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Guided Mediation: Stillness and Movement

Good morning everyone, and I'm warmed by your greetings on the chat. Thank you. This week we're doing the final of the exercises in the discourse on establishing awareness^[1]—ways of establishing awareness. And the last exercise is one of the most famous of the teachings of the Buddha: the noble truths, the Four Noble Truths.

So for the meditation today, the entry point to the Four Noble Truths—the really deep one, of course—is our suffering, and I'll talk more about that later. But the way to experience suffering, the way to experience life, is to be able to observe it. Observe its changing nature. Not to hold on to anything, not to get fixated in our mind with thoughts, ideas, judgments, or fears about how things are, but to be able to be quiet and still, observing the changing nature of phenomena.

And for those of us who meditate, especially doing sitting meditation or any kind of meditation where we're stationary, it's possible to use the stillness that's here to highlight the change. In fact, that's one of the values of sitting quietly is that we establish some modicum of stillness, and then we see what is not still. For someone maybe who has led a busy life, caught up in activities, they might be surprised to sit down and be still—to realize how much agitation there is in their mind, in their hearts, and in their body. How much spinning and momentum there is, going on and on and on.

And then as we get quieter, as things settle down, we're moving towards greater stillness. Not frozen, not holding ourselves still, but the kind of delightful stillness of when the wind quiets down, or the waves on the ocean or the lake become still and quiet. You can see into the bottom of the lake. So this delightful stillness—soft, gentle, malleable, pliable—highlights things. It's kind of like the fog has cleared and now we can see clearly.

And the more still our system becomes, the more we can observe that things are changing in more and more subtle ways. Eventually, we become aware of how thinking changes all the time. Our preoccupation with our thoughts or ideas might mask that. Thoughts come and go; they're a dime a dozen, maybe even cheaper—a dime a million. They just come on and on and on. In the moment, each one might seem important, but they're just another one in the endless cycle of thoughts that come and go.

At some point, we've gotten still enough and observed thinking enough that we're no longer caught in its grip. No longer seduced by its authority, like, "This thought is so important." And there can be a disengagement, maybe even a disenchantment with these endless cycles of thinking. We're finally willing to step back, to settle back into that still place where we just see that thoughts are changing all the time. And we find a refuge in that awareness which is not caught in thought, which is not involved in discursive thinking.

So to settle back, be still, to highlight what is changing. Begin by assuming a meditation posture that allows you to keep your body somewhat still. Stiller, quieter than how you usually are in the activities of life.

Some of us, our eyes are very active, looking, searching. Let your eyes rest by lowering them 45 degrees to the floor so the eyes begin to be quiet, still. Not looking at anything in particular, just a loose, open focus. And then gently close your eyes, if that's comfortable.

Taking a few long, slow, deep breaths, exhale deeply into the stillness of the body. Maybe a stillness that feels deep within.

And then letting your breathing return to normal with whatever degree of stillness of the body you have. A global awareness of your body. Notice if there are any tensions in your body, tightness, or contracted muscles. And if there are, as you exhale, relax and let go. Letting go into the stillness of the body. The stillness that maybe feels soft.

Appreciating whatever degree of stillness there is in your body. Remembering that the stillness will highlight movement. Not to worry about the movements of your body, but appreciate the way movement and stillness can highlight each other. And one of those movements is the movement of breathing in the body.

As you exhale, gently quiet your mind. Let your mind also move to a stillness. Becoming stiller.

If it is comfortable to do so, see if you can breathe in a restful way. Maybe you find that by resting for an instant at the end of the exhale and allowing a restful inhale to begin.

Some forms of stillness involve holding on—holding on tight, clenching, tightening, resisting. If there is such a stillness in you, let that be massaged by what is moving and changing, maybe with the breathing. Movements of the body as it breathes massages clinging, holding on, tightness. As you move to a deeper, soft, comfortable stillness.

