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Guided Meditation: The Open Door of Awareness

Hello everyone, and a warm welcome. There are all these warm good mornings and hellos on the chat, and I appreciate them all as a large network of greeting and goodwill that we're participating in here, whether you're on the chat or not. So thank you.

Imagine that there's a glass door, and that glass door has never been cleaned. You don't really know what's on the other side because it's so dirty you can't see. Then it occurs to you to wash it. You clean the door, and all the dirt is on the inside where you are, and lo and behold, you can see out. There's a beautiful, natural setting. Wow, that's pretty cool.

And then it occurs to you to open that door. All you do is open it—a big door, you open it wide—and now you stand gazing upon that natural setting. In a way, it's easy to forget that the door is open, that the door is clean, and that there's a clear view, because the natural setting is so beautiful and so interesting, and you've never seen it before.

Then the evening comes, and you look out the door and you see the sunset. Wow, you've never seen a sunset like that. Then you go there late in the evening when it's dark, and you look out, and it's spectacular to look out that open door and see the night sky and the stars. And then you're there early in the morning at dawn, and you see little birds and little animals coming out, and it's so special. You didn't know it's wonderful to have a clean, and now even an open, door.

At some point it dawns on you how special it is to have a clean door, how special it is to have an open door. The openness of the door is special. The openness of the door certainly allows you to go in and out, but it allows you to see unobstructedly.

When we do mindfulness practice, in part, it's a cleaning of the glass so we can see clearly. But it becomes more than just cleaning it; at some point, it becomes opening the door, opening wide. And not only being amazed at what you see through the open door, but appreciating that the door is open.

The open door doesn't need to be open or closed. The space that's the open door is not ruffled, concerned, contracted, or repulsed by anything that's seen through the open door. In the same way, when we can let go of our clinging, let go of needing something to happen, or doing something all the time, and just find the open door in our minds and our hearts, we can gaze upon things simply. We can also gaze upon the openness, where nothing is needed, where there is space, where there is freedom, where there's no obstruction, where there is no resistance. And this can be in the nature of how we're aware.

Assuming a meditation posture, and assuming that your door is already wide open. Really assuming that's the case, no matter what is happening, it's just seen in the vista through that open door. Whatever thoughts or agitations you have, whatever reaction you have to my words, whatever tension you have in your body, nothing needs to be different. For now, for a few moments here, nothing needs to be different, except imagining you're seeing it through an open door, a clean, open door, and everything is allowed to be itself.

The gift that we give when we look out the open door into the natural setting is a kind of gift to let each thing in the natural world be itself. Not to appropriate it, or do something with it, or improve it, just let the natural world be. So yourself at this moment, whatever is happening, let it just be.

Whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, something you desire or don't desire, it's just the view through the open door of the mind. Any attempts to do something can just be seen through the open door. It doesn't need anything to happen. We can just marvel and see the attempts to do something, or to get away from something, fix something, or judge something. It's just part of the natural setting that is seen through the open door.

The door is always open. It helps to remember that we're seeing through it into all things.

As we come to the end of the sitting, imagine you're sitting in an easy chair, relaxed, at ease, gazing out through an open door into a natural setting. Notice how it is to be at ease. Nothing to do, calm, settled. If you don't feel that way now, you might adjust your posture so you'll be more comfortable for these last few minutes.

Imagine again you're sitting quietly, peacefully, gazing upon a natural setting. Then you turn that gaze inward, as if you're looking into the natural setting within you. Looking inward into the depths of your heart, into a place within where you recognize your ability to be friendly. Whether that's through thoughts, feelings, intentions, through a warmth or an inspiration. Friendliness. Gazing upon all things in a friendly way. Looking upon yourself in a friendly way. Being your own friend.

And looking out into the world to be a friend to the world. Not an enemy to anything, but a friend. And as a friend, as an expression of friendship, to have well-wishing for this world. May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be safe. And may all beings be free, so they can know an open door for their life.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Satipaṭṭhāna (68) The Unity of Awareness and the Path

Coming into this last week on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta^[1], the discourse on the foundations for establishing awareness, I want to tell you a little bit about this text. It's kind of like CliffNotes. It doesn't go into great explication of what's really being taught; it's more like brief statements. Down through the centuries, teachers have then expanded on it, clarified it for people, and used it as a basis for giving instructions. Those instructions and understandings have changed over time. The text is amenable to many different ways of understanding and interpreting. Maybe that's one of the reasons why it has remained so popular—it is more like notes, where the meat of it comes forth in the teachings that are received about it.

In the first many years that I studied this text and enjoyed it, the lens or the interpretation that I used to understand it had a lot to do with the very common verb expressed in the text. It is repeated in many places in the different exercises: to understand or to know, pajānāti^[2], to know. So many of the instructions were to know something, not to fix it, not to be concerned with attaining anything or getting anywhere. It was not about judging anything or having commentary about things, but just to know the simplicity of it.

I came to appreciate how powerful it is to just be present for something, to know it, to be aware of it, giving it the gift of allowing everything to be itself. Rather than us becoming free—maybe you'll never be free—what we do is give freedom to everything else. Everything receives freedom from us, including our inner life. So much so that maybe there's no sense of talking about a self doing it. Everything is given its freedom to be itself.

I found it so freeing and so satisfying to have this very clear, present-moment awareness that was just abiding in the present, allowing things to be as they are. It was very freeing, very nice. Then, as time went along, I came to appreciate more and more a different aspect of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and that is that I understood it now as describing a journey.

