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Guided Meditation: Embodied Wholeness

Warm greetings from the Insight Meditation Center here in Redwood City, and very happy to be sitting here this morning.

To begin, one of the really important reference points for life, supports for life, partner for our life, guide for our life is our embodied experience. It is being present in our body for all the sensations that the body offers us, presents us. And those aren't random. Those aren't something to be dismissed as being incidental. There's a way in which deeply embodied sensations are part of the whole intelligence of a full, complete life, a holistic life.

If we think that the answers to our life's problems come through thinking, if we're so focused on thinking about the past and what happened to us, or imagining futures, worried about, anxious about futures, we collapse or limit ourselves sometimes all too easily with a preoccupation with thoughts, a preoccupation with what the thinking mind can do. And that preoccupation can obscure a sensitivity to the richness of what the body has to offer.

I'll offer you a kind of comparison to what can happen in the body. Maybe some of you have been in a situation where you were backpacking or working a very dirty job, gardening in the mud or something, or maybe you were sick. Maybe there was a time when you could not take a daily shower. So you had the grime and the dirt and the built-up feeling, and then after some days you were able to take a shower or take a nice bath. And you came out of that somehow vibrating, feeling clean, a feeling of embodied cleanliness. The skin was kind of vibrating a little bit, feeling good, and just the whole body kind of was smiling in a sense from the experience of being in the water, being cleaner, being refreshed. And that was an embodied feeling.

Some of you might have had an experience like that of exercising or doing some physical activity that left you feeling much more grounded or connected to the energetic body, the vibrating body, the flow of sensations in the body, and it just felt so good to feel it and sense it.

That can happen in meditation. Not only that, but one of the orientations in meditation is to begin trusting that, resting in that, feeling that, letting that be the context in which we do mindfulness of breathing, or even mindfulness of thinking—that it's being held in this wider field of embodied sensations. They could be very subtle. They could be some other sensations which seem more pervasive through the body, seemingly like a subtle vibration or flow of energy, or flow of sensations, a subtle warmth or radiance. To feel that, to take that in.

The Buddha actually talked about how meditation can bring a sense of embodied cleanliness. Just the meditation itself, no shower needed. Something about the inner sensations being able to flow freely without the restrictions that happen by clinging, resisting, tightening up, without the redirecting of the flow of awareness into our thinking mind. Something begins to open here, flow, grow. And the Buddha sometimes talks about this having a sense of abundance, a physical embodied sense of abundance.

So not that we have to feel that today, but I'd like to guide you and see if we can have that a little bit—the context of the embodied sensations as the background, the underground, the context for sitting in meditation.

Assume a meditation posture. Whether you're sitting or lying down or standing, or whatever way your posture is, can you adjust it so that nothing feels restricted or collapsed, but more that there's a sense of openness in the chest, in the diaphragm, the belly? Rather than the torso collapsing maybe in a couch, there's a feeling that the torso is being lifted up, held up so that there's a sense of vitality, intentionality, vitality in sitting upright, or laying down quite straight and open, and with the head adjusted. The arms and hands adjusted so that the intentionality around the posture, all the little pieces of it, are there to encourage the expression of attention.

The body is participating in present moment awareness. The body is not an afterthought, something to ignore. The body participates in being aware, or even better, we participate with how the body is aware. The body is able to sense and feel and present itself in a way that feels present, attentive, centered here.

Gently closing your eyes. And then within your body, let there be a broad panoramic attentiveness, awareness of the whole body. The tingling, the warmth, the sense of vitality, vibration. Maybe there's a feeling of cohesion. The body is somehow held together. And where in your body is there an embodied sense of vitality? Where is the body most awake? Is it in the chest, in the belly, hands and arms? Spine. Are there any subtle or not so subtle sensations in the body that feel something akin to a flow or a radiance, a vibrating hum that you can feel better if you allow the thinking mind to become quieter?

And within whatever panoramic sensing of the body that you have, allow your body, invite your body to feel the sensations of breathing. If the whole body is the ocean, the sensations of breathing are like gentle waves as part of the ocean lifts and falls. The body's ability to sense and feel. Stay close to that, and with that to touch, to feel, to meet the sensations of breathing within this wider field of vitality in the body, the hum of the body.

