying with it as much of the judgments and biases and preconceived ideas that we might have in the surface mind—the surface mind that's been so conditioned and influenced by society and events. And the same thing with our emotions.

So a still, quiet place within, a calm in the storm. The awareness that is like a light bulb that, when it's turned on, the light doesn't have preferences where the light lands. It lands on everything equally and just sees it, that's all.

So I hope that this week on thinking and emotions has given you some new perspectives to really look at your life, and look at yourself, understand yourself. And certainly that's part of my hope, was to provide new perspectives that would be freeing. New perspectives that would be useful to break out of old perspectives that maybe are not so helpful. So I hope it worked somewhat for that.

And so thank you for this week.

Announcements

And then a couple of announcements. I'll be going away next Thursday to teach back on the East Coast at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. And I've become a little bit confused exactly about the substitutes coming to teach for me. At some point in those two weeks, Matthew Brensilver will come. And since I'm leaving on Thursday, I might be able to be back the first days next week. And maybe Meg Gawler will teach the end, or something else will happen; I'm not quite sure these next two weeks. So please just be aware that there's a certain unknown. At some point it'll be put in properly in the IMC calendar.

And then a couple of announcements that maybe are a little bit relevant for some of you. Way back in the beginning of the year, we did this series on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta^[1], the discourse on the four foundations of mindfulness. And I was struck by how meaningful the instructions were on the different parts of the body, the 32 parts of the body meditation that we did a little bit.

A friend of mine, Bob Stahl, is probably the biggest proponent of this meditation practice in our Buddhist scene, and does a lot of teaching of it. He has practiced it a lot. The 32 parts of the body is kind of a systematic way of connecting to the body in a very deep way. It's a very important practice in Theravada Buddhism^[2]. So we invited him to come and do a class, but it's through the Sati Center. And so if you go to sati.org, you can find his class there. I think it starts in September, maybe it's an eight-week class. I think there's information about the Sati Center programs on the "what's new" section of IMC's website.

And the other thing that's happening in the beginning of October is I do a year-long program for people who have fairly established practice and have been practicing for some time. I think you have to have four years of practice and a number of silent retreats. But for those of you who have done that, you might be interested. It's one day a month for about eight or nine months, and this year the topic is meditation. The program is called Deepening Meditation Practice, and you can read a little bit more about it in the "what's new" section of IMC's website, which is on the front page of IMC's website in the box on the bottom right. And there are applications for that, so I think the applications for the Deepening Meditation program are due September 1st.

So thank you everyone. And maybe I'll be here Monday, maybe not. And I certainly look forward to our next time together.