It begins by saying—it is nowadays popular to say—the beginning is: "There is a direct path for the purification of beings, for liberation." Another way of understanding the word "direct" here... literally it means the word "one." In the early translations, they translated it as "there is one way." That was a little bit jarring for many of us, that there's only one way, and then it became the "direct way." But I think interpreting it more nowadays—and I think it's very likely what it originally meant—the word "one" here meant unified. There is a unified way. All these parts of ourselves get unified. All these practices, all these four foundations get unified and work together.

They work together in part as a journey, as a path that unfolds over time. There's a number of things in the sutta that to me suggest a path that we follow. One of them is just the idea of going from the body, to the feeling tones, to mind states, to the inner activities of the mind, the dhammas^[3]. It goes from the outside into the depths of who we are, into the deeper areas only we can see.

With the body, you can see each other's bodies. We can see our body; we can see other people's bodies externally. A lot of it has to do with things that we feel and sense, maybe a little bit more in our physicality. Feeling tone—that's the way the ancient world talks about it, it's the physical aspect. The other three foundations are often seen as part of the inner mental world. The feeling tone is something a little bit deeper; it's like how the world has impacted us in a way that is pleasant or unpleasant, welcoming or not welcoming. It's the deeper consequence in ourselves for feeling something. We're not neutral; it has a kind of effect on us more deeply. Then there is the state of our heart, the state of our citta^[4], our mind, that is maybe more intimate, more personal than just what happens in our body.

And then more deeply, it becomes the operating system, the operating activity of the mind that is really the linchpin for everything else, how we relate to everything, how we live in this world, and the choices we make. Going from the body, to feelings, to mind states, to dhammas is this journey. I like to think of it as a journey home, coming deeper and deeper into ourselves to the place where we can make a difference, or the practice can really make a difference to transform something very deeply. The transformation in this fourth foundation is represented by the transformation from being caught in the Five Hindrances^[5] to having awakened the Seven Factors of Awakening^[6]. One of them leads to darkness, they say, the other leads to light. One leads to obscuring wisdom, the other to revealing wisdom.

So there is this journey. The other place where the journey is manifested is in the refrain we talked about many weeks ago. Each of the thirteen exercises has a refrain; it's the same refrain. It begins by establishing that once we're settled and the awareness is strong, then there's an ability to be 360 degrees aware within ourselves and outside of ourselves, internally and externally.

As we settle further, we start to see the changing nature of phenomena. We see things arise, and then we also see things cease. Then we see things arising and ceasing together. It's a journey to deeper and deeper stillness until the rising and ceasing happens together. Then we go deeper still, and there's a deep kind of equanimity, a clarity of mind, just a clear, lucid awareness and just enough knowledge to know what's happening in the moment in the most simple possible way. It's a mind that's very equanimous, very peaceful, very at ease. At some point, because of that ease, there's no more effort to protect ourselves, or build ourselves up, or try to have something, or to be anyone. Something deep in our psyche can release what the tradition refers to as clinging. We end up clinging to nothing whatsoever in the world.

So it's a journey of awareness. On one hand, in the early years, I thought there was no journey, just being present for what is. Later I came to appreciate that it described a journey. Then I came to appreciate how these work together: that as we practice just being present for things as they are, giving each thing the freedom to be its own thing, not trying to manipulate anything or change anything, just to see it—just this, just that—not needing anything to change, that brings about change.

One of the ways it brings about change is that we're actually no longer doing the common human thing of always instigating change. We're always trying to fix and maneuver and get and understand, figure out, analyze, or plan. The whole domain of human activities comes to a rest when all we do is be present. Not trying to do anything, not doing anything, is a radical thing.

It's kind of like this house of cards has been built, and we're holding it in place, running around keeping all the cards in place. When we stop doing that, everything settles, and the cards come to rest on the table. The house of cards that we built is often one that's not needed, or we don't need it all the time. To be always shoring it up and building it up is exhausting.

And so the very practice of being present for things as they are without needing to change anything, just appreciating that, begins a process of change. It puts us on a path of maturing in this practice. You almost can't avoid maturing in this practice if your practice of mindfulness and attention is sincere. If you're practicing with a certain thoroughness, a certain wholeheartedness, or a certain kind of persistence—like this is what you're doing—then day by day, week by week, month by month, with the practice of mindfulness, just being here, practicing meditation every day, something settles just by being present for what is.

The advantage of having the sense of a path is that it's a little bit encouraging. It helps us to give ourselves to the practice more fully, to know that it's leading to a good place. The disadvantage is that people will huff and puff and strain, expect things, and be discouraged because they're not going the way they want.

The advantage of just being present for things as they are, just being aware of them in a simple way, is that it's very freeing and relaxing. The disadvantage sometimes is that people don't have a sense of how far this practice can go, how radical a transformation it can bring about in us, and so they shortchange themselves. They don't let their inner system go through the open door. There's something inside that is held in check or not really allowed to let go and move and flow. That movement can maybe happen easier if we know there's an open path to walk, an open door to walk through.

There are different interpretations for understanding this text, many more than what I said. But for me, this has been very important: this distinction, and then the harmony, between these two very different modes of practicing Satipaṭṭhāna. One is just being present for things as they are, and that's it. The other is being present with the orientation towards a path of practice that we're developing. And because it's a unified path, we include everything. Everything comes together into this open space of awareness practice.

So thank you very much, and we'll continue with a summary or conclusion for this text for the rest of the week. Thank you.