If there's a lot of thinking, switch your attention from the content of your thoughts to the sensations that come along with thinking: tightness, pressure, contraction, agitation, whatever it might be. Let those sensations, the sensations of the thinking muscle, be felt within the panoramic sense of embodiment.

If you find yourself thinking, go back into your body like you're dropping your thinking into a compost pile. A warm compost pile that dissolves the thinking mind, dissolves the thoughts.

As you come to the end of the exhale, feel your body as widely as you can and allow the inhale to grow, to appear within that body. As if breathing is a gentle wave or wind blowing across the body, awakening the body's ability to sense and feel.

And then feeling your body broadly, feeling this sensation body. However subtle or quiet it is, however much some places might be very intense and strong. See if you can open up as wide and panoramic as you can within the body. And is there anything in that embodied sensing body that feels like a reference point for what it is to feel healthy in the body, or clean in the body, or something that feels wholesome? Something that makes you more sensitive to saying or doing or being in ways that are unhealthy, unwholesome. How is it that embodied sensations can be a guide for what is nourishing from the inside out?

And how is it that being centered in your body, aware through your body, might predispose you to avoid saying or doing things which are mean or unkind or worse? How is it that the embodied sensing body is a reference point for how to live with others in a good way, to avoid causing harm? To be in touch with that part within that naturally has goodwill and turning that part of yourself out into the world as we finish this meditation.

May it be that this practice that we do as individuals and collectively will serve to bring welfare and goodwill into this world of ours. May it be that this practice inspires a generosity of goodwill. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Wholesomeness (3 of 5) Abundance

Hello and welcome to this third talk on kusala^[1], the Pali word that can be translated as wholesome, wholesomeness, or skillful, skillfulness. Yesterday I talked about how in meditation especially, the word skill and skillfulness is particularly useful as a translation of kusala, this very important Buddhist word. But today I want to talk about how in some contexts it works better to translate it as wholesome. In general these days, I prefer wholesomeness as the generic or general translation of this word.

Some people have a little negative relationship to the word wholesome. I think the older generation that grew up with advertisements for Wonder Bread, that was considered to be wholesome, this white bread that maybe was used too much in commercials. But wholesome for me has a number of associations that are inspiring. One is that I interpret it to mean part of the whole, and the idea of feeling whole with all of ourselves included. A sense of wholeness that is not possible if we're stuck and preoccupied with certain thoughts, certain feelings, certain attitudes, certain preoccupations, certain fears. When we're preoccupied and caught and not whole, we don't have access to the full working of our human intelligence.

Some things can seem like they have a great priority. We have to focus and be fixated on some things, which is true sometimes in the present moment. But when the fixations around things are no longer about what's here and present, we actually end up limiting ourselves more often than not. Limiting this full intelligence, the full ways in which all of who we are comes together and works together in one harmonious kind of event.

So you have whole, and the entirety. Sometimes the word sabba^[2] (all) is used for that, and in Pali sometimes the word kevala^[3] is used for the whole, the entirety. And sometimes the word kāya^[4] is used. Sometimes it means body, but it's more like the English word "body" sometimes means the body of work, the entire work that someone has written, for example. So there's the mental kāya, the physical kāya, the whole that we're here, the dharmakāya^[5], the whole experience of dharma within us.

Wholesome belonging to the whole, but also in English the word wholesome is very closely connected to healthy. Healthy is something that can be an abstract idea and wishful activity, but healthy also can be an embodied feeling. You can feel like you're really healthy, and it's not an idea. It's not a thought. We might think about it, but the source of that, the evidence for feeling healthy, comes when there's a certain vitality within us. A certain energy, an aliveness that keeps us maybe uplifted a little bit. There's a flow of something that feels very clean or healthy through us.

I imagine different people can feel the experience of health in different ways. In meditation, even when conventionally we're sick or ill or have a cold, there can still be a flow of something that feels nourishing and healthy in the whole meditation posture. Meditating when there's a harmony and a flow and a unification of all our different capacities and faculties coming together here, just here we're not divided from ourselves.

And so the word nourishment sometimes works. Sometimes the word cleanliness; the Buddha talked about embodied cleanliness. The Buddha talked about overflowing of kusala, overflowing of this wholesomeness. There the idea of flow is very closely connected to some sense of inner sensory flow that moves through us, energetic flow or vibrated flow or vitality flow. And the idea of overflowing suggests that it's abundant.