In meditation, one of the things that begins to stand out and highlight is where we're stuck. Where awareness or thinking is stuck on things. Where we're attached, holding on, resisting. And it's a kind of stillness which is debilitating, which is draining. To see that holding on more clearly is part of the function of meditation. It's not a mistake. But it allows us to then breathe with it, to observe it from a quiet place, until we see that even the ways we hold on and freeze are part of the changing world. And we relax and just let everything change. Let everything flow by, flow through us.

Settling back in the knowing that all things change, sooner or later. Observing, watching, being in the place that knows change—the stillness.

And then we come to the end of the sitting. We know that there are many kinds of love. Some loves are agitated with desire, wanting, longing. And some loves are content, settled, at ease. A gentle warmth that needs nothing but cares for everything. A warmth, a tenderness, a gentleness. A kindness that maybe is associated with that place within which is delightfully still. Quiet.

The place that is free of wanting and aversion. That contented love, care, or kindness—it's very simple. Ideally, we would realize it's ordinary. But more often the active love, the wanting love, the doing love, eclipses this quieter, softer, and sometimes powerful kind of love that flows from stillness.

And may it be that our ability to become quiet and still, calm and settled, our ability to see more clearly—may all this support our ability to gaze upon the world kindly, caringly. Inspired that our practice motivates us to live and act for the welfare and happiness of others.

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

Thank you.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (62) Four Noble Truths

So for this week, the topic is the Buddha's Noble Truths, the Four Truths. And these are often seen as the pinnacle of the insights, the core insight of the Dharma.

Now, the way they're worded is that one understands, one knows dukkha^[2] as it really is. One knows the arising of dukkha as it really is. One knows the cessation of dukkha as it really is. And one knows the practice leading to the cessation of dukkha.

And the insights that these represent are not one, two, three, four insights that are separate—like first you know one, then the other, then the other. The way the ancient tradition offers them is that these all happen together in an instant. They somehow... there's a singular understanding, a singular insight that then can be explained or parsed out in these four different ways. Sometimes it's said that this occurs like lightning, just boom, there! Wow, now I understand something.

Some people find it very inspiring that this is one of the central teachings of the Buddha, that the emphasis is on suffering. Some people feel, "Finally someone's talking about suffering, stopping and taking a good look, and willing to address it directly rather than covering it over or ignoring it."

But it's not just a teaching, it is an insight. It's meant to be something to experience deeply for oneself. And that might not seem so interesting when you try to experience dukkha intimately and fully so that we could know its arising, its ceasing, and the way to its ending.

These Four Noble Truths down through the centuries have been explained many ways. It seems like they're a wonderful template for all kinds of teachings and all kinds of ways of perceiving or understanding our human life. That's part of the richness of them—their adaptability. You can find modern books in English on the Four Noble Truths, people who talk about them, and if you start comparing how they explain it, you see very quickly that people have different nuances and different ways of teaching it. Theravada^[3] Buddhists will teach it differently than Zen Buddhists. Zen Buddhists differently than Tibetan Buddhists. More traditional Theravada Buddhists from Thailand might teach differently than teachers in the West. You see this, it's changeable, malleable, and I kind of trust that everyone is speaking from some idea or some experience of what is most helpful for them, and then they present it that way.

In this ancient Buddhist tradition, there are two primary interpretations or understandings of the Four Noble Truths that I think are the most useful. One is that it talks about the cause of suffering: there is suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way. The other is that it has to do with knowing the changing, impermanent, inconstant nature of dukkha.

We see it arise, we see it cease, and we see it cease in a definitive way. In such an important way that something shifts and changes. There's a deep kind of change in the psyche in seeing the whole world of dukkha somehow crumble down, somehow dissolve, and drop away temporarily. And then we know something that is very powerful.

Some people in the ancient world felt that the Buddhist path only begins when there's been this deep enough insight into the Four Noble Truths. Then one really knows what the path is about because one has the personal experience of where it's going—albeit a temporary experience, but one knows. Now we can say, "Oh, now I'm on the course. Now I know the practice leads someplace. It leads to this cessation of dukkha." So both of these—seeing the cause, and seeing the inconstant nature of it—are quite powerful for people. I'll talk a little bit about both of them this week.

