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Guided Meditation: Touched by Inconstancy

Greetings. Warm greetings from Redwood City and from Insight Meditation Center. I would like to begin this morning by reading a story from a little book of mine called The Monastery Within.

A nun asked the abbess, "Who was the Buddha, really?" Smiling and leaning forward mischievously, the abbess said, "Don't you already know?" Confused by this answer to her question, the nun felt overwhelmingly self-conscious. She couldn't find the words to even say she didn't know.

The abbess then explained, "To know who the Buddha is, you have to start with something simple. Take breathing, for example. Like you just now, the Buddha breathed. When you are aware of your breathing, you are aware of physical experiences the Buddha knew as he breathed. When you see how your breaths arise and pass away, it is just as the Buddha saw his breaths arise and pass away. Like you just now, the Buddha experienced physical sensations in his body. When you see that the physical sensations you experience through the day arise and pass away, it is just as the Buddha saw his sensations arise and pass away.

"Like you right now, the Buddha experienced pleasant and unpleasant feelings. When you see directly how your experiences of pleasure and pain arise and pass away, it is just how the Buddha saw pleasure and pain come and go. Like you right now, the Buddha had thoughts. When you see those thoughts come and go, you are experiencing how the Buddha saw thoughts arise and pass away. Like you right now, the Buddha experienced particular states of mind. When you see your states of mind arise and pass away, you are experiencing how the Buddha saw his mind states arise and pass away.

"Like you right now, the Buddha was aware of himself. When you see how your ideas of who you are arise and pass away, you are experiencing how the Buddha saw his ideas of self arise and pass away."

Hearing this, the nun became aware of her experience as it was happening in the present moment in a way she never imagined possible. She felt physically close to the Buddha, rather than someone who lived thousands of years ago. She sensed the timelessness in which no time separated her from the Buddha.

"I understand," said the nun. "Is this all I need to know?" In reply, the abbess said, "No, there is one more thing. When you see clearly that clinging to breathing, sensations, feelings, thoughts, states of mind, and self also arise and pass away, then you will know who the Buddha is. Then you will be free."

So as we sit here today, all things that you experience directly will, in fact, come and go, arise and pass away. Except for the ways in which you think about them. But those thoughts themselves arise and pass away. Often when we don't see the arising and passing of things, it can represent some form of clinging, very subtle maybe in the mind, of hanging on, holding on. But even that arises and passes away. The art of delving deep into meditation is to delve deeply into what is here in the most intimate, immediate, and touching way. Touching in the Buddhist sense of being right there where the sense contact^[1] arises, where contact is made with each moment's experience.

So taking a comfortable, alert posture. Gentling yourself, gently closing your eyes, and gently taking some larger, deeper breaths, and gently exhaling and settling into your body. No hurry, no ambition. Just gently breathing in and settling in.

Breathing in and connecting to the body. Breathing out and settling into this body.

And then letting your breathing return to normal.

Gently relaxing the muscles of your face. Gently relaxing the shoulders, allowing the shoulders to settle a bit. Gently softening any tightness in the face and gently softening, relaxing in the belly.

And then sitting here in the immediacy of your body, your direct experience, and perhaps allowing there to be further gentling. Being gentle with yourself, with your meditation. And in the gentleness, where there's maybe a care and tenderness to experience whatever is happening for you, whether it's difficult or whether it's pleasant. A gentle gentling of experience.

Centering yourself on your breathing. The inhales will come and they'll go. The exhales will appear, and then at some point the exhale will disappear. If you have particular thoughts about the inhale, soon enough it'll be gone. If you have particular thoughts about the exhale, perhaps by the time of the next inhale, the thought is no longer there. Or perhaps you have thoughts you're lingering with, you're involved with the thoughts so much you don't see or allow for the thoughts to come and go.

In a gentle attention to the breathing, kind of like awareness, your mindfulness is a soft cotton ball that gently touches or is gently touched by the experience of breathing. A gentleness of awareness that's open so that when sensations of the body arise and pass, they arise and touch the softness of awareness. Sounds arise and they touch the soft cotton of awareness. No resistance to anything, no hardness, just aware. Feelings touch awareness. Thoughts occur and they touch the awareness of mindfulness and they go. All things come and they go in their moment-to-moment manifestation.

When we can be with the immediacy of direct experience where the contact, where the touching of experience happens with awareness there, the opportunity there is to allow yourself to be touched by experience without any clinging. Without any wanting and not wanting, without any being for or against. Just allow things to come and go, to be present in the softness or freedom of awareness. And if there is clinging or for or against, it's okay. There's a way in which we allow ourselves to be touched by that. And in the direct experience of contact, of seeing, perhaps you'll see that that too is inconstant^[2], that too comes and goes.

And the arising and passing of experiences happens continuously like a stream or a river of experience. See if you can let go of your thoughts, concerns, enough that you can let go into that stream and river of experience that flows by, that comes and goes. Maybe even let go, and if you really feel the inconstancy of change, let go into it so almost so you become the change. You become the river of things coming and going, appearing and disappearing. And if there's things which don't appear and disappear, don't worry about it. But for now maybe let go into all the things that are flowing, streaming, appearing, disappearing.

Relax, quiet the mind. A gentle immersion in the river of experience.

The Buddhist word for sense contact literally is touch, and it's used for all sense contacts, including sense awareness of how we see the inner life, our thoughts, our feelings. Awareness is touched by things. Remain close, gently, calmly close to the immediacy of our direct experience. It can also allow us to be touched by the suffering of the world. To be touched by the difficulties that people have, challenges that others have. To be aware of that gently. A gentleness of allowing ourselves to be touched without getting alarmed or without getting contracted, as if those things also are allowed to come and go. It's okay. But allow ourselves to be touched so that our love, our care, and our compassion, our kindness can come to the foreground.

When we're alarmed or distressed or contracted, or turn away from there, then our love and our compassion or care will be absent. To be relaxed, to come to trust, it's enough to be touched. Love in the gentleness of the heart for there to also be our care for the world. The gentle care from which we can speak and act and think in ways that are for the betterment of the world, that cares for others, benefits them.

So we're coming to the end of a meditation session. It might be more inspiring for you to stay close to the mindfulness practice. Stay close to the moment-to-moment experience. Stay calm and present so that your interactions with others can be motivated by a friendliness, a kindness, a warmth, love, compassion, whatever is needed for the people you're with or people you're considering. May it be that this meditation practice we do, it's directly applicable to our contribution for making this a better world for all beings.