In fact, the Buddha talks about these wholesome characteristics, sensations, feelings, and qualities becoming abundant. And it isn't just here and there by accident. The Buddha actually encourages cultivating a sense of abundant wholesomeness within us. That once we know what's wholesome to do in our lives—the wholesome states, the wholesome attitudes, the wholesome activities—stay close to that and let that grow and fill you. He uses language of being filled with wholesomeness, having a sense of abundance within.

So there's a feeling here not of denial, not of denying ourselves or diminishing ourselves, or not availing ourselves of what's really healthy and good. This sense of abundance is sometimes called an inner wealth. And letting go in Buddhism, which is such an important thing to do, is not meant to mean "let go of everything." When the Buddha talked about letting go, he used the word renunciation. In this passage he said, "I don't teach you to renounce everything. I teach you that if you renounce and it decreases the unwholesome in you and increases the wholesome, I encourage you to renounce."

If it increases the unwholesome and decreases the wholesome, don't renounce it. But if renouncing decreases the unwholesome and increases the wholesome, then renounce it. So the idea of renouncing is not meant to be a principle to "let go of everything." It's meant to be done with a reference point: to do so in a way that is good for you, what's nourishing for you or brings a sense of this wholesomeness.

One of the reasons I like to translate kusala as wholesome rather than skillful is that skillful sometimes is value-free. It's not connected to our inner ethical sensibilities. Sometimes skillful is for a purpose, to develop a skill. Whereas the wholesome is good in and of itself. It doesn't need to have a purpose to have a feeling of generosity flow through us. It doesn't have to be expressed as generosity. It's just good to be generous, to be kind, to be loving. It's just a healthy wholesome state. And they can just be felt in meditation. It doesn't need to be enacted or nothing has to happen. It's just a healthy thing in and of itself. Mindfulness can be very wholesome in and of itself. It doesn't need to be there for a purpose. It doesn't need to be part of a skill-building thing. It's just good and healthy and nourishing in and of itself right now.

Part of meditation, part of Buddhist practice, is to be able to recognize within ourselves the embodied physical sensory feelings of wholesome and unwholesome. What's nourishing and not nourishing? What enlivens us in a healthy, good, nice way, and what does the opposite? What deadens us maybe sometimes?

The body becomes a very fine-tuned reference point for what is healthy for us and what is not healthy for us. And that can be a reference point that helps us to understand and helps us make decisions about what to do, what to say, how to be in the world. It might not be the overriding thing, but it's part of taking in the rich evidence that the present moment provides us to help us find our way.

For the Buddha, one of the most important reference points is in fact our ability to discern the difference between what is wholesome and unwholesome. And it's not a distraction from our life. It's actually what allows us to live our life fully, whatever we're doing. Whatever we're doing, we live it with that sense of wholeness. All of ourselves comes into it, the wholeness, but in a way that is nourishing for ourselves.

If it's not nourishing for ourselves, why do it that way? Why keep doing something which is denourishing? Why do something which doesn't support the wholeness of who we are, the healthiness of who we are? Why do we feel we have to sacrifice that for any kind of reason?

For the Buddha, the ability to discern what is wholesome, healthy, nourishing, gives us a feeling of abundance and goodness, and is a phenomenally useful intelligence capacity. And it's a capacity and ability that resides in that place where awareness and sensations come together, in the place that exists between them, in relationship to them. So it's not just being aware of things that's important. It's being aware of what's going on and being aware of the space between the interaction. What happens? What comes alive in between sensing and sensations, in between knowing and the sensation? And one of the things that can come alive and be there is this almost sensory thing. It's not quite a sensation, but it feels like sensations sometimes of wholesomeness, goodness.

One teacher I know likes to call it in certain ways a sweetness within, a cleanliness within. And so that belongs to this world of here and now, what can be perceived directly. What's inviting inspection. What's inviting is, "Come here, stay close to this." And it's onward leading. It leads to more wholesomeness, allows it to grow, or guides us to how we go forward with it.

So kusala as wholesome. You might today go through the day and periodically have some reminder, and just kind of reflect: is how you're doing what you're doing wholesome? Is what you're doing healthy and nourishing for you? Or could you do it in a more wholesome way? Could you do it in a more healthy, nourishing, beneficial way? Can you do it in a way that makes your body smile, makes your heart smile? "Ah, doing it this way feels good."

Thank you very much, and we'll continue this topic of kusala tomorrow.