But today I want to say a little more about the First Noble Truth. The first one is understanding dukkha as it really is. And what is dukkha? We often say "suffering" in English. Some people find that troublesome because they only use the word suffering for huge traumas, huge catastrophizing difficulties.

The literal meaning of dukkha is pain. Sometimes it's a lot easier to understand what Buddhists are talking about if we understand it as pain or painful. For example, the classic description of what dukkha is in the First Noble Truth is that birth is painful—it's an adjective. Sickness is painful, aging is painful, death is painful. Associating with what is unloved or unlovable, associating with what is not liked is painful. Not being able to associate with what we love is painful. Not getting what we want is painful. In short, clinging to the aggregates^[4] that we've talked about some weeks ago is painful.

So here's a statement that all these things are painful. It's not saying that they are always painful. But they're so commonly painful that I think most people, if you say birth is painful, most mothers will say, "Yeah, it was painful, but that's not all it was." Some people die and it's not necessarily painful to die, but to say it's painful seems like, "Oh yeah, that's often the case," or there's something painful about it. Aging doesn't have to be painful, but I think most people who get older will discover that there's pain involved with getting older. And this very human thing of being with what we don't like, being with something that is unpleasant, is painful. And not being able to be close to our loved ones can be painful.

So it's just naming a series of things in this human condition. I think what they're trying to do is to lay out the full range of where people experience emotional pain. Oh, there's one more I didn't list: anguish, lamentation, pain, depression, and despair are painful.

All these things are painful. If all we do is name it, then it's depressing. Then we can have anguish, lamentation, pain, depression, and despair.

But this is an honest look at, an appreciation, and recognition that this is part of the human condition. And there's something about this that is optional. It's not necessary to be caught in some aspect of this pain. There's some way of freedom, stepping outside of the game of what is pain and painful. There is an alternative.

And that alternative involves seeing the changing nature, the inconstancy of this pain. Now, inconstancy means it comes and goes. Maybe it is not good news, it means it's going to come back! But what it does, it allows us at some point for the mind to find a place of letting go. Someplace where it's not part of the game, not part of the cycles of pain that keep appearing and appearing. It finds a place of rest, or freedom, or openness, or expansiveness. Or some other game in town that changes the whole perspective. Because what the Four Noble Truths is leading to is a life that is free of a certain kind of pain, a certain kind of dukkha or suffering that comes from how we relate to or live in this world of suffering. In a certain kind of way, we stop living in it.

The mind, the awareness, has found a place of refuge, a place of safety that is not separate from it all, but not identified with it. And rather, if identified with anything, it's identified with freedom, it's identified with peace, with happiness.

So we start by a willingness to look clearly at dukkha. The text says one sees "as it really is." And whenever the text says "as it really is," what it means is we're seeing the inconstancy, the changing nature of it. That's the key thing. That's what makes it a Noble Truth. Not that we see suffering and suffer more, but we see suffering and somehow we're able to have the stillness, the focus, the clarity of mind to see it as part of the inconstant, flowing, changing river of our experience.

So if this makes sense to you, you might try today as you go through your day to observe the ways in which your dukkha comes and goes, appears and disappears. That it rises and falls, surges and recedes. Chances are your dukkha is not constant. If it is constant, then chances are you're holding on to something. And what are you holding on to? I'm not saying that dealing with suffering is easy, but can you begin looking at it through a different lens, a different perspective than your usual one?

And can you step outside of yourself almost, to be able to look at dukkha as something that's flowing, changing, and inconstant? Part of the stream of perceptions that are constantly shifting and changing, that sometimes comes back to dukkha but then flits away. To begin kind of breaking up the solidity of everything into the flow, the stream of experience.

So if looking at dukkha today is too much for you, of course, you can stop. Don't do it too much. But to understand what we're going to do for the rest of the week on this very important topic, you might see if you can gaze upon your dukkha in a new way and see what happens.

So thank you very much, and I look forward to meeting here again tomorrow.